1)TITANIC (1997) *****   
Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Bill Paxton, Gloria Stuart, Kathy Bates   
Written and Directed by:  James Cameron   
Tagline:  Collide with Destiny; Nothing on Earth Could Come Between Them   
Synopsis: Story begins when a modern day treasure hunter (Paxton) who tries to find a sunken gem on board Titanic and then shifts to the story as told from the standpoint of a 101 yeard old survivor (Stuart), who appears to know where the treasure is...Story then takes us to 1912 when starcrossed lovers Jack Dawson(DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater(Winslet) began a romance across social classes, time and space...what follows is a stirring mixture of fact and fiction that allows the audience to understand how and why the Titnaic met its doom (without getting bored) and how the best love one can ever get does not have to last with physical togetherness for a lifetime, but being blessed with THE moment(s) counted the most...   
Review:What can we say about the most expensive film in history?   It surpasses its predessor, 1995’s “Waterworld,” not only in terms of its budget, but also with the expectations and cinematic achievements.  Director James Cameron has crafted a gem of a motion picture that is at once tenacious and tender, one that gripped this audience for 3 hours without once having the urge to see his watch...I was skeptic before seeing it because everybody knows how it ends, the ship sinks and kills more than half of those on board. Solid all around performances from everyone and Di Caprio shakes off his arrogance and uneven performances in the past, Winslet continues her brilliant list of works with this one and Cameron churns out what is destined to be his first Best Director trophy.  Oscars are sure to embrace this epic and I predict at least 8 nominations and 5 wins.   
   

2)IN AND OUT (1997) ***   
Starring : Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack, Tom Selleck, Bob Newhart, Debbie Reynolds, Wilform Brimley, Matt Dillon   
Written by:  Paul Rudnick   
Directed by:  Frank Oz   
Tagline:  an out-and-out comedy   
Synopsis:  Three days before getting married, small town teacher Howard Brackett (Kline) was “outed” by a former student-turned-Oscar-winner (Dillon) on National TV.  As surprised as the world around him, his life goes into a tailspin as students, friends and family begin to question his every move in relation to his sexuality, while the media turns the spotlight on him.  All hell breaks loose on his wedding day.  Is he or isn’t he?   
Review:   Uneven but funny.  Best parts were how they poked fun on Hollywood with the whole fake Oscars Ceremony.  Kline did an excellent job, as did Cusack and Dillon, doing his perfect Johnny Depp/Brad Pitt impersonation.  Second half grows weary on the audience and is evidently a working of cuts and re-cuts as ordered by the Studio and the filmmakers.  This throws the entire movie off track and if not for spirited performances by the actors, this movie would have just been another mediocre farce.   
   

3)BEAN (1997) **1/2   
Starring:  Rowan Atkinson, Peter McNichol   
Written by:  Richard Curtis   
Directed by:  Mel Smith   
Tagline:  Yes, all that you’ve heard about him is true; the ultimate disaster movie.   
Synopsis:  The disastrously wacky Mr. Bean was set up by his colleagues at the Royal Museum of Arts in england, dispatched to the States unwittingly as an art scholar.  The patented madcap escapade ensues.  Should have been titled “Mr. Bean Goes to Hollywood.”   
Review:  It was an interesting test if the boob tube character will translate well into the big screen...well, in my opinion, it didn’t.  Atkinson was at his best and had to inevitably gave Mr. Bean a speaking voice, but the plot was flimsy and self centered at best.  Worldwide box office was phenomenally good, though.   
   

4)IL CICLONE (1996) ****   
Starring:  Lorena Forteza, Leonardo Pireccioni   
Written and Directed by:  Leonardo Pieraccioni   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: Naive Tuscany accountant Levante sees his small town life blown away by what he termed a “cyclone,” a metaphor for a downtrodden Flamenco Dance Troupe who stayed with his family for a few days one summer.  As he and the rest of the town gets smitten and electrified by the dancers, they become involved in a funny and heary warming adventure into their hearts.   
Review:  Enchanting and unpretentious, makes you forget the pains of reading subtitles.  Forteza, as the lead dancer in the troupe, was among the pretties to mesmerize the silver screen in a while.  Humor was evident despite language barriers and every actor in the movie performed well.   
   
   
5)JACKAL (1997) **1/2   
Starring:  Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier, Diane Venora, Mathilda May   
Written by:  Chuch Pfarrer (from Day of the Jackal script by Kenneth Ross)   
Directed by:  Michael Caton-Jones   
Tagline:  Catch the Jackal!!!   
Synopsis:  Worldwide search for The Jackal (Willis) ends in DC where the terrorist takes an assignment from the Russisan Mafia to bump off an important government figure.  Decland Mulqueen(Gere), an IRA terrorist was freed from prison specifically to stop his plans.   
Review:  Strictly by-the-numbers and lack surprise.  Gere looked bored with a detectably phony Irish accent while Bruce have fun with wigs.  Nothing special here though production is solid.  Stellar cast is wasted by flimsy material.   
   

6)KISS THE GIRLS (1997) ***   
Starring:  Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Cary Elwes, Tony Goldwyn   
Written by:  David Klass (from a James Patterson novel)   
Directed by:  Gary Fleder   
Tagline: A detective is searching for a deadly collector. His only hope is the woman who got away.   
Synopsis:  D.C. Forensic Psychologist Alex Cross (Freeman) finds himself in the Research Triangle when his niece winds up one of several young, pretty women in the area missing without a trace.  When one of the women Kate Tiernan (Judd) swings free, she becomes his ally in identifying the captor, a man fatally obssessed with becoming the greatest lover, Casanova.   
Review:  A Seven wannabe that isn’t quite successful in a lot of ways.  Script as translated into film is a little loose and off-focus at times.  Cast was exactly as described in the Patterson novel except for Freeman appears a little too old as the lead.  Movie suffers from not having enough time to flesh out the most thrilling aspect in the novel --- two criminals operating and competing with each other from both ends of the coast.   
   

7)GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997) ****1/2   
Starring:  Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, Minnie Driver, Stellan Skarsgard   
Written by:  Matt Damon and Ben Affleck   
Directed by:  Gus Van Sant   
Tagline: Wildly charismatic. Impossibly brilliant. Totally rebellious. For the first 20 years of his life, Will Hunting  has called the shots. Now he's about to meet his match.   
Synopsis: MIT Janitor cum Boston Southie tough guy Will Hunting (Damon) is a mathematical genius who siphoned knowledge without spending a fortune in big colleges.  When his talen was discovered, he was put through therapy and math sessions when all he wanted was to remain who he is.   
Review: Subdued, quiet, emotionally powerful and a genuine delight.  Damon and Affleck put together a sweet script based on their old neighborhood.   The story is able to stay afloat of a sea of similar background stories (Little Man Tate, Phenomenon) and stand out wiht its own identity.  Williams and Driver have their moments in the movie as supporting cast.  This film is likely Van Sant’s most positive movie so far.  Altogether a lovely piece of work with memorable dialogues and endearing performances, specially Damon’s.   
   

8)CHASING AMY (1997) ***1/2   
Starring:  Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee   
Written and Directed by:  Kevin Smith   
Tagline: It's not who you love. It's how.  Sex is easy. Love is hard.   
Synopsis:  Slacker comic artist Holden McNeill (Affleck) meets the girl of his dreams, only problem is Alyssa Jones (Adams) is a lesbian.  Then comes the idiosyncracies of a relationship between the two, intertwined with a strain on  McNeill’s friendship/partnership with fellow comic artist Banky Edwards (Lee).   
Review: Witty and funny, catches conventional romantic-comedy viewers off guard with its vulgarity but comes off with a charisma all of its own.  Lee gets all the funniest lines while Adams and Affleck swap thoughtful and romantic prose with each other throughout the movie.  Ending bummed a little bit though middle was pretty good.  This may be Kevin Smith’s most commercial work to date.   
 

