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movies-digest          Monday, July 13 1998          Volume 02 : Number 054



Re: [MV] Complete famous lines (almost) [correction]
Re: [MV] U TURN soundtrack
[MV] Small Soldiers Review / Teeny Weeny Spoiling
[MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)
Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)
Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)
Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)
Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)
Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4) -Reply
[MV] Armageddon (retraction of insult)
Re: [MV] Armageddon (retraction of insult)
[MV] Movie News - 07/13/98
Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)
Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 02:18:10 -0600 (MDT)
From: mea culpa <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Complete famous lines (almost) [correction]

> 26. "Sometimes being a teenager is worse than being dead."
> --> Pump Up The Volume, Steve Archer (Hard Harry)

Not 'steve archer', but Christian Slater.

> 51. "Matchstick in the gas tank... boom, boom! Boom, boom!"

Pardon me if I missed it, but I early suggested _The Stand_ for this.
Yes/no?



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------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 98 11:08:10 +0100
From: "ABYRNE.IE.ORACLE.COM" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] U TURN soundtrack

- --=_ORCL_5051352_0_0
Content-Transfer-Encoding:quoted-printable
Content-Type:text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


There is a soundtrack.No idea who is on it though.I'll try and find out
Thanks & Regards,
****************************************************************************=
**
****************************************************************************=
**

Anto Byrne                Net:[e-mail]
Oracle E.M.E.A.                Fulfillment Dept.
    Unit 14                    Phone:[phone]
Airways Industrial Estate        Fax:[phone]
Cloghran                      email:abyrne
Dublin 17.
Ireland
****************************************************************************=
**

              "Float like a cannon-ball,sting like a shark
               I'm the one who's waiting for you in the dark"
****************************************************************************=
**

- --=_ORCL_5051352_0_0
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Date: 10 Jul 98 19:04:33
From:Jakob Straub <[e-mail]>
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Subject:[MV] U TURN soundtrack
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Hello,

I am sorry if this is off-topic, but is there a U TURN soundtrack ?
And what's the name (and who is the artis performing) the song in the
beginning and the end, you know, the tune that goes something like: "and
it's a good day for shining your shoes, and it's a good day for losing
the blues...." ?

Thank you very much,
Jakob



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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 09:09:56 EDT
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: [MV] Small Soldiers Review / Teeny Weeny Spoiling

Small Soldiers

A lot of fun but not for small children.  I tried to see it on opening day
with my son, Paddy, tagging along.  Not a good idea.  I'd been told the strong
rating, PG-13, was only for language.  I do not like him being exposed to
strong language but I thought the plot, as well as the visuals, would appeal
to him.  Nope.  It scared him. So much so that he screamed.

More than anything, I believe it was the soundtrack.  Though the visuals were
intense to the point of exaggeration.  Also, the violence was extreme.
Cartoon violence.  Everything was loud and immediate.  Very much "right there"
and more than he could stand.  He nearly crawled under my shirt to hide.

Well, we left and I took him to see Dr. Dolittle.  He was somewhat bored but
he enjoyed it.

So, today I went, on my own to see Small Soldiers.  I found it to be marvelous
fantasy as well as a satirical take on today's business practices.

Basically, a toy company, acquired by a Bill Gatesish character played by
Dennis Leary, makes a huge mistake by acquiring surplus military chips and
using them in a new line of action figures.  The result is toys that do much
more than merely live up to expectations.

I cannot say much more about this one without revealing an excessive amount of
plot.  It relies heavily on fx and voice-overs provided by Tommy Lee Jones,
Frank Langella and assorted Spinal Tap members.  Phil Hartman, may his soul be
happy, makes a notable appearance as a neighbor named Phil Fimple.  This
seemed a reprise of his role in Jingle All The Way.  Which, believe it or not,
I own a subtitled video of that I've viewed twice.  Why subtitled?  It cost
less than ten US dollars.

Kirsten Dunst, as Christy Fimple, a role that reeks of teen spirit, draws
attention in every scene that she is in.  Effectively making Alan
Abernathy,the young lead played by Gregory Smith, little more than window
dressing.

