Bruce Willis

Like the book from which it was adapted, "Breakfast of Champions," which began a week-long run yesterday at the Charles, is filled with off-kilter images and memorably overdrawn characters pointing the way toward some larger truth that even its creators aren't sure about. Except that they're sure it's out there.But what works on the printed page, where readers can pause and reflect at will (or hurry on to the next passage) doesn't always translate well to the screen. Thus, director Alan Rudolph's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Vietnam-era classic, while faithful to the spirit of its source material, isn't the easiest thing to sit through.

How sorry are we expected to feel for Ben and Katie Jordan?The attractive couple at the center of "The Story of Us" live comfortably in an arts-and-crafts bungalow in Los Angeles, they're the parents of two nifty kids, they apparently make lots of money (he as a screenwriter, she as a crossword-puzzle designer), they have good friends with whom they banter over lunch about the opposite sex.And yet, Ben and Katie are miserable. Through years of mothering both her children and Ben, Katie has become a tad uptight.

When Planet Hollywood opens tomorrow, decked out with costumes and props that link Maryland to the silver screen, the goal is to draw a share of the tourist crowd while giving area movie buffs enough local color to call the place their own."We cater to tourists and visitors," said Kevin Bonner, general manager. "But we really want it to be a local Baltimore shrine. Here it is on the walls."The shrine starts beneath the pink and green zebra-striped awnings, just beyond the trademark plastic palm trees that flank the entrance.

Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin are always fun to watch, and it's easy to root for a 9-year-old autistic boy targeted for assassination by the National Security Agency. Those elements combine to make "Mercury Rising" a compelling, if badly flawed, thriller.Willis is Art Jeffries, an undercover FBI agent whose gung-ho superiors order a raid that results in the death of two teen-age boys. Devastated that he was unable to prevent the deaths, Jeffries starts mouthing off about incompetence and stupidity, so his bosses relegate him to the most menial, low-level jobs possible.

Social CalendarAug. 6: Grant-A-Wish Casino Night at Edgar's Billiard Club, 1 E. Pratt St., Suite 14. Fund-raiser for the Grant-A-Wish Foundation. Includes a pool shootout pitting WJZ-TV's Marty Bass against Lisa Willis, formerly of WBFF-TV. 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets $50. Buffet and two drinks included. 410-752-8080.Aug. 9: Summer concert at Ladew Topiary Gardens, 3535 Jarrettsville Pike, Monkton. Hard Travelers play. 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Picnics welcome, but not pets, alcohol or athletic equipment.

"The Siege," which has Islamic terrorists causing chaos in New York, has already been decried by Arab and Islamic groups who fear it will fan the flames of prejudice and mistrust.But director Edward Zwick's real targets are the politicians and law enforcers fighting them. Zwick and co-screenwriters Lawrence Wright and Menno Meyjes are asking: Can a free society exist when it's under attack by a group pledged to destroy it?The answer is ultimately ambiguous, because the film turns on one of Hollywood's favorite cop-outs: people who do the right thing, even when doing so is totally out of character.

If there is one season finale worth going out of your way to see in a week that's wall-to-wall with them, it's "The Birth" on tonight's "Mad About You."I stopped getting excited about television moms having babies about 20 years ago when it started to become a ratings ploy pattern for May "sweeps." So, I sat down to watch this episode armed and dangerously cynical.I walked away a believer -- believing Paul Reiser & Co. might just make this baby thing work. "The Birth" is funny, irreverent and sophisticated, with only one moment of over-the-top schmaltz near the end.It is not the funniest sitcom episode of the year.

"The Fifth Element," a movie about Apocalyptic events in the future, distinguishes itself by making the obliteration of the universe -- our universe -- seem inconsequential.Let's say that dramatic tension is not one of this movie's strengths.As a matter of fact, "The Fifth Element," Bruce Willis' latest star vehicle, could well have been called "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Judgment Day." The funny thing in this case is that a movie beginning with the promise of an epic battle between good and evil decides part way through that it would rather be a '60s sitcom, and a bad one at that.

If 12 monkeys sat in a room, pounding randomly on a word processor, it's doubtful they'd come up with anything as mixed up as Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys."An odd, futuristic mishmash, it blends the violence and pounding rhythms of late-edition, big-budget movie thrillers with the more stately and overproduced visual stylings of director Gilliam, who is famous for "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," among other things. It's a somewhat uncomfortable fit.The movie, inspired by a 1962 short French film titled "La Jetee," also seems to have borrowed much from James Cameron's "Terminator," of 1984, which is entirely appropriate, since Cameron borrowed much of his movie from an "Outer Limits" episode written by Harlan Ellison.

Some stories are so good they're director-proof, but if, say, two of the three directors that give the story a shot are verifiably great, what's the poor No. 3 going to do?In Walter Hill's case, following on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 "Yojimbo" and Sergio Leone's 1964 "A Fistful of Dollars," what he's done in "Last Man Standing" is inject the dark, cynical and funny tale with embalming fluid. It doesn't walk again, much less dance; but it doesn't quite stink either.The story is clever macho bull, always inspiring to us pre-adolescents.