9)TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997) **1/2   
Starring:  Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Pryce, Teri Hatcher   
Written by:  Bruce Fierstein   
Directed by:  Roger Spottiswoode   
Tagline: Yesterday is a memory, today is history, tomorrow is in the hands of one man: Bond...You know the rest!   
Synopsis: Secret Agent 007 teams up with a Chinese counterpart as they race to stop media magnate Elliot Carver (Pryce) from triggering a world war and replace the current world order.   
Review: Yet another by-the-book James Bond movie with dashing Brosnan doing a fine job.  New Bond girl Yeoh is just about the fiercest gal 007 has ever fallen for, and Pryce the most realistic villain (partly reminds me of Rupert Murdoch).  However, props and weapons still unrealistic for Bond and the movie though better than the 17th installment Goldeneye, still falls somewhat short of expectation from a franchise that has stretched to 18 installments.   
   

10)ABSOLUTE POWER (1997) ***   
Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Scott Glenn, Judy Davis, Dennis Haysbert   
Written by:  William Goldman   
Directed by:  Clint Eastwood   
Tagline:  Corrupts Absolutely.   
Synopsis: Master thief Luther Whitney (Eastwood) stumbles upon a presidential love affair turned sour one night and witnesses the murder of a socialite by bodyguards.  As he finds himself framed an implicated for the crime, he must find a way to prove his innocence and keep the secret service’s gunfire out of reach in the process.   
Review: Predictable yet enjoyable.  Harris as a stern DC detective and Eastwood as the aging thief are solid if unspectacular, and so much can be made out of the best selling thriller (by David Baldacci) that is to follow many more presidential scandals coming out this year.   
   

11)REPLACEMENT KILLERS (1998) **   
Starring:  Chow Yun Fat, Mira Sorvino, Kenneth Tsang, Michael Rooker, Jürgen Prochnow   
Wriiten by:  Ken Sanzel   
Directed by:  Antoine Fuqua   
Tagline:  Kill or be Replaced   
Synopsis: Assassin John Lee (Chow) is in an unnamed town paying off a debt with three assignments.  He could not pull the trigger on the last one and fears for his own safety as well as that of his family’s in Shanghai.  Passport forger Meg Coburn (Sorvino) is unwittingly caught in the crossfire and mayhem ends in a bloody showdown in chinatown   
Review: Chow’s first attempt at international stardom fizzles miserably as material was underdeveloped and direction contrived.  Screenwriter and Director made it difficult to empathize with the characters, and have a claer idea of the storyline.   
   

12)ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997) ***   
Starring:  Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Michael Wincott, Raymond Cruz   
Written by:  Joss Whedon   
Directed by:  Jean-Pierre Jeunet   
Tagline:  Witness the Resurrection   
Synopsis: Ellen Ripley is back from the dead and George Romero has nothing to do with it.  She was resurrected through DNA samples as a by product of an attempt to recreate the Alien species.  A ship of pirates were bringing in a package to the military vessel conducting the experiments and is trapped in a bloody trail to escape the Alien species who have broken out of their containers.   
Review:  Rather tedious effort to resurrect the franchise after a botched third installment, it is admittedly better but rather pointless and predictable at times.  Winona as a robot programmed to save humankind is a refreshing addition and Jeunet’s pirate characters are amusing and well acted.  Alien effects well done but all in all not memorable as a motion picture.   
   
   

13)KRIPPENDORF’S TRIBE (1998) **1/2   
Starring:  Richard Dreyfuss, Jenna Elfman, Lily Tomlin   
Written by:  Charlie Peters   
Directed by:  Todd Holland   
Tagline:  The last undiscovered tribe is about to expose themselves.   
Synopsis: Professor James Krippendorf took a US$ 10,000 grant to search for the last undiscovered tribe of New Guinea, but spent the money after his colleague-wife’s death before finding any tribesmen at all.  Now faced with the task of covering up for this action, he makes up a tribe named after the first syllables of his kids’ names and asked them to play tribespeople for him on video.  Then the lies spin out of control like any typical high concept comedies go.   
Review:  Interesting premise is ruined by a script full of holes.  Details were unexplicably missing thus making some plot and character rather one dimensional.  Dreyfuss ekes out a half-hearted performance while Tomlin was hardly visible at all.  Elfman is sure to get more fans with her eager acting and some of the jokes, though funny, get a little too green for comfort, borderline offensive.   
   

14)SHALL WE DANCE (1996)***1/2   
Starring:  Koji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka   
Written and Directed by:  Masayuki Suo   
Tagline: He's an overworked accountant. She's an accomplished dancer. Passion is about to find two unlikely partners.   
Synopsis: Straight-as-arrow accountant (Yakusho) decided to set aside the male pride and learn how to dance when he spots a beatueous instructor (Kusakari) from the transit train.  He keeps it a secret from the family whom he had worked so hard for, and from his colleagues who would find this behavior of a Japanese man laughable.  Soon he learns about the art and joy of dancing and a renewed vigor to take life as it is.   
Review: What a charming little ditty from Japan.  Actors were fit to a T in their roles and the blend of comedy and drama was smooth and unforced.   
   

15)MOUSEHUNT(1997)***   
Starring:  Nathan Lane, Lee Evans, Vicki Lewis, Christopher Walken   
Written by:  Adam Rifkin   
Directed by:  Gore Verbinski   
Tagline:  Who’s Hunting Who   
Synopsis: As part of their inheritance from their deceased father, the Smuntz get a broken down string factory and an even more dilapitated old house.  When they find out that the house is worth a fortune (by virtue of architecture by a legend), they try to fix it and get rid of a mouse who outwit them in every single way.   
Review: This Man vs. Rodent movie employs great visual effects and slapstick humor with gusto.  Lane was his usal funny self and the mouse (actually 60 mice) was ver effective as a prankster until about an hour into the movie and the freshness wears off.  Good ending saved it and it’s still a definite recommendable comedy.   

16)THE GAME (1997) ***   
Starring:  Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger   
Written by:  John D. Brancato, John D. Ferris, Andrew Kevin Walker (uncredited)   
Directed by:  David Fincher   
Synopsis: Nick Van Orton (Douglas) is a business tycoon who has everything, except happines and a sense of life contained.  In comes his borther Conrad (Penn) whom he hadn’t met in years with a birthday gift for him.  Nick turned 48, the age when his father suddenly jumped to his death without any warning.  The gift concerns a mysterious game that had him racing for his life while solving for mysteries that lead to even more puzzles to solve.   
Review: Keeps you hooked and wanting to know how it ends, then gives you a resolution that is all too unstaisfying.  Fincher did a good job, however, of maintaining a dark, moody suspense feeling throughout the film.  One can only suspect if studio execs and test scores had a hand in chainging the ending of the film.   
   

17) AS GOOD AS IT GETS (1997) ****1/2   
Starring:  Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, Cuba Gooding, Jr.   
Written by:  James L. Brooks and Mark Andrus   
Directed by:  James L. Brooks   
Tagline: Brace yourself for Melvin. A comedy from the heart that goes for the throat.   
Synopsis: Obssessive-Compulsive disorder poster boy Marvin Udall (Nicholson) is a best selling novelist who cannot help but be weird and acid tounged with the people around him.  By twist of fate, he finds himself playing integral roles in the lives of his gay neighbor Simon (Greg) and favorite resrtaurant waitress cum working single mom Carol (Hunt).  In the process, he breaks out of his shell, tries to be a “better person,” and wins her heart.   
Review: As good as romantic comedies get when it comes to acting.  Nicholson makes you feel as if there will not be a better interpretation in the world than his for this role.  Movie is plain, simple, straightforward sans all the fanfare and makes you smile and laugh from the bottom of your heart.  Screenplay, though good, lacks punch comapred to “Good Will Hunting” or “Jerry Maguire.”  Should net Nicholson as best actor win.   
   
