For most of us, the thermometer hasn't started to dip, but the flavor of recent movies tells us that it's fall! As students return to campus totting new lunch boxes and fresh white sneakers, and professors hope for attention to all things academic, it's obviously time for football, as reflected by two recent movie: The Replacements, and Bring It On.

The Replacements is a harmless and even uplifting movie about some also-rans who unexpectedly get their 15 minutes of fame, during the 1987 professional football players' strike. Gene Hackman is brought in to coach a team of scabs, with Keanu Reeves as the Quarterback. Now, I donšt think Keanu could act his way out of paper bag, but he has this loveable appeal that seems to make his inadequacies fade. As Shane Falco, he's cheesily perfect. And he's ably supported by a bunch of wild and wooly guys who leave behind their lives is second rate jobs to be something, if only for a short period of time. The film works on all kinds of levels, because it doesn't aim high. Billed as a comedy, there are certainly moments that raise a smile, like when the team burst into song and dance in a D.C. lock-up. It's corny, and a skeptic will hate it, but The Replacements is, in its way, heartwarming. I found myself totally absorbed, cheering wildly during each play, and laughing extravagantly at all the jokes.

Likewise, "Bring It On" seems to work on its own level. It's a movie about high school cheerleaders, and although I feared the film might be more interested in flesh than substance, I was thankfully wrong. Sure, it's a lightly wrapped movie that exposes far too many navels, but under the floss, there is not only entertainment, but also even fodder for thought.

"Bring It On" concerns the cheerleading squad of a yuppie school in San Diego. 5 time national champs, they expect their new team captain, Kirsten Dunst as Torrance Shipman, to lead them to victory #6.

But the streamers in Torrance's pom-poms start to unravel when she discovers that the teams award-winning cheers are all plagiarized from an "other side of tracks" school in Los Angeles. So Torrance has to lead her team to find a precious commodity--creativity.

I liked Bring It On in the same way as the Replacements. Not the greatest movie you'll ever see, but .I enjoyed the comedic elements, like "Clueless" these high schoolers have their own language and world view that is at once amusing and yet oddly realistic.. And if the team mostly support the ditsy stereotype, the routines they present are athletic and challenging. Cheerleading is hard work! Moot of all I liked the gently provoking moral overtone of the film.


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