Flashes: May 9, 1997

WIPEOUT When will Hollywood learn to stay out of the water? Twentieth Century Fox's media excursion two weeks ago for Speed 2 — which involved ferrying the press to Catalina Island, off L.A. — had all the makings of the publicity stunt from hell. First, Fox insisted the press arrive at the studio by 7:30 a.m. for the hour-long bus ride to the ferry. En route, they doped up the assembled crew with Dramamine. Even with the anti-seasickness tablets, a few press people and at least one Fox publicist were, as photog Lisa Rose puts it, ''tossing cookies'' into the choppy seas. Worse, the Dramamine made people so drowsy that heads were bobbing left and right during the 25 minutes of Speed 2 footage shown on the island. Finally, the exhausted reporters and paparazzi were ferried to the cruise ship featured in the film to meet the stars, Jason Patric and Sandra Bullock. ''Obviously, they were helicoptered in,'' says Rose. ''They looked great. We looked awful.'' Asked how it felt to return to the ship where she underwent her own high-seas ordeals, Bullock said, ''It's what I imagine an LSD flashback would be like.''