Ladies and gentlemen, the first of the big rip-offs.

Or should I say, the first of the not-quite originals. Or, where have I seen that before?

Up to now we've had three big multi-million dollar special effects movies: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Superman.

I liked all three, and I have some measure respect for their creators, partly because these directors (Lucas, Spielberg, and Donner) have a spark of real imaginative originality in their souls (or whatever). Steven Spielberg, for instance, after making the two modestly budgeted [unclear: featires] largely ignored by the public (Duel and The Sugarland Express, in case anyone's interested), made Jaws. The rest, as they say, is history. The film was tremendously popular (it's actually very good), and a host of imitators sprang up, menacing small towns with grizzly bears, piranha fish, giant octopi, killer bees, Lindy Cassidy, you name it.

But instead of repeating his success formula (he had nothing to do with the inferior sequel), Speilberg went on to something new in CE3K. Needless to say, there's a welter of visitors-from-space movies soon to reach our already somewhat [unclear: enophobic] shores.

Richard Donner, like Spielberg, made a very successful thriller in The Omen. It's one of the very best of its kind, with fantastic special effects and lots of superb chills, so don't miss it when it screens at the Memorial Theatre later this year. Also like Spielberg, Donner didn't have anything to do with the inevitable sequel, instead taking over direction of Superman — a film that, despite its rather shoddy and hurried last half hour, has more moments of brilliant comedy, technical wizardry, thrills and visual beauty than any other work of 'entertainment' for a long while.

I think Donner may be directing the sequel (which is over halfway finished anyway) — in this case, I hope so.