Jan. 25 —  Hallmarks of the spring movie lineup: odd couples, odd couplets, star turns (a couple of resurrections), and more than a couple of white chicks hatching a sisterhood. It’s the season between the cool, thoughtful films of chilly weather and the hot flash that follows Memorial Day, the season for fertilizer to be spread upon the land.

Today’s movies often make us laugh at the dark side of the human condition, and tease us about who we are.

IT’S ALSO the time when a young man’s fancy turns to . . . sadism. April being the cruellest month, as T.S. Eliot reminded us in another context, it’s the release date for “American Psycho,” the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 same-name novel.

“I like to dissect girls,” declares Christian Bale, playing Manhattan man-about-Wall St. and serial killer Patrick Bateman. Directed by Mary Harron (“I Shot Andy Warhol”), the made-in-Toronto movie recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. By all accounts, this NC-17 movie slaps horror and comedy together in the darkest possible way.

Today’s movies often make us laugh at the dark side of the human condition, and tease us about who we are. Horror comedy, drama comedy and schlock comedy are the genres du jour.

“Scream 3” shows Neve Campbell and the gang being terrorized on a movie set, again peppering the horror-comedy genre with postmodern mischief. “Gun Shy,” a high-profile drama comedy, stars Liam Neeson as a drug agent who loses his moxie and seeks therapy.

CELEBRATING BAD TASTE
Shlock comedy, only one form of cinema that celebrates bad taste, includes a category of movies-that-amuse-but-make-us-cringe.

Count among them, this season’s “Isn’t She Great”, which resurrects ’60s author Jacqueline Susann. It is a “biopic” about the life of that scribbling maven of meretriciousness and has to be a hoot, given the cast (it stars Bette Midler, Nathan Lane, John Cleese and Stockard Channing).

More bad taste?

Try “The Big Tease.” If you bring a Scottish hairdresser into Los Angeles for the world’s largest hairdressing competition, what do you get? The anti-“Braveheart.”

Speaking of “Braveheart,” bloody battles are often good for bad taste. And who better than Ridley (“Blade Runner”) Scott to mine ancient Rome for gut-wrenching gore. In “Gladiator,” Russell Crowe, fresh from all that prize-worthy attention for “The Insider,” is the Gladiator.

Another thing, isn’t it bad taste to turn Paul Newman into Jack Lemmon in a geezer comedy? The man who was Hud now plays a convict in “Where The Money Is,” who attempts to escape by faking a stroke and lands in a nursing home.

Yet one more instance of bad taste is casting Madonna and Rupert Everett as parents in John Schlesinger’s “The Next Best Thing.”

MORE ODD COUPLES
They’re not the only odd couple this spring, either. Annette Bening mates with an alien played by Garry Shandling, in “What Planet Are You From?” It may be worth a look, since it’s written by Shandling and directed by Mike Nichols. Also, watch for the odd pairing of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Ellen Barkin. The actress stars in “Crime + Punishment in Suburbia,” a retitled update adapted from the Russian master’s classic 19th-century crime novel. In a season that signifies growth, including the growth of strange and wonderful things, a Wall Street version of “Hamlet” is on the schedule. The Bard’s couplets may indeed seem strange when Ethan Hawke debates whether to be or not to be at the Denmark Corp.

Moving right along, sisterhoods of all sorts reign in several movies. Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow play daughters of an aging dad (Walter Matthau) in “Hanging Up,” directed by Keaton. Cameron Diaz, Glenn Close, Calista Flockhart, Holly Hunter, Amy Brenneman and Kathy Baker appear in “Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her.” And in “Home Is Where The Heart Is,” Natalie Portman, who is pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend, finds support from Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing and Sally Field.

Romance turns out to be pretty scarce in a season that includes Valentine’s Day. Pretty girls Julia Roberts and Ashley Judd apparently are on to more serious risks. Roberts plays a divorcee who leads a class-action lawsuit in “Erin Brockovich,” directed by Steven Soderbergh. Judd plays a dangerous lady trailed by government agent Ewan McGregor in “Eye Of The  Beholder.”

But lovers of romance won’t be jilted.

“Here On Earth” tells about a rich boy and poor girl caught up in a complicated love story. Leelee Sobieski is the contemporary Cinderella. Also, David Duchovny and Minnie Driver couple in “Return To Me.”

