SUMMER OF SUCKY SEQUELS, SORRY STORIES AND SHODDY SCRIPTS!

or

Movies of Summer'97; a review

1997, Christian Sauvé

PART A: THE ESSAY
(ALSO READ PART B: THE PARODY)

 

(Also Available: Movies of Summer'98, Movies of Summer'99)

0. Introduction

To everyone's surprise, I ended up seeing more than 10 movies during the summer of 1997, here roughly defined as being the months of May, June, July and August 1997. What follows is a short (?) summary of reviews, and assorted views on the pathetic state of movies today.

 

1. Who *is* Christian Sauvé? What should I expect from him?

Christian Sauvé fancies himself a modern renaissance man, as able with his words than D'Artagnan with his sword. Exceptional company, worthwhile friend and all-around good guy, he should star soon in his very own feature film, which shall undoubtedly kick the stuffing out of Howard Stern's PRIVATE PARTS, in addition of being considerably more explicit.

Alternately, Christian Sauvé is a self-professed nerdish computer science student at the University of Ottawa. When concerned with movies, he is an unshakeable realist, loathing logical plot-holes and mushy storylines, although he has a high tolerance threshold for weak characters and lowbrow humor.

His future plans include graduation, a job, a girlfriend and nothing less than global domination since he is of the opinion that the only worthy goals are the really outrageous ones.

During the summer of 1997, Christian Sauvé worked either on a farm in rural Quebec or in an office in downtown Ottawa, thus setting something of a record for most diverse work experiences... like dealing with hard-headed fax machines and harder-headed cows on successive days.

He sees most of his movies with his sister, with occasional presences by various friends of his. He usually sits in the middle back of the theater, even is lately he has successfully tried to sit in the center of the fourth row. He plan to repeat these near-screen experiences in the future, but not for horror movies.

Something of a masochist, he likes science-fiction, action and Visual Effects-heavy motion pictures. If it has a budget of more than 60$M, he's usually interested.

 

2. What movies will be discussed?

(Price paid:  * = 8.50$  + = 6.00$  - = 4.25$ )
*THE FIFTH ELEMENT
-VOLCANO
-THE LOST WORLD
+SPEED II: CRUISE CONTROL
+CON AIR
*FACE/OFF
*MEN IN BLACK
-CONTACT
-OPERATION CONDOR
-AIR FORCE ONE
*SPAWN
-EVENT HORIZON
-MIMIC
+KULL THE CONQUEROR

Boycott policies were enforced for HERCULES and BATMAN AND ROBIN: Disney sugar in one case, and stupid comments by director Shumacher in the other ("unpoliced Internet" just costs you 4,25$, Shlockmaker!)

Movies unseen, but which should be rented eventually include CONSPIRACY THEORY, AUSTIN POWERS, GROSSE POINTE BLANK, GOOD BURGER, NOTHING TO LOSE, MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING, TRIAL AND ERROR, HARD MONEY, GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE and COP LAND.

 

3. So, what was the best movie?

Not so fast!

Movies are different things to different people: What some people see in things like BUDDY and ULEE'S GOLD is beyond me. But it's a fair bet than those people say the same thing about FACE/OFF and CONTACT.

Well...

 

So saying "MEANINGLESS TITLE is the best movie of the summer" would be assuming that the whole audience -from the Wichita grandmother to the San Diego punk rocker- would find MEANINGLESS TITLE their best movie of the summer.

Instead, I'll take a different approach and name no less than three very different movie, each with its own audience but each near the top of its intended class.

 

All her life, Ellie Arroway has searched for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence. But one night, she hears a signal...

1. CONTACT: By far the best SF movie since GHOST IN THE SHELL, and even a notch above that movie. It's very smart, very controversial and doesn't necessarily take the audience for mindless dolts. For one thing, it's got vision; that rare quality missing from so much Hollywood fare these days. The exceptional special effects are so integrated in the storyline that most viewers won't even realize they're there: the movie doesn't place them in front for us to gawk at while they sweep the script incoherencies under the carpet. The best female role of the summer goes to Jodie Foster, who's just perfect as the driven astronomer Ellie Arroway. Moments of pure cinematic magic pepper this incredible movie-going experience.

