Films to choke on by MATTHEW HAYS Though some may think being a film critic is an enviable gig, they have not sat beside me in darkened rooms during the past two weeks. If they did, their envy would disappear. Indeed, the movies I've sat through recently left me with the momentary impression that I'd died and arrived in hell, banished to the section designed especially for film critics. I haven't seen this much crap since I watched that documentary on how sewers work. First, there was The Next Best Thing (Okay, what was I expecting?). Though everyone's been trouncing this one, the film has a premise that appeals to those of us who aren't the marrying kind. People have spilled much ink over the disappointing turns by both Madonna and Rupert Everett, but I've seen them fall flat on their asses before. I'm much more saddened to see a brilliant director like John Schlesinger go to such waste as he does here. Further in the down-and-out once-great director's department comes Brian De Palma, whose Mission to Mars really is as bad as everyone's saying it is. I've loved even some of De Palma's way out stuff, like Dressed to Kill and Body Double but this is simply one big budget-crashing bore. Add to that Jarmusch's pretentious Ghost Dog, Polanski's wretched The Ninth Gate, Peter Greenaway's 8 1/2 Women and Steven Soderbergh's condescending Norma Rae lite, Erin Brockovich, and that makes this March the official month of Auteurs Gone Terribly Wrong. But wait! The horrors don't stop there! Those dear friends of mine who distribute this garbage also threw in another typically thoughtful teen movie for good measure. Final Destination has a group of adolescents off to Paris for a field trip. When boarding the plane, one of the students has a psychic vision that the plane is going to crash. He goes nuts, and a few students and one teacher get off. Sure enough, the plane crashes and then each survivor starts getting offed in new and nasty ways. Who's going to be offed next? Who cares. Not to be left out, some local filmmakers also released substandard entries this week. Seducing Maarya, Hunt Hoe's latest melodramatic opus, is, I'm sorry to report, a massive misfire. We're expected to buy all sorts of bizarre family plot twists, none of which feel remotely authentic. The performances fall short too. And finally, Billy Zane appears in Promise Her Anything, a trite and stupid comedy about some townsfolk who try desperately to stave off a Wal-Mart-like corporation from taking over their town. Poor Zane--at one point he appeared poised to become another Depp, Pitt or Reeves. Now he's reduced to this. Both of these films open Friday, March 17. Still, as horrid as all this has been, I am impressed with the special brand of alchemy these filmmakers have concocted: they've managed to transform vomit into celluloid. : COMMENTS: matt_hays@babylon.montreal.qc.ca