SUMMER FIZZLED, BOX OFFICE SIZZLED; REACHING NEW LOWS IN QUALITY, TOP-GROSSING FILMS TOOK ON A NEW MEANING.

Byline: -Bob Strauss Glenn Whipp

A coven of `Witch'-es to come?

It's been the most financially successful summer in movie history. It's also been one of the ghastliest, rife with overhyped but unsatisfying event films and crude comedies that brought the concept of lowest common denominator to new lows.

Our critics Bob Strauss and Glenn Whipp conduct a post mortem on this most Frankenstein-ish movie season, 3-1/2 months that may have exhibited signs of vital life at box offices but couldn't disguise the distinct odor of something rotting in Hollywood.

The summer of our discontent

Strauss: Some of the people were pleased some of the time, but I can't remember a summer when I've heard so many complaints about even the most popular movies. ``Star Wars'' was childish or lifeless or racist or just too Jar Jar. ``Austin Powers'' was repetitious and self-indulgent. ``Eyes Wide Shut'' was ludicrous, boring, sex-obsessed and not sexy enough, all at the same time. ``Blair Witch'' wasn't scary and the camera work made my girlfriend throw up . . .

I'm not even thinking about critical worthiness - nothing this year attempted to achieve what ``Saving Private Ryan'' and ``The Truman Show'' did in '98 - just general entertainment value. The only thing I've heard universal praise for was that eerie kid from ``The Sixth Sense.''

Whipp: Don't forget (although I see how you easily could) ``Wild Wild West'' or ``The General's Daughter,'' movies that made more than $100 million and yet left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Never mind the barf bags they issued at ``Blair Witch'' screenings. These were the summer's most offensive stomach-turners.

What's disturbing is how simple it has become to fool millions of people and get a big opening weekend. Take ``The Haunting.'' People saw its trailers. People figured it was stupid. And it still made $33 million in its first three days. Is there some perverse ethos at work here? Hey, honey, how 'bout dinner and an abomination? Bete noire instead of film noir?

Strauss: Well, hope does spring eternal, especially when the weather's warm (or so hot that people will look at anything as long as it's in an air-conditioned theater).

Not your mother's apple pie 

Strauss But hype wasn't the only bete that was beaten too vigorously this summer. I ask you: Have you ever seen such a high concentration of adolescent smut as the collected joke writers of ``Austin Powers,'' ``Big Daddy,'' ``American Pie,'' ``Mystery Men'' and ``Detroit Rock City'' foisted upon us? I knew this would happen in the wake of ``There's Something About Mary,'' which actually did something original and creative with vulgar humor. But I didn't expect it to get so thoroughly immature so fast.

And of course, the ``South Park'' movie, the one smart summer comedy that consciously criticized the witless toilet trend, was the picture most pundits thought should have been censored more. Now that's really sick.

Whipp: I don't know if summer movies were any dumber this year. We've always had stupid action movies and simple-minded special effects extravaganzas during this silliest of seasons.

This year, filmmakers simply decided to concentrate their energies on boogers instead of bombs. Hollow sentiments have usurped hollow-point bullets. Maybe that's progress. If I had to pick my poison, in this case my preferred form of brainless escapism, I'd take Mini-Me over Steven Seagal or ``Die Hard 5'' any summer.

Strauss: Yeah, that was interesting. It's almost as if the studios foresaw the outcry against media violence after the Columbine massacre, and designed the lowest body count summer in years accordingly. (``The Mummy'' excepted).

Of course, that would be giving way too much credit to studio promotion departments. They may have bludgeoned big audiences into opening weekends of bad films, but compared to the cyber-guerrillas who sold ``Blair Witch,'' they communicated about as well as cavemen drawing on walls. That ``Witch'' campaign was hands down the best show of the summer.

Scary, too - but in a good way

Strauss: Yeah, yeah, OK. But if the preceding exchange isn't proof that ``Blair Witch'' was the only movie worth discussing this summer, I don't know what is. But to segue this conversation into something a little wider, the season's only good trend was well-crafted fright films. Sure, it's just two movies at the moment - ``Blair'' and ``Sixth Sense'' - but it's remarkably refreshing after decades of incoherent slasher films and their misbegotten spawn, ``Scream''-style pseudo-spoofs that are really just slasher films with snide attitudes.

And it looks like the cycle could continue through the fall, with smart-sounding horrors like ``Stir of Echoes,'' ``Lost Souls,'' Tim Burton's ``Sleepy Hollow'' and Roman Polanski's ``The Ninth Gate'' on the way. Of course, they could all go the overproduced way of ``The Haunting,'' which would really be horrific.

Whipp: Here, I have hope. And you're absolutely right. The psychological horror revival is a trend to be toasted with a glass of warm milk while huddled around the night light. (No more camp fires, at least not so soon after ``Blair Witch.'')

And, although it wasn't a fright film per se, ``Arlington Road'' contained some bracing moments of psychological terror, not to mention great turns from Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. It was, along with ``The Iron Giant,'' sadly underappreciated.

