THE opportunity to mouth ??You talkin?? to me??? from Taxi Driver and ??Go ahead, punk, make my day?? from Dirty Harry has long been irresistible. The surprise is that movieoke, a twist on the karaoke sing-along craze, has only just arrived.

In an arty dive called the Den of Cin in New York??s East Village, there is a stage in front of a flickering screen. Anastasia Fite, 24, the master of ceremonies, will both serve you a beer and help you act out your film fantasies. The club is fast becoming one of New York??s hottest venues.

??As far as I know, I invented movieoke,?? she said. ??I made a movie about three years ago about a girl who can only speak in movie lines. When I found myself running this space I decided to turn it into a social opportunity.??

Just as the ability to locate a song on a CD without the cumbersome fast-forwarding of tapes propelled the karaoke craze from an obscure Japanese bar to the clubs and living rooms of show-offs everywhere, so movieoke has been made possible by the spread of DVDs.

The technology enables participants to home in on their favourite scenes and provides subtitles at the touch of a button. There is no danger of forgetting one??s lines.

On the ground floor of Fite??s building is a video store that offers an endless choice of films from melodramas such as Mommie Dearest, which stars Faye Dunaway playing a vicious Joan Crawford, to the high-kicking action film, The Matrix. The idea is to make a spectacle of yourself.

??That??s what??s fun,?? said Fite. ??Movieoke is completely unpredictable and entirely democratic. It??s equally great when you screw up as when you do it right. You tell me what scene you want to play out and I??ll find it for you.??

To prove her point, Fite put on a video of the British comedy series French and Saunders, an obscure choice for New Yorkers, and began acting out the part of Jennifer Saunders, while her chubby, tattooed friend played Dawn French. ??Is this like an overweight Absolutely Fabulous??? asked one bemused member of the crowd.

Acting, however, provides only part of the drama. The Den of Cin has inadvertently become one of the best singles bars in town, since participants need no introduction. Anybody is free to leap up on stage and bump and grind to the finale of Dirty Dancing, for example.

Matthew Dujnic, 29, and Sarah Baker, 24, danced in step so convincingly in Dirty Dancing that they appeared to be a long-established couple. A voice at the back cried out: ??Give them an Oscar.??

??I have never met this woman before in my life,?? beamed Dujnic, an animator. ??She??s wonderful.??

Baker, a party organiser, said: ??I don??t think we broke the ice ?? we shattered it. It was an incredible rush.?? She had arrived on her own at the club. ??I travel solo. You have to be your own go-getter in New York,?? she explained.

It has taken a while for the penny to drop, but businesses are beginning to wake up to the commercial potential of the genre. Fooseoke, the computer games company, has launched Movie Karaoke, a CD-Rom for stay-at-home film fans. The first title in the series is American Pie and includes 17 scenes.

??Want to be the boy who gets the girl (or the girl who??s gotten)??? says the promotional literature. ??It??s your line and you??re the star.??

All you need is a microphone and a computer, the makers promise. The programme then synchronises your words with the actor??s lips on screen and the script is highlighted in time-honoured karaoke style.

??My teenage sons and his friends were ad-libbing a scene and falling off their chairs laughing. I knew then that we were really on to something,?? said Artie Weitz, the creator.

Will Silke, an Irish film distributor, dropped into the Den of Cin undercover last week. He had just trademarked the names Movieoke and Cinemoke, he said, and wanted to see what the competition was up to.

He was relieved the club was amateur fun as he has high hopes of getting permission from film companies to market compilation DVDs with classic clips. ??It??s a great idea but it??s a lot of work. You can have 30-second clips without securing rights but that??s not enough. You??ve got to have two to three minutes of a scene,?? he said.

Silke was surprised by the participants?? choices of film. He had thought people would want to act, but found at the Den of Cin that what they really loved was to dance, sing, pose and fight.

Among the films chosen that night were the teen movie Flashdance, the comic catwalk scene from Zoolander and, inevitably, The Matrix.

As with karaoke, participants will have to lose their inhibitions before movieoke captures the mass market. Two girls in the audience had been thinking about acting out Heathers, a film about spiteful girls, but got stage fright.

??We??ll practise at home this weekend and dazzle them next week,?? they vowed.

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