Meanwhile, “Keeping The Faith” could launch a new sub-genre: religious romantic comedy. In this one, a minister (Edward Norton) and a rabbi (Ben Stiller) fall for their childhood buddy (Jenna Elfman). Norton directs. (There’s no release date yet, but either Valentine’s Day or the overlap of Easter and Passover could work.)

Well before Easter, however, the resurrection everyone’s been waiting for arrives: Leonardo Di Caprio rises from the waters of “Titanic.” He finally washes up on “The Beach” for his star turn.

PROMISING PICTURES
A couple of hard-hitting movies and a couple of gentler ones look especially promising: “The Yards,” a crime thriller set in New York’s subway yards, starring Mark Wahlberg, and “Rules of Engagement,” which pairs Samuel L. Jackson with Tommy Lee Jones in a military drama. It should produce sparks with William Friedkin directing.

Then there’s “Joe Gould’s Secret,” which will delight Stanley Tucci fans. Tucci directs and stars in the story of a writer for The New Yorker and a street person played by Ian Holm.

And let’s not forget “High Fidelity,” based on Nick Hornby’s novel. It stars John Cusack (his quirkiness enhanced by “Being John Malkovich”) as a life-challenged purveyor of vinyl discs. Stephen Frears directs.

Judy Gerstel is the former film critic of the Detroit Free Press and the Toronto Star and is a member of the National Society of Film Critics.

A slew of Oscar hopefuls began their overseas campaigns last week with decidedly mixed results while most of the B.O. action was centered around “The World Is Not Enough” and “The Sixth Sense” as biz in some markets experienced the usual post-vacation downturn.

Among the titles vying for Academy Award recognition, “Angela’s Ashes” opened quite strongly in the U.K. despite uneven reviews, “Three Kings” drew armies of admirers in Australia and New Zealand and “American Beauty” shone in Israel, notching $152,000 at just nine houses.

However, Miramax’s “The Cider House Rules” was just fair in Denmark and Australia (where one booker opined, “It doesn’t have a hook to sell to this audience”) and the Susan Sarandon/Natalie Portman starrer “Anywhere But Here” bombed in France on 46 screens, although it did OK on 20 in Argentina. Positioned as an arthouse release, sex-change drama “Boys Don’t Cry” fared respectably at five theaters in Sweden.

Continuing to set records for the Bond series, “The World Is Not Enough” snared $2.3 million in six days on 242 screens in Italy and $475,000 in five days on 81 in Turkey. The 007 caper raked in $11 million in nearly 3,000 screens in 30 countries, propelling its cume to $180.3 million.

‘Sense’ of scale

“The Sixth Sense” captured $4.6 million in six days on 224 in Spain. The Bruce Willis starrer stole $1.6 million on 92 in Holland, including previews, hailed by BVI as an industry record.

The thriller showed great stamina in its second frames in France, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland as its cume soared to $253.5 million, including $94.3 million in the Spyglass territories. The global total topped $531 million.

Phillip Noyce’s “The Bone Collector” had unexceptional debuts in the U.K., Singapore and Norway but was more potent in Taiwan and Argentina, taking pole position in both.

Andy Tennant’s “Anna and the King” commanded a lively $2.1 million in six days at 200 palaces in Italy, benefiting from lots of media coverage for the gala preem in Rome attended by Jodie Foster and the helmer.

The epic opened passably in Brazil and South Africa and its cume climbed to $28.7 million, highlighted by Spain’s $5.3 million and Mexico’s $2.8 million.

BURBANK, Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE) - James R. Miller has joined Steven D. Reuther at Bel Air Entertainment, the burgeoning two-year-old joint venture between Warner Bros. and Europe's leading entertainment group, CANAL+, it was announced today by Warner Bros. Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Barry Meyer and President & Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn, and Vincent Grimond, Senior Executive Vice President of CANAL+ Image.

Miller and Reuther will share the title of Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Bel Air Entertainment. "Jim will make a great partner; he's smart, incisive, knowledgeable and a good friend," said Reuther.

"He created the concept of studio co-financing joint ventures and was the architect behind the formation of Bel Air. He is passionate about the company, about filmmaking and about working with me to build Bel Air into a full entertainment company."

"Our vision is to expand Bel Air's original charter, to broaden its scope and fully explore and exploit the entertainment landscape," said Miller. "I'm delighted to have the opportunity to partner with Steve and to expand Bel Air into a full-service content provider, producing for all media, including theatrical, television, video and the Internet."