I really had a good time.  But please, parents, exercise good judgement.  Yes,
the toys are being marketed to younger children but the movie itself should be
a no-no for all but those children that are very mature.


Buzzy

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 10:49:34 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Gregory A. Swarthout" <[e-mail]>
Subject: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

Review by Roger Ebert

Harry S. Stamper: Bruce Willis
Dan Truman: Billy Bob Thornton
A.J. Frost: Ben Affleck
Grace Stamper: Liv Tyler
``Chick'' Chapple: Will Patton

Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams.
Running time: 150 minutes. Classified PG-13 (for sci-fi disaster action,
sensuality and brief moments of vulgar language).


Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. ``Armageddon'' is cut
together like its own highlights.  Take almost any 30 seconds at random,
and you'd have a TV ad.  The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears,
the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained.  No
matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out.

The plot covers many of the same bases as the recent ``Deep Impact,''
which, compared with ``Armageddon,'' belongs on the American Film
Institute list.  The movie tells a similar story at fast-forward speed,
with Bruce Willis as an oil driller who is recruited to lead two teams
on an emergency shuttle mission to an asteroid ``the size of Texas,''
which is about to crash into Earth and obliterate all life--``even
viruses!''  Their job:  Drill an 800-foot hole and stuff a bomb into it,
to blow up the asteroid before it kills us.

OK, say you do succeed in blowing up an asteroid the size of Texas.
What if a piece the size of Dallas is left?  Wouldn't that be big enough
to destroy life on Earth?  What about a piece the size of Austin?  Let's
face it:  Even an object the size of that big Wal-Mart outside Abilene
would pretty much clean us out, if you count the parking lot.

Texas is a big state, but as a celestial object, it wouldn't be able to
generate much gravity.  Yet when the astronauts get to the asteroid,
they walk around on it as if the gravity is the same as on Earth.
There's no sensation of weightlessness--until it's needed, that is, and
then a lunar buggy flies across a jagged canyon, Evel Knievel-style.

The movie begins with a Charlton Heston narration telling us about the
asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.  Then we get the masterful title
card, ``65 Million Years Later.''  The next scenes show an amateur
astronomer spotting the object.  We see top-level meetings at the
Pentagon and in the White House.  We meet Billy Bob Thornton, head of
Mission Control in Houston, which apparently functions like a sports bar
with a big screen for the fans, but no booze.  Then we see ordinary
people whose lives will be Changed Forever by the events to come.  This
stuff is all off the shelf--there's hardly an original idea in the
movie.

``Armageddon'' reportedly used the services of nine writers.  Why did it
need any?  The dialogue is either shouted one-liners or romantic drivel.
``It's gonna blow!'' is used so many times, I wonder if every single
writer used it once, and then sat back from his word processor with a
contented smile on his face, another day's work done.

Disaster movies always have little vignettes of everyday life.  The
dumbest in ``Armageddon'' involves two Japanese tourists in a New York
taxi.  After meteors turn an entire street into a flaming wasteland, the
woman complains, ``I want to go shopping!'' I hope in Japan that line is
redubbed as ``Nothing can save us but Gamera!''

Meanwhile, we wade through a romantic subplot involving Liv Tyler and
Ben Affleck.  Liv plays Bruce Willis' daughter.  Ben is Willis' best
driller (now, now).  Bruce finds Liv in Ben's bunk on an oil platform
and chases Ben all over the rig, trying to shoot him.  (You would think
the crew would be preoccupied by the semi-destruction of Manhattan, but
it's never mentioned after it happens.)  Helicopters arrive to take
Willis to the mainland so he can head up the mission to save mankind,
etc., and he insists on using only crews from his own rig--especially
Affleck, who is ``like a son.''

That means Liv and Ben have a heart-rending parting scene.  What is it
about cinematographers and Liv Tyler?  She is a beautiful young woman,
but she's always being photographed while flat on her back, with her
brassiere riding up around her chin and lots of wrinkles in her neck
from trying to see what some guy is doing.  (In this case, Affleck is
tickling her navel with animal crackers.)  Tyler is obviously a
beneficiary of Take Your Daughter to Work Day.  She's not only on the
oil rig, but she attends training sessions with her dad and her
boyfriend, hangs out in Mission Control and walks onto landing strips
right next to guys wearing foil suits.

