Carol Ramsey

One not au courant in fashion is hard pressed to say if the threads are post-modern, neo-punk, retro or what. But, there they are. In the Slaves of New York boutique. It may be the first boutique ever spawned by a movie--"Slaves of New York," starring Bernadette Peters, which opened here Friday and opens in Los Angeles on Friday.

One not au courant in fashion is hard pressed to say if the threads are post-modern, neo-punk, retro or what. But, there they are. In the Slaves of New York boutique. It may be the first boutique ever spawned by a movie--"Slaves of New York," starring Bernadette Peters, which opened here Friday and opens in Los Angeles on Friday.

"Loser!" "Would a loser have two tickets to Monday Night Nitro, live from Cheyenne?" "Yes." There you have it, folks. I wanted to like "Ready to Rumble." Really. I think David Arquette is the thinking man's Adam Sandler. Professional wrestling isn't on TV enough. Stars like Gorilla Monsoon, Haystacks Calhoun and Gorgeous George never got the recognition they deserved. The current craze will ensure immortality for serious wrestling artists of the future.

Awards show season is heating up. Costume designers from nine films and eight television shows were nominated this week for the Costume Designers Guild awards. The winners will be honored at the third annual Costume Designers Guild awards show March 17 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The nominees for excellence in contemporary costume design in film are Joseph Aulisi ("Charlie's Angels"), Jeffrey Kurland ("Erin Brockovich"), Laura C.

"Tuck Everlasting," a sweeping romantic fable about love and mortality, targets an audience of girls in their early teens, but has been made with such skill and sensitivity that its appeal spans generations. It surrounds two talented and ingratiating young newcomers to the big screen, Alexis Bledel and Jonathan Jackson, with veteran actors Sissy Spacek, William Hurt, Ben Kingsley, Amy Irving and Victor Garber, all of whom excel in crucial roles.

"Scary Movie 3" is, fortunately, a sequel in title only. The first entry was an amusing sendup of Dimension Films' "Scream" movies, but the second was a gross-out comedy that was more gross than funny. For this one, Dimension brought in spoof-master David Zucker ("Airplane!," etc.) to direct and his frequent collaborators Craig Mazin and Pat Proft to write the script.

David and Carrie are such an appealing couple you have to wish that their romance was happening in a much better movie than "The Opposite Sex" (citywide). As long as the filmmakers stick with the two of them, they're on solid ground. But it unfolds in a most off-putting and unconvincing context.

"Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" (citywide): With a title like that, you don't need a movie. And this title doesn't have a movie. Sorry . . . that's an exaggeration. There's sort of a movie here: a feebly written and stridently directed teen wish-fulfillment comedy about five California kids left alone when their mom vacations in Australia and their baby-sitter dies.

Some years back, New Yorker critic Terrence Rafferty condemned the flashy, enjoyably trashy action flick "La Femme Nikita" with a single memorable sentence: "The end of French cinema as we know it." I filed the judgment away with a laugh, chalking up Rafferty's condemnation to high-art snobbery. Earlier this week, I briefly retrieved that indictment after enduring the witless "DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story."

Few TV stars have made the move to the big screen with such stellar panache as "Home Improvement's" Tim Allen in Disney's lavish yet venturesome, sweet-and-sour holiday fantasy "The Santa Clause," a film that plays the nastiness of adult everyday life against the innocent dreams of childhood.

Semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movies have some built-in traps and Mike Binder's "Crossing the Bridge" (citywide) tumbles right into them. In this rock 'n' roll '70s reverie about a trio of high school buddies bumbling a drug-smuggling adventure, Binder mines his own memories, sometimes movingly or humorously, sometimes opportunistically. But, just as in his script for 1990's "Coup de Ville," he tends to pump them up, restage his past in action movie or teen-sex comedy terms.