ALL THAT THERE WAS AND WILL BE

Without Limits
Genre: Drama
Rated: as PG-13 for brief sexual material and brief strong language
Directed by Rober Towne
Written by Robert Towne and Kenny Moore
Cast: Billy Crudup,Donald, Sutherland, Monica potter,Jeremy Sisto, Amy jo johnson
Running time: 117mins

When one of our greastest living screenwritters bring his personal passion to his work, the result will be exemplary. Steve Prefontaine: a charismatic, gifted  and immensely popular runner was a front-runner who considered any other type of racing cawardly. A crusader in amateur athletics,'Pre'spearheaded a successful move to expose the corruption of the Amateur Athletic Union in the United States. He was also remarkably selfcentered, which served him well in running, but made relationships problematic. Without Limits focuss on Pre'spersonal life, while it is clear that most lasting impact he made on sports was in his public life, both as a runner and an anti-AAU zealot.    

A SOLDIERS'S
                   SWEETHEART
Genre: Drama/war
Rated: as R for some graphic war violance and injury, strong language and brief sexuality
Written& Directed by thomas Michal Donnelly
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Georgina Cates, Louis Vararia
Running Time: 112 mins

After spending the best years of his life waging war across the galaxy, monosyllabic soldier Kurt Russell gets junked in place of next year's model:Lee, an upgraded, genetically engineered supertropper. Unfortunately for the audience, DNA was not the only thing getting recombinated here.The movie is filled with scenes cloned from movies like Mad Max beyond Thunderdome, Blade Runner and Star Trek 11. After being downsized to a planet used as a garbage dump,Russell falls in with a group of outcasts and experiences the first stirrings of human feelings. Although the sets are visually srriking, you've seen the eventual climatic battle before in another galaxy far,far away. Like Russell's character, Soldier seems destined for the trash heap.

THE MOD SQUAUD
First they broke the law

Genre: Action/thriller
Rated: asR for language, violance and some sexuality
Directed by Scott Silver&Kate Lanier
Cast:Claire Danes Farina, Steve Harris, Josh Brolin
Runing time: 94 mins

The Mod Squad has an intriguing cast, a director who knows how to use his camera and a lot of humour sly humour. Shame about the story. When you see many of the right elements in a lame movie, you wounder how close they came to making a better one. The director Scott Silver, co-wrote the script himself, and has to take some of the blame: This is a classy production and deserves better. The premise is from the old TV series. There young screw-ups are interrupted at the beginning of criminal careers, and recruited by a police captain to form as under cover squad. their assignment: Infiltrate a club where prostitution and durg dealing seemtobe happening. The Mod Squad does not carry guns (officially, anywhere),doesnot have badges and if they can make arrest;may be they are more like high level snitches. This is a top-drawer film with a decent budget and lots of care about the production values. The cast is talented and Well-choosen.The movie is even aware of potential cliches (before the last shoot-out, Julie says, "At least it's not going down in an abondoned warehouse").And then what do they end up with? The most expensive Nancy Drew mystery ever filmed.

Best of '99