On the other hand, I have serious problems with several aspects of the script. Palmer Joss isn't as intellectually sharp as he should be. The finale stays faithful to the book, but still *is* underwhelming. But most importantly, the movie almost self-destroys near the end, when it tries too hard to relate science and faith. (The irony being that the movie *cheated* to reconcile the two when from the context, Arroway could easily refute an argument to prove that faith had nothing to do with it.)

It is probably a measure of Hollywood's awfulness that this, an average genre story, should become the leading SF movie of 1997. Still, the highbrow audience couldn't have much better than that this summer. The only 1997 SF movie I've seen that's a solid contender for a non-technical award; Foster might even net her third Best Actress Oscar with this. Solidly recommended.

 

They're here to protect us from extraterrestrial threats. They are discreet, efficient and untraceable. They are... the Men in Black.

2. MEN IN BLACK: The most charitable thing one can say about this movie is that it's competent. Given the current context, this elevates MEN IN BLACK above the current wave of sheer ineptitude ravaging Hollywood's writing talent. A satirical look at America's current psychosis, this movie is a good 90 minutes of fun and entertainment. There's scarcely anything worth pondering five minutes after seeing it, but it does pass the time quite well.

But one can't help but feel betrayed by the sheer mechanics of the movie, which pulls no punches to manipulate its audience, from unsubtle music to an excessively cute alien baby. At least, both leads are great in their respective roles, and Linda Fiorentino... well, let's just hope she has more screen-time in the forthcoming sequel.

A good movie for the whole family.

 

Would you become your own worst enemy? And what if he became you?

3. FACE/OFF: For everyone looking for something more harder-edged to their movies, FACE/OFF delivers solid action with a better-than average script. The classical story of cop-vs-bandit becomes much more interesting when they have to switch their faces and become each other. It's a measure of how good the movie is when you can truthfully say that the movie would have been interesting even without the superlative action scenes.

This face-switching is by far the biggest stumbling block to anyone's enjoyment of the movie. Once disbelief is sufficiently suspended, however, FACE/OFF becomes the finest action drama of the summer. Director John Woo pulls off more than a few good scenes here, and the performances of Nicholas Cage and John Travolta are convincing enough. Good female roles more or less compensate for the huge impossibilities of the face-switch. Oh, and the conclusion is too happy-goody, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Good action movie for, primarily, the young males among us.

 

4. And what about the other movies?

Surprisingly, most of this summer's better moments were in the *other* movies, which often contained perfect five-minute exerts linked by almost un-digestible filler. Similarly, with the advent of top-notch digital special effects, Summer'97 was often an exercise in prettiness rather than intelligence. In other words, movies to see with the sound off.

Some motion pictures are still worthwhile:

 

A big ball of... pure evil is going to destroy Earth. The only ones who can save us are a perfect being and a taxicab driver.

1. THE FIFTH ELEMENT: Overall champ in the "pretty, empty" category, THE FIFTH ELEMENT is a pure visual candy with air at its core. Fairly funny, definitely original, sometimes impressively edited and brilliantly conceived, it still has a moronic plot (which, mind-bogglingly, was qualified as "hard to understand" by a few sub-IQ reviewers), a juvenile tone, illogism by the bucketful and at least one solidly annoying performance. (Chris Tucker as DJ Ruby Rhod: I *liked* him because he was over-the-top, but most of the movie's audience thought otherwise.)

By times too long, and by times too short, THE FIFTH ELEMENT is an even better comic book movie than all four of this summer's comic book adaptations. (BATMAN AND ROBIN, MEN IN BLACK, SPAWN, STEEL) Sure to become a cult classic, let's just hope the planned sequel will be better.

One scene in particular would make me want to see the whole movie again. A good video rental or a DVD showcase, if only for the vision of things you've never, ever seen before.

 

Criminals hijack their plane flight, and it's up to the good bad guy to foil their plans.

2. CON AIR: It's probably another coming sign of the Apocalypse that Nicholas Cage ended up as this summer's busiest action hero. Nevertheless, he's quite enjoyable as the hero of this senseless explosive movie. Brought to the silver screen by one of Hollywood's foremost action producer (Bruckheimer) and directed by Yet Another Music Video Director (Simon West, who does a fair job), CON AIR aims straight at the young male demographics and succeeds well. The script is a collection of loud scenes sometimes incoherently put together, but the movie moves so fast that most won't care until the movie's over. A lot of humor ("Drop the gun, or the bunny gets it!") and some wildly unlikely stunts help forget the bad story logic and construction. (Steve Buscemi's character, for instance, should have been expanded or cut entirely. His final appearance is supposed to be a joke... but is it *really* funny?)

