Rush Hour's MOTORMOUTH
Like some mad cross between Richard Pryor and Bugs Bunny on speed, Chris Tucker burst from the sidelines and into the national consciousness. Sure, the 26-year-old hyperkinetic comic has been hilarious for eons (check out his ghetto-stoner turn in 1995's Friday if you don't believe it), but the hugely popular Rush Hour--in which he mercilessly swiped the spotlight from a dazed-but-game Jackie Chan--marked a crossover event of epic proportions. Zipping back and forth on the screen, firing jokes in his mosquito-pitched falsetto, Tucker led the charge to an out-of-left-field box office take of $132 million and became a bona fide star in the process. Next up: a stadium stand-up pic a la Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip--which should solve one recurring problem. "Every time I get a script I try and make it more, you know, me," says Tucker, who claims he's improvised most of his movie lines. As for the newfound megastardom, the kid dubbed "little Eddie Murphy" in high school says it's no surprise: "I know what's funny." Twenty-nine million Hour fans would rush to agree. --Daniel Fierman
Teen SPIRIT
For a while there, it looked like every teenage girl on film would be narrowly escaping death at the hands of a slasher. Then along came Slums of Beverly Hills, a haunting and humorous paean to coming of age in the '70s from first-time writer-director Tamara Jenkins. Eliciting a career-defining performance from up-and-comer Natasha Lyonne, and a best-in-years performance from Marisa Tomei, Jenkins perfectly depicted the horrors of growing up poor and motherless in the country's poshest zip code (which she did), while also finding the undeniable humor in tube socks, shag carpets, and vibrators. "I was definitely handed this strange brew of a childhood," says Jenkins, 35, whose modest rewards from the movie include a bigger New York pad and a fax machine. Real validation, however, came from a childhood idol: After seeing Slums, "Gene Simmons gave me a Kiss rhinestone T-shirt and a copy of Kisstory," says Jenkins. "Let's face it, when Gene Simmons calls, you know you've made it." --Jessica Shaw
Pop's BLUE-EYED SOUL
Not much secrecy to Natalie Imbruglia's success: Who among us doesn't hope to look that good feeling that bad? Others had recorded "Torn" before the 23-year-old Australian got to it (as the English press was fond of nagging), but she was the hitmaker-in-waiting whose confidently breathy reading so effectively prettified this anthem of emotional debasement and shame...and there's no shame in that. Nothing in the rest of the former TV actress' debut album, Left of the Middle, has quite the same urgency, and the career-artist-or-flash-in-the-pan debate continues to rage. Yet none of that mattered if you were a teenager in crisis. Courtney Love may have tried to put a melodic face on despondency this year, but Imbruglia was the cause's infinitely blue-eyed poster girl, and "Torn" the year's crucial bubblegum blues. --CW
