IN & OUT

title: IN & OUT

year: 1997

cast: Kevin Kline, Tom Selleck, Matt Dillon, Joan Cusack, William Duell

director: Frank Oz

rating: **

Matt Dillon's character, a straight actor playing a gay man in a war film, wins an Oscar and outs his teacher, Kevin Kline, who isn't aware he's gay; in fact he's about to get married to Joan Cusack. The first half is funny as Kline tries his best to prove against Dillon's theory; but the second half, after Kline comes out publicly, is pure Hollywood propaganda as it tries way too hard to dispose of small town prejudice: battling "homophobia" at every turn and and forgetting what it is... a light comedy.

THREE MEN AND A LITTLE LADY

years: 1990

cast: Tom Selleck, Nancy Travis,  Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson

rating: ***

THREE MEN AND A LITTLE LADY has our bachelors are now full fledged fathers living with the woman (the British actress who was impregnated by Danson), and the "little lady": the child from the first film now five years old. The sequel is mostly centered on Selleck's character (who's hairdo looks like a toupee-Frisbee) secretly in love with Nancy Travis, the baby's mom... and all the stuff he and Guttenberg (Danson is out of country but joins them eventually) go through to stop her from marrying the wrong guy in England... a conceited director who's phony and not nice to the little lady. The sequel is almost as good as the original in its own way, although things are reversed: the first film is best during the first half, and the second film is best during the second half (in England). Selleck finally wins Nancy Travis and they marry... a good thing because no child should be raised by three men who paint their images in a penthouse lobby.

COMA

title: COMA

year: 1978

cast: Michael Douglas, Genevieve Bujold, Richard Widmark, Tom Selleck, Lance DeGault, Rip Torn, Lois Chiles

rating: **1/2

Michael Crichton-directed films "Westworld", "Looker", and this one suffer from "Post-Hour Syndrome". A fantastic sixty-minute build-up with terrific scientific intrigue and then a big bad guy (or machine... or both) chases the main character around and we're left with an average thriller. Crichton (a far better novelist than director) sets things up so well that the chase, no matter how intense, is a let-down... and goes on way too long. Plot of this film (based on a novel by Robin Cook with a script by Crichton) involves snooty feminist doctor Genevieve Bujold wondering why so many healthy patients (including best friend Lois Chiles), undergoing run-of-the-mill procedures, are slipping into comas. She investigates till hospital bigwig Richard Widmark catches wind and he - or someone in charge - sends a tall scary thug to kill her. This is where things get bland and ordinary as the baddie (Lance DeGault) stalks her through the ward like Michael Myers in (the original) "Halloween 2". Then she investigates a separate clinic where comatose bodies hang like puppets on strings; and has to dodge security guards and escape. Which finally leads back to the main hospital for confrontation with Widmark - and the last stretch involving our heroine going through surgery (after being drugged) and it's now up to Michael Douglas, her skeptical doctor boyfriend, to finally figure things out and save the day. Tom Selleck, a few years before MAGNUM P.I. (and a starring role in Crichton's 1983 thriller "Runaway"), makes a cameo as a patient who slips into a...