Dr. Daniel's Movie Emergency - The X-Ray Machine

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"Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too." -- Parnell, Repo Man

THE X-RAY MACHINE

Fever-Pitched Summer Preview

       (May 4, 2000) Well, friends and neighbors, if you couldn't tell by all the yellow pollen on your cars and the sound of power mowers belching blue exhaust and wild onions, it's about that time again. Yes, Summer 2000 is knocking on the door louder than an INS team in Miami. "But wait," I hear you saying out there, "It's barely May, Doc! Are you crazy???"
        No, my chillun, The Doc ain't bonkers, nor has he skipped a page on his Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar. The Suits in LaLaLand have decided to push the Summer Envelope back a little more. As you know, Jaws built us up for the Memorial Day Weekend starting line. Then, ever so gradually, that date has eased further and further back. Things like Twister, Deep Impact, and, yes, The Phantom Menace busted the gate early, and made Summer Movie Season begin somewhere around May 15th. Even that wasn't soon enough, as it turns out, because, in 2000, the Annual Summer Bombardment begins this Friday, May 5, and it don't let up 'til Labor Day.
        We've got somewhere around 140 movies bearing down on our dodecaplexes, and, folks, to say you might need a roadmap for all these twists and turns is an understatement. So, I come to you today bearing an atlas, a thermos of cold black coffee, and a fresh pair of Blue Blockers (as seen on TV.) Hopefully, we'll get through it together. And, just remember, you can trust me. I was the one that whispered the word on Blair Witch last year, don't forget. I'm not gonna steer you wrong....

May: You Sunk My Battlefield!

This Friday has been marked for the first "big" movie of the season. Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe, is a huge-scale action picture set in the days of the Roman Empire, with former Roman general Maximus (Crowe) being betrayed and sent as a slave to the gladiator arena. While I can't help but think "Spartacus with a lot more tricks" about this, it's probably going to score big, if for no other reason than the hype surrounding it. If I had to predict, I'd say one huge weekend and maybe a semi-score on the second weekend. Why the quick drop? Because the very next weekend, we get Scientology guru L. Ron Hubbard's sci-fi epic Battlefield Earth, starring John Travolta. Travolta plays the bad guy, Terl, one of the Psychlos that have conquered the Earth in the year 3000. This one, I cannot predict. It's either going to be phenomenal, or it's gonna suck like a leech. The scale of the movie alone makes it shaky, because the book it's based on is one of a series of about twenty. Are we being set up for a Lucas-like series? Doubtful. This labor of love could hurl Travolta back to the land of "what's-his-name," or, if it hits, it could push him in to the stratosphere of actor-producer.
        It doesn't stop there, though. The same weekend Battlefield debuts, Disney opens up Dinosaur, a computer-animated story of an orphaned dinosaur near the end of the big creatures' existence on Earth. Major bankrolling here, and, by the looks of the trailer, it should be fantastic to look at. Question is, will the story support the amazing look of the film, or is this going to be all style and no substance? One telling thing about the confidence level of Disney? There seems to be very little Dinosaur merchandise out in stores right now. When Disney floods the market with merchandise weeks before the movie even opens, it's a danger sign that they need to dump most of the stuff before the film comes out and ruins the demand for it. For example, they flooded the market in early May for Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Both films were big box office disappointments for the Mouse. They held back until two weeks prior to opening for Tarzan. It scored very well.
        Then comes Memorial Day -- the "official" start of summer. And who better than Tom Cruise to escort it in. His much-delayed and much-anticipated Mission: Impossible 2 kicks off that weekend, and before you dismiss this one as "just another sequel", let me lay a name on you. John Woo. John Woo is THE reigning master of action pictures, having laid waste to all competitors in his decades of work in Hong Kong, and recently making his mark in the U.S. with Face/Off. The odds are in our favor here, and the only point to ponder is this - did Cruise let Woo direct, or did he screw things up trying to "help?" If I was a betting man -- and I am -- I'd say this thing is going to be more complex than before, if that's possible, and be laced with some phenomenal stunts and action sequences. Will it last through the summer? Not on your Nellie....
        May also brings us the return of Kim Basinger to the screen, in I Dreamed of Africa, a biopic of wildlife activist Kuki Gallmann. This will be amazing for the photography, especially since director Hugh Hudson knows how to frame a scene for maximum art. I doubt the story is going to live through the opening weekend though; it opens head to head with Gladiator. Also arriving this month is Jackie Chan and the ever-delicious Lucy Liu in (get this now) a martial-arts/western called Shanghai Moon. Somehow, the MTV generation managed to sneak their movie, Road Trip, starring Tom Green, into the only May weekend that no HUGE picture is opening, so it may score big, but alas, it's hit-and-run box-office at best. And, well, I'd tell you to look for Woody Allen's new film, Small Time Crooks, if you want something besides Tom Green's "Animal House 2000," but knowing Woody's track record lately, you'll have to hire a detective to find a local theatre that's actually showing it. Whew! And we're just beginning!