"Jim is among that rare breed who understands finance, the marketplace and filmmaking," said Meyer. "When you combine Jim's unparalleled business acumen with Steve's extraordinary production expertise, you create quite a formidable partnership. Jim & I have worked together for some 20 years, and while we will miss him and his skills in the executive suite at Warner Bros., we take great solace in the fact that he will still be making a significant contribution to our company as he and Steve take Bel Air to its next level."

Horn said, "In my former role at Castle Rock, I had the pleasure of working with Jim on numerous occasions, not the least of which is when he most skillfully and adroitly put together Castle Rock's co-financing/co-distribution arrangement with PolyGram. As one of the most important contributors to Warner Bros.' film slate, I can't think of anyone more capable or talented to work with Steve to grow and expand Bel Air."

"We have had a very long and mutually beneficial association with Jim," said Grimond. "He understands our company, our strategy and the entertainment business. We are delighted to have someone of Jim's stature and talent join Steve in building Bel Air."

Miller, one of the most respected and savvy executives in the entertainment business, moves into his new post following 20 years at Warner Bros., where, for the past two years, he served as President, Warner Bros. Worldwide Theatrical Business Operations, in charge of all the business-related aspects of the company's filmmaking process, from the formation of movie joint ventures and output deals to financial structuring of production agreements.

Considered a financial visionary and the pioneer of long-term theatrical co-financing relationships, Miller is credited with the creation of Bel Air as well as Warner Bros.' current long-term deal with Village Roadshow, the deal with PolyGram (now Universal) for Castle Rock, and the former precedent-setting deal between Warner Bros. and Arnon Milchan's Regency Enterprises.

"Everyone who knows me, knows that this is something I have been wanting to do for a long time," said Miller. "I have the highest regard for Barry Meyer and Alan Horn, and I look forward to continuing to work with them and with all my longtime colleagues at Warner Bros. And, of course, I am especially excited about working with Steve. Steve is a brilliant film executive and filmmaker and has done an incredible job launching Bel Air, turning it into a vital, well-respected company in such a short period of time, and putting together a high quality slate of films that will have commercial appeal throughout the world."

Miller joined Warner Bros. in 1979 as Vice President of Studio Business Affairs and was named Vice President in Charge of Business Affairs in 1984. In 1987, he became Senior Vice President in Charge of Worldwide Business Affairs; in 1990, he was named Executive Vice President, Business and Acquisitions, and, in 1998, was promoted to President, Warner Bros. Worldwide Theatrical Business Operations.

Upcoming feature films from Bel Air Entertainment include: "The Replacements," starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman; "Metal God," starring Mark Wahlberg; "Chain of Fools," starring Steve Zahn, Salma Hayek, Jeff Goldblum; "Ready to Rumble," starring David Arquette; "Pay It Forward," starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment; and "Sweet November," starring Keanu Reeves. Also on track for production so far this year are: "Collateral Damage" to be directed by Andy Davis, "The Man Who Ate the 747" and "Steinbeck's Point of View."

Contact: Warner Bros., Burbank Barbara S. Brogliatti, 818/954-7667 

BERLIN (Variety) - Old favorites look set to outweigh newcomers in competition at the 50th edition of the Berlin Intl. Film Fest, which unspools Feb. 9.

Among the directors expected to make a return are veteran Brazilian helmer Bruno Barreto, with competition contender "Bossa Nova," and Hong Kong's Stanley Kwan, with his latest picture. Barreto was at Berlin two years ago with "Four Days in September."

From Spain, Agustin Villalonga is back with "The Sea," which is likely to be vying for a Golden Bear alongside Zhang Yimou's "The Road Home," which has been confirmed by nonfestival sources.

From Italy, Lucio Gaudino's third feature, "The First Light of Dawn," is a certain competition entry. Pic is a drama about two brothers whose parents are killed in a Mafia hit.

Vet German helmer Volker Schlondorff ("Rita's Legend") will be batting for the locals.

British entries likely to adorn the lineup include drama "Hotel Splendide," the directorial debut from Terence Gross. Out of competition, the Sex Pistols documentary "The Filth and the Fury," as well as Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare pic "Love's Labour's Lost" look set to screen.

Strong on Oscar contenders, U.S. pics in competition will likely include Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday," Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia," Milos Forman's "Man on the Moon," Norman Jewison's "The Hurricane" and Anthony Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

David Russell's "Three Kings," starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube, looks likely to run out-of-competition. "The Beach," directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is part of the official lineup.

With less than a month to go before the festival gets under way, little of the program has been announced.

Confirmed is the world premiere of Wim Wenders' "The Million Dollar Hotel." "Breaking the Silence" from Sun Zhou will show out-of-competition.