Characters in this movie actually say:  ``I wanted to say ... that I'm
sorry,'' ``We're not leaving them behind!,'' ``Guys--the clock is
ticking!'' and ``This has turned into a surrealistic nightmare!''  Steve
Buscemi, a crew member who is diagnosed with ``space dementia,'' looks
at the asteroid's surface and adds, ``This place is like Dr. Seuss'
worst nightmare.''  Quick--which Seuss book is he thinking of?

There are several Red Digital Readout scenes, in which bombs tick down
to zero.  Do bomb designers do that for the convenience of interested
onlookers who happen to be standing next to a bomb?  There's even a
retread of the classic scene where they're trying to disconnect the
timer, and they have to decide whether to cut the red wire or the blue
wire.  The movie has forgotten that *this is not a terrorist bomb,* but
a standard-issue U.S. military bomb, being defused by a military guy
who is on board specifically because he knows about this bomb.  A guy
like that, the first thing he should know is, red or blue?

``Armageddon'' is loud, ugly and fragmented.  Action sequences are cut
together at bewildering speed out of hundreds of short edits, so that we
can't see for sure what's happening, or how, or why.  Important
special-effects shots (such as the asteroid) have a murkiness of detail,
and the movie cuts away before we get a good look.  The few ``dramatic''
scenes consist of the sonorous recitation of ancient cliches.  Only near
the end, when every second counts, does the movie slow down:  Life on
Earth is about to end, but the hero delays saving the planet in order to
recite cornball farewell platitudes.

Staggering into the silence of the theater lobby after the ordeal was
over, I found a big poster that was fresh off the presses with the
quotes of junket blurbsters.  ``It will obliterate your senses!''
reports David Gillin, who obviously writes autobiographically.  ``It
will suck the air right out of your lungs!'' vows Diane Kaminsky.

If it does, consider it a mercy killing.

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 13:04:31 EDT
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

That review was about as good as something out of the Siskel and Eibert
dictionary, Open your eyes and look to enjoy the movie for once instead of
critcising it before you understand it.

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 10:53:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anita Watts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

I nearly howled when I read this review: saw the movie last night and
could not believe how Roger managed to articulate every thought I had
about this extravaganza of sensory assault. Great review.
Anita


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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 10:53:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anita Watts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

I nearly howled when I read this review: saw the movie last night and
could not believe how Roger managed to articulate every thought I had
about this extravaganza of sensory assault. Great review.
Anita


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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 10:58:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anita Watts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

On Mon, 13 Jul 1998 [e-mail] wrote:

> Open your eyes and look to enjoy the movie for once instead of
> critcising it before you understand it.


Curious minds want to know: what part did *you* enjoy, and, since I agree
with Ebert's review, what parts did I need to understand?

Anita :)


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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 11:20:44 -0700
From: Bruce Bridges <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4) -Reply

HI Guys,

I think I already said this but I want to reiterate to everyone that
Something About Mary is the movie to see this weekend.  This
recommendation shows my juvenile, stupid side but I have to say it is
one of the funniest movies I've seen in quite a while.

Please understand though that this flick is pretty offensive to some
so if you are sensitive then maybe you will want to pass.

I'm pushing this movie because I think there are some jokes that
people will discuss and give away if you wait too long.

Always trying to help.  And I expect some of you to tell me I'm nuts.


bye,
bb

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 12:20:58 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Gregory A. Swarthout" <[e-mail]>
Subject: [MV] Armageddon (retraction of insult)

My wife finally saw this film and absolutely loved it.  She also
admitted to crying in a couple of places, so I hereby take back my
implied criticism of the person who thought that the film was, among
other things, a tear-jerker.