18) I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997) ***1/2   
Starring:  Freddie Prinze, Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sara Michelle Gellar, Ryan Philippe   
Written by:  Kevin Williamson   
Directed by:  Jim Gillespie   
Tagline: If you're going to bury the truth, make sure it stays buried.  Someone knows their secret, someone knows they're scared, and someone knows what they did last summer.   
Synopsis: 4 teens celebrating high school graduation accidentally runs over a pedestrian in a remote road.  Too scraed to turn themselves in, they decided to dump the body in the harbour nearby and swore never to mention it again.  After one year, they get anonymous warnings about the incident as someone is out to kill them off one by one.   
Review: Teen thriller formula reinvented by Kevin Williamson wasn’t as much “fun” as “Scream” was, but passable entertainment nonetheless.  Good while it lasted but by no means memorable or worth going back to see again.   
   

19) DOUBLE TEAM (1997) *1/2   
Starring:  Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman, Mickey Rourke   
Written by:  Don Jakoby, Paul Mones   
Directed by:  Tsui Hark   
Tagline: They Don't Play by the Rules.   
Synopsis: Jack Quinn (Van Damme) is a top agent who was brought back from retirement to get terrorist Stavros (Rourke), he fails in his mission and was taken to a place where all disgraced agents are taken known as the Colony.  He escapes to team up with a weird weapons expert (Rodman) to find his wife and son, who were abducted by Stavros.   
Review: Tsui’s foray into Hollywood hits a snag with this debut.  Script was full of pretending-to-be-funny one liners that never quite hit the mark when delivered by amateur Rodman and talent-less Van Damme.  Action sequences reminiscent of Woo and Tsui’s own HK work but just does not look original enough.   
   

20) MR. MAGOO (1997) *   
Starring:  Leslie Nielsen, Kelly Lynch, Nick Chinlund, Miguel Ferrer, Ernie Hudson, Stephen Tobolowsky   
Written by:   Pat Proft and Tom Sherohman   
Directed by:  Stanley Tong   
Tagline:  The eighth bluner of the world   
Synopsis: Vegetable magnate Quincy Magoo (Nielsen) is a chronic near sighted, hearty fella who just plain refuses to wear glasses, and thus the adventures he goes through everyday with his lack of vision.  Story tracks a stolen jewel and Magoo’s attempts to recover it.   
Review: Awful action comedy wannabe never succeeds in becoming either.  Even Tong’s penchant for imaginative stunts can’t save this one from going down the drain.  Only redeemable portion is Tong’s trademark with his HK films, including off takes of the movie.   
   
   
21) FALLEN (1998) **1/2   
Starring:  Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, Embeth Davidtz   
Written by:  Nick Kazan   
Directed by:  Gregory Hoblit   
Tagline: Don't trust a soul.   
Synopsis: Detective John Hobbes (Washington) has just witnessed the execution of the worst criminal he caught, only the spirit is that of an evil angel who inhibits body hosts and kill to bring down “babylon.”   
Review: Supernatural thriller directed by LA Law vet Hoblit looked very much fitted to the small screen.  The cahse wasn’t as exciting and the resolution wasn’t as satisfying like most successful thrillers work.  Watching “The Devil’s Advocate” prior to this makes me think twice if Satan owns major stock at WB.   
   

22) RED CORNER (1997) ***1/2   
Starring:  Richard Gere, Bai Ling, Byron Mann, Tsai Chinn, James Hong   
Written by:  Robert King   
Directed by:  Jon Avnet   
Tagline:  Severity to all who Resist   
Synopsis: Entertainment lawyer nears a satellite deal in China, carries on an affair with a model and then finds her dead next morning.  As he is embroiled in a frame-up and hopelessly subjected to a system that runs opposite to the American way of Presumed Innocence of all accused until proven guilty, he now must depend his life on a gritty lawyer to unravel the conspiracy and get him out of certain death.   
Review: Gere seemed miscast and efforts to speak Chinese, though sincere and commedable, often turn out funny.  Bai Ling displayed good acting with her turn as the lawyer with the nerves of steel.  Production Designer Richard Sylbert proves to all and sundry why he has achieved the living legend status in his line of work.  Good courtroom drama but attempts to link an emotional bond between lawyer and client never took off.   
   

23) MALLRATS (1996) ***   
Starring:  Jason Lee, Shannon Doherty, Jeremy London, Claire Forlani, Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck   
Written and Directed by:  Kevin Smith   
Tagline: Get Malled.  It's mall or nothing.  They're not there to work...they're not there to shop...they're just there.   
Synopsis: One day in the lives of a group of New Jersey youngsters who hang out in shopping malls to spend their spare time.  Not much story to tell here.   
Review: Smith displays once again his talent for funny dialogues by packing a script-ful of punchlines.  Some may find the movie uneven, shallow and unnecessary but most of the time it’s just a group of young kids delivering funny lines.  Acting is admittedly inconsistent among cast members but Lee kicked off his role of being the funny guy, which was a streak he continued with “Chasing Amy.”   
 

24) DESPERATE MEASURES  (1998)**1/2   
Starring:  Michael Keaton, Andy Garcia, Marcia Gay Harden   
Written by:  David Klass   
Directed by:  Barbet Schroeder   
Tagline: His son needs a DNA donor to live. The clock is ticking. The only match is a vicious killer. Now all Frank Conner has to do is catch him.   Desperate times call for. . .   
Synopsis: SFPD detective Frank Conner is faced with a difficult decision, needing to stop a dangerous criminal from running berserk, and needing to keep the same maniac alive for his son’s bone marrow transplant.   
Review: Schroeder is on a streak, another sleep inducer though pace picked up the moment Keaton breaks loose.  Keaton was not able to successfully distinguish his character from the other psychotic geniuses that came before him and Garcia is typecast as the tormented detective.  Pretty good stunt scenes towareds the end though.   
   

25) THREE OF HEARTS (1994) ***1/2   
Starring:  William Baldwin, Sherilyn Fenn, Kelly Lynch, Joe Pantoliano   
Written by:  Mitch Glazer and Adam Greenman   
Directed by:  Yurek Bogayeviscz   
Tagline:  Three Wild Hearts, One Sexy Romantic Comedy   
Synopsis: Connie (Lynch) hires an escort service valentino (Baldwin) to tease and break the heart of her ex-girlfriend (Fenn), so that she can regain her on the rebound.  Things get complicated as the predator falls in love with his supposed prey, and wants out of the escort service agency to change his life for her.   
Review: Baldwin and Lynch showed strong performances in this romantic comedy with a twist.  Subplot involving mobsters was unnecessary and might have been better if more interactions bewteen the three was written in its stead.   
   

26) THE FULL MONTY (1997) ***1/2   
Starring:  Robert Carlyle   
Written by:  Simon Beaufoy   
Directed by:  Peter Cattaneo   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: Unemployed Sheffield steel workers decide to strip for cash.  They find resistance from within first and almost abandonned their plans until the whole town bought the idea and they decided to go for it.  Title is an English slang for “going all the way.”   
Review: Carlyle displays acting range totally diverse from “Trainspotting.”   Bittersweet farce touches on the pains of divorce, alimonies, suicide and most of the time, unemployment.  Very funny at times and never loses meaning or sense of purpose, only fly in the ointment is its abrupt ending which halted the entire momentum in one strip scene.   
   

27) AMISTAD (1997) ***1/2   
Starring:  Matthew McConnaughey, Djimon Honsou, Morgan Freeman, Stellan Skarsgard, David Paymer, Anthony Hopkins, Pete Posthlewaite   
Written by:   
Directed by:  Steven Spielberg   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: A landmark event in the 18th Century when a mutiny in the Spanish slave ship La Amistad resulted in African slaves held captive taking over, then sailing aimlessly into American shores where they were tried for murder.  Lawyers which included former President John Quincy Adams defended them.   
Review: Star studded cast and sure handed direction from Spielberg were almost good enough to cover the preachy script.  Cinematography was stunning and the whole film is a visual spectacle, Hopkins was a delight as usual and Honsou as the slave leader Cinqué was fantastic.   
   