Also running is a special screening of Tony Richardson's adaptation of Genet's "Mademoiselle," starring Jeanne Moreau.

Friday, January 21st, 2000 at 9:00 P.M. Raleigh Studios, Stage 5, 5300 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood

WHO: David Arquette, Rosanna Arquette, Lara Flynn Boyle, Josh Brolin, Downtown Julie Brown, China Chow, Joan Collins, Courteney Cox, Andy Dick, Stephen Dorff, Illeana Douglas, Minnie Driver, Randolph Duke, Angie Everheart, Lucas Haas, Renny Harlin, Melissa Joan Hart, Hugh Hefner, Rachel Hunter, Jane Krakowski, Bai Ling, Dylan McDermott, Mark McGrath, Simon Rex, Mimi Rogers, Seal, Brooke Shields, Christian Slater, Tom Sizemore, David Spade, Tori Spelling, Rod Stewart, Twiggy, Mark Wahlberg, Scott Wolf and many others.

Ozwald Boateng: Host and London Fashion Designer
Tamara Beckwith: Co-host and London's "It Girl"
First Rate and Renegade: DJ's of London's "Scratch Perverts"

WHAT:   Tanqueray, a true London original, brings the best of its culture to Los Angeles for a night of cocktails, fashion, and music as it hosts the first-ever Tanqueray London Import Party.  Celebrating all that is cool, hip, and powerful in London, this invitation- only event will include a fashion show highlighting hot London designers: Ozwald Boateng, Liza Bruce, GHOST and Jimmy Choo, as well as a special performance by London's top rated DJ's First Rate and Renegade of "Scratch Perverts."

WHEN:   Friday, January 21st, 2000
            8:15 PM  Press Check-In
            9:00 PM  Arrivals

WHERE:  Raleigh Studios
            Stage 5
           5300 Melrose Avenue
            Hollywood, CA

RSVP:   To Request Credentials to Cover this Event Please contact: Clio Manuelian, 310-274-7800

CONTACT:  Clio Manuelian or Denise St. Jean, both of Bragman Nyman Cafarelli, 310-274-7800

Impressive foreign preems by "Angela’s Ashes," "Three Kings" and "American Beauty" coupled with wow bows by the "The World Is Not Enough" in Italy and Turkey and "The Sixth Sense" in Spain and Holland highlighted a juicy B.O. frame at the weekend.

"Double Jeopardy" had a dandy debut in Mexico but was less compelling in Thailand and Hong Kong, while "The Bone Collector" had a solid launch in the U.K. and the "Joan of Arc" biopic misfired in Germany. Results from some studios were not available due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Alan Parker’s "Angela’s Ashes" minted $2.1 million in three days at 325 sites in the U.K. (including previews), 7% higher than the entries of "Michael Collins" and "The Man in the Iron Mask." Positioned to cash in on Academy Awards hype, the gritty Irish drama has February and March dates in most of the world.

The Emily Watson-Robert Carlyle starrer took second spot behind "Sleepy Hollow," which had a lively soph session, easing by 24% and collecting a terrif $9 million to date. "The Bone Collector" scored $1.3 million on 289 in the U.K.

In Australia, Village Roadshow (which co-produced with Warner Bros.) gave "Three Kings" a hefty launch that paid off to the tune of $1.1 million in four days at 155 war zones. David O. Russell’s film received warm reviews and is generating strong word of mouth.

Platformed at nine theaters in Israel, "American Beauty" delivered a potent $100,000 in four days for a per screen of more than $11,000.

Continuing to set records for the Bond series, "The World Is Not Enough" snared $5.7 million in three days on 242 screens in Italy (eclipsing "GoldenEye" by 51%) and $395,000 on 81 in Turkey (UIP’s second-best preem there ever behind "The Jackal" and the industry’s sixth-highest).

The 007 caper raked in $8.3 million on nearly 3,000 screens in 30 countries, propelling its cume to $177.7 million.

"The Sixth Sense" captured $3.4 million on 223 in Spain, the second-biggest opener in history behind only "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace." The Bruce Willis starrer spirited away $1.5 million on 92 in Holland, including previews, hailed by BVI as an industry record, topping "Independence Day."

Showing great holding power in its second frames, the thriller abated by 8% in France, amassing $14 million to date and accounting for 40% of the entire market, and dropped by 13% in Belgium for $2.5 million and by 20% in Switzerland at $2 million.

