Okay, let's get the Oscar poop over with. First, the US Postal Service, in its divine and infinite wisdom, accidentally diverted 4,000 of the 5,600-some Oscar ballots to a bulk mail warehouse in the middle of nowhere. While some (like me) relish the idea of Oscar ballots mingling with common junk mail from the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, the Academy is not amused. New ballots were mailed in yellow return envelopes to prevent multiple voting, just in case the bulk ballots ever arrive (the original mailings had white envelopes). In the wake of accusations that Miramax ("The Cider House Rules") is trying to buy an Oscar with its extensive publicity campaign, this ballot issue is the last thing the Academy needs in a year when its credibility is already wire-thin.

So if a mailing snafu is the last thing the Academy needed, then the scandal with the statues was sure to cause some heart attacks in Hollywood. You didn't hear about this? An entire shipment of the actual Oscar statues up and disappeared on the shipping company. Details were unclear as to whether they were stolen or simply, um, lost. An embarassed shipping company offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who could locate the awards. Well, a man named Willie Fulgear found some if not all the 55 missing statues in a dumpster behind a "Food 4 Less" in the Koreatown district of LA. Apparently, Fulgear found the ten boxes and put them in his car without opening them. When he did peek inside later and realized what he had, he called KCBS television in LA. The LAPD is questioning Fulgear, and if he can lead them to the real thief, Fulgear gets the loot. If they do find this perpetrator, they might want to let OJ question him as well, since he might be the real killer.

And to wrap up last week's "Blame Canada" story, the Academy has decided to hand the song over to Robin Williams and hope for the best. Williams will perform the song as part of a five-song medley of the all the Best Original Song nominees. The Academy has given no special instructions to Williams on how to deal with the parts ABC deemed offensive (and yes, ABC considers the word "fart" offensive), insisting that they trust the veteran comedian and want it to be an Oscar-night surprise. And to close the Oscar stuff, the MPAA is working with auction sites (including Ebay) to shut down people who auction off Oscar "screeners." A screener is a video of an Oscar-nominated film that's released early for Academy voters. Kenneth Jacobsen, the MPAA's Piracy Czar, said the MPAA notifies an auction site when a screener goes up for sale, asks the sale be stopped and that information about the seller be handed over. "There's always the possibility that they don't realize what they are doing is not legal," said Jacobsen. And, of course, there's always the possibility that the MPAA doesn't realize it has no authority to enforce or create laws, too.

Speaking of getting free stuff, "Pearl Harbor" scored a coup by getting Ben Affleck to star for no money up front. As the star himself explained on his Web site (affleck.com): "If you had asked me a year ago if I'd be doing Michael Bay's next movie -- and for no money at that -- I'd have said you were crazy." The movie has received a green light from Disney with the staggering budget of $145 million, and in order to keep costs at that level, Affleck agreed to waive his $10 million fee for a back end deal. Ironically, in the same letter, he confirmed his miserable track record in big blockbusters, saying, "I was fully expecting the kind of saccharine, popcorn that was ‘Armageddon.'" Just don't touch any animal crackers, Ben.

Meanwhile, Columbia won't let Spike Lee direct the upcoming Muhammad Ali biopic, not even for free. Spike Lee was reportedly fuming over the Sony-owned studio's decision. "Spike felt that only a black man could do justice to the story of Cassius Clay. He still feels that way," said a source close to Lee. Columbia executives, on the other hand, felt that if Lee directed, "it would become a narrow, militant movie. They thought Michael Mann could deliver a mainstream movie." Columbia apparently doesn't care about the movie's street credibility at all, since Will Smith has already been casted as Ali. That's right, Will Smith. God help us all.

Mission to Mars
Director: Brian DePalma
Starring: Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Jerry O'Connell, Connie Nielsen

I happened to have my wisdom teeth removed the same weekend I saw Brian DePalma's "Mission to Mars." This is a good thing, because now I can say, with authority, that watching this movie was worse than oral surgery. To be fair, the theater I went to didn't include heavy sedation and pain pills in the price of admission like my dentist did, but they sure should have.