June: I Dream of Irene

June starts calmly for a change. Of course, being summer, you've got to have a dose of Napalm Jerry. Bruckheimer, that is. This year, he's reteaming with The Rock's Nic Cage, in a remake of the '74 cult film Gone in 60 Seconds, the story of a pair of car-stealing brothers (Cage and Giovanni Ribisi). Now, word is that the Bruckheimer went mad in this one, and the action scenes are bigger than ever. Expect a lot of loud tire sounds and at least three good explosions. All we're missing is Michael Bay and one cool psycho role. Oh, there's a major league animated film called Titan A.E. opening June 16th, and it might be pretty cool. It's about a teenager trying to save the human race from being wiped out by a band of evil aliens (uhhhh...L. Ron Hubbard, should we start the lawsuit now?). Fox loaded their whole animation department onto this one, to the tune of some $55 million. Problem is, this is the studio that also went whole-hog with Anastasia, and it flopped bigger than New Coke. If they pull this off, it'll save Fox's hide, animation-wise, but if this one buys it quick, it'll sign the death certificate for anything in the way of big-scale animation in the future. If I honestly had to predict the weekend of the 16th, I'd say all the major money goes to the John Singleton update of Shaft. Retro is big now, and Shaft has always been cool. Adding Samuel L. Jackson as the lead only ups the cool ante.
June 23 is when the firestorm is going to kick in. The Farrelly Brothers and Jim Carrey team up again for Me, Myself, and Irene, and, if history can be predicted, this will be big. Jim's name alone is enough of a box office draw, but after There's Something About Mary, the Farrellys are HOT! Add that to the fact that these three teamed once before on a little ditty called Dumb and Dumber, and I can already hear the cash registers ringing.

July: Great X-pectations

Fourth of July weekend arrives sans Will Smith, but there's no shortage of stars or big pictures. Three big ones all at once, starting June 30th. The Perfect Storm, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, tells the true story of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat that endured a Force 12 gale off the coast of Newfoundland. For those of you unfamiliar with a Force 12 gale, let's just say it's like Twister -- only a lot wetter. Fighting against The Perfect Storm is The Patriot, Mel Gibson's American Revolution saga. For lack of a better description, think of a pissed-off George Washington going Mad Max on the British Army. Redcoats are gonna roll. This one should be good 'cause it returns Gibson to his butt-kickin' best, and is brought to the screen by the team of Devlin and Emmerich. D & E floored us with Independence Day, and after the limp Godzilla, they've got to something to prove. The one that's got me really wrinkled with anticipation is the live-action version of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. The moose and the squirrel are still animated, of course, but Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader are as alive as you and me. Jason Alexander and Rene Russo as Boris and Natasha, and -- brace yourself -- Robert De Niro as Fearless Leader! An underrated comedian, De Niro should help put this one over the top. How will it fare on the big holiday weekend? Well, you gotta throw the kids somewhere while you go see Mel or Clooney, right?
Another week into July, and the summer is really going to explode. On July 14, Twentieth Century Fox releases X-Men, the first of a planned series of films based on the Marvel Comic. This movie, people, should be THE movie of the summer. The Internet has been buzzing this thing almost as hard as it did for Phantom Menace, and, truthfully, people like me that are fans of the comic book have been waiting for this thing for years. The story is a simple one. There's a race of mutants in the world, and some of them use their powers for good, some for evil. Dr. Xavier (Patrick Stewart) teaches the good ones how to use their power for beneficial purposes. Magneto (Ian McKellan) leads the evil brood. Let the war commence. The other one that should be huge (literally) is the sequel to The Nutty Professor. Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps takes the Klump Family (all played by Eddie Murphy) through the paces of getting ready for Sherman's wedding. This one evolved from those hilarious dinner table scenes from the first Professor, and with Murphy metamorphosing into all seven roles, I just don't see how it can lose. On the comedy front, it may be the only thing to compete with the Farrellys this summer.
Two other July offerings should rise above the dodecaplex din. Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer star in the psychological thriller What Lies Beneath. As I understand it, the couple is being haunted by the spirit of a girl that Ford may have had an affair with before she killed herself. Director Robert Zemeckis is trying to keep a lid on the plot details, which leads me to believe he may have some Sixth Sense-style plot-twists in the offing. We'll see, I guess, but Ford's track record away from the action genre is spotty. Anyone even see that thing he did with Kristen Scott Thomas? It only stayed here in Carver Point for a week. John Travolta has another summer film, but this one doesn't even have a firm title yet. It was working under the name Numbers, but that's being changed. Anyway, the story has John playing a down-on-his-luck TV weatherman seduced by the local lottery girl (Lisa Kudrow) in an effort to rig the big payoff. Reteaming Travolta with Michael-director Nora Ephron is a good thing, but that name-change deal and the lack of pre-release information is a bit unsettling.