28) SPHERE (1998) **   
Starring:  Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Liev Schreiber, Peter coyote, Queen Latifah   
Written by:  Paul Attanasio   
Directed by:  Barry Levinson   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: A team of experts were hastily put together and sent on a deep sea dive to study a vessel found there.  Apparently, it crash landed more than three hundred years ago.  Things go awry when the team gets cut off from surface contact and something alive seem to be communicating with them from a sphere-like object in the vessel.   
Review: 2-bit adaptation of Michael Crichton’s thrilling page turner, gone are the explorations to human psyche and what was left was wasted talents from a formidable cast and a severley disjointed plot that forbids one to care about the characters.   
   

29) THE HOUSE OF YES (1997) **1/2   
Starring:  Parker Posey, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Josh Hamilton, Gennevive Bujold, Tori Spelling.   
Wriiten by:   
Directed by:   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: Dysfunctional household with more secrets than a parish priest can handle reluctantly welcomes a guest, a fianceé of the eldest son.  Problem is, his twi sister is a looney who thinks she’s Jackie Kennedy and he is Jack.   
Review: Screwball comedy starts to unravel the deep secrets of incest and murder and wraps up as rather violent and off-beat.  Posey was good as the insane twin and Bujold was good, rest of the cast rather weak.   

30) WINGS OF THE DOVE (1997) **   
Starring:  Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Alison Elliot, Elizabeth McGovern, Charlotte Rampling   
Written by:  Hossein Amini   
Directed by:  Iain Softley   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: Turn of the century tale of love, lust and greed with one woman who asked his poor boyfriend to steal the heart and inheritance money of a dying heiress so they can have the money to wed.   
Review: Bonham Carter did well as the plotting woman and Roache as the confused gent was good.  Altogether just wasn’t anything better than a dark tale with colorful costumes.   
   

31) HARD RAIN (1998) ***   
Starring:  Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, Minnie Driver, Randy Quaid   
Written by:   
Directed by:  Mikael Solomon   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: Caught in the middle of a rain storm and rising flood water, our hero, aided by a witty female companion, must take care of US$ 2 Million cash he was tasked to deliver and prevent it from being stolen from bandits and the greedy local sheriff.   
Review: Heist film set against a disaster film backdrop is a serviceable actioner that would have been better if directed by a more experienced helmer and soundstage set was a little too fake for granted.   

32) MAD CITY (1997) ***1/2   
Starring:  Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Ted Levin, Alan Arkin, Mia Kirshner   
Written by:  Eric Williams   
Directed by:  Constantin Costas-Garvas   
Synopsis: Security Guard laid off by his Museum employers decides to take matters into his own hand, whole thing backfires and turns into a hostage drama.  A newsman is conveniently in the vicitnity and befriends the confused secutiry guard, all to his station’s advantage.   
Review: Poignant study at the relationship bewteen media and criminals, through the media, Travolta’s character becomes a celebrity and like a vicious cycle, he gets lost in his newfound fame and ultimately leads to his undoing.  Good performances but a shade too long and script could have gotten better work to avoid becoming just anothger TV movie type.   

33) THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE (1997) **   
Starring:  Bill Murray, Joanne Whalley, Peter Gallagher   
Written by:   
Directed by:  Jon Amiel   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: An unknowing American was swept into international espionage and danger, all the while thinking it is part of an interactive TV game show.   
Review: Comedy adventure wannabe relied heavy on Murray’s devil may care antics but falls short on laughs and gets a little too predictable with the plot.   

34) THE HORSE WHISPERER (1998) ***1/2   
Starring:  Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlet Johansson, Sam Neill, Dianne Wiest, Chris Cooper   
Written by:  Eric Roth and Richard La Gravenese   
Directed by:  Robert Redford   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: An NY editor takes her daughter and her injured and traumatized horse to Montana to find a “horse whisperer,” a man who cures troubled horses, believing it is the only way that would lead to opening her daughter’s heart and shedding the shadow brought about by a tragic riding accident.  The whisperer and the woman then falls in love in the process.   
Review: Redford’s direction is well complimented by the excellent cinematography and the acting of both Scott Thomas and Johansson.  The film, though at times wearily long, is a story about how time healing wounds, which sort of justifies its often prolonged scenes.   
 

35) MULAN (1998) ****1/2   
Starring: Ming-Na Wen, B.D. Wong, Eddie Murphy   
Written by:  Rita Hsiao   
Directed by:  Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft   
Tagline:   
Synopsis: Based on a Chinese folk legend about a girl going to war dressed up as a boy in an effort to take her ailing father’s place.   
Review: Disney’s 36th full length animated feature is a triumph in a lot of ways.  The film is brimming with visually exciting animation, full of chuckles with humor and most of all, equipped with a story that has heart and soul. Murphy as ancestral dragin Mushu is the best voice role since the Genie in Aladdin and Mulan is the most courageous and witty heroine in a long time.    

   
36) WAG THE DOG (1997) ***   
Starring:  Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche, Denis Leary, Woody Harrelson, Willie Nelson   
Written by:  David Mamet and Hillary Henkin   
Directed by:  Barry Levinson   
Tagline:   
Synopsis:  As the incumbent President faces an overwhelming victory in his reelection bid just days before the votes come in, his win is threatened by evidences towards a sex scandal.  His campaign people then unites with a Hollywood producer to create a fake war situation to distract people’s attention.   
Review: Intelligently written balck comedy that attempts to poke fun at a Hollywood-Washington marriage.  Hoffman’s acting is the highlight of this picture although Mamet and Henkin’s taut script and Levinson’s directing style are ones to be admired at also.   

37) Simon Birch (1998) 
Starring: Ian Michael Smith, Joseph Mazzello, Oliver Platt, Ashley Judd, David 
Strathairn, Jim Carrey 
Written and Directed by: Mark Steven Johnson 
Rating: ****1/2 
Synopsis: Simon Birch (newcomer Smith) was born a tiny baby, so tiny the doctor thought he would not last through the night, but he did, then they said he would never last the week, and he still did.  Until he grew up to be a 12 year old 
with a squeaky voice and a tiny body frame.  Still, he is optimistic that he was born for a reason and God has special plans to make him a hero.  His best friend Joe (Jurassic Park's Mazzello) did not have a father, or at least his mom (Kiss 
the Girl's Judd) refused to divulge his dad's identity.  One day while playing little league baseball, Simon accidentally kills Joe's mom and thus began a strange but inspirational journey to unravel his purpose in life. 
Review: Extremely delightful and at times awe-inspiring, director Johnson's debut effort simplifies the quizzical novel "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" (by John Irving) and transforms it into a wonderful film.  This is the kind of movie that for no apparent reasons grips you from the openning scene (though Carrey's cameo appearance helped), makes you howl with laughter in the middle and leaves you virtually in tears at the end.  And it reminded me so much of the inspiration "Stand by Me" gave me some 12 years ago.  It's simple, stylish and aided by engaging performances from Mazzello (with the right guidance he could be the next Big Thing) who jolts the audiences with his pain and expressions, Platt (Flatliners, Dr. Dolittle), Strathairn (The River Wild, Sneakers) and most specially Smith as the pocket sized bundle of inspiration Simon Birch.  The movie reminds us that everything happens for a reason and God has His plans for each one of us, and that sometimes it is through life's tragedies, not life's rewards, that we find proof of God's existence.  

