Look at the last few paragraphs from "Everybody's a critic":

http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/business.pat,business/37740144.b12,.html

"Don't bother with 'Y2K: The Movie'"

"By DAVID HAYES and FINN BULLERS - Columnist" "Date: 11/12/99 22:15"

"There are many reasons to dislike NBC's sweeps-week offering, "Y2K: The Movie," which airs on Nov. 21. The potential that it will cause Y2K-inspired panic in the streets is not one of them."

"This movie is just plain bad."

"Star TV writer Aaron Barnhart must have sensed it, otherwise he wouldn't have dished it off to us to preview. We did a screening at the palatial Bullers estate Thursday night."

"With apologies to Roger Ebert, this one gets two Bugs down."

"This is like a bad episode of `Murder, She Wrote,' " said Finn's wife, before finding a convenient I've-got-to-take-a-call-from-my-mom distraction to occupy the rest of her evening. We weren't so lucky."

"The movie is a cheesy souffle of fact and fantasy. Name a Y2K disaster cliche and it's here."

"The movie's most notable star is Ken Olin, best known for playing whiny husband and dad Michael Steadman in ABC TV's long-defunct "thirtysomething."

"Olin this time plays a whiny husband and dad -- and, oh yeah, whiny Y2K genius."

"Don't get us wrong. We (Dave especially) like action movies. As long as something "gets blown up real good," we're happy couch campers. But "Y2K" is a bigger waste of videotape than recording old Jerry Springer reruns."

"A quick plot synopsis:"

"Early on, a radio broadcast says cars have been reclassified as "horseless carriages." (Fact: This really happened in Maine this fall.) Later, broadcasters prepare to air live footage of a prison riot when computer-controlled doors swing wide. (Fallacy: An urban legend in the making.)"

"An F-18 falls out of the sky at 12:01:40 somewhere in the South Seas. Is it Y2K-related? No one is saying. ATM glitches limit angry customers to $20 a pop. Parts of Paris go black. Is the power outage going to cascade? Times Square fizzles out, so do Philadelphia and Scranton. 911? Forget it."

"A 72-year-old woman dies on the operating table, becoming the first confirmed Y2K death. A nuclear meltdown in Sweden kills all plant workers. Could the fictitious Emerald Canyon nuke plant in Seattle be next?"

"In the process, "Y2K" leaves so many loose ends it looks as ifit belongs in the Kansas football Jayhawks playbook this season."

"My slogan while making the movie was, `Paranoia is our most important product,' " executive producer David Israel, a 1973 graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, said. "I guess it worked."

"That's precisely what has sparked a bit of a controversy around "Y2K."

"Variety, the Hollywood insider's bible, reports that organizations requesting an advance look at "Y2K" include the National Governors' Association, the Chicago mayor's office and the American Bankers Association."

"And the Food and Drug Administration apparently has contacted the network to make sure Y2K doesn't depict lives lost due to malfunctioning medical equipment."

"Bankers, federal regulators and others have expressed concern, fearing "Y2K" could create a "War of the Worlds"-like panic among viewers. Many organizations have written NBC asking the network to scrap the movie."

"The producers responded to the flap by putting one of those cover-your-rear "this program does not suggest or imply that any of these events could actually occur" disclaimers at the beginning of the flick."

"But from where we sit, it wasn't necessary."

"People didn't quit riding buses after "Speed." They didn't avoid ships after "The Poseidon Adventure." They didn't avoid high rises after "Die Hard." And there are at least 100 other reasons to avoid Oklahoma without ever having seen flying cows in "Twister."

"And besides, unless you were getting paid to write a column about it, it's unlikely you'll stay put past the first commercial."

"Everybody's a critic"

"The last time we heard from the money dudes, the American Bankers Association was putting its collective foot in its mouth by circulating a "pro banking, everything is OK" sermon it wanted ministers to read on Sundays. Really, really wrong turn, as it turned out -- ministers hated the idea."

"This time it's the Independent Community Bankers of America, based in Washington, D.C. Claiming that the "Y2K" movie includes automated teller machine failures, the alert the organization is sending to bankers suggests they talk to their NBC affiliates about running "the real story behind Y2K" the night the movie is aired."

"(Take cover, Jim Swinehart over at KSHB-TV. The note includes a list of affiliates and contacts.)"

"Despite letters urging the network to pull the movie, chances are slim that NBC will actually do that," according to the alert. "Community bankers can wield some influence, however, in their own media markets."

"By the way, the "Y2K" movie doesn't portray any ATM failures."

"Why the fuss?"

"Here's the "Y2K" take from Daniel Perez of Jackson, Mich., who read our recent column about the movie on our Web site www.kcstar.com/y2k and sent us e-mail."

"I find it interesting that all of these business associations are making a big fuss over NBC's `Y2K' movie. Nobody freaked out when the `Simpsons' parodied Y2K on their Halloween special on FOX. I don't think there's been this much fuss over a TV movie since `The Day After' was filmed around Kansas City and Lawrence, Kan., back in 1983."

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), November 14, 1999