Eli Roth, director of "Cabin Fever" (2002)

I used to take a class near a movie poster store that uses elaborate window displays for upcoming movies to lure you into their store. When "Cabin Fever" came out, the window was full of tree bark and limbs and lots and lots of blood. This is not normally the sort of thing that makes me say, "Yes. I must see that movie."

But four years later I hear Eli Roth on the Treatment, and he is so erudite and interesting and good-natured, and so obviously passionate and serious about his movies, that I immediately put "Cabin Fever" in my queue. Roth articulated all these feminist impulses behind the story of "Hostel", and I was like, right on, brother!

"Cabin Fever" is excellent -- it's extremely funny, it's an example of great movie storytelling with plenty of truly unexpected twists, and its structure is perfect. Film schools should make their students watch this one and break down it's beats -- yes, we get it, "Tootsie" and "Kramer vs Kramer" are great movies, but can we study something from this millennium, please? Something that might be in the same universe as our first films? Oh, no, you want me to watch "Big" instead? FINE.

Roth is also great with his actors -- there isn't a false move in the bunch, and he had the good sense to cast Rider Strong in the "Cabin Fever" lead (could Rider -- I call him Rider -- be this generation's Glenn Ford? Same strong jaw, same general store handsomeness? Let's hope!). "Boy Meets World" was a good show and that's all there is to it.

Every moment counts in a Roth movie, every character has a life of his or her own and a stake of his or her own (sometimes literally).

And Roth is a feminist, or a post-feminist, or whatever we're calling it these days so that it doesn't make us uncomfortable. There's a great fingering scene in "Cabin Fever", and lord knows most filmmakers never consider that side of things.

"Hostel" is well-told and really well-acted as well, with a story that unfolds beautifully, but it was all about the boys, and that just isn't as interesting to me. And I got the sense that someone got to him and made him have a more conventional action hero and "happy" ending. The movie was more gory but just wasn't as ballsy as "Cabin Fever" (though much much more boobsie).

At any rate, Roth is the man, he's got a strong viewpoint, and I can't wait to see some of the forty films he has upcoming according to IMDB.