All told, "Sixth Sense" earned $13.6 million in BVI’s territories, pushing its total there to $155 million, plus an estimated $90 million from markets where it’s handled by Spyglass’ distribs.

Bruce Beresford’s "Double Jeopardy" took a hot $950,000 in three days on 258 in Mexico, a moderate $236,000 on 57 in Thailand and a tepid $240,000 in four days on 29 in Hong Kong. The revenge saga dropped by 31% in Oz for a pretty good $3.6 million in 11 days.

Luc Besson’s "Joan of Arc" saw just $570,000 on 244 in Germany, where "Stigmata" landed with $1.1 million on 353. "Stigmata" pocketed an OK $172,000 in five days on 15 in Belgium and $161,000 in three days on 26 in Austria. Horror pic’s best perf to date is Mexico’s $5 million, followed by Brazil’s $2.2 million.

"American Pie" retained pole position in Germany, buoyed by strong word of mouth as it baked up $5.6 million in its second round at 685 houses, tallying $11.9 million. Teen comedy’s cume hit $86.5 million.

"Tarzan" ascended to $254.6 million after a $5.1 million frame, led by Japan’s $19.5 million through its fifth outing.

In Australia, "The Cider House Rules" squeezed out $114,000 at 33 sheds (plus about $20,000 from sneaks), faring a bit better in upmarket situations than in mainstream multiplexes, but below expectations. Distrib Roadshow said Thursday-Friday biz for "Cider House" was soft, but picked up Saturday and it hopes that will be sustained by positive reviews and word of mouth.

Aiming for kids during the school vacation in Oz, "Mystery Men" fetched a so-so $347,000 on 103 but "Dudley Do-Right" bombed, scraping up $71,000 on 120.

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Universal Pictures has pushed the opening of ``The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle'' forward two weeks to the key June 30 slot to take advantage of potentially massive moviegoing during the five-day Fourth of July weekend.

Marketing president Marc Shmuger said the switch from July 14 stemmed from the fact that the other major openings set for the holiday weekend -- Sony's ``The Patriot'' and Warner Bros.' ''The Perfect Storm'' -- will seek different audiences from the family customers the moose-and-squirrel comedy could attract.

He noted that audiences have responded well to the first showings of the trailer for ``Rocky,'' which stars Robert De Niro, Rene Russo, Jason Alexander, Randy Quaid and Janeane Garofalo.

The movie will integrate live-action sequences with computer-generated versions of Rocky and Bullwinkle, produced by Industrial Light & Magic. The picture's most direct competition will probably come from DreamWorks' animated comedy ``Chicken Run,'' due out June 23.

Universal, which rang up surprise successes last summer with ``The Mummy'' ``Notting Hill'' and ``American Pie,'' also has ``The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas,'' ``Head Over Heels'' and ``Nutty 2: The Klumps'' on its summer slate.

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Seven films will vie for nominations for the sound effects editing Oscar, the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts & Sciences announced Friday.

The list includes four pictures released by Warner Bros.: "Any Given Sunday,'' "The Green Mile'' "The Matrix'' and "Three Kings.''

Fox's ``Fight Club'' and ``Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace'' also made the cut, as did Universal's ``The Mummy''

The category has no fixed number of nominees.

To nominate pictures, the Sound Effects Editing Award Nominating Committee will view 10-minute clips from each of the
seven pics on Feb. 8. Committee members can nominate up to three of the seven contenders, recommend a single pic for a
special achievement award or decide that no award be given in the category.

Nominated films will be announced along with those in 23 other categories on Feb. 15.

With dark horse Oscar candidate "Three Kings" trotted out for another showing, director David O. Russell talks about Michael Jackson, visual studies and George Clooney's Cary Grant turn. BY MICHAEL SRAGOW

When writer-director David O. Russell made "Spanking the Monkey" (1994) and "Flirting With Disaster" (1996), critics compared him to Mike Nichols at the time of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1966) and "The Graduate" (1967). Russell's debut, like "The Graduate," depicted a confused collegian who falls into Oedipal sex (with his actual mother, not his mother's friend). And Russell's second film treated subjects like post-childbirth sex with a barbed satiric style recalling early Nichols at his best.

