The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 74

FRIDAY MARCH 20 1998 THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER (VH9VIES The COMedY 7PSB 568-HAHA lies and unintended laughs April 3rd 4th (2 Nights Only) Amazing Jonathon "Lounge Lizards" on Comedy Central This show is Rated PG isitOuf OtheijL'ocatior LAKElNORMAN COMEDYlZONE THIS WEEKEND! in Charlotte Lenny Schultz Mar 20th thru Mar 22nd "Laugh-In" Comedy Central This show is Rated IN CHARLOTTE Tom McGillen Mar 25th thru Mar 29th Impressionist This show is Rated PG til llllhl Cafz araoke Karaoke A tale of sex By LAWRENCE TOPPMAN Movie Writer Iust one be a natural chow-derhead to edit movie trailers or can one learn on the job? Teasers of the are revealing larger and TTiytfel larger portions of plot watching them is like leafing through 7 a Notes before reading the entire book Whoever assembled clips for gave away two-thirds of the story Though three big plot twists go unrevealed in the trailer they come late in the film and land right on top of each other The rest seems like deja view All you need to know is that respected teacher Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) is accused of rape by two high school girls in the tony South Florida town of Blue Bay Kelly (Denise Richards) is the spoiled daughter of a neglectful trampy millionaire (Theresa Russell) Susie (Neve Campbell) is the marijuana-smoking delinquent whose mother runs a barbrothel whole thing was camp Who could blame them with Susie snarling what am I to you it? Swamp trash just like my My favorite moment came when Robert Wagner turned up as a bullying lawyer Immobile as a refrigerator and menacing as Raggedy Andy he dressed Dillon down: finished here Lombardo Take a hike I see you around again be finished period! Now get the outta Ooh Bobby Dillon and Bacon win the Battle of Celebrity Cheekbones over Campbell and the impossibly voluptuous Richards Rubin-Vega gives a serious performance Bacon and Campbell hold their own and Russell extends a two-decade string of cluelessness Bill Murray has a small key role as a lawyer In case you follow the plot while sitting through it stay for the credits Scenes depict action that remained implicit through the movie and you get to hear fire unique of a tooth extracted by pliers from a living person Dinner Menu 535-1119 Nightly Prink Specials Nightly Drink Specials (I in miihii Waco film has Oscar potential UNCC connection WILD THINGS GRADE: C- STARS: Kevin Bacon Matt Dillon Neve Campbell Denise Richards Bill Murray DIRECTOR: John McNaughton RATING: Violence profanity brief sex and nudity RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes at the edge of town Detectives Duquette (Kevin Bacon) and Perez (Daphne Rubin-Vega) smell many rats in the case and investigate Double- and triple-crosses follow with cash as the prize The final lineup of winners and losers may startle you a bit But since not one of the characters is an individual and the plotting clever enough to make us forget that you may not give a hoot after all Stephen script veers as wildly as a pilotless skiff in the Everglades Moments of drama mingle with moments of (apparently) unintentional comedy Halfway through the audience at the sneak preview decided the used to debunk the claim that the Davidians set the fire) But the main thing is that it puts a human face on the says Tabor come away with the sense these were decent people who in no way wanted to die During the siege all you heard was That just true three great indigenous American religious movements Mormons Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists have all focused on Bible prophecy But people we think of as more mainstream such as Billy Graham and Pat Robertson have dealt with those ideas in books The tragedy says Tabor is that days before die fire a surrender and exit plan was worked out The lawyers David Koresh (biblical scholar) Philip Arnold and I worked out legal questions: who would be indicted what would happen to the children Koresh was concerned about his message So we said you write a reasonable-length exposition of it present it to the scholars of the Reno kept telling the FBI me an argument for The FBI did not tell her about this (agreement) in which David wrote come out as soon as he finished his manuscript So the FBI went in and the Davidians felt they really were dealing with the Armageddon they thought would come have to fault higher-ups in the FBI who take seriously the religious side of the group And there was a split between tactical people and negotiators If you listen to the phone records from the day before the fire the negotiators are the best actors in the world or they know that the tanks would be rolling in with the Have things gotten better? of us formed a religious crisis task force and had meetings with the FBI which believes the government should get really good information The Freedman stand-off showed that changing The government want another By LAWRENCE TOPPMAN Movie Writer Five years ago the federal government attacked a compound of people in Texas Images of David Koresh prophesying buildings burning and attorney general Janet Reno testifying before Congress have gotten jumbled in collective memory maybe even tangled up with suicide cults from Jonestown to Gate The Rules of puts those visions into sharper focus It argues that the government was uninformed disorganized and disastrously brutal and lied extensively about its behavior after the raid on April 19 The documentary may win an Academy Award on Monday night In the meantime UNC Charlotte will show it Sunday at 7 pm and Monday at 3:15 pm in Room 100 of the Fretwell Building Why is UNCC offering free screenings? James Tabor one of its associate professors of religious studies is the leading speaker in the first half-hour of the film He explains how the Branch Da-vidians sprang from Seventh-day Adventists He sets forth their beliefs including one that says the kingdom of God will be established on Earth rather than in heaven A fuller account can be found in his book which includes some of the documents Koresh was writing when he died film has a controversial ending (in which radar footage is.