August: Green Bagger

August should be an interesting month too, because it's shaping up into an "Old Hollywood vs. New Hollywood" fight. The first big thing in August is called Space Cowboys, and the cast alone makes it sound worth seeing. Clint Eastwood directs and stars with Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner, and Donald Sutherland. The four play old Air Force vets recruited to go into space to defuse a deadly Cold War-era satellite. If he pulls this off, Clint may do more for our elders than John Glenn. The same weekend, another Hollywood vet, Robert Redford, releases his latest directorial effort, The Legend of Bagger Vance. This thinking man's story, starring Matt Damon and Will Smith, does for golf what A River Runs Through It did for fly-fishing. It takes a simple pastime and uses it as a metaphor for life. Now, while this departs somewhat from the typical summer formula, it should be a welcome release from being blown up, run over, and set on fire. Also keep your eyes open for the new Keanu Reeves movie, The Replacements. This is a no-FX story of a bunch of scrub football players who become starters in the NFL after a players strike. On the funny front, Austin Powers director Jay Roach teams with Ben Stiller for Meet the Parents. Stiller tries to rebound from the disappointments of Mystery Men and Keeping the Faith with this comedy about a young man challenged to make a good first impression at his girlfriend's house, in the face of an intimidating dad played with menacing zeal by one Robert De Niro. Late in the month, James Van Der Beek and Dylan McDermott saddle up for Texas Rangers, yet another big-screen story about vengeance and justice in the Old West. And, for some reason, Chuck Norris is nowhere to be found.

Still At The Lab: Splitting Cell

Now, let's run down the movies you may never get to see -- two of them, as a matter of fact. First off, a film called The Cell will open in August. This one stars Jennifer Lopez as a scientist who is working with investigators to find a kidnapping victim. A serial killer, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, is in a coma, and in order to find his victim-to-be, Lopez uses state-of-the-art science to project herself into his mind. If this sounds tame, let me tell you why you may never see it. The totally twisted violence that director Tarsem (yes, just one name) has put on film has it in jeopardy of catching an NC-17 rating. If this happens, no theatre will carry it, and you'll have to go hunting an "art house" theatre in order to see it. Same for Cecil B. DeMented, the latest John Waters film. I love John Waters' films, but they have such a reputation behind them that few mainstream movie houses will carry them for more than a week at best. This one concerns a renegade film director who kidnaps a Hollywood starlet for use in his latest underground epic. Good luck on both of these.
        And the moment you've all been waiting for: my Sleeper Picks of the Summer! Yes, I'm still bragging about calling the Blair Witch phenomenon before it happened.
        This year, keep a special ear tuned for four films. The first, The Hollow Man, stars Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue. Paul Verhoeven, of Starship Troopers fame/infamy, brings us the story of a scientist (Bacon) who has invented an invisibility formula and, despite a hundred movie warnings, has tried it on himself. With a good push from the studio, it might turn a few heads. Likewise, a film called I Was Made to Love Her, starring Chris Rock and directed by the Weitz Brothers (American Pie) might sneak into some top ten lists. Believe it or not, this is a remake of Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait. Rock plays a flop comic who gets hit by a bus and winds up in a white millionaire's body by accident. This could be up for a title change, so you may have to read a few ads to find the story, but with Rock's star on the rise, as well as the Weitz's, this one may break through.
        The other two are as different as night and day, but both hold some potential. Imposter stars Gary Sinise and Vince D'Onofrio in a film version of a Philip K. Dick story. (If you think you've heard of Dick before, you have; he wrote the story that Blade Runner was based on.) Imposter concerns a man suspected of being an alien spy in the year 2075, and D'Onofrio is the officer assigned to track him down. Think Blade Runner meets The Fugitive. Anyway, this was originally intended to be a short film, a 40-minute part of a sci-fi trilogy, but after Miramax head Bob Weinstein saw the dailies, he commanded director Gary Fleder to expand it into a full-length feature. When a Weinstein commands like that, something has to be good somewhere. And, in Disney's The Kid, Bruce Willis plays a 40-something smartass who finds his more agreeable side after coming face-to-face with himself as an eight-year-old kid (Spencer Breslin). It may sound a bit schmaltzy, sort of a new-wave It's a Wonderful Life, but with Jon Turteltaub (Phenomenon and While You Were Sleeping) directing, and Willis at the forefront, I predict some major staying power. Nobody does sentimental movies better than Jon does, and if Willis doesn't have the patent on playing a smartass, who does?
        So, friends and neighbors, there you have it. It's not going to be a Wild Wild West summer, with one film wasting some $180 million on mechanical spiders and no script. The MegaBusters just aren't as common this year. And, why, you may ask? Simple. Last year proved that MegaBuck doesn't mean MegaMovie. Things are pared down, and, wonder of wonder, there are actually some scripts here. Now all we have to do is sit back and see whether this new philosophy works.
        Have fun, kiddies, and, don't forget, sunblock is everything. And the best sunblock of all is the roof of a dodecaplex and a haze of burnt popcorn smoke. Enjoy Summer 2K, and I'll talk atcha later!

Get "reel" soon!

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