Video Rewind- from Sharks to Beauty Queens

If you're forgoing the parades and barbeques this Fourth of July but still want to celebrate in a quiet manner before the banging of fireworks here's a few movie suggestions to get you through the day.

You can begin the day by going to an amusement park in "Rollercoaster" where George Segal plays a cat and mouse game with terrorist Timothy Bottoms.

Bottoms is a disgruntled young man and has made his presence known by blowing up rollercoasters throughout the country. His last park on the list is the famed Magic Mountain where he hopes to gain a lot of attention by blowing up the Revolution which opens on the holiday.

"Rollercoaster" is a pretty good entry into the disaster genre of the waning '70's. Of course it comes with cheesy special effects within the first few minutes of the film. If you're able to slow down your DVD player (better yet if you have this on tape) check out the stuffed dummies in the cars. Nothing gets better than that.

This isn't really a disaster movie per say, but a good thriller which follows on the heels of the granddaddy of all Fourth of July films, "Jaws."

Thirty three years ago on June 20, 1975, people were afraid to go into the water as a giant great white shark had a buffet off the coast of Amity Island. It still carries the punch to make you believe the waters are still unsafe.

After the body of Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) washes ashore the mayor (Murray Hamilton) tries to cover up the shark attack so visitors will come to the island community to help celebrate the Fourth.

Two attacks (of a dog and a young boy) can't stop the mayor from closing down the beach and while the sun worshippers spend most of the time onshore, he convinces some friends to go into the water.

Sure it seems safe with a fleet of boats out there looking for the shark, but when two young boys pull a trick on the bathers the real shark goes into a pond where it attacks another boater and has it's sights on chief of police (Roy Scheider) Brody's young son and friends.

In an effort to make swimming safe once more Brody goes out to sea with Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and bounty hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) to kill the evil. The scenes while the three are on the boat tend to be drawn out and boring.

But if you don't want to go to an amusement park or swim in the ocean, stay away from beauty pageants and teenage drinking.

"I Know What You Did Last Summer" is basically your Fourth of July movie.

It begins at the annual Croaker Queen contest where Sarah Michelle Gellar receives the crown and after the pageant, she and fellow friends Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze, Jr. go out to celebrate at the beach and on the way home they hit a man with Phillippe's car.

Not knowing what to do, the four agree to dump the body into the ocean. It seems like a simple idea since the fish would nibble at it. What they don't plan on is the man's still alive and eventually drowns in the water.

A year goes by and Hewitt gets an anonymous note saying, "I Know What You Did Last Summer." When she gets back home from college for the summer, she goes to Gellar, they go to Phillippe and then finally to Prinze.

They have an inkling the note might have come from Johnny Galecki, so Phillippe has a little talk with him and tells the girls he put a scare into him.

Soon weird things start happening to the other three and the body count begins.

Or you can head off to the opening of the Midwood Mall and take your life into your own hands where bodies are piling up thanks to Eric Matthews (Derek Rydall). You see, the year before the mall was built his house was "in the way" and there was a mysterious fire. Everyone thought he was dead, but his girlfriend Melody (Kari Whitman) thinks otherwise.

After getting a job as a waitress in the mall, she finds her favorite flowers in her locker and mysteriously their favorite song begins to play on the jukebox.

With the help of local photographer/reporter Peter Baldwin (Rob Estes) and Melody's friends (Kimber Sissons and Pauly Shore) the four of them start to put pieces of the puzzle together, especially when the security guard (Gregory Scott Cummins) tries to harm Melody.

"Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge" is a pretty good late '80's thriller but is predictable so don't say I didn't warn you.