HILLtopics: AT THE MOVIES
Scandal? In the White House!?
"THIS MURDER-THRILLER AT THE WHITE HOUSE IS A WILD, HIGH-TECH RIDE YOU'LL LOVE IT!"
Stop on the outside
She a Secret Service agent on the inside.
Tracking a White House bomber to the First Family's front door
WESLEY SNIPES DIANE LANE
MURDER AT 1600
"Murder At 1600" is an AMAZING THRILL RIDE. You'll love this movie!" TOM MURRAY, TORONTO REVIEWER
"A gripping murder mystery with loads of HEART-POUNDING ACTION!" TOM MURRAY, TORONTO REVIEWER
This address changes all the rules.
owners Ted Hoffman from TV's Murder One.
The Warner Bros. release was produced by Arnold Kopelson and Arron Milchan and directed by Dwight Little, who did Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home. The movie is rated R for violence.
ance, but her chemistry with Supes is hardly recognizable. Ronny Cox is the proper wimp president, and Alan Alda is the Alan Alda you always see. Benzali is fun to watch, as usual, but his Nick Spikings is too reminiscent of his smoldering, take no-pris-
MOVIE REVIEW
Throwing a curveball every now and then is Avin Jordan (Alain Alda), the president's trusted adviser. Jordan is key to meetings between the president and his Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding a possible military action involving a hostage situation. The military wants to nuke 'em; the president wants to negotiate. Somehow, thatug-of-war between the president and his generals figures in chancellor plot
Unfortunately, there also are a variety of throwaway characters, including Dennis Miller as Regis'ymical partner. As half of an investigational team, he's missing from most of the movie and never really does much with Regis. Aren't these guys supposed to travel in Ragus?
Don't look for any breakthrough performances here. Snipes is the same 'I am aick-butt law enforceor' you've seen in his countless other movies. Miller doesn't go much beyond his stand-up act — in fact, his stand-up is lot better than anything he does in Murder at 1600. Liane gives a serviceable performer.
By Dolores Barclay The Associated Press
number pos.
Just about every plot turn in this movie is telescoped from a mile away, but the cake is brisk.
Sex. Murder. The White House. Politics. Power.
If you think this sounds vaguely familiar, you're probably right. Elements of the above can be found in other movies. Take Absolute Power for starters. That's the recent Clint Eastwood-Gene Hackman work involved murder and a president who liked tough sex.
ANACONDA
required.
The government wants the case wrapped ASAP. Yes, there's a scapegoat. But at least one Secret Service agent isn't buying the party line. Agent Nina Chance (Diane Lane) has a conscience. She won't allow
Murder at 1600, which opened Friday, gives you the feeling you've been there before. Even the opening As an agitated man in a business suit traffic in the middle of Washington, D.C., by sticking a gun in his mouth and threatening to kill himself, a sauce cap takes the gun away from him in one macho move. The cop is Harlan Regis (Wesley Snipes), a dedicated homicide detective sent to investigate the murder of a young, beautiful woman at the White House. He's unlike any investigation he's ever headed, because the Secret Service and a nest of government vipers thwart his every move — evidence and documents disappear and new evidence is planted
Tip-top flicks
The top 10 films from the weekend.
1. *Anaconda* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $12.2 million
2. *Liar, Liar* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10.2 million
3. *Murder at 1600* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8 million
4. *The Saint* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7.3 million
5. *Grosse Point Blank* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4.9 million
NO SCREAMING NECESSARY
6. The Devil's Own ... $2.4 million
7. McHale's Navy ... $2.1 million
7. That Old Feeling ... $2.1 million
8. Heads in a Duffel Bag ... $1.8 million
10. Chasing Amy ... $1.6 million
10. Scream ... $1.6 million
By David Goodman The Associated Press
It could have been called *Alien in the Amazon* or *Jaws in the Jungle*. That's because *Anaconda* combines elements of just about every monster movie ever made.
This time around, the setting is South America and the creature is a 40-foot-long reptile that crushes its victims and swallows them whole.
The movie follows a predictable formula: There's a boat full of dispensable characters who will inevitably messy ends; a couple of cute females in tight T-shirts; a series of false alarms to get your nerves jangling; and a giant beast ready to burst out of the water or up through the floorboards whenever its Dolby-enhanced yowling appears to have been silenced forever.
In short, with *Anaconda*, you know what you're going to get.
So the question becomes, how well does the movie run through its predictable and ritualistic paces?
The answer is fairly well. If you like this sort of thing, *Anaconda* delivers the goods, supplying satisfactory frights, a few gags, a beast that stylishly dispenses with its victims, and dramatic effects including a scene in which the snake springs from a tree above a waterfall and coils around its prey in mudair.
The scene is Brazil at the mouth of the Amazon. Anthropologist Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz) has paired up with a documentary filmmaking team that is taking a flat-bottomed barge down the creeper-festooned waterway. Their goal is to connect with the legendary and undocumented tribe of Shirishama Indians.
■ Film director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez), who has a romantic history with the clean-cut professor.
Rapper Ice Cube as macho, deadpan cameraman Danny who just can't wait to get back to Los Angeles.
MOVIEREVIEW
despite the mosquitoes, that's all she packed — and her California blond sound-mixer bovfriend Gary (Owen Wilson).
Finally, there's narrator Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde). Many times, he's carping about the heat on this beastly river, but he later shows great courage.
At first, it is all fun and games, even a bit of the Love Bait as Gary and Denise creep off into the rain forest for some steamy human coiling. And other crew members are foolishly naive about the dangers that await them as they chug toward their own heart of darkness.