I have a soft spot for such loud, idiotic movies (last year's THE ROCK being another -better- example) and CON AIR matched my expectations on this level. Nicholas Cage should have toned down his southern accent a bit (he does sound like Elvis in places...) and the producers could have used a little bit more restraint in the final ten minutes, but -hey- I was entertained anyway.

(Saw this right after SPEED II: No contest!)

 

Who needs plot? It's a Jackie Chan movie!

3. OPERATION CONDOR: All throughout this essay, I refer to Hollywood as the source of all evil. Well there was my chance to eat crow; OPERATION CONDOR is a retitled (new) dubbing of a relatively old (1991) Jackie Chan movie made in Eastern Asia by people who most likely hadn't even been *near* Hollywood. The result is a movie lacking the usual polish we're used to see on the silver screen: The dialogue is *bad*, the editing is choppy (appropriate for a martial arts movie, no?), the camera work is often shoddy, the acting sucks...

But what amazing energy! Jackie Chan rocks, rumbles, rules and rolls. He doesn't fight, he dances. His incredible charisma outclasses many of the best American action heroes. The stunts are great, and the knowledge that Chan does them himself adds immensely to the experience. Add to the that the unpredictability of the screenplay (which turns from action to drama to high comedy in the blink of an eye) and you're in for an imperfect, but exhilarating experience. It's no use pointing out the plot-holes here, much as it would be pointless to criticize the acting in FANTASIA.

It has been said that Jackie Chan movies are something you either "get" or not. In this case, I'm happy to say that I'm a Jackie fan.

 

The terrorists hijacking Air Force One were convinced their plan would not fail, until one hostage fought back: The President.

4. AIR FORCE ONE: For a Canadian, this is one *weird* movie. The President of the United States seems to be father, warrior and seducer all at once to the American public. AIR FORCE ONE takes the warrior role to the hilt. The result is a pretty good movie, weak on its convictions but strong in suspense. (But how would it play in Iran? Ah-ah-ah!)

The script is ridden with bad dialogue and a few mistakes, but mostly moves the story where is should without resorting to insipid one-liners every time the hero does something. (The exception being the deservedly-criticized "Get off my plane!") The first half of the movie was good enough for being a contender for the best-of-summer ranks, but then-

The movie begins with the President affirming that he will *not* deal with terrorists. But, in the end, he does exactly that and a prisoner is freed. The movie kills off the prisoner almost immediately (that's called "audience satisfaction") but never addresses the fact that the president *did* negotiate and *did* use political pressure on a "friendly" country under the duress of terrorists. Remember how CONTACT almost self-destroyed? Same thing here, but there wasn't any thematic reason to do so.

Then the movie gets progressively sillier, with no less than three separate climaxes (Two would have been better: The last one was just too goofy to be believable), the already-mentioned one-liner and the final, unnecessary act of an undercover terrorist. One good rewrite (perhaps by Tarantino? [drool, drool]) could have eliminated most problems and elevated this from "pretty good flick" to "comparable to DIE HARD" status.

 

Seven years ago, the experimental starship Event Horizon disappeared during its maiden flight. Now, it's back...

5. EVENT HORIZON: Certainly the most disappointing movie of the summer. Exceptional title, bang-up premise, impressive names (Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Paul Anderson...), wowsah special effects and an original design could have made this the ultimate SF movie of the nineties.

And for the first ten minutes, it very nearly is. Head-turning visual effects are combined to a gritty, "realistic" view of space exploration. Even knowing the decidedly un-hard-SF plot twist coming'round, I couldn't help but believe that I was seeing the best remake ever of ALIEN. (Which *is* high praise in my book.)

After that, unfortunately, the film goes to hell (and I mean this literally) about as the same rate that the characters. What had begun as a reasonably enjoyable Hard-SF movie goes full horror and pulls no punches, whether we're talking evisceration, cannibalism, self-mutilation, spring-loaded cats, loud noises or almost-subliminal editing. Who' the villain? Satan himself! Some things don't mix well and the Hard-SF/Supernatural Horror combo is one of them because they appeal to such different tastes.

