The Smells Of Summer Despite A Few Good Films, The Season Was A Real Stinker For One Movie Fan

The art of cinema enjoys a proud his … (sniff, sniff) … hey, do you smell something?

No? Never mind then. As I was saying, cinema enjoys a proud history that has endured, indeed even thrived, over the past century despite the various threats posed by tele … (sniff, sniff) … now, wait, surely you smell that!

Whoa, it’s like a mixture of moldy grapes, elephant droppings and whale scat, alien breath, medieval body odor and monkey sweat, ghost residue, peat bog nasties, rusty armor and seaweed sandwiches.

In fact, imagine that-it smells just like many of the movies that passed through Spokane’s movie theaters this past summer season.

Call it: the Summer of Annoying Scents.

You may call that a too-harsh assessment, and you would have some evidence to support your contention. The season had a handful of highs, after all, both critically and at the box office.

Example 1: After the too-dark offering of “Batman Returns,” some industry observers were certain that the bat fad had run its course. No way, they said, was the third installment, “Batman Forever,” going to attract the crowds - especially in such a crowded summer for blockbuster wannabes.

But boasting a new lead actor in Val Kilmer, the hottest comedian on the planet (Jim Carrey) as his archfoe and a new director in Joel Schumacher, whose talent is as slick as series creator Tim Burton’s is significant, “Batman Forever” turned out to be the summer’s biggest success.

And this was in spite of the evidence that Schumacher is incapable of shooting a credible fight sequence, and that lead actress Nicole Kidman couldn’t steam up a compact mirror much less the big screen. Yet the crowds didn’t mind, going back so often and in such numbers that over its first nine weeks the film earned in excess of $178 million, a summer high.

Example 2: And then there was “Apollo 13.” Under fire in recent years for having more ambition than ability (remember “Backdraft” and “Far and Away”?), director Ron Howard stopped trying to be a Great Director and settled for being a decent filmmaker. The result was striking.

Unpretentious and direct, lacking the grand design of Philip Kaufman’s “The Right Stuff” but benefitting from a taut script and the presence of two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks, Howard’s “Apollo 13” boasted perhaps the summer’s best combination of craftsmanship and audience appeal ($155 million over its first seven weeks).

Which is saying something because that combination typically belongs to one of Disney’s animated features. And this summer it did not. But more on that later.

For despite box-office earnings, a number of other films did brighten up the summer schedule.

Examples 3 and beyond: Box-office success, of course, isn’t the only way to judge quality. “Babe,” for example, was a well-crafted little adaptation of a curious children’s book. And the same held true for “The Indian in the Cupboard” and “A Little Princess” (which failed to find a wide audience despite a well-publicized second release).

Both Sandra Bullock features, the romance “While You Were Sleeping” (released in April and still playing) and the computer thriller “The Net,” enjoyed better financial success. Both put that actress’ fresh appeal to good use. And with musicvideo star Alicia Silverstone in the lead role, “Clueless” was a big surprise, its fun tone disguising a clever commentary on ‘90s attitudes.

But the biggest surprise had to be Clint Eastwood’s moving adaptation of Robert James Waller’s steamy novelette “The Bridges of Madison County.” Eastwood exploited his love of jazz, guilelessly underplayed his role as National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid, concentrated both on the landscape of central Iowa as well as that of the middle-age soul and, finally, drew another superb performance from Meryl Streep.

And in doing all this, Eastwood managed to create a film aimed at an adult audience (no small miracle in itself) that had something to say of intelligence about love, loneliness and the notion of loyalty.

Compare that to, say, “Waterworld.”

Sure, it’s an unfair comparison. Romance has as much in common with sci-fi adventure as, say, broken hearts do with broken bones. Still, it’s a comparison that capably illustrates the differing directions that two megastars, Eastwood and Kevin Costner, are taking in their careers.

You’ll recall that both these guys won Best Director Oscars, Costner in 1990 for “Dances With Wolves” and Eastwood two years later for “Unforgiven.” Since then, however, Costner has appeared in such products as “The Bodyguard,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and, now, “Waterworld.”

His best effort during that time, and maybe his best acting effort short of “Bull Durham,” was in “A Perfect World.” And, fittingly, that was directed by Eastwood.

Then this summer Costner offered us “Waterworld,” which he coproduced for director and now exbuddy Kevin Reynolds.

Much has been made of the film’s budget problems ($170 million and up), problems exacerbated by Reynolds’ reported lack of communication with his crew, by bad weather and by glitches with an expensive set (that sank before shooting was complete). But that is only a small part of the story.

The fact is that in 1981, for a fraction of the cost, director George Miller shot virtually the same film in the Australian outback. And the fact that “The Road Warrior” was not set on water (the sole original aspect to “Waterworld”) could not disguise the many similarities between the two films: a world of prey and predator in which the former tend to live behind walled cities, a loner-protagonist who ends up sacrificing for others, a long-haired child representing hope for the future, a band of bad guys riding riotously loud gas-guzzling machines, a supporter (if not outright savior) navigating a fantastic flying machine, a standoff in which the loner provides the means of escape. Etc, etc.

