This week the boys enter autumn with some Hollywood tearjerkers from September 18, 1998: ONE TRUE THING starring Meryl Streep, SIMON BIRCH starring the kid from “Simon Birch”, and - saddest of all - the parade of misery that is Brett Ratner’s RUSH HOUR... 

In the Olympics of Suffering that is this week’s trio of middling movies there are glimmers of hope to be sure - Meryl Streep’s brilliant acting, Jackie Chan’s balletic fight choreography, John Irving’s elegant negotiating to keep the name “A Prayer For Owen Meany” off of movie posters while still getting paid handsomely for the adaptation rights… But when grief strikes, it strikes hard. For example, which of these makes the boys want to crawl out of their collective skin more:  Mark Shaiman’s score for Simon Birch, Chris Tucker’s voice in Rush Hour, or William Hurt’s obliviousness to everything around him in One True Thing? It’s enough to make three grown men cry.

So pass the Kleenex (for totally different reasons than Fred did when revisiting ZAPPED last week) and settle in for A Very Special Episode of OPENING WEEKEND!