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There's a new adjective in the English language: Tarantino-esque.

Ever since the impact of RESERVOIR DOGS, the dearest trend in moviedom is to manufacture bullet-ridden tales of crimes gone awry, full of wisecracking mobsters and hitmen, and the occasional plot hole, created by taking a copy of a screenplay, setting the food processor on "puree" and putting it in, going for ultra-hip non-linear storytelling. Even Tarantino is capable of re-patenting his own formula, as in PULP FICTION.

Let's add to the heap, shall we?

THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD is certainly a catchy title. The fact that is set in Denver isn't particularly distinguishable. It bears the same problem as myriads of other films where the setting is both identified and the film is actually lensed there: not enough of the city is actually shown to give one the sense of place. It may as well be set in Cincinnati. This may seem nitpicky, but it points out greater liabilities in the film, in terms of its lack of atmosphere and serious character development.

Jimmy the Saint (Andy Garcia) is a smooth-talking clotheshorse who used to be a front man for the sinister mobster The Man With The Plan (Christopher Walken; how many more sinister mobster roles can I play?) Jimmy is now trying to go straight, but the boss calls him out for one last job. It's nothing drastic, it just entails scaring the rival suitor of the mobster's son's lady love.

Jimmy chooses his crew, a band of ex-cons and misfits, including the porno projectionist Pieces (Christopher Lloyd), the scruffy trailer park denizen Franchise (William Forsythe), the seasoned homeboy Easy Wind (Bill Nunn), and the wiliest and funniest of the bunch, 'Critical' Bill Dooley, played to a T by Treat Williams.

This motley bunch seems capable, but they botch the job and end up killing both the rival suitor, and the girl. This of course incurs the wrath of the Man, and he sends Mr. Shhh (Steve Buscemi), the 'most lethal contract killer west of the Mississippi' to do them all in. The rest of the film explores the efforts of the various characters to survive.

In particular, Jimmy has become infatuated with the stunning, unsuspecting Dagney, and has a hard time leaving town. Through it all, Joe Heff (Jack Warden) frequents a cafZ and narrates the story, which is a hackneyed device recalling bad theater productions where the most intelligible parts of the plot are written in the program notes. A talented screenwriter wouldn't need such a cheap prop to propel the story.

There's nothing new here, even the hip dialogue has a forced feeling about it. It has good visuals, and moves along quite nicely, but it's disappointing and depressingly average, copping out in all of the expected places.

Most of the characters don't make much of an impression at all, because almost every one of them is underdeveloped, the filmmakers relying almost solely on physical type to convey their personalities. They're all old stand-bys, with Garcia as a total dead space where there should be a strong lead.

The exception to the norm is Critical Bill, pugilistic undertaker and the kind of snake-eating survivalist who would do well in the Special Forces. Bill will do anything to live, and his jury-rigged Rube Goldberg-esque device to snare the hitman proves it. He is the most well-rounded character in the whole charade, and Treat Williams hilariously depraved portrayal of him steals the show, though in this case, it's petty thievery.

One of the most crude and obscene impulses collaborators on a film can experience is the urge to incite controversy.

It seems to plague filmmakers particularly lacking in talent and anything truly meaningful to say.

The film gets done, carted off to several festivals, where allegedly it receives 5-minute standing ovations and audience awards.

The P.C. parrots squawk and the callow sheep bleat as the snowball of invalid acclaim rolls down the hill, getting bigger and bigger.

The above phrases are very mostly apt when describing PRIEST, a rabble-rousing, offensive new feature film by British television director Antonia Bird. Sickeningly smarmy, with unappealing, unconvincing characters and situations, the film is almost a textbook case of the forsaking of craft, aesthetic sense, and love for humanity in favor of an imperceptive, sensationalistic, vulgar, divisive exercise in liberal politics and unnecessary trouncing on a religion which is still real for many people in the world. It's a wonder that this film can elicit the above comments from me, someone who isn't even Catholic, or even religious!

An aging, washed up, cynical priest goes berserk and uses a large crucifix to bust down the door of the presbytery in a drab, working class parish in Liverpool. Idealistic and somewhat uptight, Father Greg Pilkington (Linus Roache) is assigned as his replacement. Arriving at the presbytery, the handsome young cleric is greeted by a cadre of women who are sprucing up the edifice for his arrival.

Everything seems like it will be pleasant at the outset, but immediately conflicts start to crop up. Father Matthew Thomas (Tom Wilkinson), fellow priest and seasoned transgressor, gets into a few arguments with him over interpretations of church laws and the use of political endorsements in homilies. Their strained relationship is further aggravated when Pilkington discovers that Thomas is having an illicit affair with Maria Kerrigan, the housekeeper (Cathy Tyson, most well-known for her role as Simone in Neil Jordan's MONA LISA.)

Their rapport becomes slightly better as Thomas breaks some of Pilkington's idealistic notions, such as home visits, by showing him the ropes around the tough, unforgiving neighborhood.

Pilkington stumbles upon a rather volatile dilemma: while hearing confessions one day, a frightened teenage girl named Lisa (Christine Tremarco) admits to him that her father is sexually abusing her. Burdened with this information, Pilkington is faced with either going to the authorities for help and breaking the seal of the confessional, or remaining silent, and trying to find some other way to stop Lisa's degraded father (Robert Pugh) from raping her.

He vacillates between the two difficult decisions until Lisa's mother (Lesley Sharp, of Mike Leigh's Naked ) discovers the horrid deeds of her husband herself. How unbelievably spineless and stupid! She then totally shuns Pilkington, screaming at him, "What kind of a man are you?!?"

