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The Action Scene is a column that explores the construction of action set pieces in order to deepen appreciation for and spark discussion about action cinema.“It was clear that Pm weren’t attempting art.” This remark prefaces interviews conducted by the sadly defunct publication Hopes & Fears with various directors and stars who worked with Pm Entertainment, an independent film company that churned out a steady stream of largely direct-to-video movies and television episodes—most famously within the action genre—between the late 1980s and early 2000s. Watching the operatic tour-de-force opening of the Pm film Intent to Kill (1992), however, one might doubt the statement’s accuracy. The extraordinary set piece features squealing tires, spraying glass, and slow-motion gunplay, all against a jet-black sky dotted by the vaporous glow of street lamps. Blue-hued, low-key lighting cuts through night air thick with fog and gun smoke, sustaining a noirish, dreamlike mood...

Joan Collins in 'The Bitch': Sex tale based on younger sister Jackie Collins' novel. Author Jackie Collins dead at 77: Surprisingly few film and TV adaptations of her bestselling novels Jackie Collins, best known for a series of bestsellers about the dysfunctional sex lives of the rich and famous and for being the younger sister of film and TV star Joan Collins, died of breast cancer on Sept. 19, '15, in Los Angeles. The London-born (Oct. 4, 1937) Collins was 77. Collins' tawdry, female-centered novels – much like those of Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz – were/are immensely popular. According to her website, they have sold more than 500 million copies in 40 countries. And if the increasingly tabloidy BBC is to be believed (nowadays, Wikipedia has become a key source, apparently), every single one of them – 32 in all – appeared on the New York Times' bestseller list. (Collins' own site claims that a mere 30 were included.) Sex...