Greg

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:37:05 EDT
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon (retraction of insult)

Good1  :-)  I do not think you'd referred to me but here is my original
review, reposted.
______________

ARMAGEDDON
approx: 2 hours and 20 minutes running time

This is THE movie to see!  Forget everything I've said about any other movie.
While the movies that I liked were good, ARMAGEDDON is going to hit them like
the end of their world.  Baby!  This movie is hotter than hot and slicker than
crude oil!

By the end of this picture, you are going to love every cast member like you
love your best friend.  These actors, every single damn one of them, play
their roles as if born to them.  Afraid that this is another Bruce Willis,
floppo stinko?  Hoping that if you are lucky, it might, might, be at least as
good as, say, Die Hard?  The only smell coming from this picture is that of
success and it reeks of it!  Now Die Hard, I liked, ARMAGEDDON, I do believe,
gave me heart palpitations.  True love,


The music and sound fx alone, played magnificently by the Kerasotes,
http://www.kerasotes.com , SHOWPLACE 16 sound system, are reason enough to see
this one,  If you can see it in one of these amazing theaters , do it and do
it now.  These theaters are brilliantly designed, high-tech, but with at home
comfort that helps to place you right smack in the movie as an unseen extra,
The folks running the one in South Bend should be proud.  They were extremely
helpful and friendly.

The general plot itself seems to be the buzz plot of the season.  Total
annihilation of Earth and all who live upon her.  Basically, we're going to
get hit with a damn big rock, One the size of Texas.

While everyone is rushing about, madly trying to save the world, we are
treated to scenes of mass destruction wrought by meteor showers.  We also get
treated to the comedy of a group of rough and ready oil roughnecks with a
heart of gold.  Turns out that these raw, masculine guys just happened to help
their boss raise his little girl and she has turned into a strong hearted
woman.  Amazingly enough, the US government eventually happen to come upon a
plan to save us all that needs guys who know drilling and therein begins the
rest of the story.

This movie never lets up.  Hurled from scene to scene, you do not even get to
draw a breath without first being pummeled with action, humor, or pathos.  You
seem there.  An actual participant in events.

ARMAGEDDON is the STAR WARS of the Summer of 98.


Buzzy



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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 14:47:08 -0600 (MDT)
From: The Reporter <[e-mail]>
Subject: [MV] Movie News - 07/13/98

"Lethal Weapon 4" took the top spot at the box office in its opening
weekend with an estimated $34.4 million in ticket sales, according to
studio estimates issued Sunday. The latest installment of the Mel
Gibson-Danny Glover cop saga surpassed the launches of the three
previous entries in the series, according to Warner Bros. Disney's
"Armageddon" fell to second place at $23.1 million. "Small Soldiers"
opened in third place with $14.5 million. "Dr. Dolittle" with Eddie
Murphy fell to fourth in its third weekend with $12.8 million. The
Disney animated adventure "Mulan" dropped to fifth, with $7 million.
(Reuters)

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 18:53:48 -0400
From: Michael Allen Jr <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

Well I haven't said much on this list in the past but i have to speak up about
armageddon.  I think deep impact was pale in compirison to this movie.. for
one the special effects in the first 30 minutes of this movie are better than
all of deep impact.  And the love story in the niddle of it all makes it even
better.  I give this movie 4 stars and would recommend it to anyone.  There
now I have voiced my opinion.


Mike Allen Jr.

Gregory A. Swarthout wrote:

