A Perfect Murder C+ 7/3/1998 5:15pm Secaucus Michael Douglas stars in this remake of a Hitchcock classic about a man who discovers his wife's sleeping around with an artist, but the artist is really a con-man in disguise, so he hires the con to kill his wife. One would expect this to be a mystery, or at least a suspenseful drama, but it strictly works by-the-numbers, with no major plot twists or surprises. The dumb thing about it all is that she gets it all-- even though she's guilty of adultery, the film rewards her character. It doesn't make any sense. Armageddon B 7/4/1998 6:30pm Secaucus The first fifteen minutes of this film have the best over-the-top special effects I have ever seen. From the beginning we're told not to take the film too seriously, as a man's dog attacks a collection of godzilla dolls right before the 6' godzilla baloon is hit by a meteor. Watching New York get pounded by a meteor shower was the most impressive display of special effects I've ever seen, even though other films have tried destroying New York this year. The rest of the film drags out too long. It's a combination of "The Wrong Stuff" as they train the drillers, and "Lost in Space" as they play drama on the asteroid. There's simply too many last-minute-saves and too many "heart-strings" being yanked for the whole thing to work right. I yawned a lot in several places, and the whole film was about two and a half hours. Lethal Weapon 4 A 7/11/1998 7pm Secaucus Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are back again, this time with Chris Rock as a junior cop. The guys are feeling a lot older now, and feeling it, and they play this well in the storyline, so it's nice. The Riggs character isn't a psycho like he used to be, so there's no longer a "lethal weapon" really, but hey, I don't mind. The script was hilarious, the action was great, and Jet Li was fabulous as a martial-arts bad guy. Very well done. There's Something About Mary B- 7/17/1998 10pm Edgewater Cameron Diaz plays Mary, a very wacky girl who falls for all sorts of bad guys. I guess she's clueless. Anyway it's by the same guys who brought us Dumb and Dumber, and it's equally gross and disgusting, although some of the scenes will make you howl with laughter. Ah, if only these guys could do that without having to be so disgusting! As for the dramatic elements of the flick, well, none of 'em could act worth a darn, and the direction was crap, so the movie can only be enjoyed for the comic skits. The Mask of Zorro A 7/18/1998 7pm Secaucus Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas play Zorro (the master and the student) in a wonderful tale of old Mexico and their fight against an evil governor there. The action is dynamite, the costumes were great, the special effects and sets were superb, and everything about this movie was just wonderful, except for a couple scenes pandering to baby-lovers. The cast's performance was stellar, with no one stealing the show. People laughed and cheered, and this was probably the best Zorro movie ever. The swordplay and combat scenes were very well staged, too. Saving Private Ryan C 7/26/1998 8:15pm Secaucus Tom Hanks stars as a World War II infantry captain who is assigned to go find one lost soldier in the middle of the war. That's the plot. The movie is an extremely gruesome and "realistic" depiction of what is really like, with more fake blood than you'd see at a Skinny Puppy concert. I think Steven Spielberg just wanted to out-do Platoon, personally. The movie is very successful with the special effects, sets, and gore. However, the end result is not entertaining. Basically you have to sit through three hours of hell, and watching everyone die. This will probably win oscars but I personally was not satisfied that the time was well-spent. Pi A 7/31/1998 5:50pm Angelika Darren Aronofsky's first film is a masterpiece. Shot in black and white, it's simply amazing the power, the strength of the media as it floods over you, overwhelming in its intensity. The soundtrack pushes things along with a biting, throbbing, electric techno beat. Total budget? $60,000. Unbelievable. It's the tale of a twisted, introverted mathematician and programmer, a genius of a man seeking the secret pattern underlying the movements in the stock market, a flighty pattern that always seems to be just beyond his reach. Meanwhile, he befriends a radical jewish guy who seems intent on believing that this same pattern, this sequence of numbers, may also unlock the secrets of the Torah. Also, some black-suit wall street characters are also after him to get the secrets. Meanwhile the research is so intense, that it drives him insane. I personally didn't like the "morals" of the storyline, which make math to be "evil", but otherwise this is one excellent film and I'm sure we're going to be seeing a lot more of Mr. Aronofsky.