Men In Black
A-
7/3/1997 5:30pm Secaucus
Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones play comical secret agents of a very secret
government organization that monitors alien activity on Earth.  Smith is
recently recruited to replace another agent who retired.  He's a bit
reluctant and disbelieving at first at how incredible the whole thing is,
which is understandable.  The movie is quite enjoyable, and short.  In fact,
one gets the feeling that the movie was compressed and edited down to 95
minutes in order to maintain a high density of fun.  However, I felt that
it could have been longer, as some parts may have been missing.  Still, the
bulk of it is there, and the lead actors play off each other extremely well.

Contact
B
7/12/1997 5:45pm Secaucus
Jodie Foster pretends to be a radio astronomer (yeah, right) who listens
to radio signals from outer space.  As an educated person, with a minor
in astrophysics, there were so many things wrong with this movie from a scientific standpoint that I just can't list them all.  When the movie isn't trying
to philosophize about the difference between science and religion (yeah,
right) it actually plays along as a decent sci-fi flick.  The special effects
are good and the story is okay, acceptable as a "feel-good" movie.  If you've
studied astrophysics though, it will just make you mad.

Operation Condor
A-
7/18/1997 7:45pm Secaucus
Jackie Chan returns in another dubbed martial-arts adventure film from
Hong Kong.  In this one, Jackie is searching for a secret gold cache the
Nazis hid in northern Africa.  As usual, the stunts and martial arts are
extremely well choreographed, with Jackie performing his own stunts.  Inside
the Nazi hideout, the movie takes on videogame-like quality, with elaborate
and bizarre sets.  The movie is a lot of fun, with little gore but lots of
violence.

Air Force One
A
7/25/1997 9pm Secaucus
Harrison Ford plays a president with an extreme "get tough on terrorists"
policy who happens to be flying home from Moscow when Air Force One is
hijacked.  The hijackers initially are extremely effective at what they
do, but deteriorate over time.  The stunts and explosions are great, as
are the dogfights.  Ford gives an exceptional performance, as expected.
My favorite disks, MTI Gladiator arrays, were present in three racks, although
why they would need a terabyte of data is beyond me.  Only towards the end
do the special effects start to fall off, but by then the audience has
already given the movie several cheers and rounds of applause (people don't
usually do this).