Machete

"Machete" was the most memorable, really fun and super-violent trailer that ran between the "Grindhouse" double feature. Now - because you demanded it - filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has turned those 90 seconds of quick cuts and best-of moments into a full-length movie. And by "you," I mean everyone who goes to Comic-Con every year; the same niche crowd of 20,000 who heralded the cinematic success of "Snakes on a Plane" and "Scott Pilgrim. " People who make our movies (and that includes the movie stars, like Robert De Niro, who sign on for cameos)

If you think there's nothing new to add to the immigration debate, you have not seen "Machete. " I don't think Robert Rodriguez's movie advances the dialogue very much (in fact, it probably moves it back a peg or two), but it does have something to add - the naked bodies of Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan, and the virtually nude figure of Michelle Rodriguez. And it does raise some interesting questions. None connected with immigration, but interesting nonetheless. Where does a naked woman keep her cell phone?

The owner of a South Camden liquor store was slashed with a machete and beaten with a sledgehammer during an attack yesterday in which robbers took two cases of beer. Camden police said Harry T. Hancock, 62, owner of Haddon Liquors at 1182 Haddon Ave., was in critical condition last night at Cooper Hospital- University Medical Center, where he underwent facial surgery. Police said Hancock lost a lot of blood but was alert enough to tell them that two young men robbed him shortly after 10 a.m. They said Hancock apparently resisted and was attacked before the robbers grabbed the two cases of beer and ran. No arrests have been made.

A 40-year-old woman remained in critical condition with a gunshot wound yesterday after threatening a female police officer with a machete on a narrow stairway, authorities said. The woman, whose identity was not released, was shot in the side Tuesday evening after police went to a house on the 600 block of Russell Street in the Frankinville section in response to a call that children had been left home alone. Three children, ages 5, 8 and 10, were found alone in "deplorable conditions" in the house and child-welfare officials, who arrived later, decided to remove them from the home, said Chief Inspector William Colarulo, of Internal Affairs.

James Simpkins used to wake up every morning, raise the flag outside his Tinicum home, and then walk to the hotel where he worked as a bellhop. But since the morning of June 23, 1993, Simpkins, 61, has been afraid to walk the streets of Tinicum because a nearby resident randomly attacked him with a machete. Yesterday, Delaware County Judge A. Leo Sereni took steps to make sure that Alan Joseph Haglock, 24, would no longer roam the streets of Tinicum. Sereni sentenced Haglock to 12 to 29 years in prison for attempted murder, simple assault and resisting arrest.

A Coatesville man was charged with attempted homicide after he attacked his girlfriend with a 3-foot-long machete, police said. Artemio "Raoul" Hernandez, 35, was arrested at 3:50 a.m. last Sunday in the apartment the two shared in the 600 block of East Lincoln Highway. The attack occurred about 50 minutes earlier, police said. The woman, Jane L. Haverkamp, 32, required stitches for cuts on her left hand, right forearm and the left side of her neck. She also suffered nerve and tendon damage and bruises on her back and forehead.

READING - The owner of a rooming house here is accused of a weekend machete attack on a tenant who was three weeks behind on his rent, police said. Moises Ortiz-Berroa hit Rafael Cuevas with the machete in Cuevas' apartment Saturday, the Reading Eagle reported Monday. Cuevas was not injured. Ortiz-Berroa told Cuevas to pay or leave, but the tenant said he needed time to gather his belongings, authorities said. Ortiz-Berroa returned moments later with the machete and struck Cuevas on the forearm and three or four times on the back, authorities said.

By all rights, even gore hounds should be perturbed by the sheer level of gut-churning mayhem, sexual depravity, tasteless slapstick humor - and gallons of blood - hurled at the screen in Robert Rodriguez's post-cheez-ee retro grindhouse spectacle, Machete . Any college sophomore would find its less-than-subtle political message about the plight of Mexican immigrants in today's America so naive that it borders on the inane. But Machete , which stars Danny Trejo as Machete, a machete-wielding former Mexican cop who wreaks havoc on the men who killed his family, is, simply put, lovely.

