Last night, I watched bits of the movie "Philadelphia," for which Tom Hanks won his first Oscar. The end is an old home-video, showing a bright and healthy young toddler discovering the world and delighting himself and his parents. It�s backed by a haunting Neil Young song -- "haunting" in a good way, and not that scary-spooky effect that Neil Young himself tends to have on me.

Wow, I�m getting a bit misty just thinking about it.

But in watching the film, I realized how long it�s been since I saw it. Tom Hanks is good as the bright lawyer dying of AIDS and aching to prove his employers fired him after spotting a lesion on his face. But as I watched, I found myself thinking, "This isn�t how I remember it at all!" Certain pieces were missing.

Then it hit me: I was confusing parts of "Philadelphia" with parts of "The Firm."

Because they�re so very similar. Both male lead actors are named Tom (Hanks and Cruise), both get screwed by their employers, both movies involve law firms, and both firms are run by old men with white hair who engage in suspect practices (discrimination, and� oh, something else illegal). Really, they�re practically identical. When I watched "Philadelphia," I said to myself, "Where�s the part where he and his wife go to the company picnic?" Oops! Clearly, the main character in "Philadelphia" didn�t so much have a wife as a male lover (Antonio Banderas) -- you know, being a homosexual man and all. A common mistake, though, that comes from watching these two completely interchangeable films about law, and law books, and people who use law books to practice things -- like, say, law.

I�ve done this before. My friends were talking about "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and I piped up to say I loved that movie when I was young, and thought the little alien-robots that descend on Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn were especially cute. Oh, but apparently, that movie is a bit less "Close Encounters" and a bit more, "Batteries Not Included." Sigh. Whatever. Same difference. I can�t be expected to keep all these alien movies straight, can I? One can only keep track of so much.

One day, Doug and I were discussing Wilford Brimley � the reason escapes me, but it matters not, because four out of five dentists recommend talking about Wilford Brimley at least three times a week. Plus, a day without Wilford is like a lifetime without mustache hair in your cereal: devoid of surprise. Am I right? You betcha! Anyway, I mentioned that, in addition to Mr. Brimley's valuable commercial treatises on oatmeal, he was also in the "Platoon" movies.

Doug just blinked.

Then I corrected myself: "Oh, �Platoon,� �Cocoon��I can never keep them straight."

Doug fell off the couch. I think he�s still laughing, actually.

But, come on! Cocoon. Platoon. We�re being ooned to death, here, people. They�re just asking for a muddle! They�re begging for a hilarious misadventure in which a family sits down with Granny, spending quality time watching this quaint little moving-picture about octagenarian antics, but Mom picked the wrong oon , and the kids scream and cover their eyes, and Dad gets mad because Mom can't get anything right, and that includes dinner, and Mom screams that Dad could be a little more help instead of just focusing on his own pleasure all the time, and Granny's false teeth fall out when her jaw drops and she cracks Dad in the crotch with her cane and tells him to learn to use that thing or lock it up for good, and Mom flips Dad off, and Sparky scratches the sofa fabric, and the whole family ends up weeping over the carnage and the injustice of it all and the waste of young lives.

Okay, so I�ve never seen either film.

At least not in its entirety -- I think I watched the last half of "Platoon," but it might have been "Full Metal Jacket." Hard to say. Wilford Brimley wasn�t there. But you get the gist. There�s oodles of oon-tastic catastrophes out there just waiting to happen because of these two films that are virtually identical, except for their various differences.

We're all victims, befuddled by Hollywood�s lack of originality. "Traffic" and "Rush Hour" -- okay, roads are crowded! We get it.

Now. Where was I? Ah, yes. "Philadelphia." Good film. Especially the bit where alien Wilford Brimleys invade the courthouse and exact their own fresh brand of extraterrestrial justice. Be sure to rent it.

reading anything at www.fametracker.com watching some movie called "the platoonadelphia firm" drinking aquafina, or tapwater in an aquafina bottle the world according to milt & edie's "vision is being able to see the invisible" what it all means confirmed: i have no vision