38)The Mask of Zorro (1998) 
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones 
Directed by: Martin Campbell 
Rating: **1/2 
Synopsis:The film opens with Zorro/Don Diego De La Vega (Hopkins) finding himself aging for the role of the people's saviour and longing to return to his real identity as a Spanish nobility on a permanent basis.  His plans are ruined 
when arch nemesis, the corrupt Governor General Rafael Montero discovers who he really is, kills his wife and snares his daughter while dumping him into the dungeons.  Then fast forward to 20 years later when a young kid whom Zorro 
befriends in the beginning becomes a bandit stealing from the rich to the poor (Banderas).  He chances upon the old Zorro, gets all his skills and rises again as the new Zorro in time to foil Monetro's evil designs for the people of California.  Things get complicated when Montero brings Dela Vega's daughter Elena (Jones) in for a final showdown between good and evil  
Review: Now, if you're beginning to feel like you're reading from "El Filibusterismo," you're not alone. And the movie feels at times like the torturing hours I spent in high school weathering through the pages of the Rizal novel.  It would get loose and talky but does recover in time with a zesty sword fight.  The best things in this movie are the stunts, the sworplay and the ultr- 
hot babe Jones.  Hopkins looked like he was just in for the paycheck and Banderas, though admittedly the ONLY choice for the role, was a bit too crazy as the young Zorro.  Campbell does a fine job keeping the film in synch with an underdeveloped script (a common Hollywood problem with big movies like this) but ultimately his writers fail him.  It was passable  ntertainment at best and italso owed a lot to James Horner's musical score for bringing the my wandering attention back into the film in crucial moments. 
  
39) THE PARENT TRAP (1998) 
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Lindsay Lohan 
Directed by: Nancy Meyers 
Rating: ***1/2 
Synopsis:A nifty opening sequence played to the Nat King Cole song "L.O.V.E." kicks off with a couple getting married on board a cruise ship, then as the credits finished rolling, the the movie takes us to 11 years and 9 months later to a summer camp in the East Coast, where two girls, one from London and another from Napa Valley, California meet for the first time.  The bizarre thing is that they look exactly alike.  They started off on the wrong foot but slowly, inevitably discovers that they are twins separated at birth by their parents who had divorced 11 years ago.  They quickly hatch a plan to learn about each 
other's lives (the relatives, the house, the accent, the works) and then switch places so they could briefly live with their mom/dad they've not known for their whole lives.  Alas, the ends to this means was for the parents to switch them 
back, meet face-to-face and the twin sisters will attempt to bring them back together.  The cross-Atlantic journey to Napa commenced when the Hallie, the Napa twin in London, broke the news to their mom in a desperate effort to quicken the process, because dad is going to get married to a Cruella De Ville if they don't hurry...and thus begins a funny, if unnecessary, turn of events that lead to a sweet, Disney style ending. 
Review: This film, from the creators of "Father of the Bride," sports the usual squeaky clean, picture perfect environs every one of their movie carries.  Not a lot different in the sense that it sets out to wamr your hearts, there is an abundance of "awwww!" inducing moments where the family reunites but the biggest element of difference in this one is newcomer Lindsay Lohan.  Every so often Hollywood would boast of a spectacular child star but her perforamnce as the wild, free spirited Hallie and the prim and proper Annie is a neat treat to see. The length is a little too long and could benefit from a trim of the mischievousstuff the twins pull off but overall a very likable, sugar coated tale for all ages, specially for girls aged 6 to 12!  

40) LETHAL WEAPON 4 (1998) 
Starring: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Chris Rock, Rene Russo, Jet Li 
Directed by: Richard Donner 
Rating: **1/2 
Synopsis:Riggs (Gibson) and Murtaugh (Glover) start off with another crisis that they were able to resolve with comedy and pyrotechnics (not unlike the previous installments).  We learn that Lorna (Russo) is pregnant with Riggs' baby. and 
she;s wondering when they're ever going to get narried.  Leo Goetz (Pesci) has been thriving as a P.I. in LA.  In comes Murtaugh's daughter pregnant with the child of Officer Lee Butters (Rock), an up and coming police officer who 
continually kisses up to Murtaugh because he's not in the know yet of the younger cop's relationship with his daughter.  So, those are the subplots, the main plot concerns Hong Kong triads in LA trying to buy off their imprisoned comrades from corrupt Chinese generals.  The ring is lead by Jet Li, a surprise addition to this franchise.  The lethal duo gets caught up with this conspiracyand of course in the end prevails in stopping the Triads from wreaking havoc.  
Review: Not a lot of franchises churn out nice 4th installments (quick point reference: Batman, Aliens) and Lethal Weapon, in my own humble opinion, continues a downward trend from part 3.  Gibson, though electrifying and fun to watch in each of the 3 previous films, seemed to have decided to just fax in his performance and pick up the check for the day, ditto with Glover.  Pesci and Russo looked like they've had the bad end of a bargain because the script writer had to fill in underwritten roles for them, and Chris Rock's improvisations, though often drop-dead hillarious, can sometime seem out of place.  Jet Li, is a 
different story, he was a real thrill to see and it's about time American and Euro audiences realize Seagal and Van Damme just ain't a match against the likes of Jet and Jackie.  He was a menacing villain, a huge shift from his heroes and underdog roles in Hong Kong cinema.  The car chases and the fight scenes were good but somewhat disjointed, perhaps because producer Silver mixed and matched 5 different scripts with only 10 months before release and they rushed this film through post production.  All in all, it's not as bad as what some other critics are calling it (Lethal Weapon Bore), but far from being up to par with its predecessors either. 
  
41)THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998) 

Starring: Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Natasha McElhone 
Directed by: Peter Weir 
Rating: ****1/2 
Synopsis:Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) started out as the the first person to be legally adopted by an organization, to be specific, a TV station.  From the day he was born, he became the subject of a 24 hour TV show beamed around the world 
and the film started at day 10,919 of "The Truman Show."  Problem is, Truman has no knowledge of this and has for 30 years lived in a manufactured town situated inside the biggest Hollywood soundstage ever built.  As he begins to unravel the 
mysteries, he starts a bold attempt to get himself to the outside world.  
Review: This has simply got to be one of the most original screenplays in Hollywood.  I know Twilight Zone has touched on the subject before but with the aid of director Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society), Jim Carrey spells the difference and churns out a performance of a lifetime.  Sprinkled with hillarious subplots like the actors pretending to be Truman's family/neighbors, 
and product placements (!) in the show and frantic, spontaneous explanations aim at calming Truman's suspicions, this film is funny, touching, original and really endearing.  It's a longshot but I think Weir, Carrey and Harris, as the enigmatic TV producer behind the Truman Show deserve Oscar recognitions, as well as the script.  A must-see!  

42)SMALL SOLDIERS (1998) 

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Gregory Smith, Phil Hartman, voice of Tommy Lee Jones 
and Frank Langella 
Directed by: Joe Dante 
Rating: ***1/2 
Synopsis:With the end of the cold war and tons of high tech military equipment nowhere to go, weapons manufacturer acquire a toy company and experimented with smart bomb microchips implanted in toy action figures.  The result, as shown in 
a small town that accidentally acquires the first batch of toys, is deadly as toys run amok and square off against anything and everything that stand in their way of finishing off their mission -- to destory another line of toys. 
Review: Mindlessly violent but shamelessly entertaining.  The computer animated toys are extremely believable and the action sequences, though some may induce de ja v? of "Toy Story," are fun to watch.  The script is too violent even for 
early teens and a little unnecessary.  Director Joe Dante retools his most popular work in the 80's "Gremlins" as the bad toys (evil gremlins) square off against the good toys (Gizmo).  Human characters are lack depth and it's a shame that this has to be Phil Hartman's final screen appearance. 

43)SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS (1998) 

Starring: Harrison Ford, Anne Heche, David Schwimmer 
Rating: ** 
Synopsis: Robyn (Anne Heche) is an assistant editor of a New York based female magazine called Dazzle and who's slated to marry David Schwimmer's character Frank.  They went to a 6-day-7-night tripto Magatea (an island resort in the Carribean) via 2-seated propeller manned by Quinn (Harrison Ford).  "Adventure" started when Robyn had to fly to Tahiti to supervise a shoot a nd she had no choice but seek Quinn's assistance.  The plane was struck by lightning and they were  forced to land on a deserted island where they have no one but each other.  They spent the following days at first hating each other, then  
 helping one another get through all sorts of imaginable (mis)adventures like snake attacks, pirates, etc.  and finally falling in love.  They made it back to Magatea eventually and both didn't want to leave what happened in the island behind.  Thus, a happy ending. 
Review:  I wouldn't have watched the movie if it weren't for Harrison Ford.  Although Ford is still adorable as Quinn, but still came out of the theatre disappointed coz the whole movie has a thin plot and is as predictable as one can be.  The adventure/action scenes were the least exciting and Anne Heche's portrayal of Robyn was so-so.  Even Ford's acting talents were wasted in playing Quinn for anyone could have played the part.  The only positive points of the film are some funny lines 
 like "bikinis looking like eyepatches" and the superb sceneries. 

