Make a Boffo Box Office Blockbuster in Ten Easy Steps
By Steve Berman and Richard Schwartz

With "Godzilla" closing this year's festival, we offer all budding Roland Emmerichs our step-by-step guide to creating a blockbuster, ensuring anyone who follows these directions a primo spot at next year's fest.

RULE 1: THE MILLION-TO-ONE RULE - In the first hour kill over a million people (usually politicians and trailer trash) and make the audience cheer. Kill 'em all. We want to seem them burned, smashed, drowned, dismembered and devoured. But in the last half-hour, ask the audience to cry over the death of one person.

RULE 2: THE MONEY SHOT - People narrowly escaping an explosion, preferably in slow motion. It's directly out of the"Six Million Dollar Man" theory of counterpoint - if people are supposed to be running very quickly, then show them running very slowly.

RULE 3: THIS IS CNN - One the main characters should be a reporter for a network whose letters are either one off from CNN (See CNNN, SNN, NNC, WNN), or a real network (See MSNBC in Deep Impact, as well as Rule 10). In a similar vein, there should a cameo appearrance by either the McLaughlin Group or Larry King (And then Larry King should write about it in his insipid, sequitirless USA Today column.)

RULE 4: ALL THE WORLD'S IN RAGE - Show us how a natural disaster, monster, et al. is terrorizing the world at large by offering a quick-cut montage of the debacle as seen over famous world landmarks (i.e, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal, the Kremlin). Then return the action to stateside, never to revisit the global storyline again.

RULE 5: HAIL TO THE CHIEF - Opinion polls show that we think the federal government is powerless to do anything. Yet when we go to the movies, we expect to see our commander-in-chief staring down overwhelming natural phenomena. Make sure that by the film's climax, the president is so much in the can-do spirit that he even takes his jacket off and rolls up his sleeves, GASP! Also, lethis top advisor tip us off that he was once a ninja, green beret in 'Nam. That way, we'll believe it when he's wrestling a T-Rex in the middle of a tornado while large comets hit the earth and volcanoes explode around him. "Honey, can that really happen?" "Of course, sugarplum, those green berets can do anything."

RULE 6: HAIL TO THE BEEF - Oh, how we love our cows. A summer blockbuster without a bovine cameo is like a trip to the bathroom during the Super Bowl. Sure, it felt good, but you can't help feeling like you missed something. (See cows flying in "Twister," burning in "Mars Attacks!" and violently dying in "Jurassic Park.")

RULE 7: DRAMA 101 - Any bonehead knows that the key to drama is conflict. Well, we know we're at war with the aliens, monsters, laws of nature, etc... but what about a little human drama? Solution: the high ranking official who doesn't believe anybody and always makes the wrong decisions no matter how illogical. Why would he object to attacking the aliens now that we can knock out their defenses? Don't ask, stupid, it's drama. (See Deputy-Chief Dwayne T. Robinson of "Die Hard," Secretary of Defense in "Independence Day.")

RULE 8: THE FLY RULE - Put Jeff Goldblum in it (See "Jurassic Park" and "Independence Day." But, by all means, don't see "The Tall Guy.")

RULE 9: CAPTAIN SNIDE - When piecing together your summer blockbuster, you need only concern yourself with one bit of dialogue. The snide comment immediately follwoing a death-defying action, of course. Make sure that after your character escapes certain death, and the pulsating musical score ceases for an instant, he let's us know he hasn't lost that devilish wit. Is there anything that will rattle this cat's cool? (For the Mona Lisa of Rule 9, see the "Die Hard" trilogy.)

RULE 10: I WANT A PEPSI AND I DON'T WHY - Product placement. Like how they threw Taco Bell wrappers in Amy the Gorilla's cage in "Congo." And wasn't it zany that when they needed aluminium cans in "Twister," all they could find were Pepsi cans? Gosh, that radar signal of a tornado sure does look like the Pepsi logo.