This is only the first in a long summer of epic of space movies (could that have anything to do with this being the year 2000? Hmmm?), and if it's any indication, this summer will represent one small step for Hollywood stupidity, one giant leap for wasted special effects. Probably pitched as "2001 for the year 2000" or something insipid and easy to swallow like that, this space odyssey concerns a small group of quirky astronauts in the year 2020 (get it?) who are selected to go to Mars. Publicity sources from the movie claim that "Mission to Mars" is one of the most thoroughly researched space films ever and had the full cooperation of NASA in writing the script. Jaded cynicism aside, this gave me a glimmer of hope for a cool movie.

Why, then, was that not enough? Astronauts going to Mars! Realistic space flight with realistic space problems shown on the big screen! Mars!

No, one of the movie's screenwriters decided that there had to be human melodrama, because Mars just isn't interesting enough. So we're treated to slow painful close-ups of Gary Sinise (wearing way too much mascara and vaseline) pining over his dead wife. Okay, so the producers wanted to hook the chicks, like "Titanic." I can deal with that.

But then, somebody decided that the movie should be a tribute to sci-fi space blockbusters of the 70s and 80s, so Ennio Morricone came on board and wrote the worst cinematic score I have ever heard. It's as if DePalma said, "Okay, Ennio, there's going to be lots of special effects and drama and explosions, so go write the kind of sweet operatic music you would do for a French film about having an affair with a twelve year old while living on a sheep farm." The biggest problem with any sci-fi movie is that it will quickly become dated if it's not done right. This one's done so wrong, it's DOA -- Dated On Arrival. "Planet of the Apes" has hipper dialogue and music than "Mission to Mars."

And then, another of the movie's screenwriters decided that this movie had to answer the questions about the origin of life, and not in a hazy Stanley Kubrick way, but definitively. So the movie ends with a cartoon alien giving three humans a PowerPoint presentation on why there is no God.

Here, at approximately the six-hour mark, is the reason this movie is offensively bad. "Mission to Mars" decided its real mission was to just come out and say, finally, that man descended from shiny golden aliens from Mars, and that we can all stop believing in God now because the planet was seeded with Martian refugees. Yuck. If I wanted to be evangelized -- and make no mistake, this kind of ‘science' is as far-fetched and out there as any organized religion -- I'd go to a church play, not the movies.

At least a church won't try to sell me M&Ms. F

The Ninth Gate
Rating: R
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner

According to Roman Polanski, there is a God, and he's a librarian. That's what one gathers, anyway, from watching "The Ninth Gate," his first release in nearly six years. Polanski is returning to his favorite genre -- the Satanic film noir -- which he used to achieve fame in the late 60s and early 70s with such gems as "Rosemary's Baby," "MacBeth," and "Chinatown." The major difference this time is that it's no longer good vs. evil, but evil vs. evil.

Dean Corso (Depp) is a book detective, the type of lonely, suave scholar who spends his time tracking down rare books for serious collectors and verifying their authenticity. The script hints that he has a sort of James Bond past, and the events of the movie certainly propel him through enough sex, fist fights and car chases to be 007-worthy, but Depp does a great job of playing Corso for what he is -- a bookworm.

Boris Balkan (Langella) is a scholar in Satanic literature who hires Corso to check the authenticity of his most prized tome, "The Book of the Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Darkness." There are only three copies in existance, and Balkan wants Corso to go to Europe, track down the other two, and compare the copies. Sounds boring.

Of course, with Polanski and Satan in the mix, nothing is quite so pedestrian. Before long, Corso finds himself attacked by a mysterious black man, seduced by a witchy widow, and befriended by a girl (Seigner) who is either an angel, a devil, or a hot grad student with a crush on Johnny Depp. Emmanuelle Seigner, an unknown on this side of the pond, is a revelation, with her menacing oversized eyebrows and flippant French girl attitude. It only takes a few close ups on her lean and angular face to set the tone for the immoral innuendo that follows.

The best bits of "The Ninth Gate" are the most humorous, and Polanski (with his co-writer John Brownjohn) deals out great witty dialogue for Depp and company to play with. The whole script sparkles with the kind of verbal retorts that are missing from every Hollywood effort of this generation, since screenwriting became irrelevant about the same time that "Star Wars" came out. Although there are a few good action sequences and a passable mystery going on in the plot, it's the banter that keeps the film entertaining.

Unfortunately, not even a good script is enough to keep the Average American Audience captivated. At its core, "The Ninth Gate" is a European film, complete with slow plot development and an ambiguous ending. Another clue that it's meant for European audiences is that the movie is a virtual advertisement for cigarette smoking. We Americans, in our hypocritical grandeur, would much rather be pelted with blatant plugs for Dr. Pepper and M&Ms in "Mission to Mars" than be subliminally turned on to the romance of a burning cigarette. As the lady in the row behind me put it, "You know they're evil because they just keep smoking!"