Nichols stumbled his third time out, when he leapt into epic moviemaking with his adaptation of Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" (1970). For his third film, Russell has made a sardonic adventure comparable in scale to "Catch-22": the Gulf War caper flick, "Three Kings." But unlike Nichols' clinker, Russell's film is a triumph. Maybe not commercially: It cost $46 million and in three months has grossed only $59 million. But artistically it's a giant step forward, both for Russell and for his whole Sundance graduating class of mid-'90s independent filmmakers. "Monkey" (which left me cold) was a Freudian thesis; "Flirting" (which I liked) was a Freudian funhouse. "Three Kings" is its own critter, a sweeping political action film that jumps and slithers through minefields without ever losing its aplomb.

The movie's richness and sureness stem partly from its connections to Russell's intellectual past. As he detailed in the interview contained in his book of screenplays ("Flirting With Disaster & Spanking the Monkey," Faber and Faber, 1996), he was an upper-middle-class kid from Westchester who studied political science and literature at Amherst College. Among his favorite writers were "the satirists: Thomas Pynchon, Evelyn Waugh and Mark Twain."

After college Russell did "literacy work" in Nicaragua, taught English as a second language in the south end of Boston and did community organizing in Lewiston, Maine, to improve low-income housing. (His first film was a video documentary about the problems of Central American immigrants in Boston. He followed it with two shorts, including "a surreal little nightmare in a bingo parlor" and a ditzy piece of Dada about an out-of-control Marge Simpson hairdo, "Hairway to the Stars.")

"Three Kings" is no knee-jerk left-wing anti-war tract. To summarize brutally, it's both anti-Saddam and anti-Bush. It views the U.S. military without illusions and without rancor. Actually, it's about four kings, American soldiers all, including the grizzled vet George Clooney, the intelligent, green Mark Wahlberg, the fiercely Christian Ice Cube and the ignorant, good-hearted Spike Jonze. At the end of the war, Wahlberg and Jonze find an Iraqi treasure map rammed up the rear end of a prisoner. Clooney horns in on their discovery. Clooney has the know-how to mount a private expedition to retrieve stolen Kuwaiti gold. (Think of Clooney, Wahlberg and Cube as Three Musketeers and Jonze as an unlikely D'Artagnan.)

The chaos of Bush's immediate post-war policy -- encouraging Iraqi freedom fighters without aiding them -- makes the American soldiers' initial success possible. It also rouses their conscience. They face the dangers of a ground war while they come to understand the Iraqi point of view. They risk their hides to do some good.

I spoke to Russell, 41, in December, shortly before "Three Kings" won best picture and best director honors from the Boston Society of Film Critics. Last week, Warners booked the film into theaters again as part of an Academy Award campaign. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening's slick sick-suburbia film has been dubbed the favorite in the Oscar race, but "Three Kings" is this year's real American beauty.

To me, the master stroke at the core of "Three Kings" is putting four guys, after the war, into the kind of horrific episodes that the pre-war "publicity" warned us the Gulf War would contain.

The exposé was a big part of it for me. I knew there had been a whole side to the conclusion of that war that had been buried under a sea of yellow ribbons.  I thought it was scandalous that it hadn't really been told. Many of the soldiers I met who had experienced it felt -- strongly -- that there was something hypocritical about the end of the war.

And then, when I continued my research, I found, to use your analogy, that some of the stuff the media had "previewed" had happened, to a degree never brought into our awareness. Everybody's image from the war was of computer images, which dehumanizes the whole thing. So I wanted to show what it was like to live with a gas alarm and know that different kinds of gases are in the air. I wanted to show what it was like to meet Iraqis face to face, and what it was like to see all this stuff stolen from Kuwait. Getting the information out was a powerful motivation for me.

You can't go to a public library and try to research this war and get anything except establishment military views of what happened. At the end of the final credits, there's a citation that "scenes of Operation Desert Storm" were "derived from photographs by Kenneth Jareke from his book, 'Just Another War.'" Even that book is out of print now.

I decided I was going to take risks visually, so a lot of my research was visual. I didn't just go through books and newspapers -- I did things like watch films by that Russian director who made "The Cranes Are Flying" and "I Am Cuba" [Mikhail Kalatozov]. I had to storyboard a lot of the movie, just to know what was achievable. But I wanted to take a journalistic approach, so there was a lot of hand-held camera work and Steadicam. I wanted the film to be as kinetic as could be the whole time, and I wanted to let it be sloppy.

"Just Another War" was pretty amazing. There was another book called "Telex Iran" by Gilles Peres, which had an incredible collection of photographs from around the time of the Iranian revolution, presenting chaos with a lot of depth of focus -- people big in the foreground and a lot of people very far away.