A summer of small pleasures

Strauss: And just as derivative. ``Iron Giant'' was nicely drawn, but it was the most critically overrated film of the summer - Superman meets E.T. meets Jesus, with some coy '50s gags and ``Transformer'' motifs tossed in. I'm not surprised that the kids weren't attracted.

There was actually more to appreciate in ``Tarzan.'' Even though it stuck slavishly to the Disney formula, I loved the animation's kinetic energy and rapid-fire perspective changes. Too bad they neglected to include any African people in their cartoon Africa, though.

Whipp: Maybe if Africa had more theaters - or fast-food restaurants (for the all-important commercial tie-ins) - Disney would have been a bit more resolute in its depictions.

And, by the way, Superman, E.T. and Jesus are OK in my book.

Strauss: Mine, too, and many, many other books, all of which came out before ``Iron Giant.'' But heck, if you got some pleasure out of one of this summer's movies, far be it from me to deny you that. It wasn't easy.

Myself, I gleaned a few good chuckles from some of the season's satires. ``Bowfinger,'' ``Dick,'' ``Mystery Men,'' even ``Austin Powers'' had their bright bits.

And the songs in the ``South Park'' movie were hilarious.

Whipp: There were some romantic high points as well. Hugh and Julia (``Notting Hill''), but not Richard and Julia (``Runaway Bride''). The kid and his warm apple pie. Tom Cruise and his masked orgy.

Pretty silly stuff. But not a killer asteroid in sight.

Whipp: The success of ``The Blair Witch Project'' probably means that next summer, we'll be inundated with authentically low-grade ``Blair'' imitations. Stock up on those air sickness bags.

Of course, if Hollywood's movers and shakers cared about originality as much as the profit margin, they'd realize that ``The Blair Witch Project'' is a one-shot phenomenon, impossible to duplicate. In other words: Please, don't try. I don't want to see dozens of ``Blair''-esque movies in the coming years.

What studios and screenwriters need to do is come up with more original ideas and pursue them without compromise. (Now there's a scary notion.) Then hire a crack marketing team - not the people who botched ``The Iron Giant'' - and keep those fingers crossed.

Strauss: Well, for better or worse - and I think there will be a lot of both - ``Blair Witch'' is going to have at least as much influence on the next half-decade's worth of films as ``Pulp Fiction's'' had on the last five years. And while I know that means lots of amateurishly shot, plotless thrillers, I'm more optimistic than not about it.

For one thing, ``Blair'' proves that blockbusters don't require bloated budgets and overpaid stars, which always perverts the story values of the movies made that way. It also should shake up the independent sector, which needs it; supposedly daring, off-Hollywood outfits have been channeling too many resources toward polite, easily marketable Oscar fodder lately. ``Blair's'' success should encourage them to take more of the chances they used to take, and still should.

Most encouraging of all, though, ``Blair'' renews one's faith in cinema's power to change and surprise. Despite some people's disdain, it is a good movie, superbly acted and with a visual plan that perfectly evokes the characters' deteriorating mental states. And it was made in the loosest possible manner, just the actors filming themselves in the woods from written instructions the directors would leave for them.

When you consider how often two of the most overcontrolled films of all time - George Lucas' ``Phantom Menace'' and Stanley Kubrick's ``Eyes Wide Shut'' - went off the tracks, ``Blair's'' comparative aesthetic success heralds an entirely new and valid approach to film storytelling.

Whipp: Wow. Hearing your optimism, Bob, your happy expectancy for the future of hand-held cinema, fills me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. It's not going to happen, but you sure have me wanting to believe.

Yes, ``Pulp Fiction'' was influential. But I don't need too many fingers to count the number of movies from the Tarantino school that were remotely entertaining, much less original. Tarantino himself seems stumped. He has made only one movie - the mediocre ``Jackie Brown'' - in the past five years.

``Blair'' may indeed herald the democratization of the moviemaking process. God help us. If I want to see home movies, I'll go visit my parents next time they're back from Yellowstone.

What ``Blair'' will change in Hollywood is the way movies are marketed. Studios have been planting fake buzz on the Internet for a long time. After seeing what Artisan did with ``Blair,'' look for more fanciful fabrications aimed at their favorite demographic, the 18-24 set. The hype will be hipper, but it will still be hype. And, for the most part, the movies won't be any better - or altogether different - than they are now.

CAPTION(S):

6 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) SUMMER OF HORRORS

(2) To one critic, ``Iron Giant'' was nicely drawn, but was the most critically overrated film of the summer. To another, the film was sadly underappreciated.

(3) Glenn Whipp: ``If Hollywood's movers and shakers cared about originality as much as the profit margin, they'd realize that `The Blair Witch Project' is a one-shot phenomenon, impossible to duplicate. In other words: Please, don't try.''

(4) Bob Strauss: ``Have you ever seen such a high concentration of adolescent smut as the collected joke writers of `Austin Powers,' `Big Daddy,' `American Pie,' `Mystery Men' and `Detroit Rock City' foisted upon us?''

(5) ``Eyes Wide Shut'' was assailed as being ludicrous, boring, sex-obsessed and not sexy enough, all at the same time.

(6) Even though ``Austin Powers'' was labeled repetitious and self-indulgent, it had its bright bits.

Box: A coven of `Witch'-es to come? (See text)