Lawrence Van Gelder

Children who revel in clean-cut heroes, villains given to spells and incantations and the kind of special effects that breathe life into mandrake root, ships' figure-heads, centaurs, griffins and statues of Kali (always a deity beloved of evil forces) will probably find it a happy concoction for passing a rainy afternoon.

Filtered through tears, laughter and affection, the results -- are touching and fascinating though, by their nature unilluminated by dispassionate analysis.

Juvenile comedy targets a gallery of imperfect women.

An earnest study in despair.

Candleshoe, with its beguiling English countryside settings, languid pace, defanged Dickensian villains, compassionate butler, down-at-the-heels nobility, hidden treasure and orphaned children engaged in a plot to outwit swindlers, keep up appearances and save the old manor from foreclosure, is the fiction of a bygone era.

Plods along, never catching dramatic fire, sometimes suffering from amateurish acting and often relying on its intrusive and treacly music to impart mood and rhythm.

Mr. Toledo's performance as the shallow and cowardly, yet strangely sympathetic Rafael is a wonder of comic timing, while Ms. Cervera is unforgettable as Lourdes, the ugly duckling who becomes not a swan, but a monster.

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.

Though it is occasionally talky, and though its plot takes a while to crank up, The Last Starfighter, directed by Nick Castle, is more often than not good-humored, bent on action and even touching. [13 July 1984, p.C5]

Intelligent, insightful, touching.

Mr. Drake can be rivetingly angry, intense, frenetic, frank and touching.

Though Three ... Extremes may seem tame to jaded fans of what has been termed New Asian Horror, it serves as a fine introduction to the genre for those who are curious but squeamish.

The director, who also served as producer along with Lisa Comforty, his wife, spent 12 years compiling the archival clips and photographs that make up this compact and elegant film.

Impressive, unsettling, deeply felt film.

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

Mr. Jewison, filming mainly at Fort Chaffee, Ark., has opened up the play by using such interiors as the bar where the troops hang out and exteriors on and around the base. But perhaps most commendably, he has let Mr. Fuller's drama speak for itself, applying the skills of a film maker to polish the facets that lent such substance to the drama.

However fascinating the source material, there's something less than cinematic about 90 minutes of watching people read letters in front of windows.

Within that narrow framework, the film is quite successful, using archival photographs, clips from pornographic films and television commercials, and interviews to evoke the period between June 1969, when the Stonewall riots brought homosexuality out of the shadows, to June 1981, when the AIDS epidemic began.

Though it is marred by an implausible climax and a cloying conclusion, this movie's quiet intelligence sneaks up on you, marking the director as a talent to watch.

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.

Quite simply a treat for the ear.

It's an intimate chamber piece, dialogue-heavy and at times claustrophobic, but the four central characters are so deftly sketched, and their shifting alliances so intricately choreographed, that the film never feels talky or staged. The actors are consistently excellent.

Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, this glossy melodrama, mixing references to Indian mysticism and the epic poetry of the "Ramayana" with late-20th-century feminism, teeters unsteadily between sociology and soap opera.

It is probably hopeless in the presence of Trekkies to do anything but sit back -- amused, bemused and astonished -- and watch the devotions of fans of the various incarnations of "Star Trek."

An engaging and colorful but somewhat overbalanced documentary.

While instructive on environmental concerns about the impact of logging, Butterfly does not reward those who seek dispassionate psychological insight into the zealous Ms. Hill.

A rare and often chilling glimpse into the culture of North Korea.

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.