Entrapment B 5/1/1999 9pm Secaucus This is a pretty good film if you're a fan of Catherine Zeta-Jones or Sean Connery, which I am. It's also good if you want to see the new Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Aside from that the movie follows a fairly formulatic method of movies about thieves; although I personally think the age difference between the two leads made the romance quite ludicrous. A lot of people made a big deal out of Zeta-Jones slithing her way amongst the laser beams; personally I didn't see what the big deal was. I did however, get a good laugh out of their mainframe computer; basically a serial port and an RJ45 patch panel. Thankfully they didn't have any 9-track tape players; maybe those are finally falling out of style. This movie did however, portray sysadmins in a good light, and for that I give them bonus points. The Mummy A- 5/9/1999 3:30pm Secaucus Great special effects and an excellent cast as well as great direction make for a blockbuster event, and I expect The Mummy to do very well, even though it will have to compete against Star Wars in a couple weeks. I loved seeing the half-naked queen in the beginning; her outfit was a loose black net that revealed her nipples. Closer inspection reveals this to be painted on! Sadly we don't get to see her past the opening, as the rest of the film is rather chaste. There's lots of gunfights and our hero is superbly macho; we may have the next Indiana Jones on our hands. Okay, maybe he's not quite as good as Harrison Ford, but he did very well anyway. What got me though was the bugs. I hate bugs, beetles, etc. The film was filmed with them. I hate being grossed out. Bleah. Election C+ 5/13/99 4:15pm Secaucus Matthew Broderick, in a bizarre twist, plays a stodgy middle-aged high school teacher who has to deal with an upstart student. The student in question is one of those blonde overacheiver ice maidens that everyone hates, and her goal is to win the election for class president. To keep her from total domination, the teacher decides to convince the injured football team captain and all-around goody-goody-two-shoes to run against her. More interestingly, said captain's younger sister is a budding dyke, who is in lust with a girl who has decided she's done experimenting and now wants a real boy-- say, an injured football team captain. Okay, it's all very confused and involved, and had the makings of an excellent film, but I prefer Broderick in a hero role, and every scene with the ice maiden in it was sheer torture: likes nails across a blackboard. Sigh. Black Mask A 5/15/1999 10:15pm East Village Jet Li was simply amazing in Lethal Weapon 4; in this film he completely kicks ass and takes names. This movie has some of the best martial arts combat I have ever seen. It was simply astounding. Produced by Tsui Hark, this film was made in Hong Kong and then dubbed for american release. The result is that the audience was very uncomfortable with the dubbing in places. But aside from that, the film was perfect. Perfectly amazing. Extremly violent and action-packed, with moves I've never seen before. The plot? Genetically enhanced super-soldiers are hiding from the government and preparing the hold the government hostage by hijacking critical data. And our hero, an ex-super-soldier turned librarian, is played by Jet Li. Ching Wan Lau also gave an excellent performance as the hero's friend and local cop; look for him in future films. The Phantom Menace A 5/23/1999 4pm Secaucus Stupidly, this film was only showing in the very few theaters in NYC not controlled by the local Loews monopoly. As a result, Star Wars: Episode I is probably going to be sold out there for weeks. And then in Secaucus, they only showed the film on three screens. What I think would have been really cool is if they had showed it on six or more screens; then there would not have been sell-outs. It's not like anyone was going to see those other stupid films anyway. Okay, as for The Phantom Menace, the special effects are top-notch. The pod race scene simply blows you away, and the droid armies are simply stunning to watch. The gungans were extremely annoying however; like the ewoks in RTJ, I wished that Lucas hadn't gone down that path. A lot of the movie seems to be directed towards small children; there was no romance, no macho Han Solo figure. Just a lot of goofy aliens for kids to laugh at. *Sigh!* The gungans appear to be leftover technology from the Jurassic Park films. Still, it was great to see a young Obi-wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn was excellent, it was a blast to see R2D2 as well. Even C3PO's appearance was quite enjoyable. I'm not sure how they justify introducing the droids in this film when Obi-wan (apparently) doesn't recognize them many decades later, on the same planet, even. Go figure. I was a little disappointed with the spaceships, as the 1990's sleek and curvy style has replaced the bulky machines of the other films. The combat scenes with the jedi knights was outstanding; these guys just totally ruled. Darth Maul was pretty good, too; but I expected more lines from him. Thankfully they didn't cheap out, the film is over two hours long and leaves you begging for more. It's a rush, and definitely worth seeing a few times. The Thirteenth Floor A- 5/30/1999 5pm West New York This is the third movie this year dealing with the subject of virtual reality. From an intellectual point of view, this one gives the best delivery; it's a very smart, almost believeable story. The acting is pretty well done, and the direction is very nice as well. What I didn't like was that the trailer for the film pretty much exposed the whole story; I really hate it when they do that. Also, there's not as much special effects and violence as in The Matrix; this movie is more for the storyline only. Still, they did an excellent job delivering it.