Lethal Weapon

I've always considered the bottom-feeders of the American film audience to be those dim souls who wander in five minutes or so before the climax and stare at the screen in utter bewilderment. But that trick won't get them into any trouble with "Lethal Weapon 3," which has a starting point and a stopping point but no true beginning, middle or end.The movie is made up of modular components -- action sequences, seduction sequences, banter sequences -- that are arbitrarily arranged. You could reorder them totally, you could scramble them in a Cuisinart or bounce them down the steps in a basketball, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

What's wrong with our society? Are we that sick that we have more respect for animals than we have for human beings? A 78-year-old woman was attacked by a pit bull and underwent facial surgery ("Pit bull attack upsets neighborhood," June 8). The incident left her with one arm broken in two places and other fractures and bite wound on her face, ear and arm. She faces a lengthy hospitalization and rehabilitation as a result of the attack. The owner of the pit bull was cited by animal control officers for allowing the dog to run free and failing to license or vaccinate it. Wow, what a penalty.

Scouts from other clubs followed Arthur Rhodes' progress early in spring training, hearing that the Orioles planned on dealing the left-hander by April 1. But shortly thereafter manager Davey Johnson and pitching coach Pat Dobson began to like Rhodes, and he was pulled off the market.This was a move the Orioles didn't make, and it has paid off so far. Rhodes has two wins and a save in four appearances, allowing just five hits and a run in 9 1/3 innings, with 10 strikeouts and a 0.96 ERA.Rhodes was the winning pitcher in the Orioles' 6-5, 12-inning victory over the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday night, striking out three in three shutout innings.

A visit by Mayor William Donald Schaefer to the General Assembly was hard to forget. It was an orchestrated military maneuver — you knew he was coming to your committee because the TV tripods were already set up. His arrival looked a lot like a rugby scrum, an odd combination of cameras, reporters, a brace of staff carrying easels and flip charts, and of course, himself in the middle, snarling at reporters and barking at staff to the astonishment of...

If you're one of the stars of "Lethal Weapon 4," if you were on the crew of "Lethal Weapon 4," if your brother worked on "Lethal Weapon 4," you're gonna love "Lethal Weapon 4," a rip-snorting thrill ride that's more a self-indulgent frat party than a movie.Too bad audiences are going to feel left out, particularly audiences with a fondness for plot or pacing.Even more than its predecessors, "Lethal Weapon 4" is a bunch of set pieces strung together with the slimmest of threads, explosions followed by crashes followed by fisticuffs followed by more explosions.

I've always considered the bottom-feeders of the American film audience to be those dim souls who wander in five minutes or so before the climax and stare at the screen in utter bewilderment. But that trick won't get them into any trouble with "Lethal Weapon 3," which has a starting point and a stopping point but no true beginning, middle or end.The movie is made up of modular components -- action sequences, seduction sequences, banter sequences -- that are arbitrarily arranged. You could reorder them totally, you could scramble them in a Cuisinart or bounce them down the steps in a basketball, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

''The Last Boy Scout'' should do it for Bruce Willis.Willis has had a string of losers (''Bonfire of the Vanities,'' ''Hudson Hawk,'' ''Mortal Thoughts,'' ''Billy Bathgate''), so the Willis Watch has been growing, gathering speed and attention as it does. Will he ever do another successful film? Are the ''Die Hard'' films going to be the length and breadth of his movie career?Well, ''The Last Boy Scout'' may not be perfect, but it moves like thunder, has a number of laughs and entertains during all of its 97-minute running time.

LOS ANGELES -- So who's left to see it next weekend?"Batman Returns," unsurprisingly, swooped into theaters and soared to a box-office record -- $47.7 million, including $2 million for Thursday night sneak previews, for a whopping $18,049 per-screen average. That was half of all the money spent by moviegoers over the weekend.The reception at Warner Bros., which distributed the film, was understandably jubilant. "I was basically one of the more optimistic people around here, and I was looking at $44 million," said Barry Reardon, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros.

There are 8 million jokes in "National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1," and at least one of them is funny.The movie is an all-over-the-landscape parody of the modern cop thriller -- chiefly the "Lethal Weapon" series, but also "Silence of the Lambs," "Die Hard" and others of the ilk -- which lays on so many yuks so fast you're almost always three or four jokes behind.Here's where I laughed: when, in the background and out of focus, some cops did the limbo under that yellow evidence tape that is a crime-scene cliche.

What's wrong with our society? Are we that sick that we have more respect for animals than we have for human beings? A 78-year-old woman was attacked by a pit bull and underwent facial surgery ("Pit bull attack upsets neighborhood," June 8). The incident left her with one arm broken in two places and other fractures and bite wound on her face, ear and arm. She faces a lengthy hospitalization and rehabilitation as a result of the attack. The owner of the pit bull was cited by animal control officers for allowing the dog to run free and failing to license or vaccinate it. Wow, what a penalty.