Still... the SF parts are well done and the Horror is effective. (I had a few nightmares, but then again, I have a very active imagination) I still think that the theme (Ironic that we should advance technologically only to find the literal realization of our most primitive fears) could be the basis of one near-perfect movie. In other words, the biggest villain of EVENT HORIZON was the screenwriter himself: Give the premise to a pro SF/Horror we could have the scariest, most impressive movie of a decade.

For set design, SFX, acting, horrific impact and failed potential, EVENT HORIZON deserves at least a video rental.

 

5. Is that all?

No. Here are the remainder of this summer's stinkers.

 

A Volcano erupts in Los Angeles. A disaster movie ensues.

VOLCANO: Summer opened early with this spectacular, formulaic movie. Sure, Tommy Lee Jones is fine as the engineer hero. Of course, the fantastic visual effects show us something we *really* haven't seen before. Okay, so Anne Heche is just irresistible as the pretty blonde scientist (This summer, it seemed like *every* pretty blonde was a top-notch scientist: Jodie Foster in CONTACT, Mira Sorvino in MIMIC.)

But! The first climax is ridiculous. The tear-jerking scenes simply don't work. The "social commentary" subplot is more laughable than credible. The editing of the final action scene is terrible, making an senseless sequence even worse. More than a few plot threads are never tied up.

As in many films this summer, the only things worth keeping would make a splendid SFX demo reel. Or a preview.

 

Jurassic Park II: The off-site backups.

THE LOST WORLD: There are times where you stare at the silver screen, wondering if someone -*anyone*- revised the script. In this instance, we've got world-class specialists (including one pretty brunette scientist) acting in completely idiotic ways. (You're a specialist in predators; Are you going to keep blood on your jacket? You're a hunter; Do you let anyone wander off by himself? You're a human being; Are you going to try to rescue a baby tyrannosaur? The list goes on...)

The general story is better than in JURASSIC PARK, and some individual scenes are excellent (the plate-glass window scene is memorable.) but everything else... ouch... Spielberg's direction is repetitive. There's a cute kid, and a "gymnastic" scene that's just too brain-damaged to be remembered. Effects are great, but we already suspected that. This movie is perhaps the most glaring example of everything Hollywood has done wrong this summer.

 

He's out of control: Not the terrorist who's hijacked a cruise boat, but the director who has 120$M to spend on a bad script.

SPEED II: CRUISE CONTROL: It's not exactly *bad*, but is far from being good. An average terrorist hijacking movie made worse by the association with the (much better) first SPEED. The difference between this trash and the first classic movie all boils down to the scripting.

While the first was a roller-coaster ride with constant tension, and almost textbook examples of how to create and maintain excitement over 90 minutes, this lackluster action movie is a huge bore over the first hour, only to have a 10-minute bang-up boat crash at the 70 min. mark, and a finale too weird to be believed. Original scriptwriter Graham Yorst has gone on to BROKEN ARROW (another script with good action throughout) and the upcoming HARD RAIN, and his absence is sorely missed here.

As much as I loathe to say it, Director De Bont's third outing as a director (after SPEED and TWISTER) is less impressive than the previous: The opening's car chase could have been better-directed, and there's an incredibly annoying fifteen minute stretch where the lights keep blinking on and off (in complete disregard to actual logic and viewer's headaches.) Still, it's still a notch over the usual action-movie directing (De Bont isn't afraid to use helicopters) and the boat crash is a blast. (It better be; according to Premiere magazine, it cost 20$M. For a meager ten minutes. Think of that next time you're balancing *your* budget.)

SPEED II: CRUISE CONTROL would have worked well given a script rewrite, another heroine, an emphasis on drama/suspense rather than action and, most importantly, no pretension of being a sequel to SPEED.

 

He came back from Hell as Satan first lieutenant. But now, he's going renegade. Is it the end of the world, or just a bad movie?

3. SPAWN: What can you expect from a popular comic book adaptation? Looks good, story bad. Imaginative wipes can't account for incoherent plotting, so-so characters and some of the worst-edited action scenes of the summer. (The final CGI battle looks as if they ran out of rendering time and had to slap together every single shot they had in hand so far, including the test shots.)

It's okay as long as you're not looking for anything else than a pretty comic book adaptation. Given the constraints of the genre, it's even slightly enjoyable: The visual style is intermittently interesting, the Clown character is fun, a few lines of dialogue are worth remembering. Worth being the second rental in a 2-for-1 offer.

