SPECIAL EFFECTS

Zoë Tamerlis as ditzy blonde hits New York City hoping to make it in movies, but her first gig is a death scene – her own. A failing director secretly films himself and the actress in the sack, then murders her and sets about making a movie based on the killing, with the dead girl’s husband as the likely murderer. This brass-necked approach includes inviting the investigating cop to advise on procedure. Eric Bogosian plays the director, Chris Neville, as a suave monster, avoiding any psychological or moral dimension (although we’re told the reason he likes flowers is because they’re so beautiful and they die so quickly). After a shaky start, the twists of the plot begin to take hold, and there’s even a serious angle. This is the age of the non-entity, the glorification of the nobody, as long as they’re victims, says Neville. Consider the virtually non-existent careers of Dorothy Stratton or Frances Farmer. What makes them worthy of a $ 10 million eulogy on film? Murder, madness, suicide – that’s what stars are made of today. (Nick Roddick)