Polanski is still a great film maker, and this effort ranks right up there as one of his successes, but it's a film doomed to be loved by film students and yawned at by ticket buyers. Go only if you're the type to smile at the well placed reflection of flames in a mirror, or chuckle at witty repartee. Otherwise the sex, fist fights and car chases will only look like pale imitations of more exciting movies, and the ending-that's-not-an-ending will really piss you off. B-

Reportedly, Denise Richards (recently seen in "The World Is Not Enough") won't talk about "Tammy and the T-Rex," her debut as a leading lady in a motion picture. Why won't she talk about it? It may have something to do with the fact that her character falls in love with a dinosaur -- but don't worry, she loves him for his mind.

Denise plays high school cheerleader Tammy, which allows for an opening scene set during cheerleading practice, which in turn gives her a chance to display her acting assets. Tammy is in love with football player named Michael (Paul Walker), though she is still stalked by her gang-leading ex-boyfriend Billy (George Pilgrim). Tammy also has a male best friend, Byron (Theo Forsett), who is both black and gay -- that's right folks, he's two, two, TWO stereotypes in one!

When Billy catches Michael and Tammy together, he does what any surly, jealous ex-boyfriend would do: He drags Michael off to the wild animal park and strands him in the vicinity of some hungry lions, where he is mauled, but not quite fatally. Hurriedly slapping on her sluttiest outfit, Tammy rushes to his hospital bed, only to be greeted by a mad scientist, Dr. Wachenstein (Terry Kiser).

Unbeknownst to Tammy, Wachenstein is experimenting with robot bodies and has decided that he wants to transplant Michael's brain into his newest experiment. The next thing she knows, she's slapping on her second sluttiest outfit to rush to Michael's funeral.

Michael wakes up in his new body and, as would only be natural for someone in his position, he goes on a killing spree. This culminates in a party scene in which Michael goes to town on Billy's gang. Soon the killing grows old, so Michael kidnaps Tammy. Once Tammy figures out that Michael has undergone the Godzilla treatment, the race is on to find Michael a new body so that his brain can reside in a receptacle more suited to loving Tammy in the way she needs to be loved. The balance of the film comprises many scenes in which Tammy and her T-Rex run from the evil doctor and/or the town sheriff. Incidentally, Sheriff Black happens to be Byron's father, therefore adding another stereotype to Byron's repertoire: The misunderstood son of the sheriff.

Tammy and the T-Rex is supposed to be madcap comedy, which disqualifies it from the category of comedy. We're supposed to laugh at the shallowest stereotypes (Byron is gay and very effeminate and cowardly, Wachenstein is German and constantly exchanges double entendres with his assistant Helga) and low-rent pratfalls. Of course, the concept that Tammy might be sleeping with a dinosaur carries most of the "humor" during the film's last act. The only thing that's really funny is watching the film with the knowledge that Denise Richards would go on to be a star. The absurd ending carries no irony, and we suspect that the film's original script had a different conclusion in mind for our star-cross'd lovers.

The film is extremely low budget, so don't expect much in the way of dinosaur effects. The T-rex is played by a full-sized prop most of the time, but it isn't a movie prop. It's one of those animatronic dinosaurs that show up periodically at science centers. As such, the T-rex can't do much more than move its head a little. In that way, it's a lot like George Clooney playing Batman. In order to make the otherwise static dinosaur interact with the actors some very unconvincing T-rex gloves and boots are also used. It's a good thing, too: Without those gloves, Mike's stubby little T-rex arms would be too short to reach the telephone he uses shortly after his escape. Dinosaur lovers will either sob in despair at the mistakes or have a great time picking the details apart.

Let's face it, the only reason anyone would watch this movie is because Denise Richards is in it. How does she acquit herself under these trying circumstances? Well, let's just say that comedy has never been her forte. To make up for her lack of wit, the producers dress Richards up in some pretty funny outfits. Tammy can't afford to shop at Tramps-R-Us, so she goes to Sluts-B-Used. If this film were made in the 80s, we could at least understand the sub-Madonna look, but this film was made in the 90s. People knew better by then. Didn't they? D-