The Spokesman-Review from Spokane, Washington • 62

Fade' I -Friday; Niaf 22, 1998 i i The Spokesman-Review TTTITi (Movies Godzilla impressive, but uninspired Real Blonde Continued from page 28 achieved the kind of success he so desperately wants. Mary (Catherine Keener, a DiCillo regular) is a makeup artist who works for a fashion photographer (Mario Thomas). Their relationship, and the difficulties it endures, is at the films heart. But DiCillo fills up the rest of his tableau with a variety of interesting characters who help bring his message home. Theres the soap-opera star (Maxwell Caulfield) whose eternal search for a real blonde keeps him from finding love right in front of him.

Theres the model (Bridgette Wilson) whose idea of spirituality can be found in The Little Mermaid. Theres Thomas photographer and her ongoing search for abs, abs, abs, who shoots ad campaigns for perfumes that bear such taglines as Depression, more than just a state of mind. Theres Kathleen Turner as a brazen agent, Buck Henry as a duplicitous therapist and Christopher Lloyd as a head waiter whose sense of rigidity hides an understanding heart. Throughout the film, DiCillo juggles overt references (Empty V) with internal subtext, coming up with scenes of comic hilarity (i.e., a restaurant discussion of the various strengths and weaknesses of Jane Campions The Piano) and hard-to-watch humiliation (skinny-boy Modine being banished to the background of a Madonna video). Gradually, the filmmaker arrives at his overall meaning, which involves each of these characters but mostly Joe and Mary coming to some conclusion about what what life has to offer, about what can be achieved and what cant.

Ultimately, they all learn that even if our hairdresser is the only one who knows, being blond or having one ends up being a matter of choice. films of the 1950s, but these days, audiences like to empathize with their monsters. Movie review Dan Webster Staff writer odzillaisgoingto 1 1 make tons of money. lOf this time it really will be a triumph of special effects. Because this newest look at the radiation-created creature who once razed Tokyo continues to advance the art of digital-efx to a jaw-dropping degree.

Yet it offers little else. Think about it. What do Batman, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Alien and Titanic just to name a few other special-effects extravaganzas have in common? Answer: Each bases its storyline on strong characterizations. And this is exactly where Godzilla is lacking. Raymond Burr, the stolid American actor featured in the original Japanese film, Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1954), is a virtual Robin Williams compared to the open-mouthed character that Matthew Broderick plays here.

Broderick is the government scientist (once an anti-nuke demonstrator, he now works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) who is pulled off his pet project studying the worms of Chernobyl to help investigate a mysterious happening in the South Pacific. it seems a Japanese trawler has been attacked, the lone survivor repeats the word Gojira over and over and large footprints are found leading away from the beached wreck. Suddenly, New York is threatened. New York? Yes, the city that never sleeps, leveled by a comet-caused tidal wave already this summer, comes under attack by this building-size behemoth even though it is halfway around the world from the atomic-testing area that apparently spawned it. Godzilla" is a throwback to eco-disaster Godzilla -kVi Locations: North Division, Spokane Valley Mall, Post Falls Cinema, Showboat Credits: Directed by Roland Emmench, starring Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azana, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, Harry Shearer, Anabella Field, Doug Savant.

Running time: 2.19 Rating: PG-13 This makes no sense, of course (San Francisco Bay or Tokyo harbor would seem to be more natural choices). But, then, not much about Godzilla does. Not that meaning should matter all that much. Most films, but especially sci-fi thrillers, depend on our suspension of disbelief. And the makers of this film knew how to make the incredible seem credible in the vastly more entertaining 1996 summer blockbuster Independence Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Location: Lyons Credits: Directed by Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benecio del Toro Running time: 1:55 Rating: heavy movie version from director Terry Gilliam (Brazil, The Fisher King) is one of those good newsbad news deals.

The good news is that the movie is scrupulously faithful to the book, 1 from the prodigious ingestion of Day. But here well, you may be too busy to wonder. Through the wonders of computer technology, Emmerichs efx crew has us track the speedy, agile monster who looks like a cross between a tyrannosaur and the creature from Alien as he dodges his way around Manhattan just steps ahead of attacking helicopters. They put us on the street as he clomps by overhead. And they put us underground as he well, lets not even try to figure out how he manages to squeeze into Madison Square Garden, turning that sports center into a giant nursery.

If you do think about things, you may notice how little Broderick to the films discredit resembles Jeff Goldblum. You may recall that Goldblum played the Jurassic Park character who managed to tell us everything we need to know about himself merely by scraping an index finger across Laura Derns palm. Broderick mostly looks befuddled while using words such as controlled or illegal substances by its two principal characters to every single vomiting episode, which are legion. Moreover, Gilliam and his stars Johnny Depp and Benecio del Toro perfectly capture the paranoid, twisted, utterly out-of-control world depicted in the book. The bad news? Well, the movie strongly suggests that Thompsons volume really wasnt about anything, save for its hallucinogenic imagery, on-the-edge humor and general contempt for all things straight.

Like the book, the film opens with the words (narrated by Depp): We were somewhere in the desert on the edge of Rarstow when the drugs incipient. The other characters including a scrappy would-be television reporter played by Maria Pitillo (shes the love interest), a street-wise television camera operator (Hank Azaria), intrepid but woefully overwhelmed military types (Kevin Dunn, Doug Savant) and a mysterious French insurance agent (Jean Reno) fare little better. This just isnt a film that values its human characters. Whats worse, the monster suffers, too. We get to know the leaf-eating brachiosaurs from Jurassic Park better than we ever get to know this version of a monster that is a virtual hero to the Japanese.

In this way most of all, Godzilla is a throwback to the whole genre of eco-disaster films of the 1950s. Of course, this may be intentional. If so, director and co-screenwriter Emmerich has miscalculated. These days, we like to empathize with whatevers on the screen. Even the makers of Free Willy knew that.

began to take hold. Suddenly were thrust into the twisted world of Raoul Duke (Depp), a drug-scarfing journalist en route to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race and, later, a convention of district attorneys. In the rented convertible with him is his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Del Toro, with a huge prosthetic gut), and, briefly, a territied hitchhiker (Tobey Maguire, whos currently in town filming Ride With the Devil). Before long, Duke is swatting imaginary bats and fighting back overwhelming fear.

If only he can get out of the godforsaken desert. But once in Vegas, things are no better: Fear and Loathing quickly runs out of anything to say Movie review By Robert W. Butler Kansas City Star ope, goes the old hippie maxim, will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope. In the wake of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a revision is in order: Plot will get you through times Of no style better than style will get you through times of no plot. For fahs of I Iunter S.

Thompsons drug-addled 1971 book, the new style- He discovers the casinos are populated by bloody-mawed giant lizards dressed like tourists and cigarette girls. Meanwhile Gonzo, a buffalo of a man with prodigious appetites, exhibits a disturbing propensity for violence, going from calm, rational behavior to knife-wielding paranoia in a split second. Depp is very good in the Duke Hunter S. Thompson role. He looks and acts just like the author, right -down to the bald pate, outsizqd yellow glasses and ever-present Continued Fear, Page 10.