SUMMER MOVIE GUIDE, EPISODE 2: SEND IN THE CLONES

Ah, the summer movie season is in full swing. The big stories so far are the success of the "Spider-Man" movie, which gave "Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones" real competition for the movie dollar. There was also the controversy over the release of the movie version of Tom Clancy’s "The Sum of All Fears", which features a terrorist nuclear attack on the U.S. Some people’s concerns about whether a movie about a terrorist attack was "appropriate" after 9/11 didn’t keep the movie from shooting to number one.

This summer’s cinema, however, offers more than just the usual blockbusters. Some of the lesser-known flicks working their way to your town include:

"Debt of Honor"-After the success of "Sum of All Fears" this film based on another Tom Clancy novel was rushed through post-production in time for the summer movie season. Like "SOAF", however, several "small changes" were made in the book’s plot to avoid offending certain segments of the population or upsetting post 9/11 sensibilities. Some examples: the Japanese villains in the book have been changed to Southern white supremacists angry over the Civil War; the book’s climactic scene in which a deranged Japanese pilot crashes a 747 into the U.S. Capitol during the State of the Union Address has been rewritten so that the head bad guy (Christopher Lee) crashes a pickup truck into a 7-11 where the Secretary of Agriculture has stopped to get a fountain Coke and a big Snickers bar; and CIA analyst Jack Ryan will be played by Angelina Jolie.

"The Boring Identity": a man (Ben Affleck) washes ashore with amnesia and subtle clues to his past. Unfortunately, he discovers over the course of two and a half hours that he’s really just a tire salesman from Rapid City, South Dakota who got drunk and fell out of his bass boat.

After Russell Crowe’s Academy Award performance as schizophrenic mathematician and the success of the independent thriller "Memento" about a detective with no short-term memory, Hollywood has realized that mental illness sells tickets. "A Beautiful Mind, But Jeez, What a Mouth!" stars comedian Andrew Dice Clay in his comeback role as a man afflicted with Tourette’s syndrome who won’t let his inability to stop cursing uncontrollably keep him from his dream of becoming Archbishop of Detroit. Featuring Jennifer Lopez as Sister Caramba.

The trend of Saturday morning cartoons turned live action movies such as "Scooby Doo" and last year’s "Josie and the Pussycats" meets the equally hot trend of superhero movies in "Underdog: The Movie". Underdog (voice of Ben Stein) battles the evil Simon bar Sinister (Christopher Lee) to save his true love, Sweet Polly Purebred (Drew Barrymore). "Drew Barrymore as a dog?" marvels critic Michael Medved. "I’m surprised no one thought of it before." Soundtrack by rappers. Snoop Dogg and Little Bow Wow.

Dolly Parton, Holly Hunter, and Wynona Judd play New Jersey Mafia wives in "Divine Secrets of the Yo-Yo Sisterhood". "I got tired of all those films where non-southern actresses do these horrible southern accents," director Bubba Tyree explains from his studio in Valdosta, Georgia. "It’s time for a little payback, knowhutImean?" Soundtrack by the Dixie Chicks.

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What would summer be without a movie in which a guy dresses up as a woman, a movie in which an adult changes places with their kid, and a movie about switched identities? "Honey, I Recycled the Plot" has all three! Eddie Murphy has to dress up as his twin sister (Vivica A. Fox), an FBI agent incapacitated by a virus (Tom Green). While filling in for his stricken sister, Murphy infiltrates a devil worshipping coven led by a shadowy figure (Christopher Lee) and finds a talisman that causes him to exchange bodies with his teenage daughter (Brandy). Hijinks ensue. Everybody learns a lot about life. Audiences loudly demand their money back.

August brings us "The Osbournes: The Movie" : "We have no idea what it’ll be about," a studio executive has been quoted as saying, "But what the heck. They’ve done a TV series, a three-book deal and an album, so we have to do a movie. It’s like a law or something."

In other movie events, "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" will be re-released in midsummer with twenty seconds of previously unreleased fottage, mostly consisting of a scene where Frodo pulls a briar out of his hairy foot. Fans of the J.R.R. Tolkien-based series are expected to line up around the block to see the "Special Edition." When asked as if it isn’t cynical and manipulative to force rabid fans to pay full price for a mere twenty seconds of additional footage, LOTR" producer Peter Jackson replied "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!" while rubbing his hands together evilly.

See you at the movies, folks!

COPYRIGHT 2002 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.