 

To kill New York's cockroaches, scientists must use better bugs. Now guess what's taking over the town...?

4. MIMIC: This summer's most "honest" B-movie, but also one of its most forgettable. More suspenseful than scary, more atmospheric than plausible, MIMIC isn't really bad, but won't win awards either. At least director Del Torro proves that he can create a good-looking picture. Mira Sorvino can't be anything else than adorable in the role of the Pretty Young Blonde Scientist.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that, according to "unidentifiable Internet sources," the film's greatest flaw (the sappy ending) was originally grimmer, darker and -yes- better. In the version we got to saw onscreen, the autistic-child subplot is grating; the previous scripts at least provided thematic justification for the character.

The best thing for me is to forget everything about this movie. This way, when I'll see it on TV one future Friday evening, I'll just smile and enjoy the show and say "Hey, cool movie!", expecting nothing better.

 

"Me Conan, no! Me Hercules, no! Me Kull. Me King, me kill bad guys and me marry cute chick. Me hero of bottom-basement fantasy."

5. KULL THE CONQUEROR: Easily the worst movie of the summer, but it's almost so much fun (in a "oh goodness, that's *really* bad" sort of way) that I wasn't angry at the movie, unlike -for instance- AIR FORCE ONE.

Typical sword-and-sorcery fare, could have been made for TV without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary. Anachronisms everywhere, with a wholly romantic view of medieval times. (Heroes are muscled, bare-chested, well-fed, oily without being dirty and articulate beyond belief.) The De Laurentis producers (Raphaella and Dino) prove again that they can't make a good heroic fantasy; perhaps they should stop trying. Or at least learn from the camp TV series Hercules and Xena, and put a lot more jokes in the scripts to make everything else palatable. (KULL has four jokes, and the two best are already in the promo.)

If there's one movie to wait for when it'll play on TV, that's the one.

 

6. A few general conclusions...

The biggest problem Hollywood has at the moment is not about acting (which is usually okay-to-great), special effects (marvelous across the board) or set design (again, always great) but that old standby, scripts. And perhaps directing.

I don't have enough of a personal memory for this, but older, more knowledgeable folks have assured me that the problem is getting worse.

Why?

It's not like it's more expensive, more difficult or more time-consuming to write a good script than a bad script. (Well, okay, perhaps more time-consuming; bad scripts can be written by spewing anything over the keyboard for a few hours, and not revising anything.) Where's the problem?

Most probably; the audience, which flocks to theater without expecting more than a series of pretty images and "funny" lines. The producers, for dumbing down everything in hope of reaching the broader audience (after all, we know that if you make a movie for the IQ100+ audience, you're cutting off half the population and probably more than half the movie-going audience...) and not insisting for "one more rewrite" to get everything right. Finally, the writers, for not putting the very best of their word-processor, for not being patient, smart or persistent enough to be able to know what Truth is, or ignoring it "because it's a script."

If there's a special section of the script I'd like to see corrected first, it's the ghastly conclusions. At least two movie this summer almost imploded because of their endings (CONTACT and AIR FORCE ONE), at least two movie had too much of a happy ending (FACE/OFF and MIMIC) and that's without counting the movies that just couldn't end at the right spot and insisted for going on for yet another fifteen minutes (AIR FORCE ONE, FACE/OFF, SPEED II, CON AIR, even THE FIFTH ELEMENT and VOLCANO)

More and more, we're getting some perfect five-minute clips strung together by the frayed thread of a stupid plot (CON AIR, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, THE LOST WORLD... OPERATION CONDOR). Buildup is gone; subtle jokes are being replaced by swearing and one-liners. MTV and attention-span deficit are probably two of the biggest culprits of this summer's most annoying characteristics. (I'll even throw in the decline of the North-American educational system for good measure)

To everyone tired of this situation, I have only one word: Read.

 

7. Best moments

Surprisingly, more than a few best moments of this summer had to do with strange music being played at strange times.

Many impressive pullback shots this summer:

Also...

 

8. Bloopers, scientific errors and general weirdness

It's a well-known fact in hard-SF circles that *all* movies calling themselves "SF" have scientific errors in them. From the banking X-Wings in STAR WARS to the more subtle moving stars in 2001, nobody has Gotten It Right yet, and this summer -as I've been harping all along- never came close, except in the case of CONTACT, which at least tried.