44)Anastasia (1998) 

Starring:  Voices of Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, Angela  
 Lansbury, Hank Azaria, Kelsey Grammer, Kirsten Dunst 
Rating:  **1/2 
Synopsis:  It all started when the Romanov's Empire in Russia was cursed by the evil powers of Rasputin that the whole clan will be destroyed. The Empress and her granddaughter Anastasia was saved by palace boy Dimitri but in their escape, Anastasia was left in Russia. 10 years later, Anastasia grew up as Anya, having no recollection of her past, except that she felt her family is in Paris as her pendant "Together in  Paris" stated.  She sought the help of Dimitri, a famous con, for traveling papers while the latter saw a gold in Anya when he noticed the striking resemblance of the lass to the missing royalty.  In their  
 journy to Paris, Anya "learned" how to become a royalty amidst the adventures caused by Rasputin's sidekicks in trying to kill Anastasia.  They finally reached Paris unscathed and met w/ the Empress and Anya finally found her family, her past and her identity.  But before the happy ending, Rasputin came to kill Anastasia on hs own but in the end, good triumphs over evil and Anastasia lived happily ever after w/ Dimitri (of course they fell in love). 
Review:  As Fox's first attempt w/ animated feature, people in Disney could have easily said "nice try".  Everything about the film is patterned against the Disney formula --- loyal sidekicks of the  hero/heroine in Puka and of the villain in Bartok; songs/musical tracks (a bit too much of 'em actually), etc.  Let's say they didn't really do a bad job in the imitations siince some of the songs are actually quite nice and good dubs by Meg Ryan (Anastasia), John Cusack (Dimitri), Christopher Lloyd (Rasputin), Angela Lansbury (Empress) and Kelsey Grammer, but the animation needs further polishing (facial expressions  
 of the characters were inconsistent most of the time). 

45) SNAKE EYES (1998) 

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino, John Heard 
Directed by: Brian DePalma 
Rating: *** 
Synopsis:Rick Santoro (Cage) is a corrupt Atlantic City cop who gets hired by his best friend, Navy Commander Kevin Dunn (Sinise) to assist in a security operation at a boxing match for the Scretary of Defense.  When the Scretary gets murdered in the middle of the boxing match, Santoro launches into an investigation and finds out that the truth is far from what meets the eye. 
Review: De Palma, obssessed with becoming this genertion's Alfred Hitchcock, serves up another murder-conspiracy thriller.  Unfortunately, he is far from being the 90's guru on this genre.  The story, hatched by the auteur while filming Mission:Impossible, is too simple-minded to become a "rashomon" like suspense story.  Nic Cage, though, gives a riveting performance as a cop torn between telling the truth, and abiding by his old ways and remaining loyal to his friend.  The opening shot of 5 minutes is a one-take continuous scene that showcases the skills of both Cage's as an actor and De Palma's as a director. All in all a watchable popcorn movie, and a good thriller while it lasted.  

46) KNOCK OFF (1998) 

Starring: Jean Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Lela Rochon, Paul Sorvino, 
Michael Fitzgerald Wong 
Directed by: Tsui Hark 
Rating: ** 
Synopsis:On the eve of the Hong Kong Handover to Mainland China.  A former street thug Marcus Ray (JCVD) and his business partner Tommy (Schneider) is caught in the crossfire of warring HK mob and international terrorists.  The CIA 
gets involved via Sorvino (Mira's dad) and Rochon (Waiting to Exhale) when Nano bombs, undectable and remote detonated are discovered.  To cut a long story short, JCVD gets in a lot of fights and a lot of things get blown up before the 
conclusion. 
Review: Tsui Hark continues his downward spiral he started with mediocre Hong Kong movies in the mid-90's.  After "Double Team," he nabs JCVD in a no brainer action movie scripted by original Die Hard scribe Steve De Souza...I guess only in an ideal world do people learn from mistakes.  the production design is good by HK standards but painfully inferior by Hollywood level.  F/X are unrealistic and the acting...let's just say NOBODY goes to watch a Van Damme film expecting good acting in it.  The only redeeming value in this one would be the stunt choreography which matches the unparalleled marks that HK stunt coordinators have set.  No amount of Hollywood special effects can create a fight scene where JCVD fights 48 people at once.   
  
47)ARMAGEDDON (1998) **** 
Starring: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton, Will Patton, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stromare, Michael Duncan Clarke  
Written by: Jonathan Hensleigh, Tony Gilroy 
Directed by: Michael Bay 
Story: An asteroid is headed on a collision path with Earth.  The fate of  the planet lies in the hands of a bunch of oil rig workers trained in 12  days to plant a bomb within the asteroid and blow it up just in time  before Armageddon. 
Review: Super producer Jerry Bruckheimer hammers out another thrill ride of a movie with "The Rock's" Michael Bay at the helm.  The story, suffering from being the 2nd asteroid-hits-earth movie this summer, held its ground as the focus shifts to the training and the actual crew being sent up.  It makes no excuses for being an entertainment, art-be-damned, blockbuster movie that gets adrenalin rushing and tear ducts flowing in the end.  It might've been also guilty for being too loud and too self  
 conscious as the pace gets dragged a little bit in the middle and the climax a little too short.  Still, the brilliant, top-notch F/X works and the ensemble cast makes this one an extremely enjoyable piece of celluloid entertainment.  It deserves the crown of being the best event movie in the barren year of 1998. 

48) GODZILLA (1998) **1/2 
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Hank Azaria, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo 
Written by: Dean Devlin 
Directed by: Rolan Emmerich 
Synopsis: A giant lizard grinds New York City to the ground while a  scientist (Broderick), his reporter ex-flame(Pitillo), her   
 cameraman(Azaria) and a mysterious insurance agent (Reno) investigates, tracks down and prevails over the reptile, an apparent product of nuke tests in the Pacific. Review: First, there were astonishing teasers that promised the ultimate   
 Monster event movie of 1998, then they shot the film.  A paper thin plot coupled with migraine inducing editing and lighting made this a huge letdown.  Although some of the effects were pretty nifty, most of the jokes fell flat and a majority of the scenes seemed ripoffs from the Jurassic Park movies.  The physical design of the monster is likewise bizarre and appalling.  I suggest you skip this one altogether. 

49) DEEP IMPACT (1998) *** 
Starring: Tea Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Elijah Wood, Robert Duvall 
Written by: 
Directed by: Mimi Leder 
Synopsis: Two comets are on their way to hit Earth and the movie depicts the lives of a news reporter who broke the story, the teen who discovered the comets and the team of astronauts sent to save the  planet. 
Review: Deliberately sentimental and over long, this is a two hour TV movie asking "what the heck are we going to do before it hits?" then followed by a two minute special effects show, capped by a superficial ending,  The acting was borderline laughable as Leoni clowned (unintentionally) through the movie as the reporter, she was the most unsympathetic protagonist in cinema this year.  Freeman's speeches in the movie were effective but he had a role that was unimportant thereby wasting his talent, ditto for Duvall.  Although overall director Leder managed to eke out a passable, entertaining movie, like I said, it could easily have been a TV movie of the week for most people.   

50) SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) 

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Adam Goldberg 
Directed by: Steven Spielberg 
Rating: ****1/2 
Synopsis:After surviving the brutal landing at Normandy Beach, Capt. John Miller (Hanks) and 7 of his men were sent on a mission to go deep behind enemy lines to rescue Private James Ryan, who could be the only survivor in a brood of four 
sons all sent to war.  
Review: Brutal, unrelenting and painfully real, Spielberg launched an attack aimed at your senses right from the get go with the 40 minute Normandy invasion sequence.  The message is loud and clear --- war is cruel and no one should ever 
go through what the eight men and millions of others went through in World War 2.  The film is supported by an overall brilliance from the acting (Hanks, Sizemore and Burns were great), cinemtography, editing, sound effects, make-up 
(exploding body parts so real they made me wince), screenplay to the masterful direction of Spielberg himself.  This one should garner multiple nominations next year and sweep the Oscars quite like "Schindler's List" did and "Amistad" 
hoped it would. 

51) THE X-FILES- FIGHT THE FUTURE (1998) 

Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Martin Landau, Armin Mueller-Stahl 
Directed by: Rob Bowman 
Rating: *** 
Synopsis: Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully smells something fishy in a building blow-up case, then digs up enough conspiracies and paranoia that'll put Oliver Stone to shame. 
Review: This movie neither disappoints nor excites its audiences.  It doesn't really attempt to clarify the mysteries in the TV series, rather it just wants to make an extended, commercial-free 2 hour special episode with expensive pyrotechnics and upgraded effects.  I suspect non X-philes among the audience have no feelings for the characters and have little idea what the X Files is all about.  However, I find the effects and the technical production top notch for mainstream releases.  Hmmm, if only each weekly episode had the financial ammos this one had... 

52) BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997) 

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham 
Written and Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson 
Tagline: Get Ready to Go at it All night long. 
Rating: ***1/2 
Synopsis: Small town boy Eddie Adams (Wahlberg) gets transformed into Dirk Diggler, porn star of the late 70's, and through him we get a view of the industry's rise and fall and transition from theaters into home videos. 
Review: Released late last year to critical acclaim, first time director Paul Thomas Anderson delivers an excruciating look at the porn industry.  Great performances all around particularly Reynolds as the director who actually wanted to make a porn movie "good enough" to make people glued to their seats for its story.  Extensive use of hand held, home video style sequences add some gritty realism to the picture, its costumes and production design were also solid enough to transport you back to the late 70's-early 80's.  Only problem is its length and its rather not-for-all-taste honesty in depicting its characters 
and story.  The tragic truth is that no matter how they try, they never can leave unscathed from their...um...movie careers. 

53) HOPE FLOATS (1998) *** 
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Harry Connick Jr., Mae Whitman, Gena Rowlands, Michael 
Pare, Kathy Najimy, Rosanna Arquette 
Written by: Steven Rodgers 
Directed by: Forest Whitaker 
Synopsis: When a stunned Bertie Calvert (Bullock) was learned that her best friend and her husband are having an affair on national TV, she left Chicago with her daughter and headed for her hometown in Texas for her mom.  As they try to cope with this transition period in their lives, Bertie tries to repair her strained relationship with her own mother (Rowlands) and face a new life in front of a town reluctantly embracing a disgraced former member back into its fold.  In the end she delivered a rather bittersweet conclusion that in life, the beginnings are usually scary and the endings almost always sad, but it's the 
middle that count the most. 
Review: The biggest accomplishment in this movie is its witty, if uneven, script and Whitaker's polished direction (a big leap from his debut work in Waiting To Exhale).  Bullock, who is the producer of the film, does not seem at ease with her Southern accent and big dramatic scenes, all the more made obvious when joustling with veteran actress Gena Rowlands.  Little Mae Whitman continues a fine tradition she set in Independence Day and One Fine Day of making the most of a small role.  Crooner Harry Connick, Jr. was an effective addition although his character was far from being a well-written one. 

54) PAULIE (1998) *** 
Starring: Jay Mohr, Gena Rowlands, Holly Eisenberg, Trini Alvarado, Tony 
Shalhoud, Bruce Davison, Matt Craven 
Directed by: Tony Roberts 
Tagline: A Journey of a thousand miles begins with a parrot. 
Synopsis: The film starts at a gloomy basement in an animal laboratory, a Russian immigrant (Shalhoub) poet just landed a job as a janitor and discovered an unusal looking parrot, who turns out to be the wisecracking title character.  The bird starts recounting his story as a bird adopted by a child, when they got separated, the parrot launches a journey of a thousand miles and 20 years to be back with her. 
Review: Mohr as the voice of Paulie and a bit part in the movie as well was hillarious and the animatronics blended well with the real birds for a convincing portrayal of a parrot that talks and thinks.  Other than that, this movie just serves as a passable family entertainment piece that is significantly less amusing to adults than it is to kids. 

55)A BUG'S LIFE (1998) 
Starring: Dave Foley, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, Bonnie Hunt 
Written by: Joe Ranft and Andrew Stanton 
Directed by: John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton 
Rating: ****1/2 
Synopsis: Loosely based on the Aesop fable "The Ant and the Grasshopper," it's about a colony of ants threatened for years by grasshoppers for winter food, until one worker ant decided to step out of their island in search for bigger bugs to fight the hoppers.  What he found was a bunch of unemployed circus bugs who thought he was an agent looking for performers.   
Review: A follow-up to "Toy Story," the groundbreaking 3D animated feature, Disney and Pixar team up for an inventive, visually stunning 96 minute eye candy that is surely to enthrall audiences of all ages.  The colors, designs and overall feel is very real and the characters are really engaging.  Only complaint is that it carried far too many characters and they weren't as 
endearing/memorable as Woody and Buzz were.  Whatever you do STAY GLUED ON YOUR SEATS FOR THE CREDITS. 

56)There's Something About Mary (1998) 

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon, Chris Elliot, Lee Evans 
Written and Directed by: Peter and Bob Farrelly 
Rating: ***1/2 
Synopsis: Ted (Stiller), the school geek, gets the prettiest girl Mary (Diaz) as his prom date.  Unfortunately, he suffers a physical injury of an extreme kind minutes before the event and hasn't seen her for 13 years.  He hires a PI to track her down, and inevitably triggers an all out war to win Mary's affections. 
Review: The Farrelly brothers, a writing-directing tag team who haven't seem to meet a gross out gag they didn't like comes up with a drop-dead funny, but rather disjointed romantic comedy.  There are times when you start doubting if the actors are just improvising or has the script ran out of plots to develop but overall a wild and funny romp at the movies.  Not for all tastes but for those who like screwball comedies, it's a classic to be cherished for years to come. 
  
57)THE WATERBOY (1998) 
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kathy Bates, Fairuza Balk, Henry Winkler 
Written by: Adam Sandler and Tim Herlihy 
Directed by: Frank Coraci 
Tagline: You can mess with him, but you can't mess with his water 
Rating: ** 
Synopsis: Bobby Bouchet (Sandler) is a professional waterboy for a college football team who takes his work too seriously.  When he was fired by abusive emplyers, he applied to work for free for a downtrodden Louisianna school as their football team's waterboy, where he was discovered to have the talent to become the most ferocious tackler in football history.  Meanwhile, his overprotective mother (Bates) and trailer trash (but kindhearted) girlfriend (Balk) wages a see-saw battle to get his affections.    
Review: Not a very smart follow-up for Sandler and his posse (director and co- writer were his college roommates) after the success of "The Wedding Singer." Instead, he delves back into "Happy Gilmore" waters as an oafish super athlete 
to be who has a dysfunctional family.  Some of the gags are pretty funny but overall would fare better as a video title. 
 

58) RUSH HOUR 
Starring: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker Tom Wilkinson, Ma Tzi 
Written by: Ross LaManna 
Directed by: Brett Ratner 
Tagline: The fastest hands in the East meets the fastest mouth in the west  
Synopsis: When the daughter of a Chinese consul was kidnapped in LA, a supercop from Hong Kong (Chan) was brought in to help with the case at the request of the father, he was then forced to team up with an obnoxious LAPD cop (Tucker) but 
the unlikely duo ends up cracking the case and saving the day. 
Review: Chan's first foray into Hollywood Studio system produces mixed results. It was good in the sense that Chan-Tucker is better and more entertaining to watch than the aging "Lethal Weapon" tandem of Gibson-Glover.  There were funny 
situations and pretty neat stuntwork.  It was, however, bad in the sense that the story was half-cooked and too simplistic.  Chan wasn't really given too many chances to showcase his wares and often times the audience would feel that it's 
a Christ Tucker-Jackie Chan movie, not the other way around.  The smashing success spells imminent sequel probabilities but here's to hoping they cherry pick a better material. 

