You can catch a bus and a movie

It seems that taking the bus has gotten a whole lot easier. Now, for those riders who are fed up with crosswords or who find the scenery less than inspiring, there's another way to while away the miles.

Movies. Yep, recent films on the bus. On Peter Pan and Bonanza bus lines, which serve much of the Eastern seaboard, a passenger can get on at New York's Port Authority, head out on the highway and start enjoying "Groundhog Day." Or "Last Action Hero." You get the picture.

The way the movie is shown is much the same as the airlines do it. The driver puts a videocassette in a player, which is screened to about six monitors throughout the coach.

Bonanza riders plug into jacks mounted in the backs of the seats and listen via earphones, rented for $2. Those traveling on Peter Pan get the flick for free, but the whole bus gets the sound.

"Having video on charter buses is not new," notes Peter Pan president Peter Picknelly, who says his company started showing movies in 1992.

"It can make the trip go a little quicker," says Jason Antrosio, a 24-year-old graduate student at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore who rides Peter Pan into Manhattan regularly.

But he adds that the mandatory-movie aspect can be a problem. "I might want to read or sleep."