Portents of doom are everywhere. After Sarone's advice about which river bend to follow, the entourage uses dynamite on an obstruction and finds the deck awash in baby snakes.
Your first hint that this won't continue like some fraternity field trip is the rescue of the apparently stranded Paul Saronne (Jon Voight), a lapsed Paraguayan priest who entices the crew with his knowledge of the Indians.
Director Luís Liosa (The Specialist) does a fine job of capturing the beautiful, treacherous river and the tangle of life along its uncharted banks.
But the writing is less graceful and the dialogue, especially in the opening sequences, is embarrassingly clunky.
But in the end, a spectacle like this lives and dies on the cheesiness or lack thereof of the creature. There are no memorable characters in *Anaconda*, no big hero you'd like to resurrect for a sequel. That means the pressure is doubly on the snake to live up to its hype.
And here, Anaconda belts one out of the park. The state-of-the-art mix of computer graphics from Sony Pictures Imageworks and Walter Conti's animatronic effects have created a real creepy-crawler.
CRUSHED ICE: Terri (Jennifer Lopez) struggles to help free Danny (Ice Cube) from the deadly grip of an Anaconda in Columbia Pictures' adventure ANACONDA.
BUTTERY CHUNKS MUSIC REVIEW
Live: Secret Samadhi (Radioactive)
Those who became Live enthusiasts after the band's huge 1994 success may have been put off by Lakini's Juice, Secret Samadhi's erratic first single. On the York, Penn., band's new album, the familiar off-beats hold are there — they're just buried deep in each song.
Anchored by the smooth, distinct vocals of Ed Kowalczyk, Live works its way through 1.2 textured, fully developed songs, creating music as polished and shiny as Kowalczyk's infamous chrome dome. Century could be this summer's Lightning Strikes, voted by four out of five hipsters as most likely to blare from car stereos at stoplights during the sweaty months. The album's only slip is Turn My Head, a ballad so conventionally embarrassing that it sounds like a
At times, dabbling in jazz, as on the album's second single, Freaks, and Pearl Jamish grunge on Heropsychdreamer, this album may not win the band any new supporters. And, more unfortunately, it may confuse some who still have Throwing Copper in their CD changers.
Whitesnake outtake. But Live's lyrics, which paint a mood in so few words, are still cryptic and razorsharp, particularly on the album's first track, *Rattlesnake*.
Get out your unsolved Rubik's Cubes and turn up the collar of your Polo. The Pulsars' self-titled release embraces the same '80s sounds the pop world has long forsaken. It is tough to listen to the Pulsars' derivative, tuneful synth-pop without thinking of everyone's least-favorite decade.
Pulsars: s/t (Almo Sounds)
I once believed there was a reason such music was no longer explored. But great songs like Pulsars' Technology and Tunnel Song would be perfect soundtracks to Molly Ringwald's Pretty-In-Pink pouting. This two-piece
Chicago outfit has all the tools for huge success: catchy retro tunes with enough keyboards and synthesizers to make A Flock of Seagulls jealous. This stuff is fun, particularly when you realize Pulsars is aware of being about 15 years out of style. I'm a guitar-bass-drums kind of guy, and it is with more than a little embarrassment *>*
embarrassment that I say I like this disc. Now that is an endorsement.
Danger Bob: Le Pop Shoppe (Maine)
Lawrence's geeky, pudding-eating popsters have re-released their 20-song double cassette on CD. All of their favorites are here, including Lazer-friendly The Hook, Just Call Me Ninny and Piglet. Forever compared to They Might Be Giants — another band that sports its nerdhood proudly — Danger Bob actually is more entertaining and endearing.
How can you not like a band that sings lines such as, "it must be hard to hear with your head up your butt"? With their usual slew of pop culture references such as X-Files, Boba Fett, Dig Dug and Showbiz Pizza, Danger Bob's brand of cute punk is as fun and energetic on CD as it was on tape.
There is no danger of a band like The Muffs ever releasing a weird, experimental noise album. The band's catchy, upbeat three-chord pop/punk with a faux-snotty attitude is as automatic as Cal Ripken. Happy Birthday to Me, the L.A. band's third album, has 15 new songs in the same comfortable vein.
The sticky sweet Honeymoon sounds like a good candidate for a single, but everything here sounds the same. And that is the way Muffs' fans like it. Why this band never caught on in the Green Day, teenage-punk wave of 1994 is mystery. Kim Shattuck and her bandmates are getting older, but Happy Birthday to Me shows their music has not changed one lick.
The Muffs: Happy Birthday to Me (Reprise)
This soundtrack — taken from yet another Generation X movie about kids handling out
SubUrble: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (DGC)
movie about kids hanging out — has an impressive lineup of bands who probably bunge in out of front a few convenient stores in their days, Sonic Youth, Skinny Puppy, Girls Against Boys, Beck, Flaming Lips and Butthole Surfers are among the artists contributing to the sounds of slack on
Suburbia.
And in true slacker fashion, none of the above-mentioned bands offer their best songs. Elastica and Pavement's lead singer, Stephen Malkmus, works on an X cover that would make John Doe proud, and Boss Hog chips in with a Kinks remake that could give Ray Davies a coronary. But the disc's highlight has to be uber-slackers Superchunk's nostalgic Does Your Hometown Care? Any disc that ends with Gene Pitney's Town Without Pity does not take itself too seriously, but jeez, the rest of Suburbia's artists could have at least broken a sweat.
leff Ruby