And nothing could disguise what shows up right there on the screen: Miller’s B-movie effort is simply superior, regardless of budget, than what Reynolds-Costner came up with. Equally topical while being better based in logic, faster-moving and with a more diverse lead character in Mel Gibson, “The Road Warrior” also boasts a better sense of humor.

The public seems to agree: In its first four weeks of release, “Waterworld” earned $70 million. Certainly not bad, but hardly in “Batman” territory. And that has to be one of the reasons why, at the beginning of July, the season was $102 million ahead of last summer’s total grosses - and just six weeks later was $20 million behind.

Still, don’t blame this summer’s slump totally on “Waterworld.” Walt (“We Own the World”) Disney has to accept its share.

For this summer Disney chose to make its big animated feature by straying, as it has on only a couple of other occasions, into the arena of fictional history and cultural sensitivity. And while “Pocahontas” did end up pleasing a large number of film fans of all ages - enough, at least, to earn some $136 million - it failed to capture the same audience (this is a fact), not to mention overall quality (this is opinion), of such past efforts as “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and even “Aladdin.”

It’s hard to avoid the thought that simple arrogance led Disney to make “Pocahontas.” The company’s traditional movie-making formula, even augmented by cute raccoons, talking trees, hummable songs and a few instances of breathtaking animation, just doesn’t take into consideration that not everyone is going to be happy when the facts, if not spirit, of the past are manipulated - no matter how noble the secondary messages might be.

And “Pocahontas” was Disney’s high point of the summer, much less the year. Do these other titles sound familiar: “The Goofy Movie,” “Mad Love,” “Judge Dredd,” “Operation Dumbo Drop,” “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court” and “Dangerous Minds”?

Without “Crimson Tide,” an attempt at a Tom Clancy-type military thriller, and Bullock’s vehicle “While You Were Sleeping,” this summer might have been Disney’s worst ever.

But the point is that while there might not be many outright stinkers (I still haven’t seen “Under Siege 2”), there aren’t that many sweet-smelling successes either. Most of this summer’s releases seemed to fall in the so-so category.

An exception is “Nine Months.” Without Hugh Grant’s big night out on L.A.’s Sunset Strip, this lame comedy likely would have come and gone with hardly anyone noticing.

But take “Die Hard With a Vengeance.” Though less mean-spirited than the second installment of this three-part (so far) series, this formulaic thriller is so predictable that I was tempted to announce the plot switches before they occurred (“They’re gonna flood the tunnel!).

Or take “Dangerous Minds” - please (buh-dop-BOOM). It seems like Hollywood, reflecting the new generation of studio executives who hustle from one project to the next, re-invents itself every decade or so. Thus there’s always room for the teacher-goes-ghetto flick, whether it be “Blackboard Jungle” (1955), “To Sir With Love” (1967), “Conrack” (1974), “Stand and Deliver” (1987) or “Dangerous Minds.”

So there’s nothing new here. Unless it’s the humorous notion of Michelle Pfeiffer playing an ex-Marine who, through the “genius” of Bob Dylan, is able - after, say, a 65-minute struggle - to teach a class of black and Chicano students the beauty of poetry.

Yeah, just consider the mind-shattering inner meanings of such lines from “Mr. Tamborine Man”: “I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to” and “In the jingle-jangle morning I’ll come following you.” Snoop Doggy Dogg should be so eloquent.

As my 16-year-old daughter wonders, why do so many mainstream films have to be about solving problems? Why can’t they just be about looking at problems?

So where were the summer’s great films? Well, those that came to Spokane tended, as usual, to play at the Magic Lantern. Examples of good alternative and/or foreign cinema included “Crumb,” “Vanya on 42nd Street,” “Once Were Warriors,” “The Secret of Roan Inish” and “To Live.”

Interesting near-greats would have included: “Tom & Viv,” “Queen Margot,” “Before the Rain,” “Burnt By the Sun” and “Priest.”

As for the mainstream theaters, can this summer’s fare compare with the summer of 1994, which offered us such films as “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Maverick,” “Speed,” “Clear and Present Danger,” “The Lion King” and Best Picture winner “Forrest Gump”?

Did we miss something mysterious in the comic-book study “Casper”? Was there something Shakespearean about the overblown romance “A Walk in the Clouds”? Was “Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home” a grand statement in environmental consciousness? Were “Species” and “Congo” grand guignol warnings about the dangers inherent in fooling Mother Nature? Was “Braveheart” the realistic yin to the fantasy yang of “First Knight”?

Perhaps the answer is yes to all of these questions.

And, of course … (sniff, sniff) … perhaps elephants fly.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Color photos