> Review by Roger Ebert
>
> Harry S. Stamper: Bruce Willis
> Dan Truman: Billy Bob Thornton
> A.J. Frost: Ben Affleck
> Grace Stamper: Liv Tyler
> ``Chick'' Chapple: Will Patton
>
> Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams.
> Running time: 150 minutes. Classified PG-13 (for sci-fi disaster action,
> sensuality and brief moments of vulgar language).
>
> Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. ``Armageddon'' is cut
> together like its own highlights.  Take almost any 30 seconds at random,
> and you'd have a TV ad.  The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears,
> the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained.  No
> matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out.
>
> The plot covers many of the same bases as the recent ``Deep Impact,''
> which, compared with ``Armageddon,'' belongs on the American Film
> Institute list.  The movie tells a similar story at fast-forward speed,
> with Bruce Willis as an oil driller who is recruited to lead two teams
> on an emergency shuttle mission to an asteroid ``the size of Texas,''
> which is about to crash into Earth and obliterate all life--``even
> viruses!''  Their job:  Drill an 800-foot hole and stuff a bomb into it,
> to blow up the asteroid before it kills us.
>
> OK, say you do succeed in blowing up an asteroid the size of Texas.
> What if a piece the size of Dallas is left?  Wouldn't that be big enough
> to destroy life on Earth?  What about a piece the size of Austin?  Let's
> face it:  Even an object the size of that big Wal-Mart outside Abilene
> would pretty much clean us out, if you count the parking lot.
>
> Texas is a big state, but as a celestial object, it wouldn't be able to
> generate much gravity.  Yet when the astronauts get to the asteroid,
> they walk around on it as if the gravity is the same as on Earth.
> There's no sensation of weightlessness--until it's needed, that is, and
> then a lunar buggy flies across a jagged canyon, Evel Knievel-style.
>
> The movie begins with a Charlton Heston narration telling us about the
> asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.  Then we get the masterful title
> card, ``65 Million Years Later.''  The next scenes show an amateur
> astronomer spotting the object.  We see top-level meetings at the
> Pentagon and in the White House.  We meet Billy Bob Thornton, head of
> Mission Control in Houston, which apparently functions like a sports bar
> with a big screen for the fans, but no booze.  Then we see ordinary
> people whose lives will be Changed Forever by the events to come.  This
> stuff is all off the shelf--there's hardly an original idea in the
> movie.
>
> ``Armageddon'' reportedly used the services of nine writers.  Why did it
> need any?  The dialogue is either shouted one-liners or romantic drivel.
> ``It's gonna blow!'' is used so many times, I wonder if every single
> writer used it once, and then sat back from his word processor with a
> contented smile on his face, another day's work done.
>
> Disaster movies always have little vignettes of everyday life.  The
> dumbest in ``Armageddon'' involves two Japanese tourists in a New York
> taxi.  After meteors turn an entire street into a flaming wasteland, the
> woman complains, ``I want to go shopping!'' I hope in Japan that line is
> redubbed as ``Nothing can save us but Gamera!''
>
> Meanwhile, we wade through a romantic subplot involving Liv Tyler and
> Ben Affleck.  Liv plays Bruce Willis' daughter.  Ben is Willis' best
> driller (now, now).  Bruce finds Liv in Ben's bunk on an oil platform
> and chases Ben all over the rig, trying to shoot him.  (You would think
> the crew would be preoccupied by the semi-destruction of Manhattan, but
> it's never mentioned after it happens.)  Helicopters arrive to take
> Willis to the mainland so he can head up the mission to save mankind,
> etc., and he insists on using only crews from his own rig--especially
> Affleck, who is ``like a son.''
>
> That means Liv and Ben have a heart-rending parting scene.  What is it
> about cinematographers and Liv Tyler?  She is a beautiful young woman,
> but she's always being photographed while flat on her back, with her
> brassiere riding up around her chin and lots of wrinkles in her neck
> from trying to see what some guy is doing.  (In this case, Affleck is
> tickling her navel with animal crackers.)  Tyler is obviously a
> beneficiary of Take Your Daughter to Work Day.  She's not only on the
> oil rig, but she attends training sessions with her dad and her
> boyfriend, hangs out in Mission Control and walks onto landing strips
> right next to guys wearing foil suits.
>
> Characters in this movie actually say:  ``I wanted to say ... that I'm
> sorry,'' ``We're not leaving them behind!,'' ``Guys--the clock is
> ticking!'' and ``This has turned into a surrealistic nightmare!''  Steve
> Buscemi, a crew member who is diagnosed with ``space dementia,'' looks
> at the asteroid's surface and adds, ``This place is like Dr. Seuss'
> worst nightmare.''  Quick--which Seuss book is he thinking of?
>
> There are several Red Digital Readout scenes, in which bombs tick down
> to zero.  Do bomb designers do that for the convenience of interested
> onlookers who happen to be standing next to a bomb?  There's even a
> retread of the classic scene where they're trying to disconnect the
> timer, and they have to decide whether to cut the red wire or the blue
> wire.  The movie has forgotten that *this is not a terrorist bomb,* but
> a standard-issue U.S. military bomb, being defused by a military guy
> who is on board specifically because he knows about this bomb.  A guy
> like that, the first thing he should know is, red or blue?
>
> ``Armageddon'' is loud, ugly and fragmented.  Action sequences are cut
> together at bewildering speed out of hundreds of short edits, so that we
> can't see for sure what's happening, or how, or why.  Important
> special-effects shots (such as the asteroid) have a murkiness of detail,
> and the movie cuts away before we get a good look.  The few ``dramatic''
> scenes consist of the sonorous recitation of ancient cliches.  Only near
> the end, when every second counts, does the movie slow down:  Life on
> Earth is about to end, but the hero delays saving the planet in order to
> recite cornball farewell platitudes.
>
> Staggering into the silence of the theater lobby after the ordeal was
> over, I found a big poster that was fresh off the presses with the
> quotes of junket blurbsters.  ``It will obliterate your senses!''
> reports David Gillin, who obviously writes autobiographically.  ``It
> will suck the air right out of your lungs!'' vows Diane Kaminsky.
>
> If it does, consider it a mercy killing.
>
> [ To quit the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe movies" ]
> [ (without the quotes) to [e-mail]                         ]




