by Harry Allen

This past summer while travelling through Germany, I had the misfortune of seeing the film ‘Congo”. The film, in case you have not seen it, is about a motley proup of researchers, schemers and Defence Department officials who po to Africa in an attempt to return a porilla to its home. Upon arrival they find the treasures of a past Fivilization and discover what happened to a group a Defence Department scientist who were earching for some special dia- onds that could be used to con- truct powerful lasers.

This is what I understood to e the plot. I might be wrong, see s how it was all in German. About en minutes into the movie I realized at this was probably a good thing. he facial expressions and predict- bility of scenes made apparent the ow-calibre of the movie I was eing. To suffer through predict- ble and ridiculous dialogue might ave been too much. So, after the ovie I wondered -- why did this Ovie get so much hype when it as so awful?

I decided that the problem is ith the big movie studios in Holly- ‘ood. They need to generate the pearance of talent and, more portantly, household fame for ome element of the new release. ince everyone has seen Jurassic ark, and everyone knows that ichael Crichton is the author of

e book on which the screenplay

as based, why not use this author’s ame as the selling point for a popular summer release? I don’t think that the quality of movies

Res

HOLLYWOOD?

ewspaper

would be so awful if was possible to generate more stars.

Week to week you see the same people gracing the covres of the tabloids, and the same goes for the contents of popular magazines like People. The public can only follow so many stars at once. The small number of legitimate super- stars must now work to complete movies as quickly as the public can consume them. This means that there is no time to make an effort at a quality production. For example, Wolf, starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer, had several differ- ent screenwriters. The discontinuity of their ideas is obvious to anyone who’s seen it. Certain parts are completely incongruous with other parts and there isn’t even the slight- est attempt to reconcile these incon- sistencies. There simply isn’t enough time. These superstars have to be available for the next big release that feeds off their fame. You can be assured that the quality of these yet-to-be-made movies will be as awful as their predecessors -- witness Dangerous Minds. In order to appear as if they are releasing the best new pictures, these producers have to spend incredible amounts of money to provide state of the art special effects. This gives the appearance of greatest available movie quality. My belief is that as technologies become cheaper and

the ways of creating fame becomes less centralized you will see inde- pendent movies replacing these huge production affairs as the pub- lic’s choice.

Arts & Entertainment

APOCALYPSE NOW FOR

The Secret Of Pirate’s Manor Story: EricSuben

Art: Berth Amoss

(Andrews and McMeel)

Almosteveryone spentat least one childhood afternoon sitting on the kitchen floor with a jigsaw puzzle.

Most of us have happy memories of chasinglost pieces behind the fridge or shooing the cat when she sat on the picture looking for attention. Ah, blissful youth! What parent doesn'ttry to distract their child with one of these fully-interlocking beauties?

That's the kind of market The Secret of Pirate Manorhopesto cash inon. It’s asimplistic story abouta couple of kids who explore an old pirate’s house, suffer a couple of scares, then suddenly find pirate treasure and turn the place intoa museum. Yay. Thegimmickthey hope will sell the book is the two-sided jigsaw puzzle included, which can be pushed out of the front cover and taken apart and then put together again to form a different picture on the inside back cover.

To be kind, the idea of a pull-out jigsawis kind of neat. Itadds alittle sense of mystery. But pulling the puzzle out with its pieces intactis

harderthan dentistry on ahungry lion andjamming the assembled puzzle bac into its die-cut tray requires repeated whackings. This adds an unfortunate edge of violence to the otherwise harmlesstale.

Puzzle aside, the story is paper- thin and too insipid to hold the atten- tion of anyone past the age of 3, whic! defeats the purpose of the sophisti- cated gimmick. The girlscreams at every noise (bad stereotyping). The : duo discovers treasure onthe very las page and turns the place into amu- seum -- not too realistic. | knowit’s only akid’s book, but that’s not an excuse: any kidcan tell you that findin pirate gold is damn hard work! And while the art tries to be atmospheric by hiding thing in the shadows, it’s jus too crude.

Do your kids a favour. Buy the: aLion King puzzle and a stack of old Beatrix Potter books. They'll have much more fun than they would with this.

--T. Drake

A Teacher Affects Eternity Edited by Linda Sunshine Andrews and McMeel

Have you everhadateacher that changed your life? Showed you what you really wanted to be when you grew up? Orjust made science class fun? Then | have the bookto thank them for it. This bookis a tribute to teachers. The small, hard- cover book is filled with thoughts, phrases and personal recollections from all sorts of different people. Albert Einstein to Woody Allan,

Dickens to Churchill, all the major bases are covered. Itis full ofenough beautiful pictures and thoughts to make ateacher cry. This is awonder ful, wonderful book. Ifateacher has ever touched your life get them this book, after all“ A teacher affects etemity: he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Colleen Easter