Lenny Bruce once said he never met a dyke he didn't like.

Well, that's Lenny Bruce, a heterosexual with limited life-experience (and no future life-experience to go on).

I, a male homosexual, have met many dykes I didn't like.

Which brings us to Chasing Amy.

This is a movie you will like with a dyke you will like.

Let me make one thing perfectly straight/clear, or what have you.

The dyke you will like is not named Amy. Her name is Alyssa Jones. Amy's just the name of a person in an unforgettable anecdote one of the dudes is telling. So forget Amy. Remember Alyssa! (Played by Joey Lauren Adams).

It's days since I saw this film and I'm still in love (in a non-sexual way) with the character. Also: note; approaching senility, I keep thinking her name is Amy, not Alyssa.

The story: two straight guys, co-workers who've created a comic book series, meet Alyssa at a comic book convention.

One of them falls for her. Then he realizes--she's one of them. But it's too late. He tries to live with her as a friend. It seems to work but--he can't stop feeling that groin-urge.

He tells her.

She's enraged. She's not an anything goes dyke. She's a committed dyke.

But, she realizes, miracle-of-miracles, she does love him ("like that.") Here's a great line: "Its not who you love. It's how."

Her love is great. Her sense of humor is great.

Now: the rub.

The guy's best friend, a best-best friend--buddies since childhood--is bitter-sad about it. And then the guy himself has problems. Coming as Alyssa does from New Jersey (a bad sign) he hears she once got it on--years ago-- simultaneously with two high school guys.

This really bothers Alyssa's boyfriend. He finally gets her to admit what took place and it becomes the movie's funniest scene. They're at a hockey game. Alyssa is really into the game and her beau keeps bugging her, asking her about those two boys in New Jersey. She stands up and yells it all: just who she blew, just who fucked her in the ass. Yells it! Then she ups and leaves him sitting with his buddy. Beside the two stunned men sit two curious men, wide-eyed male spectators. One turns to the other and says, "I told you these were good seats."

When I pass to the netherworld, I don't want an earthbound tombstone. But if I happen to get one anyway, please put those seven words on it, OK?

The two dudes who play with Alyssa (Ben Affleck) and his friend (Jason Lee) look like really uninteresting heterosexuals. There's one touching scene in which the lead-dude realizes Best Friend is bust-a-gut angry because he's really (a) gay and (b) in love with him. His response? He kisses him. It's touching.

Credit must be given to a great film maker, scriptwriter and director, Kevin Smith.

Note: I wondered, as a reviewer, if I was (a) crazy and/or (b) simply alone in thinking this script exceptional. I went to Barnes and Noble and there, for sale, was the script in print as a book, lying face up on the counter at the edge of coffee-klatch section.

I wasn't alone.

I phoned the Memer-Feger, the publicity people and told them I thought the film was great.

The publicity folks replied that half their reviewers had loved it too, but that half had hated it as well.

You go figure. But go!!!!