Pulp Fiction 7 p.m. [AMC] You know why it's included: Bruce Willis (right) plays a fighter, and there's a boxing scene. Oh, and Harvey Keitel sort of drives like he's in NASCAR. However, I think AMC scheduled this for a little early in the evening.

Capsules by Michael Sragow unless noted. Full reviews are at baltimoresun.com/movies. Bolt: *** 1/2 ( 3 1/2) This animated tale of a dog who thinks he's a TV superhero and the girl who loves him just for being a dog is the best Disney film in years. It's filled with winning characters, clever dialogue and thrilling action, all leavened by a heart that's always in the right place. PG 96 minutes (Chris Kaltenbach) Eagle Eye: ** 1/2 ( 2 1/2) A mysterious woman who seems able to control any electronic device coerces a slacker (Shia LaBeouf)

Ben (Robert De Niro), the producer in the middle of the Hollywood comedy What Just Happened?, always has to push ahead, even when he's not sure where he's going and even when he regrets leaving something behind. Enormous projects such as Hollywood movies or American political campaigns require a propulsive, never-say-die attitude just to cross the finish line. At the moment this movie picks up Ben's life story, he's not sure he's going to make it there on any front. He's still in love with his second wife (Robin Wright Penn)

Of course, the most brutish part of my job is having to sit with men like George Clooney and Bruce Willis for dinner. But somebody has to do it and that lucky somebody is sometimes me. The other night in 21, after the feisty Leatherheads movie premiere at MOMA, Oscar winners and glamorous VIPS were mixing it up with millionaires and their rich wives. Nay, some were billionaires! I did spy David and Julia Koch, Joan Ganz Cooney and Pete Peterson, Woody "he owns the Jets" Johnson and Suzanne Ircha, Samantha Boardman and Aby Rosen, Jeanne and Herb Siegel and John and Susan Gutfreund.

THE QUESTION The fourth installment of Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis, came out this week. What is the continued allure of this series, which follows the heroics of police officer John McClane? WHAT YOU SAY I believe that the continued allure of the Die Hard series, starring Bruce Willis as police officer John McClane, is the belief, deep down in the American psyche, that one hard, righteous, determined average American working man, placed by fate in harm's way, can stand toe-to-toe with the evil terrorist legions, take everything they can throw at him and still, in the end, defeat them and emerge victorous.

With the two successful Underworld films under his belt, director Len Wiseman was ready to talk turkey about his next project. Sitting down with some executives from Fox, he says, he was open to all sorts of suggestions. Save one. "I couldn't see myself doing a straightforward action cop film," Wiseman, 34, says over the phone from his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. "That's not really something I'm in to." What he was in to, or at least what he was known for, were Underworld (2003)

Bruce Willis sightings. Traffic jams that left drivers fuming. Helicopters whizzing through the city sky. A heavy dose of moviemaking razzle-dazzle, right here in Charm City. It all started with a cell phone call. Maryland Film Office director Jack Gerbes was preparing to take off for last year's Fourth of July holiday when some folks from 20th Century Fox put a call out. They were getting ready to film Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth film in the blockbuster Die Hard franchise, and were looking for a location to shoot a few big scenes.

With the release of Live Free or Die Hard drawing near, Bruce Willis finds himself reaching out directly to angry fans to keep the fourth Die Hard film from, well, dying hard. One reason fans are angry is 20th Century Fox's decision to make this a PG-13 film unlike the first three, which were R-rated. This decision -- blasphemy to many fans -- was made public in this month's issue of Vanity Fair, in which Willis expressed his disappointment in the movie's new rating: "I really wanted this one to live up to the promise of the first, which I always thought was the only really good one," he said.

No one is who they seem in Perfect Stranger, but the promise of the unexpected comes across as a boast, not a challenge. Instead of heightening the intrigue in this psychological thriller, the labored twists and out-of-leftfield turns will leave audiences more weary than wary. Halle Berry, in her most challenging role since Monster's Ball, for which she won an Oscar, is Rowena Price, who opens the film as one seriously ticked-off investigative journalist. Her newspaper has been pressured into sitting on her big story, an expose of an immoral U.S. senator (are there no noble politicians in the movies anymore?

Eric Buarque hears it all the time: He looks just like that actor from those Die Hard films. You know, Bruce Willis. "One time I was traveling, I can't remember what airport it was, I had a bunch of young girls who were literally trembling who came up to me," the Columbia resident says. "I had my picture taken with them; it kind of made their day. As far as they know, they had their picture taken with Bruce Willis. They were happy." This week, Buarque has turned his resemblance to the rich and famous into a profit-making enterprise, landing a job as the actor's stand-in during the Baltimore shoot of the fourth Die Hard film, Live Free or Die Hard, which pits Willis' NYPD Detective John McClane against terrorists looking to wreak havoc on America via the Internet.