Deja Vu

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Seven minutes remained, and Duke's lead was 17. Still, Duke guard Trajan Langdon was briefly overcome with an incredible sense of deja vu -- and he wanted his teammates to know what he was feeling.In a brief on-court huddle, he wanted them to remember the 17-point lead in last year's regional final against Kentucky. To remember how a 17-point second-half lead that carried dreams of a Final Four was crushed by Duke's late collapse in a two-point loss."I said, `This is exactly where we were last year,' " Langdon recalled.

In Henry Jaglom's "Deja Vu," love is more than a sense of familiarity. It's pure, electric destiny.The film is dreamy and delicious in ways romantic movies rarely are, as it tells the story of a man and a woman, each deeply involved in a relationship, who find themselves inexplicably and mystically drawn to each other.Victoria Hoyt, who was so appealing and mercurial as the Hollywood actress in husband Jaglom's "Last Summer in the Hamptons," plays Dana, who meets a sad, radiant older woman on a business trip to Israel.

WHEN THE DEVELOPERS of Arundel Mills, the proposed Potomac Mills-style outlet mall near Route 100 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, revealed recently that shoppers would be able to dine in a "rain forest cafe" graced by tropical foliage and mechanical animals, one was reminded of Yogi Berra's quote, "It's deja vu all over again."When developer-visionary James W. Rouse four decades ago opened Harundale Mall as the first enclosed shopping center east of the Mississippi, he, too, placed palm trees in the courtyard and imported myna birds to wow shoppers.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.That point was made clear to the county Planning Commission Thursday night as Hampstead Mayor Christopher M. Nevin read aloud from a letter to the County Commissioners, outlining the concerns of North Carroll leaders about unchecked development:"The Mayor and Council of the Town of Hampstead have briefly reviewed the sketches for a Planned Unit Development on Route 88."We would advise caution in several areas. The impact on schools, sewerage, water, roads, utilities, etc. should be given thorough consideration.

Married with children, and they're still rocking.They're Deja Vu, a six-member band that plays the hits of their youth.The average age is 44, and the average number of children is 1.6. The drummer has three grandchildren.On Saturday, the hometown band will headline Crofton's Fourth of July Celebration on Hardy Field."We had them last year, and we thought they were great," said Michelle Devine, president of the Bowie-Crofton Jaycees, which is organizing the event. "They wanted the publicity, and they were inexpensive."

It's time for Baltimore County school officials and government leaders to commence their annual tug-of-war over the local school budget. School Superintendent Stuart Dubel has submitted to County Executive Roger Ruppersberger a proposal . .Check that. We meant School Superintendent Bob Berger and County Executive Dutch Rasmussen.Still not right? You'll have to excuse our confusing the players from the most recent budget tussles. The names are practically interchangeable, given how the same thing tends to happen each year.

Hearing of Annapolis Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins' plan to renovate the City Dock causes an uneasy feeling of deja vu.The $10 million project to repair the dock's pavement, bury power lines and shore up the bulkheading is being presented with many of the same glowing promises that presaged the reconstruction of Main Street in the state capital a few years ago.Although the Main Street project had been talked about for years, when it came down to getting the...

I looked up, and standing next to my desk was Dennis Hopper. He was wearing a football official's uniform and a trench coat. His face was sweaty. He kept looking over his shoulder."

THE Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) is out with its annual survey of teachers' salaries in the 15 Southern and border states covered by the organization, and Maryland is way ahead of the pack.Maryland's public school teachers earned an average of $39,141 in the year just ended, well ahead of second-place Virginia's $32,356 and nearly $10,000 above the average for SREB states ($30,017). In fact, Maryland is the only Southern/border state with teachers' salaries higher than the national average ($35,334)

GROUNDHOG DAY(Columbia TriStar, rated PG, 1993)This movie would have been a great short featurette on "Saturday Night Live." One would think (especially after watching it) that a 20-minute segment would pretty well exhaust the comic possibilities involving the phenomenon of deja vu.But in a world where "Wayne's World" and "Conehead" sketches are turned into full-length features, it should come as no surprise that we would see a movie based on a one-joke premise.As if that weren't bad enough, the creators spend 30 minutes setting up the joke in what has to rank as one of the most uninteresting and tedious first acts in movie history.

Baltimore, you did yourself proud Monday. You took your ballpark back. You squeezed the New York contingent out, then you drowned it out. You made Camden Yards look and sound and feel like the old days, when this was the destination not only for a nice vacation, but also for quality baseball. Heck, you even kept the rain away. You drove your Orioles to victory over the Yankees on an Opening Day that will be remembered for a long time, no matter what direction the team takes. In fact, you might have stolen that win for your team.

