mutant reviewers from hell spawn...

the  M U T A N T  (not to be confused with "Mulan") #8
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"I visited your  Mutant Reviewers page and i just wanted to drop a note, 
and say yay! I agreed with every review, almost without exception... 
Intelligent reviews, based on what you enjoy, instead of what film 
critics tell you you should like."  - WingsofF8@aol.com

***CORRESPONDANTS DROPPING OUT OF THE SKY

Boosting our reviewing numbers to seven (2 reviewers and 5 
correspondants), we welcome Joe from the Navy and Mark from the UK onto 
our ship.  We promise not to give them wedgies and beatings with bars of 
soap and keelhaul them for the first week!  Their bios is now on the 
bios page (http://www.geocities.com/~aral/rbios.html), along with a new 
pic of Cooter, who looks as bizarre as he writes.

***REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS

It's what you come back for, right?  We hope...

Justin: MALLRATS, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
Andie: TREMORS
Mark: HUDSON HAWK
Joe: CEMETARY MAN

***SUMMER MOVIES, SO FAR...

Okay, okay, if you're like any normal movie-trailer-saturated 
red-blooded weak-willed American, you've been to see Godzilla.  You've 
heard the hype on The Truman Show and decided to check it out.  And you 
are scheduling your great aunt's funeral around the release of 
Armageddon.  

It's open season in Hollywood Land, where the big bucks and the big boys 
come out to play.  However, as the previous summers have shown, bigger 
almost never means better.  Did you suffer through summer 1997 like I 
did?  Wondering why in the name of all that is sacred did they need a 
virtual clone of Jurassic Park?  Wishing everyone aboard the damn Speed 
2 boat would die so you could go do something productive with your life?  
Actually couldn't decide which team to root for in Batman & Robin, since 
the acting was so bad?  Wish Buffy and Jennifer would stick to TV 
instead of trying to remake Scream?

It was a sad, desolate era... summer 1997... of course, there were hits 
among those disappointments.  Men in Black, a cult film in its own 
right, was an instant smash.  Austin Powers, with the ever-flexible Mike 
Myers, still makes us roll with laughter.  Event Horizon, even *with* 
bad acting, scared the poop outta us.  Face/Off was stylistically 
interesting, and The Fifth Element was pure eye candy.

So how will summer 1998 be?  Well, the first big film -- Godzilla -- 
demanded instant castration of the filmmakers.  Or at least the screen 
writers.  So gawdawful that my roommate and I couldn't stop making fun 
of the characters or situations for one minute ("now here's where Ferris 
Beuller steps into Jurassic Park").

But then, things got better.  The Truman Show is terrific, brainy, and 
(gasp, gasp) original.  Dirty Work, a sleeper comedy, is one of the 
funniest films I've seen all year (don't miss roles by Adam Sandler, 
Chris Farley, and Gary Coleman!).  Mulan recovers from the bombing of 
Hercules, and is a gorgeous film with touching and hilarious moments 
(not necessarily at the same time).  The X-Files was a good movie (I 
hesitate to say "great", even though I am a phile), bringing the 
conspiracy successfully to the big screen.

So what do we have to look for?  What are my predictions?  Well, here 
goes:

*Armageddon: The next big summer flick, and most likely to be the best.  
It's been anticipated and promoted, and I think it'll be well worth the 
hype (no risky bet there).  Bruce Willis is da man, and even with a 
sappy romance between Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler (thrown in for all you 
Melrose Place fans), it'll be spectacular.  Destory Earth!

*Lethal Weapon 4: Oh yeah.  OH YEAH.  I've seen some nice, long trailers 
for this, and I predict that it will be better than all but the first 
movie.  It just doesn't seem old, and I could watch these guys (which 
now include the comedian Chris Rock) in many more sequels.

*The Mask of Zorro: Might be good, but I doubt it.  For one thing, 
Antonio Bandares is good for only cannon fodder on cheap romance covers.  
I don't see guys rooting for him at all.  Anthony Hopkins might bring 
the film up a notch, but I think it'll be another "Three Musketeers"...

*Saving Private Ryan.  Tom Hanks.  Stephen Spielburg.  Yes, I think this 
might be a major hit, particularly with family-oriented adults, and 
middle aged women.  I'm looking forward to it mainly because it's the 
first WWII movie out in such a long time.  And it starts with D-Day, you 
can't mess with that!

*Halloween: H20.  I hate the Halloween series (I never really thought 
the first one was all that great, except for the five minute opening 
sequence).  I also find it puzzling that people think Jamie Lee Curtis 
is attractive.  It's a toss-up between suprise hit and bomb, and I go 
with bomb.  Who needs more screaming women?  No, thank you.

*Snake Eyes.  Nicholas Cage was my boy before he ever broke it really 
big with The Rock.  He has wild versitality, and I think that this flick 
should be another action-thinker on the level of The Usual Suspects.  
Sign me up.

*The Avengers.  Okay, it does have a great cast (and Sean Connery will 
always drive out the women to the theaters in droves), but it just 
doesn't sit right.  It's a remake of an old show, and with most remakes, 
there's a substantial chance of mediocrity (Lost in Space, Mission: 
Impossible).  I squint one eye in anticipation.

*Blade.  Wesley Snipes as a comic-book vampire.  It's gotten some great 
press so far, and with the summer lacking any strong superheroes, Snipes 
might actually be it.  

*POSSIBLE CULT HITS:  Aside from all these blockbusters, there's a 
couple films that have potential for low-profile popularity.  Dogma, 
another film from Kevin Smith (Clerks) is opening soon.  Small Soldiers 
looks to be a nice and nasty retro-GI Joe flick that brings us all back 
to our childhood.  And Disturbing Behavior, an X-Files-like flick about 
children being turned into the village of the damned by their parents (a 
children of the corn in reverse, if you will), might be the eeriest 
flick all summer.

Well, that about wraps the summer up... stay tuned for further 
developments!