There's a mixed bag of movies today, with no real standouts, but a bunch of enticing contenders. In Hang 'Em High (1 p.m., AMC), Clint Eastwood is the victim of a near-lynching who dedicates himself to bringing justice to his Old West town ... and maybe exacting a little legal revenge while he's at it. Inger Stevens, Pat Hingle, Ed Begley, Ben Johnson and Dennis Hopper also star in a film that may not be on a par with the spaghetti Westerns Eastwood made...

It's hard to get Harvey Levin on the phone these days. Unless, that is, you happen to have a raging scoop to report. For that, Levin will take your call immediately. Otherwise, take a number. "Harvey's on with CNN International," a harried assistant says, quickly rescheduling your interview. "He just broke a story and he's obsessed," another underling confides at the appointed hour. "Can he talk to you later?" Such has been Levin's life since July 28, when he and the Web site he runs, TMZ.com, broke the story of Mel Gibson's drunken driving arrest in Malibu, Calif.

After a spate of officer-related shootings involving Anne Arundel County police, a county patrol officer used a less-lethal beanbag shotgun this week to disarm a suspect they described as violent and suicidal. It marks the first time a county patrol officer has used the recently issued weapon to address a threat. The beanbag shotgun discharges a sack of pellets, the impact of which is meant to disable a subject without causing severe injury. After police shot three people -- including a mentally ill college freshman wielding a pair of scissors -- in three weeks this spring, some County Council members had urged equipping more officers with weapons such as stun guns and beanbag shotguns.

HOLLYWOOD - When the Walt Disney Co. released The Return of Jafar in 1994, the lowly direct-to-video category was associated with erotic thrillers, cheap comedies and material that had been targeted for theaters but wasn't good enough. That movie, based on characters from the studio's animated hit Aladdin, sold 15 million units, taking in nearly $300 million worldwide. Along with Universal's The Land Before Time II, another straight-to-video success that year, it became a social climber, distancing the category from its lackluster past.

Call it a kinder, gentler, less-lethal lethal weapon. Twice in the past two weeks, Baltimore police officers have successfully used beanbag guns to disable knife-wielding suspects in standoffs. The beanbag guns, which are known as less-lethal weapons, fire 2-inch-square bags of lead pellets instead of traditional bullets. The beanbags cause injuries ranging from cuts and bruises to death, depending on where, and from what distance, the suspect is struck. "This is the law enforcement tool of the future," Officer Wayne Adams said before demonstrating the beanbag gun and two other less-lethal weapons used by city police.

A retrospective of the best work of African-American actors is the centerpiece of this month's Black History Month celebration on BET Movies/Starz. Among the highlights -- and almost all the movies play more than once, so check daily listings -- are Paul Robeson in 1933's "The Emperor Jones" (9: 15 a.m., Feb. 13); Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby in 1974's "Uptown Saturday Night" (4: 20 p.m., Feb. 15); Danny Glover and Alfre Woodard in director Morgan Freeman's "Bopha!" (4: 20 p.m., Feb. 19)

Fourteen, if you count the guy who gets electrocuted. He may have just been stunned, of course, but from the sparks and the way he squirmed, I think he was totaled.Ten, but one or two of them may have survived what appeared to be mortal gunshot wounds, though with frontier medicine (that is, no medicine) this is unlikely.Those are the body counts in two American movies that sit like bookends at both ends of the summer. Fourteen deaths in "Lethal Weapon 3" and 10 in the just-opened "Unforgiven" -- it's summer, bloody summer, at the movies.

l "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." is a classier, bigger, hipper version of "The Wild, Wild West."It's got the same violence and sexism of old-time westerns. But, though set in California in 1893, it's got a 1993 sensibility and nifty edge.The new Fox show has enough references to popular culture to rival "The Simpsons" and make it one of the brighter lights of the new season.Tonight's two-hour premiere, which airs at 8 on WBFF (Channel 45), opens with a big nod to the Indiana Jones movies, as a group of miners finds an orb with wonderful and terrible powers.

Actor Danny Glover came to Baltimore yesterday, not to perform or attend some black-tie affair.He came to walk the streets of East Baltimore, a fact that astonished some and even made one woman cry.Glover, well known for his roles in movies such as "The Color Purple" and "Lethal Weapon," came to support the March of the America's, a monthlong journey from Washington to the United Nations building in New York that seeks to raise awareness of people living...

If you're one of the stars of "Lethal Weapon 4," if you were on the crew of "Lethal Weapon 4," if your brother worked on "Lethal Weapon 4," you're gonna love "Lethal Weapon 4," a rip-snorting thrill ride that's more a self-indulgent frat party than a movie.Too bad audiences are going to feel left out, particularly audiences with a fondness for plot or pacing.Even more than its predecessors, "Lethal Weapon 4" is a bunch of set pieces strung together with the slimmest of threads, explosions followed by crashes followed by fisticuffs followed by more explosions.