I admire the pluck of the Starship Troopers franchise. Most films that are destined for the DVD bin have an aura of shame about them -- you rarely see Steven Seagal out granting interviews for his latest straight-to-DVD action movie or any significant extras on the disc for such a movie -- but one glimpse at the website for Starship Troopers: Marauder gives the impression of a well-oiled machine that's catering to a fan base and has excited and interested people behind it. There are all kinds of interviews, production and fan art and sketches, news updates, cast biographies and other things for you to sample. Also, the names behind this thing aren't anything to sneeze at either: the movie marks the directing debut of Edward Neumeier, writer of Robocop and Verhoeven's original Starship Troopers, and it will star Starship's Casper Van Dien and Jolene Blalock, so I'm officially declaring this movie to be worth a viewing.

Sony Pictures has just launched Stage 6 Films, "a label that will acquire and produce films for theatrical and straight-to-DVD release." The Variety announcement reports that Stage 6 will focus mostly on the DVD market, and on films budgeted at $1 to $10 million dollars. They've got a lot of movies on the horizon, with some pretty big stars involved. Conspiracy is an action flick starring Val "Iceman" Kilmer, Gary "Lumbergh" Cole, and Jennifer "Hot" Esposito. Thomas Jane is acting in and directing Dark Country (hope it's not a punisher!). The Stone House is a horror film starring Shane West and JK "Schillinger" Simmons. The Lodger stars Alfred Molina, whom I always picture in his underwear singing "Sister Christian." And Felon brings us even more Kilmer thrills, with Stephen Dorff and Harold Perrineau in tow.

And you know when you're talking direct-to-DVD, you're talking about some really random sequels. Stage 6 has announced a prequel (a prequel?) to this year's pretty cool horror flick Vacancy. There will also be a second Starship Troopers sequel -- Starship Troopers: Marauder, with Casper "Van Dien" Van Dien, Boris Kodjoe, and Jolene Blalock. Wesley Snipes will star in a sequel to the absolutely terrible action movie The Art of War, which I will refer to as The Art of War 2: Seriously? And Center Stage 2 will capitalize on the public's love of melodramatic teen dance dramas. I must confess a special place in my heart for the original Stage, because it led to a memorable high school back seat rendezvous. Put that quote on your poster, Sony! "Stage 6 will also continue to leverage our vast library of studio films, as we have done with Daddy Day Camp and the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise," threatens a Stage 6 executive.

Over the years, I've often thought about what it must be like to be on a relatively successful, well-known TV series and get catapulted into the limelight. Or, how it must feel to see your picture everywhere and have a huge amount of fans swarm wherever you go. In some ways, it must be pretty cool. Although, it probably has its drawbacks too, right? One of those drawbacks has to be that once you establish yourself as one thing, one character on one show, that's all people see you as, and it becomes difficult for you to get other roles.

Such is the case, I feel, with the very attractive Jolene Blalock. Sure, she co-starred in the last TV incarnation of Star Trek for several seasons and had her picture plastered all over magazines like Maxim, but I seems like her career has pretty much lost its way after Enterprise -- as evidenced by this recent bit of news courtesy of Moviehole. According to the article, Blalock will be starring in yet-another sequel to Paul Verhoven's Starship Troopers, this time directed by original scribe Ed Neurmeier. The film, currently titled Starship Troopers: Marauder will reportedly feature Blalock as "tough pilot" Lola Beck and also marks the return of original franchise star Casper Van Dien as Johnny Rico.

When I was growing up I read Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers novel many, many times and was pretty thrilled to actually get to work on the first movie. I was less thrilled with how it came out and the direct-to-video sequel left me even colder, with little hope for the franchise -- at least in movie form. Sadly, this third go-around doesn't do much to change my perception, even with the inclusion of Blalock. I guess we'll find out one way or another when the film comes to the local Blockbuster later this year.

When you're dealing with a first-time director whose only other Hollywood credits are for writing a really lame pair of Wesley Snipes movies, you walk in skeptical yet hopeful, perhaps even actively rooting for the filmmaker to make a leap forward with his directorial debut. Well, Wayne Beach pulled it off. The good news is that Slow Burn is indeed a better film than both Murder at 1600 and The Art of War. The bad news is that it's only marginally better than those flicks, and they both stunk.

A late-arriving and barely warmed-up retread of The Usual Suspects, Slow Burn is eleven flavors of cliche, convention and stereotype in one 93-minute chore of a movie. If this cable-level yawner of a flick has even one remotely new or unique idea, I'm guessing it must be buried in the end credits somewhere. (I left before they were over.) To his credit, Mr. Beach has cobbled together a pretty solid ensemble for a movie of this caliber, and there are just enough good lines and interesting scenes to fill a two-minute theatrical trailer ... but ultimately Slow Burn is as tiresome as it is beholden to a dozen (much better) crime stories.

While the fifth Star Trek TV series, Enterprise, may have reached a sad and early end this spring with its cancellation, the franchise will apparently live on in the movies (if not in slash fiction). As The Can reports, Paramount has a new Trek movie project in the pipeline (or more appropriately, in the Jeffries Tubes), with the impossibly small-waisted Vulcan hottie T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) as a central character. Another actor whose name keeps popping up in discussions of such a project, which might be titled Star Trek: The Beginning or Star Trek: Academy (which sounds like there should be a lot of space T&A in it), is Angel star David Boreanaz (the subject of many a slash tale himself).

The whole "odd numbered Star Trek movies suck" rule went out the window when the widely-panned 10th Trek trek, 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis, tanked, so it would appear that its reputation as a franchise killer was premature. Whether this new effort, whatever its design, will truly reverse that curse has yet to be seen.