Screen Gems, From 'Antz' to Zellweger By Rita Kempley Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 13, 1998

Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts star in "Stepmom." (TriStar)

Along with two sentimental Meryl Streep-starrers (one with an accent and one without) and a double, sure-to-be-endearing dose of Robin Williams, the fall lineup has gone nostalgic with remakes of "Psycho," "Mighty Joe Young," "Death Takes a Holiday" ("Meet Joe Black") and "The Shop Around the Corner" ("You've Got Mail").

As the saying goes, it's deja view all over again. We've been there, seen that.

"Saving Private Ryan" will meet its competition in Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line," a hotly anticipated World War II drama with Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, George Clooney, John Travolta, John Cusack and Woody Harrelson.

The scene changes from the beaches at Normandy to Guadalcanal, and the enemy from the Germans to the Japanese, but many of the characters are the same: the mouthy New Yorker, the sharpshooter, even the cowardly clerk.

Likewise, "The Truman Show" faces its clone in "Pleasantville," also a fantasy about real people trapped in a TV show. This time a pair of modern teenagers wind up in a black-and-white sitcom reminiscent of such '50s feel-good fare as "Ozzie and Harriet."

In a way, the same can be said for the crew of the Starship Enterprise, which ships out on its ninth mission in December's "Star Trek: Insurrection." While not as creaky as the original cast, the next generation is beginning to show signs of aging. Even Data, the ship's droid, has wrinkles.

Luckily, Capt. Picard and company find a fountain of youth on a distant planet. The discovery is in keeping with the season's thematic preoccupation with dying, death and the afterlife.

As the curtain comes down on the millennium, earthly leaders lose their way and boomers face mounting evidence of their own mortality, Hollywood turns a new leaf. If a character dies in a summer movie, a dinosaur steps on him. In the fall, it's a lingering illness. Although in "Simon Birch," one of the aforementioned precocious dwarfs beans the woman (the radiant Ashley Judd) who's been like a mother to him with a foul ball. Oops.

In "One True Thing," Streep is the dying mother par excellence in the movie version of former New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen's novel. And the resourceful Renee Zellweger is the edgy, intellectual magazine writer who comes home to make peace with her stay-at-home mom. To hell with the hankies, get out your beach towels.

And don't put them away for the winter, because you're going to need them again for "Stepmom," a weeper starring real-life girlfriends Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. When Sarandon's super soccer mom gets cancer, she must overcome her jealousy and teach the new wife of her former husband (Ed Harris) to be a proper mother to her children. Argh.

"What Dreams May Come" is a life-after-death experience about a devoted family man (Robin Williams) who dies in a car crash, then goes through Heaven and Hell to find his late wife (Annabella Sciorra). Cuba Gooding Jr.'s angel guides Williams through the great beyond. In the comedy "Jack Frost," Michael Keaton plays a songwriter who has neglected his wife (Kelly Preston) and son to further his career as a songwriter. He, too, dies in an automobile accident, but returns to earth to make amends as a snowman that has been dressed in his old clothes.

"Beloved," an adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, tells the story of a former slave (Oprah Winfrey) who is haunted by her daughter's spirit. Set in Ohio after the Civil War, the drama reunites Winfrey with Danny Glover, her co-star in "The Color Purple."

It's hardly a surprise when Death himself joins the party in "Meet Joe Black." In hopes of learning why people fear him, the Reaper (Brad Pitt) puts aside his scythe, assumes the guise of a recent fatality and visits the realm of the living. If death warmed over looks this good, what are Streep and Sarandon waiting for?