A sword, a machete and a straight razor were among the weapons used during a brawl in which five persons were injured, one critically, in North Philadelphia last night, police said. The incident began about 10:45 p.m. when a woman not identified by police went to the home of Vera Butler at Somerset Street and Park Avenue and told residents there that she was involved in an argument with a man over a bottle of beer and needed help, according to police. Five people inside the home answered the woman's call for assistance, police said.

READING - The owner of a rooming house here is accused of a weekend machete attack on a tenant who was three weeks behind on his rent, police said. Moises Ortiz-Berroa hit Rafael Cuevas with the machete in Cuevas' apartment Saturday, the Reading Eagle reported Monday. Cuevas was not injured. Ortiz-Berroa told Cuevas to pay or leave, but the tenant said he needed time to gather his belongings, authorities said. Ortiz-Berroa returned moments later with the machete and struck Cuevas on the forearm and three or four times on the back, authorities said.

KADUNA, Nigeria - In the time it took to raise a machete or shout the name of a political party, neighbors became enemies over politics split along religious lines in northern Nigeria. At least 70 people died this week after Muslim mobs targeted supporters of the oil-rich nation's ruling party, while retaliatory attacks by Christians followed with a startling speed. Those who survived almost uniformly said they did not know their attackers, though many looked away or quickly changed the subject as their homes lay in smoldered ruins.

"MACHETE" is no doubt Danny Trejo's greatest role, but it's probably not Robert Rodriguez's best movie. The "Desperado" director has lately devoted himself to making tongue-in-cheek replicas of crummy movies, and he's succeeding only too well. This one stars Trejo in the title role as a one-man Mexican army battling drug gangs and racists on the Tex-Mex border, backed by a cast that includes Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson and . . . Robert De Niro, also currently on view in "Little Fockers.

"Hatchet II" begins at the exact moment at which "Hatchet I" left off: In a New Orleans swamp, the heroine Marybeth (Danielle Harris), the sole survivor of a murderous rampage by the deformed freak Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder), is literally in the clutches of the monster, about to be torn to shreds. Marybeth - or, as she would be known in 1980s slasher-flick parlance, The Final Girl - manages to escape and return to the city, where she turns to a local tour guide, the Rev. Zombie (Tony Todd)

1. Resident Evil (Sony S.G.) $26.6 mil.   $40.0 mil.   1   $8,320    2. Takers (Sony Screen Gems) 5.7 mil.   47.7 mil.   3   2,590    3. The American (Focus Features) 5.7 mil.   28.1 mil.   2   2,003    4. Machete (Fox) 4.3 mil.   20.9 mil.   2   1,603    5. Going the Distance (Warner Bros.) 3.8 mil.   14.0 mil.   2   1,250    6. The Other Guys (Columbia) 3.3 mil.   112.

If you think there's nothing new to add to the immigration debate, you have not seen "Machete. " I don't think Robert Rodriguez's movie advances the dialogue very much (in fact, it probably moves it back a peg or two), but it does have something to add - the naked bodies of Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan, and the virtually nude figure of Michelle Rodriguez. And it does raise some interesting questions. None connected with immigration, but interesting nonetheless. Where does a naked woman keep her cell phone?

By all rights, even gore hounds should be perturbed by the sheer level of gut-churning mayhem, sexual depravity, tasteless slapstick humor - and gallons of blood - hurled at the screen in Robert Rodriguez's post-cheez-ee retro grindhouse spectacle, Machete . Any college sophomore would find its less-than-subtle political message about the plight of Mexican immigrants in today's America so naive that it borders on the inane. But Machete , which stars Danny Trejo as Machete, a machete-wielding former Mexican cop who wreaks havoc on the men who killed his family, is, simply put, lovely.

"Machete" was the most memorable, really fun and super-violent trailer that ran between the "Grindhouse" double feature. Now - because you demanded it - filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has turned those 90 seconds of quick cuts and best-of moments into a full-length movie. And by "you," I mean everyone who goes to Comic-Con every year; the same niche crowd of 20,000 who heralded the cinematic success of "Snakes on a Plane" and "Scott Pilgrim. " People who make our movies (and that includes the movie stars, like Robert De Niro, who sign on for cameos)