Lawrence Van Gelder

A tale of negligent homicide, class warfare, vengeance, jealousy and murder, Stephen King's Thinner has the outlines of Shakespearean tragedy and the intellectual content of a jack o'lantern. But as such ventures go, this Halloween handout is more treat than trick, if your tastes run to dripping blood and repellent skin ailments. The production is slick, the Maine scenery is bracing, the characters are well-acted, and in a mumbo-jumbo movie with a few loose ends, the makeup central to the plot and applied by Greg Cannom and Bob Laden to Robert John Burke in the leading role is most admirable.

Given genuine life by the dimpled enchantress Nancy St. Alban, Nora makes palpable the bittersweet love at the honest heart of Some Fish Can Fly.

Though it could do with fewer talking-head interviews and more extended clips from these impassioned live performances, Young Rebels is essential viewing for anyone interested in rap music, free speech issues or the youth culture of contemporary Cuba.

In retelling this timeworn story of conflict between young men in the New World and their stubborn Old World fathers, Mr. Efteriades may not have generated many sparks, but with his affection for Astoria and its people he has given his tale a warm glow.

The director's attention to details of character and locale makes for a precise evocation of a New York seldom seen in feature films.

Manages to capture firsthand the danger, fatigue and sheer tedium of an arduous illegal border crossing from Mexico without ever becoming tedious itself.

For horror film devotees eager to know how this unseasonable visit from the darker spirits of autumn rates, frankly, it's more marketing trick than moviegoer treat.

For juvenile filmgoers and families in search of a more-than-twice-told tale with uplifting messages about the rewards of perseverance, the virtues of animals and acceptance of the handicapped, MVP will do.

American Chai may not tell a new story, but in its understanding, often funny way, it tells a story whose restatement is validated by the changing composition of the nation.

Some may be offended by this film's use of Sept. 11 as a plot device, but ultimately The Friend is less concerned with the politics of terror than with its psychology.

In the end, The Baxter is a Baxter of a movie: well meaning and mildly likable, but unlikely to sweep you off your feet.

The medium is more palatable than the saccharine message because Hopkins and Gooding know how to put on a show.

Simultaneously fascinating and vexing in ways that might tax informed devotees of both baseball and film.

The card announcing the film's G rating was roundly booed by the youngsters though at almost every sight of the dog they screamed with mouth-filled delight.

A mere slip of a movie, a wan character study of people who add up to little more than a series of studied quirks.

Like Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso," Just One Look is a tribute to the formative power of cinema, a coming-of-age film that nimbly interweaves the adolescent hero's struggles with clips from the movies that shape his romanticized notions of life.

Travel from Mars to Earth is an amazing feat, but not much more remarkable than reviving a sitcom that had been dead for a third of a century.

Mr. Caan's debut film is not quite a whole thing, but it offers up enough promising fragments to make his sophomore effort worth watching for.

Lovingly shot on location in the Italian neighborhoods of Providence, this comfortably predictable film has its pleasures, most notably a dryly funny Adrienne Barbeau as the brothers' hip, hard-drinking Aunt Lidia.

Establishes its ominous mood and tension swiftly, and if the suspense never rises to a higher level, it is nevertheless maintained throughout.

The movie only really comes alive when the music plays and people sing and dance.

An earnest study in despair.

Notable chiefly for its eye-catching urban backgrounds and an eclectic score that ranges from jazz and country to classical and choral.

Neither approves of nor condemns the choices made by its headstrong protagonist; rather, it quietly observes her transformation from naïve schoolgirl to wary but proud single mother.

It's easy to be seduced by this film's warmhearted, if slightly utopian, vision.

A rare hybrid: an underdog sports picture that's also a transgender fairy tale.

With Christopher Eccleston as Jude and Kate Winslet of ''Sense and Sensibility'' as his great love, Sue Bridehead, and with convincing evocations of 19th-century England from locations in Edinburgh and the north of England, Jude remains a handsome if gravely flawed film.

Mr. Tarkovsky appears so absorbed in grappling with his own demons that universality suffers. [17 Aug 1983, p.C14]