Yesterday I kicked this week off with a lovely taste of the luscious ladies man also known as Batmanuel, also known as the Mayor of Gotham. This time, I wanted to go with Polk, played by K. Todd Freeman. Years ago he was Mr. Trick on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there's no good embeddable clips of his role online. (And I can't, for the life of me, remember what he did in The Dark Knight. Help!)

So instead, I'm moving on to another player in the Joss Whedon universe. You might have recognized Detective Stevens, played by Keith Szarabajka. While he's the law these days in Gotham, he used to be a man named Holtz, hell-bent on revenge in Angel. Remember? He came through time, all to pay back Angel, and ended up kidnapping Connor and bringing him to a hell dimension? It's all because of the above.

• Doogal - A saccharine, cheap-looking CGI import from Britain about a lazy, cowardly, sugar-addicted pooch (with a mullet cut) who must find a way to save the world from an icy death is not the follow-up to Hoodwinked that Disney escapees Bob and Harvey Weinstein hoped for...or we asked for. At least they've got the swell Over The Hedge in theaters this week. Formerly titled The Magic Roundabout and re-dubbed (Doogal, that is. Not Over The Hedge.)

• Duma - With most arthouse films rated "R", it is always a pleasure when one comes along that culture mavens can take their kids to, and The Black Stallion director Carroll Ballard's latest nature trek -- a visually lovely adventure -- certainly does fit that bill. It is about a 12-year-old South African boy (Alexander Michaletos) who must return his pet cheetah to the wild, encountering and overcoming a number of obstacles along the way, the biggest one being our initial reluctance to accept its premise.
 

A few days ago, the increasingly scary Lindsay Lohan announced that she'd like to play the title character in Joss Whedon's upcoming Wonder Woman project. While this indubitably made a few of you out there excited, most of us were on our knees, praying that any god who might listen would keep her far, far away from the project. Recently, another actress expressed interest in the part - an this one is probably much more palatable for the geek world. Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel told TV Guide that she'd love to play the part. When TV Guide suggested the match, Carpenter excitedly responded "I know! From your lips to God's ears... or Joss'. "

Regular readers know that I've never been an avid Buffy fan. I don't think it was a bad show by any means - I just never watched much of it. However, Carpenter is already leagues ahead in my mind based on the simple fact that she is not Lindsay Lohan. I don't know how talented she is - some of you who've seen her on TV should chime in here and let me know - but I suppose she does at least have the look for the part. And she's probably got a good angle, having worked with Joss for several years on his most beloved project.

According to Screen Daily, French director François Ozon finally has a British project in the works. Ozon, whose recent work includes the much-discussed Swimming Pool (which, though it centered around British characters, was set in France), is already shooting the film in London. Entitled Angel, it is centered on a social climbing woman in early 20th century London "who climbs the social ladder by becoming a famous novelist." Rather disturbingly, the film stars Romola Garai, who shot to international fame with her starring role in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, as Angel Deverell. Yikes. Around to prop her up will be Ozon regular and Berlin jury chair Charlotte Rampling (who happens to have played a novelist in Swimming Pool) and Sam Neill, as well as a couple of young Brits for whom Angel could be a big break.

Though the rights to the film are currently being shopped in Berlin, there's no word on when Ozon hopes to have it ready for release.

I may have mentioned a time or two that I dig me some vampire movies, even when they're utterly awful. And I'm clearly not alone, because a new one is made roughly every 15 minutes. The latest offering is Dead Serious, which one reviewer describes as "what would walk out of the wreckage if an episode of 24 got into a head-on with an episode of Angel and caught an unfortunate Queer as Folk in the crosswalk." Whoa. Can I get a hell yes? Put as simply as possible (which inevitably leaves a whole lot out), the plot involves right-wing terrorists and, um, a vampire taking over a gay bar with "remov[ing] the scourge of homosexuality from the planet" among their goals. Not surprisingly, things don't quite go as planned.

Though the movie doesn't seem likely to be showing up at your local megaplex any time soon, it has shown as a handful of horror and gay film festivals, so tracking it down might not be totally impossible. In the meantime, there's a six minute clip at the website which, assuming you can get it to load (I'm struggling at the moment), should offer a taste of the film's madness. After that, you can either move on to the next vampire flick or start scouring underground festivals for a screening.

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.

According to a good source at AICN, the role of Angel in the upcoming X-Men 3 film will be played by up and coming young actor, Nick Stahl. Many people probably know him as the guy who played Yellow Bastard in Sin City, or as John Conner in T3. Expect public notice release after the teaser trailer that will appear before the Fantastic Four this weekend.

I actually think this is a good bit of casting. Still, call me cynical if you will, but all the good casting in the world can't save a hack director.