The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 43

The Orlando Sentinel WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1998 Audio Books, E-2 Tess Gerritsen's medical thrillers 'Life Support' and 'Harvest' are tape turners. Television, E-8 tBitf Stay-home moms get rapped again The good news about working mothers keeps getting better, while the bad news about stay-at-home moms gets worse. The latest study contributing to the notion that working mothers are better than stay-at-home moms comes from the Whirl pool Foundation. The study doesn't actually say working mothers are better, of course. In fact, one of Whirlpool's board members pointedly says in the press release that pitting employed SENTINEL COLUMNIST Stomping grounds.

Unlike the cheesy monster of yore, this Godzilla swiftly works its mayhem when cutting through Manhattan. -T TRISTAR PICTURES I 9 letmra of 6 Godzilla Lizard's spectacular looks carry the film By Jay Boyar SENTINEL MOVIE CRITIC MOVIE REVIEW Jl 1 I I 1 II A Monstrous amount of work was necessary NEW YORK DAILY NEWS NEW YORK Size doesn't matter to Volker Engel, the special effects wizard of Godzilla, which in now roaring into theaters. It's mobility that counts. The studio has been keeping the 200-foot-tall monster under wraps, but Engel promises that "20 minutes into the movie you will see the creature big-time." The new and improved God As you watch the spiffy new, retrofitted Godzilla, it soon becomes obvious why there has been more secrecy about the monster's physical appearance than there once was about Burt Reynolds' toupee. Other than the way the giant lizard looks which does turn out to be pretty spectacular there's not a whole heck of a lot going on in this film.

If TriStar Pictures had viehouse, fine and dandy. Unlike the lumbering Godzilla of the cheesy sci-fi flicks of the '50s (not to mention the '60s, '70s and '80s), this humongous creature moves swiftly and in a convincingly lifelike way. But direc-torco-writer Roland Emmerich and producerco-writer Dean Devlin (the Independence Day guys) haven't entirely neglected the mothers against stay-at-home moms creates "a false debate." But scrutiny of the report reveals another brand of falsity the kind that says one thing and does another. Reading between the lines one finds the strong suggestion that working mothers and their kids are better off than their stay-home counterparts. Given the timing of the study's release around Mother's Day one wouldn't expect dire tidings.

But one might wish for something closer to reality than this pronouncement: "American Children Give Mom an Well, golly, Gomer, I guess those little buggers want supper again, i "Children, a critical and often overlooked voice in the workfamily debate, are putting an end to contentions that working mothers have a negative impact on American families," begins the Whirlpool news release. "A new report card from school-age children and their mothers finds the American family alive and well, thanks primarily to the incredible efforts of mom, regardless of her employment status." There, now, don't you feel better? And who says families are suffering today? Not the kids. "School-age children resoundingly respond that American mothers, whether employed or not, take care of their children in every way," concluded the report. Not to diminish these findings, but asking 1,000 kids whether their mothers are doing a good job is like asking a starving man about a juicy steak. Meanwhile, the study's findings reinforce in the nicest possible way the prevalent notion that stay-home mothers are second-class citizens.

Finding: Working mothers spend only seven hours per week less than stay-home moms with their children, and at-home mothers spend more time on themselves. Translation: Stay-home mothers are self-indulgent, while working mothers sacrifice to meet their children's needs. Finding: Children of working mothers, 76 percent of whom clean their own rooms, are more self-reliant. Translation: Children of at-home mothers, only 62 percent of whom clean their rooms, are spoiled. Finding: Working mothers are more likely to be involved in their children's education (attending meetings, fund-raising) "possibly because of their personal understanding of the competitive value of education in the labor market." Translation: Stay-home mothers, even though they have fewer demands on their time, are too lazy to get involved in their kids' school activities, possibly because they don't understand the competitive value of education in the labor market.

No one argues that working mothers are practically killing themselves to hold it all together. But it's unfair and untrue to conclude that society no longer need address the higher goal of helping working mothers spend more time with their children. To imply that working mothers do a better job than stay-home moms while insisting that pitting working mothers against stay-home mothers "creates a false debate" pre-empts dissent. Ipso facto, the debate is set- tied. Working mothers are better, and any self-respecting mother will join the work force as soon as possible.

To do otherwise is to be, well, just a mom. And we know what they are. Kathleen Parker's column is distributed by Tribune Media Services. Mail: The Orlando Sentinel, MP-6, P.O. Box 2833, Orlando, Fla.