Parallel to all of this, Pilkington has to deal with a more personal impasse, that of being gay. He deals with it by donning civilian clothes, going to a club, picking up a guy, and going back to his place for some action, and then ditching him. Apparently, this one night stand is not enough for his partner, Graham (Robert Carlyle), who obsessively tracks him down. Most likely because of his precarious situation as a member of the clergy, Pilkington rejects him repeatedly, then finally relents, only to be discovered snogging in the car with him, and having plastered all over the morning tabloids.

The film implies the two of them are experiencing romance using a variety of clichZ byronic shots by the ocean, kissing, with a whirling camera a la A MAN AND A WOMAN. This is particularly ignoble and hard to swallow, since they only just met, and really don't know each other from Adam. Granted, it may be 'love at fist sight', but then for their relationship to be convincing, it requires much more development than is provided in the film.

Then the personality conflict between Pilkington and Thomas is somehow conveniently resolved, and Thomas proceeds to be oh so tolerant of Pilkington's sexual orientation given that he has broken the rules himself. Pilkington is shown to be a total hypocrite, and by this point in the film, one loses whatever speck of respect one had for him at the outset of the film. When the church administration and Pilkington's flock discover his homosexuality, there is the predictable furor and whole host of negative reactions, and he is prepared to be thrown out of the church. The film ends with a ridiculously sentimental redemption scene in the church.

Pilkington is too asinine to be real. If he already knew he was gay, and needed to act upon it, why remain in the priesthood? There's even a scene in the film which explores this question, but doesn't answer it. Why even go into the priesthood? Sounds like a case of mental masochism, but it's just plain stupid. And his surrender to the conformity of the confessional in the face of saving Lisa from abuse doesn't jibe with his unabashed reveling in breaking the celibacy rule.

It can be said that Roman Catholicism has certain very real, outmoded, often crudely repressive moral restraints, but the positive aspects of the religion still hold significance for many people in the world, and this film disavows this and incites pointless controversy.

The makers of this film are no more refined than the denouncers and condemning judges of the Inquisition. Because of their lofty, imbecilically seditious, fanatically P.C. approach, they miss out on certain essential qualities which make a believable, persuasive film, and create a vicious gob of spit which has a calculated trajectory, straight into the face of Catholicism.

Even perceptive non-Christians, agnostics, and atheists might find it offensive! The fact that film is fairly technically accomplished and that a couple of the performances are earnest (like that of Wilkinson and Tyson, but definitely not Roache's) doesn't amount to much in the face of its lack of humanistic value. At its core, it's rotten. It compartmentalizes people on the basis of their beliefs, which is totally reprehensible.

It had to happen sooner or later: a Russian film populated by popular entertainment icons. Something so seemingly easy to swallow is actually quite a bitter pill.

Director Vasily Pichul, known for the seminal LITTLE VERA, which threw open the doors to a new sexual and linguistic frankness in Russian cinema, has undermined himself with a flashy new picture which is all money, and thoroughly devoid of substance.

It makes the phrase 'New Russian Cinema' a sarcastic double-entendre, as it seems to pander almost exclusively to gum-chewing, cell-phone toting flatheads.

Pichul's new film, THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS opened in St. Petersburg at the chronically mis-managed Aurora cinema in October of 1999. It stars popular (and unappealing, obnoxious) TV and radio personality Nikolai Fomenko as a foundling dubbed Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who grew up to be a criminal and would-be writer who escapes from prison, only to get involved in a fresh series of lawless misadventures.

In the film's opening scene he forces a publisher to read his science-fiction romance manuscript at gunpoint. His nemesis is a gruff, aging police investigator played by perennial favorite Valentin Gaft, who probably took his money and ran after seeing this film. His character captures Chekhov and throws him in prison. While in the slammer, he is visited by a pretty female harpist (the pouting and preening pop star Angelika Varum) who is a fan of his book.

After escaping, he comes back and kills his publisher, whose office is now stacked full of surplus copies of his novel. After robbing a Western Union branch, he winds up taking his wounded buddy and accomplice (in a turn of seemingly arbitrary casting, played by the disagreeable musician Garik Sukachov) to the hospital. The buddy dies, and his attention is caught by a man who is howling in pain as he suffers from a stomach ulcer. This leads to him retrieving a suitcase full of diamonds that the man was supposed to deliver, which various interested parties are after.

One of these includes a female gangster (Alla Sigalova), the harpist's dragon lady sister, who, later on in the film, turns out to be a hood with heart.

Thankfully, not all of the women are furniture in the film, although there is enough in that department to make one cringe. Wispy-voiced pop star Varum is all candy-ass elegance, and portrays an inspired musician in name only. Anna Mikhalkova, Nikita MikhalkovÕs daughter, plays the investigator's rubenesque assistant who is also his and the Chekhov characterÕs sex toy. What a disgraceful, thankless role, especially after her somewhat dignified turn in her fatherÕs film THE BARBER OF SIBERIA.

The one bright spot in the film is Sigalova, who brings veritable venom to her role, but somehow manages to come off as intelligent and appealing at the same time. She steals the show, though in this case it's petty larceny.

The plot is contrived from start to finish, and fleshed out with an oversimplification which would make even Hollywood execs squirm. While the red and blue lighting and flamboyant camerawork give it some gloss, it's like a rococo box with nothing in it, which about perfectly describes the tastelessness it exemplifies. It is a mix tawdry, cliched, typically grandiose new Russian values, such as sappy sentimentality, living in a garishly ornate mansion, driving around in a black Mercedes, overusing the cell-phone, aiming for literary recognition, pursuing the Nobel Prize, etc.

Fomenko's two-bit character set out on his hijinks with the misguided perception that he is a great writer. The makers of this film suffer from the same affliction. It's absolutely morally bankrupt, and isn't even satire, if that was the intent. One can only hope that this shameful pap will not be shown much in the West.