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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 18:53:48 -0400
From: Michael Allen Jr <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armageddon, * (out of 4)

Well I haven't said much on this list in the past but i have to speak up about
armageddon.  I think deep impact was pale in compirison to this movie.. for
one the special effects in the first 30 minutes of this movie are better than
all of deep impact.  And the love story in the niddle of it all makes it even
better.  I give this movie 4 stars and would recommend it to anyone.  There
now I have voiced my opinion.


Mike Allen Jr.

Gregory A. Swarthout wrote:

> Review by Roger Ebert
>
> Harry S. Stamper: Bruce Willis
> Dan Truman: Billy Bob Thornton
> A.J. Frost: Ben Affleck
> Grace Stamper: Liv Tyler
> ``Chick'' Chapple: Will Patton
>
> Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams.
> Running time: 150 minutes. Classified PG-13 (for sci-fi disaster action,
> sensuality and brief moments of vulgar language).
>
> Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. ``Armageddon'' is cut
> together like its own highlights.  Take almost any 30 seconds at random,
> and you'd have a TV ad.  The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears,
> the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained.  No
> matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out.
>
> The plot covers many of the same bases as the recent ``Deep Impact,''
> which, compared with ``Armageddon,'' belongs on the American Film
> Institute list.  The movie tells a similar story at fast-forward speed,
> with Bruce Willis as an oil driller who is recruited to lead two teams
> on an emergency shuttle mission to an asteroid ``the size of Texas,''
> which is about to crash into Earth and obliterate all life--``even
> viruses!''  Their job:  Drill an 800-foot hole and stuff a bomb into it,
> to blow up the asteroid before it kills us.
>
> OK, say you do succeed in blowing up an asteroid the size of Texas.
> What if a piece the size of Dallas is left?  Wouldn't that be big enough
> to destroy life on Earth?  What about a piece the size of Austin?  Let's
> face it:  Even an object the size of that big Wal-Mart outside Abilene
> would pretty much clean us out, if you count the parking lot.
>
> Texas is a big state, but as a celestial object, it wouldn't be able to
> generate much gravity.  Yet when the astronauts get to the asteroid,
> they walk around on it as if the gravity is the same as on Earth.
> There's no sensation of weightlessness--until it's needed, that is, and
> then a lunar buggy flies across a jagged canyon, Evel Knievel-style.
>
> The movie begins with a Charlton Heston narration telling us about the
> asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.  Then we get the masterful title
> card, ``65 Million Years Later.''  The next scenes show an amateur
> astronomer spotting the object.  We see top-level meetings at the
> Pentagon and in the White House.  We meet Billy Bob Thornton, head of
> Mission Control in Houston, which apparently functions like a sports bar
> with a big screen for the fans, but no booze.  Then we see ordinary
> people whose lives will be Changed Forever by the events to come.  This
> stuff is all off the shelf--there's hardly an original idea in the
> movie.
>
> ``Armageddon'' reportedly used the services of nine writers.  Why did it
> need any?  The dialogue is either shouted one-liners or romantic drivel.
> ``It's gonna blow!'' is used so many times, I wonder if every single
> writer used it once, and then sat back from his word processor with a
> contented smile on his face, another day's work done.
>