What follows is a (very small, very partial) list of logical incoherencies, scientific errors and non sequiturs in this summer's crop.

Do you *really* want more?

 

9. Life goes on...

Still, we have been lucky: According to my own highly warped personal preferences, there was nothing in 1997's repertoire as offensively bad as INDEPENDENCE DAY. However, as usual, the shiny new cinematic toys we were promised were cheap foreign knockoffs or broke down as we played with them. I think my top three movies (CONTACT, MEN IN BLACK and FACE-OFF) have a chance at more-or-less "classical" status (pop-classical, that is; forgotten in ten years) while THE FIFTH ELEMENT, EVENT HORIZON and CON AIR will enjoy something like a mid-cult-hit status in the few following years. Posterity will have to look elsewhere for long-lasting memories.

Lessons should be learned by Hollywood from this summer, but probably won't; Even as I write these lines, hype is building for 1998's summer movies with names like MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, GODZILLA, ARMAGEDDON, DEEP IMPACT... Everything points toward another repeat of this year, with a whole new 12-month's worth crowd of teenagers and geeks like me, repeatedly sinking money in the stinking pit of the movie industry in the hope that somewhere, sometime, a diamond in the rough will shine brightly.

Either that, or we don't learn from our mistakes either.

The final conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.

 

Christian Sauvé,
September 1997.

 

 

A. Upcoming attractions...

[The following is a Usenet post made with the assistance of the Internet Movie Database. (http://www.imdb.com/) It makes a suitable epilogue to this essay...]

From: ae556@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Christian Sauve)
Newsgroups: ncf.sigs.sci-fiction
Subject: Re: 60 movies
Date: 9 Sep 1997 15:46:17 GMT

Jim Tahara (aj810]at[FreeNet.Carleton.CA) writes:
> Roughly 60 movies will be released by Christmas by the North American Film
> Industry.  I hope the bulk of them will be science fiction, horror,
> thriller, and fantasy.

Frankly, given the state of this year's SF lineup (exception barely made
of CONTACT) I would prefer to see a complete absence of SF&F movies.  But
that will not be and much like lemmings allegedly do, we will flock to the
movie boxes to try to be entertained.

Some movies that titillated my "Moviewatch" sensors:

STARSHIP TROOPERS is probably the heavyweight fall champ:  I've got the
script, and it's loud, juvenile, idiotic and very, very violent.  It will
surprise no one that they completely perverted the ideology of the book.
Call it STARSHIP 90210, STARSHIP BLOOPER, or STARSAPS BLUNDERS, but don't
expect it to be any deeper than fancy SFX.  (November 7th)

ALIEN 4 fares better in the script department, as long as one is expecting
a bug movie.  It reportedly had a very successful test screening, and that
was without the CGI and music.  Could it be possibly any good..?
(November 26th)

GATTACA appeals to me for several reasons:  Soft, quiet SF that's
hopefully smart and devoid of eye candy.  (Unless you consider Uma Thurman
to be eye candy...)  Even the title exhibits signs of a high school
education in biology, so my hopes are up...  (October 24th)

Briefly;

THE PEACEMAKER could appeal to techno-thriller fans among us. (September
26th; I'm gone to Con*Cept, darn!)

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:  Pacino as The Devil?  Perhaps... (October 17th)

DEEP RISING:  LEVIATHAN meets SPEED II?  Woo!  (October 3rd)

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (October 17th), Dean R. Koontz's PHANTOMS
(October 24th) and SCREAM: THE SEQUEL (December 12th), for horror fans...

MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION (November 21st)  I liked the style of the
first one, so maybe...

SPHERE (December 12th):  I hated the book (ends with "let's decide that
the previous 300 pages were meaningless"), I'll boycott the movie.

TOMORROW NEVER DIES (James Bond), HOME ALONE 3, MR. MAGOO and TITANIC go
head-to-head on December 19th.  Heh-heh-heh...

Finally, I'll have to choose between Tarantino's version of Elmore
Leonard's Rum Punch (JACKIE BROWN) and Costner's version of David Brin's
THE POSTMAN on Christmas day...  Why do I have the feeling I'll go see
JACKIE BROWN first?

Well, serves me right for liking movies anyway...

Read Movies of Summer'97: The Parody