And the Los Angeles Times had a day-by-day of the war on its front page. That's where you saw Bart Simpson on the grille of a truck. That's where you saw bizarre tableaux of soldiers being stripped in the middle of nowhere. And that's where you saw weird saturated Xerox color. It was the first war that had color photographs in the newspaper. We sought to reproduce the odd color of the newspaper images by using Ektachrome -- not a movie stock, but one in which the colors are very saturated -- and the bleach bypass process, which leaves a layer of silver on the film, so when the colors do pop through they get a harsh, blown-out look.

Tom Sigel, my cinematographer [billed as Newton Thomas Sigel], had shot some seminal documentaries in Central America in the '80s, when civil war was tearing up all those countries, including one called "El Salvador: Another Vietnam," and another called "Guatemala: When the Mountains Tremble." He had been in the middle of firefights; he knew what it was like to be in that kind of world. So he understood exactly what I was talking about. And he was also somebody who was happy to say, "Let's look at a menu of processing choices and test some of them and see what you like."

You also had an editor, Robert K. Lambert, who has worked for filmmakers like Robert Towne and the late Tony Richardson.

He was the same way. He picked up from me that I wanted everything different, and once he got that he was committed to it. We did one cut that didn't have the energy we wanted -- it didn't have the energy of the script. And that's devastating: It's got all this great footage that you love, but it still feels deadly. Then you throw about a third of that overboard and the script      comes out. Bob was wonderful. But to make our release date, we needed three editors working simultaneously: Bob in one room, Pam [March] in one room and Mark [Bourgeois] in another room. I would go from one to the other and cut a different scene in each room.

I saw the film again while the WTO conference was held in Seattle. Although I know the protests against global capitalism have merit, I couldn't help thinking, Why is it vaguely reassuring to see that everyone in this movie wants a nice stereo or an Infiniti convertible?

There's no easy solution; everything cuts both way. Consumer goods seem to be an American perpetration, yet at the same time there are some things that people really need and want. It's like Michael Jackson's face -- did he do it to himself or did living in this culture make him want to do it? Both things are true.

You have an Iraqi commence his torture of Mark Wahlberg by raising that question about Michael Jackson's face.

Obviously, the guy was trained by certain American forces in the process of interrogation; we trained all the great dictatorships. And to intimidate or disorient the subject is a primary strategy. I thought it made a lot of sense to start with something disorientingly familiar. But then the question is also completely filled with the man's rage about what he sees as the hypocrisy of America: trying to get rid of Saddam yet bombing civilians; Michael Jackson being the King of Pop yet hating himself.

You sometimes do things that just come to you, and trying to explain them ruins it. That was one of those things that kind of came to me.

When your book of screenplays was published, you were talking about making "a period thriller in the vein of 'Chinatown,' but set in an earlier period."

It was very ambitious. It was based on the idea behind what Gandhi said: that there's more to life than making it go faster. That desire has given us a lot of great conveniences, from the fax to the cell phone to the digital world, but what's been traded off in that? I thought I could locate the essence of capitalism, the spiritual center of it, at the turn of the century. I didn't feel I had the movie yet; it became too one-sided. It was too easy to be a Luddite. I don't want to get too specific and give the movie away, because I still want to do it; it takes place in a couple of the areas where industry was starting to transform the landscape.

But in the middle of my research Warners showed me this log-line they have -- their log of properties. And once I saw it, I couldn't stop thinking of this Gulf War thing. I just took off with it. Part of it was me being intrigued by other genres, as a learning experience for me. What would it be like to justify a picture this size with action, yet have it be a movie that's more subversive than just another action movie?

As a fan of Sam Peckinpah, I'm always seeing echoes of "The Wild Bunch" in action movies -- even if the influence is unconscious, and doesn't extend beyond using slow motion for violence. But in "Three Kings," which has a "Wild Bunch" sort of plot, I was impressed by the new ways you found to express the horror of war and bloodshed. The most obvious example is showing what actually happens inside a body when a bullet hits.

This was an information-driven movie, and an idea-driven movie, and one of the ideas was to resensitize us to violence. That's why there are only a handful of bullets as opposed to many, many bullets. Originally, the story was set during the war and during the final bombing. Setting it after the war I had the ability to have as many or as few bullets as I wanted.

In the first big showdown scene, you lay out slowly and specifically the trajectory of every single shot.

A bullet is a very big deal in anybody's life, so I wanted to slow it down to make you feel that each bullet counted in that way. And nobody really wants to shoot in that scene. Even the Iraqis, I think, are all very scared. I never studied Peckinpah's films, but I saw "The Wild Bunch" many years ago -- and, as you say, that stuff can't help entering your unconscious, because it's all part of the culture.