> Disaster movies always have little vignettes of everyday life.  The
> dumbest in ``Armageddon'' involves two Japanese tourists in a New York
> taxi.  After meteors turn an entire street into a flaming wasteland, the
> woman complains, ``I want to go shopping!'' I hope in Japan that line is
> redubbed as ``Nothing can save us but Gamera!''
>
> Meanwhile, we wade through a romantic subplot involving Liv Tyler and
> Ben Affleck.  Liv plays Bruce Willis' daughter.  Ben is Willis' best
> driller (now, now).  Bruce finds Liv in Ben's bunk on an oil platform
> and chases Ben all over the rig, trying to shoot him.  (You would think
> the crew would be preoccupied by the semi-destruction of Manhattan, but
> it's never mentioned after it happens.)  Helicopters arrive to take
> Willis to the mainland so he can head up the mission to save mankind,
> etc., and he insists on using only crews from his own rig--especially
> Affleck, who is ``like a son.''
>
> That means Liv and Ben have a heart-rending parting scene.  What is it
> about cinematographers and Liv Tyler?  She is a beautiful young woman,
> but she's always being photographed while flat on her back, with her
> brassiere riding up around her chin and lots of wrinkles in her neck
> from trying to see what some guy is doing.  (In this case, Affleck is
> tickling her navel with animal crackers.)  Tyler is obviously a
> beneficiary of Take Your Daughter to Work Day.  She's not only on the
> oil rig, but she attends training sessions with her dad and her
> boyfriend, hangs out in Mission Control and walks onto landing strips
> right next to guys wearing foil suits.
>
> Characters in this movie actually say:  ``I wanted to say ... that I'm
> sorry,'' ``We're not leaving them behind!,'' ``Guys--the clock is
> ticking!'' and ``This has turned into a surrealistic nightmare!''  Steve
> Buscemi, a crew member who is diagnosed with ``space dementia,'' looks
> at the asteroid's surface and adds, ``This place is like Dr. Seuss'
> worst nightmare.''  Quick--which Seuss book is he thinking of?
>
> There are several Red Digital Readout scenes, in which bombs tick down
> to zero.  Do bomb designers do that for the convenience of interested
> onlookers who happen to be standing next to a bomb?  There's even a
> retread of the classic scene where they're trying to disconnect the
> timer, and they have to decide whether to cut the red wire or the blue
> wire.  The movie has forgotten that *this is not a terrorist bomb,* but
> a standard-issue U.S. military bomb, being defused by a military guy
> who is on board specifically because he knows about this bomb.  A guy
> like that, the first thing he should know is, red or blue?
>
> ``Armageddon'' is loud, ugly and fragmented.  Action sequences are cut
> together at bewildering speed out of hundreds of short edits, so that we
> can't see for sure what's happening, or how, or why.  Important
> special-effects shots (such as the asteroid) have a murkiness of detail,
> and the movie cuts away before we get a good look.  The few ``dramatic''
> scenes consist of the sonorous recitation of ancient cliches.  Only near
> the end, when every second counts, does the movie slow down:  Life on
> Earth is about to end, but the hero delays saving the planet in order to
> recite cornball farewell platitudes.
>
> Staggering into the silence of the theater lobby after the ordeal was
> over, I found a big poster that was fresh off the presses with the
> quotes of junket blurbsters.  ``It will obliterate your senses!''
> reports David Gillin, who obviously writes autobiographically.  ``It
> will suck the air right out of your lungs!'' vows Diane Kaminsky.
>
> If it does, consider it a mercy killing.
>
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