Simon (Full Frame)

VHS, PG, 97 minutes, WARNER

The institute for Advanced Concepts doesn't worry about saving nations, whales and aluminum foil. Its scrambled eggheads, gifted with unlimited funding and an unlimited desire for scientific mischief, are more concerned with their newest project: Simon. Simon Mendelssohn is a frustrated college professor brainwashed into thinking he's an extra-terrestrial. He's the spaced-out space hero of this cosmic comedy from writer/director Marshall Brickman (Lovesick, The Manhattan Project), going solo for the first time after his writing collaboration with Woody Allen on "Sleeper," "Annie Hall" (an Academy Award winner for Best Screenplay as well as Picture) and "Manhattan." Alan Arkin plays Simon with zany abandon and Madelone Kahn, Austin Pendleton, Wallace Shawn and Fred Gwynne join the fun of a world hungry for what Simon says. Our hero mimes 500-million years of evolution stretching from amoeba to monkey to monkey's uncle. Communes with TV worshippers who may be the direct link to today's couch-potatoes. And takes courageous stands against catsup in packets, politicians who don't wear pointy party hats and manufacturers who don't take their nuclear waste home at night. The quality of modern-day American life may never be the same if Simon has his way. And it will certainly be funnier.