32802-2833. E-mail: Kparkerlaol.com on the Internet. Reptile at 1 1. Hank Azaria portrays the TV cameraman who scores the shot of a lifetime during the rampage. Godzilla' Cast: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, Harry Shearer.

Director: Roland Emmerich. Screenwriters: Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich. Cinematographer: Ueli Steiger. Music: David Arnold. Running time: 2 hours, 19 minutes.

Industry rating: PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned). Parents' guide: monster action and violence. been foolish enough to fully reveal Godzilla's fabulous physique in commercials and publicity photos, why would anyone bother to buy a ticket? As it turns out, the big, photogenic galoot (who officially arrives on movie screens today) looks like a sort of land-bound dragon Godzilla tradition of cheesi-ness. It lives on in their script, which is barely substantial enough to sustain the special-effects-laden action. At the center of the story is Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), a mild-mannered expert on nuclear mutations.

He tends to focus on oversized earthworms un zilla is lean and mean, fast enough to outstrip a New York cabby. Forget the campy 1954 Godzilla flick with actors in rubber suits crushing cheesy, cardboard sets. In this film, Tokyo's terror wants to take more than a bite out of the Big Apple he wants to destroy it. "He's just lonely and misunderstood," his creator says. (The film's human stars include Matthew Broderick, Hank Azaria and Jean Reno.) "This beast can run more than 150 mph," says Engel, from his LA office.

"He's very agile and not a big, hunky creature that just bumps into buildings." Ninety percent of the lizardlike Godzilla in the $100 million-plus movie is computer-generated one frame at a time, using miniatures and stop-motion Reviewing key. excellent, good, average, poo; awful -1 or, to put it another way, a combo-dinosaur. Godzilla has the mighty legs, tail and torso of a T-rex, the dorsal plates of a stego-saurus and the compact head and menacing mouth of a velocirap-tor. Clearly, this is not the sort of individual you'd want to run into in a dark alley. But in a dark mo- til he gets a load of the new lizard on the block.

Niko is the former sweetheart of Audrey (Maria Pitillo), a curly-haired kewpie doll who aspires to the lofty ranks of TV reporter-dom. (Does the lollipop-sucking Please see REVIEW, E-6 Common goal. Matthew Broderick is a scientist who Please see GODZILLA, E-6 joins forces with his ex-girlfriend, portrayed by Maria Pitillo. Office deadwood and we're not talking plants Here are some ideas for dealing with employees who do little more than use up oxygen and hurt office productivity. By Steven Ginsberg WASHINGTON POST WORKSTATION: E-4 'On the Job' column: A reader needs advice on how to update a resume.

'Hot Jobs' listing: 2 Central Florida companies with at least 25 immediate openings. Telecommuting: How workers can make the most of working from home. have skills, but they took care of people. Today, there's so much emphasis on productivity, it's very hard to hide if you're not doing well." Nevertheless, these types of workers still are in virtually every department of every corporation. At MCI Communications Pentagon City, office, longtime dilly-dalliers abound, say coworkers.

"There are a couple guys on my team that effectively do nothing," said one employee, who declined to be named for fear of reprisal. There are only eight people on the worker's team and having one or two members consistently drag their feet slows everyone's production, he added. Please see WORK, E-4 The guy who won't leave. He (or she) is easy to spot. No one can quite figure out what he does.

His main occupation appears to be taking all day to do an hour's work. But his bad attitude and equally poor work ethic aren't just his problems, workplace experts say. They affect everyone in his department. "If a person is just there on the dole, it can be very destructive," said John Challenger, president of Challenger, Gray Christmas a career consulting firm in Chicago. "What happens is you get coworkers who don't want to do their own job and don't want to work as hard because they don't sense any penalty for not doing well." In today's work world with lean, mean companies trying to milk employees for all they are worth these space-fillers COMING UP IN LIVING There's one in every company.

He's probably sitting nearby, aggravating nnllaamiac ttritVl Vlic inpac I sant kvetching. And hes are more detrimental than ever, experts say. They hurt the morale of their co-workers and significantly decelerate productivity. "It used to be that companies felt more responsible than they do today," Challenger said. "They were kind of like lords of state; they knew some employees didn't The summer's hottest looks in swimsuits for the family.

Thursday in Living. probably been sitting there since the day he was hired, many, many years ago. Who is he?.