59) ENEMY OF THE STATE (1998) ****1/2 
Starring: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Barry Pepper, Loren Dean, Regina 
King, Lisa Bonet 
Written by: David Marconi 
Directed by: Tony Scott 
Tagline: It's not Paranoia when They're Really After You 
Synopsis: Labor lawyer Robert Clayton Bean (Smith) walks into a lingerie store to buy a gift for his wife, but comes out a man marked for surveilance by the NSA.  The innocent attorney finds his life totally devastated and goes on the lam while finding out why all this is happening to him.  He then meets Brill (Hackman) a former NSA agent undercover for 18 years and maybe his only hope of getting out of this alive and getting his life back. 
Review: Although the story on paper sounded like a cross among the plots to "The Net," "The Fugitive" and "The Rock" (the old hand leading the rookie), let me assure you that the result of this hybrid definitely is a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts.  Producer Jerry Bruckheimer actually manages to outdo "Armageddon" within the span of 4 months and director Tony Scott returns to top form after being a strictly Hit (Crimson Tide) and Miss (The Fan) helmer for the past few years.  The screenplay is tightly wound and at times frighteningly convincing (makes you think twice before telling another secret on the phone).  The cast lead by the charismatic Smith and the respectable Hackman teams up for an exciting mix.  Overall, it's simply a nail-biting, pulse pounding, edge-of-your-seat first class thrill ride.  An audience winner all the way.  

60) RUSHMORE (1998) ***1/2 
Directed by: Wes Anderson 
Written by: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson 
Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Mason Gamble 
Tagline: Love, Expulsion, Revolution 
Synopsis: Max Fischer (Schwartzman) is arguably the most popular student at the elite Rushmore academy, despite being the worst in his studies.  He founded half a dozen clubs and societies and is an active member of another dozen.  He thinks 
that a person should find a favorite thing and do that thing for the rest of his life, and going to Rushmore was his one passion...until he met first grade teacher Ms. Cross (Williams), he shifted his priorities and entered into a heated rivalry with his tycoon mentor Herman Blume (Murray) for her affections. 
Review: A unique, funny-as-hell coming of age comedy that charms the audiences with its wit and offbeat look at life and love.  Murray was brilliant and finally found himself delivering in a quality picture after a while but the real surprise package is 15 year old Jason Schwartzman, the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and the cousin of Nic Cage, showbiz blood runs in this kid's veins and he carried the entire picture on his shoulders as if it wasn't his first motion picture role.   The screenplay is a gem and this one should garner quite a number of noms in the upcoming Oscars announcement.  

61) STEPMOM (1998) ***1/2 
Directed by: Chris Columbus 
Written by: Gigi Levangie, Ron Bass, Jessie Nelson, Steve Rodgers, Karen Leigh Hopkins 
Starring: Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Ed Harris, Jenna Malone 
Tagline: Be there for the joy. Be there for the tears. Be there for each other. 
Synopsis: The film starts with Isabel (Roberts) dealing with the hostility her 
boyfriend's (Harris) 2 kids throw at her, specially in full view and with 
apparent indulgence from the birth mother of the kids Jackie (Sarandon)...until 
Jackie discovers she has cancer and Isabel and her has to learn to live with 
each other for the sake of the kids. 
Review: Manipulative and slightly overrated.  This film was touted to be a 3 hankie tear-jerker with top notch performances from 3 very exciting actors.  Instead, watching this I can almost see Hollywood execs in some backroon urging the 5 screenwriters to make the audiences cry some more with mushy moments.  The plot threatened to blow the entire picture apart until Sarandon and Roberts took charge in the middle of the movie.  Not muich room for Harris to operate and considering how he manages to steal the show with little screen time (The Rock, Truman Show), that goes to show how littel material he was left to work with. The child actors were wildly uneven, adorable for a moment but annoying the next.  Sarandon was her usual brilliant self and Roberts was the genuine surprise, holding up well against the Oscar winning veteran.  Perhaps the best move the 5 screenwriters made was to spare us with a cry-your-eyes-out ending, electing instead to end with a nice touch. 

62) BRIDE OF CHUCKY (1998) ***
Directed by: Ronnie Yu
Written by: Don Mancini
Starring: Jennifer Tilly, Katherine Heigl, Nick Stabile featuring the voice of Brad Dourif
Tagline: Chucky Gets Lucky
Synopsis: In its 4th installment, killer doll Chucky from "Child's Play" gets resurrected by an old flame searching for him for the last 10 years.  She in turn gets killed by the doll and transforms into a bridal themed Tiffany doll herself.  The two twisted, homicidal dolls then embark on a murderous trip hitchhiking with a pair of unknowing teenage couple who have just eloped. 
Review: OK, so why did a self respecting film lover decide to see this film? It's actually campy and fun, yes, more like a parody of its previous incarnations than a slasher film out to take advantage of the horror film craze. Director Ronny Yu reinvented and reinvigorated the franchise with numerous subtle salutes to classic movie moments (yes, Chucky even does the 2 gun salute,longtime trademark of John Woo films), and I kind of liked the self-deprecating style it adapted.  Aside from a weak, predictable ending, the movie runs smoothly without a hitch from the beginning.  Nothing to brag about in terms of
cinematic achievements, but pure nasty guilty pleasure trip when you have an extra 2 hours to kill on a Friday night. 

63) MEET JOE BLACK (1998) ***
Directed by: Martin Brest
Written by: Ron Osborne & Jeff Reno, Kevin Wade, William Goldman
Starring: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Claire Forlani, Marcia Gay Harden, Jake Weber, Jeffrey Tambor
Tagline: He's Expecting You; Sooner or Later Everyone Does
Synopsis: Death literally takes a holiday as the houseguest of a business magnate.  His identity is only known to the tycoon but things take an interesting turn when he falls in love with the tycoon's daughter.  Adding complication is the fact that nobody dies until he goes back to work.
Review: Interesting concept which is a remake of a 50's film "Death Takes a Holiday."  Pitt plays Death, or rather the human body Death has chosen to take while vacationing on Earth, and he plays it well, exuding charm, wit and enigma.  Nowhere near outstanding but pretty solid.  Hopkins tackles his role as the soon-to-be-dead magnate well, not contented with merely  axing in his performance (i.e., Mask of Zorro and etc.).  The good stuff stops right about there, the charismatic actors who took the ball and ran with it.  The rest of the cast range from unnecessary (Harden and Tambor's underdeveloped characters)
to apathetic (Forlani squinting and pouting her way through her scenes).  On top of it all, the story is a bit disjointed, audiences are unsure of what Death iscapable of, it was unclear whether if he was omnipresent (he seems to know everyword anyone has ever said before and all their misdoings) or innocent to thematerial world (he doesn't know what peanut butter is or tastes like). Watchable but still it was at least 20 minutes too long for the average viewer. 

64) PRACTICAL MAGIC (1998) *1/2
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Aidan Quinn, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing
Directed by: Griffin Dunne
Written by: Akiva Goldsman, Robin Swicord
Tagline: There's a Witch in Every Woman
Synopsis: 2 sisters born to a family with a long tradition of witchcraft must learn to cope with the curse that anyone they fall in love with is doomed to die. 
Review: An expensive yawner that puts the talented cast to waste.  The story was muddled and confusing and the only funny thing about this alleged Romantic Comedy was when they were attempting to stage a dramatic bond between the
sisters.  Overall a waste of time that never should have been filmed in the first place.