Maryland voters listening to the debate over legalizing slot-machine gambling in the state might be feeling a bit of deja vu - from the 2000 presidential race. Back then, George W. Bush and Al Gore frequently lobbed accusations of "fuzzy math" when attacking each other's proposals for health care, taxes and Social Security. Now, as voters prepare to head to the polls for the November slots referendum, the pro- and anti-slots camps are having a similar dispute over the amount of money slot machines would generate.

Museums are usually pretty quiet. But a Friday night at the Walters Art Museum is a different story. Drop in during evening hours and you might find yourself humming along to '80s dance music as you take in Raphael's Madonna of the Candelabra. The Fridays at the Walters program, which extends museum hours from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., brings different musicians to perform at the Museum Cafe or Graham Auditorium every Friday in an effort to lure new, often younger, visitors. "We're working toward attracting people who want to engage with the museum in a more informal, social way," says Karl Jones, education coordinator of adult programs at the Walters.

Note to makers of thrillers and love stories: Leave time travel to sci-fi experts, comedians and the occasional existentialist. A sci-fi comedy like Back to the Future moves quickly and humorously enough to make us pleasurably suspend our disbelief, and a quasi-Buddhist frolic like Groundhog Day wittily forces time to repeat itself and then stand still. But as a gimmick in a self-serious genre movie, time travel almost never works. The magic time-portal mailbox (yes, you read that right)

Deja Vu is a misnomer. This elaborate, action-packed thriller centers on a cutting-edge FBI surveillance unit that enlists ATF agent Denzel Washington to solve the bombing of a jammed New Orleans ferry. The film is tense and engrossing. But it lacks exactly what the title advertises: the sense of inexplicable familiarity that should haunt you as the story unfolds and leave you all a-tingle when it ends. Deja vu (Touchstone) Starring Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Jim Caviezel, Val Kilmer, Adam Goldberg.

DECK THE HALLS -- (20th Century Fox) Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito are neighbors feuding over holiday decorations. DEJA VU -- (Touchstone Pictures) Denzel Washington's a federal agent whose bomb investigation gets extrasensory help. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION -- (Warner Independent) A low-budget movie becomes an unexpected Oscar contender in Christopher Guest's spoof of Hollywood awards. THE FOUNTAIN -- (Warner Bros.) Hugh Jackman plays an immortal seeker in three time periods spanning 1,000 years.

NEW ORLEANS -- The Mississippi River, usually coursing with scores of ships carrying cargo and people, was nearly deserted. Coast Guard boats blockaded a half-mile stretch that runs alongside the city. But it had nothing to do with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. On this day, Hollywood needed to borrow the river - director Tony Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer were in town shooting their action movie, Deja Vu, and it was time to blow up a passenger ferry. And blow it up they did. Rigged with an array of pyrotechnics, the ferry was enveloped in a ball of fire.

WORDS LIKE "dizzying," "whirlwind" and "frenetic" have been used to describe the final full week of the close-fought 2004 presidential campaign. The reactions of newspaper readers have been passionate as they struggle to digest a flood of coverage. Two recent articles in The Sun - with the headlines "After the election, the lawyers" and "Some fear Ohio will be Florida of 2004" - offered an ominous warning that the shouting may not be over soon, regardless of the outcome of this angry race.

The Deja Vu national strip club chain got a green light yesterday from the liquor board to open what the club's owner said will be the glitziest adult entertainment venue on The Block. The board's action granted Deja Vu the necessary liquor and adult entertainment licenses to operate. Deja Vu will hire the "classiest girls we can find," enforce a dress code for customers and station attendants in restrooms to hand out paper towels, said owner Jason Mohney. Unlike most Block clubs, where patrons cluster around a bar, Deja Vu's clientele will sit at tables and be served drinks by tuxedo-clad waiters.

A Michigan company has scaled back the size of its proposed "top-of-the-line" strip club on The Block in an effort to speed approval of the project. The Deja Vu chain has told the city liquor board it plans to keep the current dimensions of the former Custom House Saloon at 18 Custom House Ave. rather than expand that space to nearly 17,000 square feet - far larger than most of The Block's nearly two dozen clubs. The decision to use the prior club's space means the liquor board will not have to hold a public hearing on a request to transfer the liquor and adult entertainment licenses to Deja Vu. Instead, an informal "conference" will be held tomorrow at City Hall.