You also made me think of other films from the "Wild Bunch" era, like "How I Won the War," where Richard Lester tried to make us see the absurdity of war -- yet couldn't do that and also make his war feel real. I think you do both. You don't let the absurdity lead the film; you let it emerge out of what you're dealing with.

There were times when I thought I could tell this story more like "MASH" and let the absurdity lead the way. But I think that from the beginning I had a different tone in mind, and that the absurdity would follow.

You start with Mark Wahlberg shooting an Iraqi who may or may not be surrendering.

That guy is kind of surrendering and kind of not surrendering, and Mark does want to shoot somebody but doesn't know what he'll feel like until he does it. It's absolutely ambiguous.

And then you immediately get a glimpse of the bond between Wahlberg and Spike Jonze, which does a lot to humanize the movie.

Their friendship was very important -- to see how fucked-up both of them were but that they had this brotherly relationship. And that was one of the most fun things to rehearse, having Spike play the younger brother to Mark.

Clooney is great in the movie; he even looks a lot like Cary Grant, and when I heard he was called "Archie" and remembered Grant's real name was Archie Leach ...

That's funny -- I never thought of that. Archie Leach! Clooney was meant to play the part, I guess. He's a very solid anchor and that's exactly the energy he plays -- the biggest challenge was for him to let us into his eyes and into his soul a little bit. It's a little bit of a Gary Cooper performance where he doesn't talk a whole lot -- but you kind of get his integrity, and his fear and his ambivalence at times.

You love watching him, and you love watching him think or react. I also loved the chance that he and Cube had of being exuberant in that one scene, getting everybody worked up about using all these luxury cars to rescue Mark. I don't think either of them has had a chance to be so exuberant in a movie.

Some sophisticated critics complained that it took them too long to figure out how they felt about the characters. To me the strategy of the film was to keep you off-kilter until you knew whether you wanted to like these guys or not.

Yeah, that was the strategy of the film, and some people thought it didn't work for them -- some of the New York critics, my hometown critics. Look, it's very subjective -- they have loved movies that I have been utterly baffled by.

I loved the excitement and vitality of your movie from the beginning; what worried me a little was whether it would prove "too hip to live." I kept getting more involved the more I realized that it was not going to be a blanket denunciation of the war -- that it was trying to open up the subject.

What interests me is what's real, and what's real is confusing and mixed. I went to Central America in 1982, both for the adventure and because I was very excited by the Sandinista revolution. And when I got there, it was this strange cocktail, where I met Sandinistas who were assholes and people who were apolitical who I loved. It became more of a mixed experience for me than I expected. And all of it was interesting, including the confusion of American culture in all this and the way different people appropriate it in different ways.

I think my experience in Central America is what drew me to go into the kind of environment where America is presented with one story and you have to expose a different story. The black-and-white version of the issues isn't that clear when you're in the middle of it. What you get is the collision of humanity with ideological cartoons. salon.com | Jan. 13, 2000

BERLIN (Variety) - A strong lineup of U.S. pictures is falling into place for the 50th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb. 9-20), suggesting a dazzling star presence for the event's first outing at new digs on Potsdamer Platz.

Danny Boyle's "The Beach," is slated for a spot in the official lineup (likely out of competition), with star Leonardo DiCaprio coming to Berlin, according to sources.

The film is based on the cult novel by Alex Garland, "The Beach," which is about a young backpacker in Southeast Asia with a passion for Vietnam war movies and popular culture.

David O. Russell's "Three Kings," starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube, which follows three soldiers at the end of the Gulf War who go in search of stolen gold, is penciled in for an out-of-competition slot.

Vying for a Golden Bear will be New Line's "Magnolia," featuring Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore, and Miramax's "The Talented Mr. Ripley," directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. The Jim Carrey starrer "Man on the Moon," biopic of maverick comedian Andy Kaufman directed by Milos Forman, is a strong candidate for a spot in competition.

On the home front, veteran German director Volker Schloendorff's "Rita's Legend" will be in the running for the Berlin accolade. The Babelsberg Studio co-production tells the story of Rita Vogt, a member of the German terrorist group the RAF, who flees the organization and goes into hiding in East Germany, adopting a new identity provided for her by the Stasi, the East German secret police. Oliver Stone's football picture "Any Given Sunday" is another possible Berlin candidate.