This is a bad time for NBA fans in Boston. Just as their beloved Celtics are about to wrap up a dismal season, with nearly 50 losses and no berth in the playoffs, Hollywood comes out with a comedy about the Celtics that’s even worse than the team. And not half as funny.

This Orion release has the usual quota of violence for urban exploitation pictures, but its people have been drawn with exceptional dimension. Amid the mayhem, wit and emotion develops; "The Substitute," handsomely photographed by Bruce Surtees, actually has more on its mind than just bone-crunching. [19 Apr 1996, p.F8]

The odd truth is that the film's novice star is better than the material.

Intelligent, involving and serious, it is as honestly emotional as Hollywood allows itself to get, a story of the search for wartime truth whose own concern for the genuine makes all the difference.

Fear, thanks mostly to Foley's stylish direction and a couple of strong performances, is a much better movie than "Whispers," but those familiar with the formula will get no major surprises. [12 Apr 1996]

the first techno-misfire from Walt Disney Pictures, an over-elaborate film that leaves you feeling harangued, harassed and assaulted.

A tight courtroom melodrama that serves up twist after twist like so many baffling knuckle balls, this film handles its suspenseful material with skill and style.

Neither flashy nor dishonest, a wizard with restraint, Pearce has a gift for discovering the excitement in honest human behavior, and working from an acute script by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson, he's able to dramatize the story's essence without forcing the issue.

Sgt. Bilko is one of those joyless comedies that have lately become so prevalent, a halfheartedly amusing film that avoids originality while relying on old and tired material. [29 Mar 1996, p.F1]

With his ability to understand and convey these absurdist scenarios in both adult and preteen terms, writer-director Solondz catches the unlooked-for humor in poignant, hurtful situations.

Too slight to be taken seriously and too off-putting (especially when the phone callers get hostile and the work demeaning) to be funny, Girl 6 feels like the first draft of a potentially interesting project. It just hasn't been made good on here.

These despairing, ambiguous pieces are always emotionally unsettling, and that is due in part to Kieslowski's complete assurance as a director. His spare, minimal visual preferences dominate each episode. The camera work is fluid and precise, and the films are so rich they seem to be feature-length though they're not.

What makes Ed such a dreary experience is that literally no one here seems to be trying--someone came up with the hey-let's-put-a-monkey-in-funny-outfits idea and no more creative meetings were called.

Everything about Executive Decision is familiar except how crisply its conventional story is executed. Since most action thrillers think blowing things up is enough to attract an audience, it's a nice surprise to come across a savvy piece of work that relies on suspense and is as professional as the elite anti-terrorist unit it celebrates.

With the perfect assist from their actors, all of whom are well in on the joke, this affectionate look at the frozen North brings the Coens back in from the cold.

Not without its funny moments, much of Birdcage seems pro forma and predictable. What felt original in 1978 is no longer half so inspired.

Beautifully wrought and wonderfully acted, The Flower of My Secret is in fact the kind of film that George Cukor often made - and he surely would have been delighted at Almodovar's deft blend of humor, tenderness and wisdom. [13 Mar 1996]

Chungking Express ravishingly, seductively exudes the immediacy of everyday life as its spins its classically timeless tales of love lost and almost regained.

A dialogue polishing by Barker, plus his own direction, might have made a crucial difference. What it got instead was a script inescapably convoluted by the need to justify a third sequel...Like the other sequels, Hellraiser: Bloodline goes in for elaborate special effects and decor, but the film is murky and morbid, laden with a heavy dose of grisly sadomasochism that's more repellent than intriguing.

Take a ridiculous premise, marry it to a situation that is bound to resolve itself in the most obvious way, and keep the whole thing rolling with juvenile gags. What do you have? Television. Or “If Lucy Fell,” whose writer-director, Eric Schaeffer, certainly knows television. Or knew it.

The Neon Bible is elegiac, formal and sometimes boldly stylized. The result is an extraordinary experience in which the familiar is made deeply and effectively unsettling.

A routine, mildly funny service comedy. [01 Mar 1996, p.F6]

For serenely rising above all the foolishness is Chan himself, a performer whose belief in broad and harmless fun gives his films a clear and present connection to the classic silent comedies to go along with its action fixation. For once a film's ad line has a whiff of truth about it: "No Fear. No Stuntman. No Equal." [23 Feb 1996, p.1]

There is nothing to be embarrassed about here, neither is there much to relish, for Mary Reilly has more of the sheen of art than its essence.

Though Bottle Rocket is wryly amusing from beginning to end, the hard edges of the real world are never too far from its surface. And it is the particular grace of the film that though all its characters end up with something like what they're looking for, its not exactly how they'd imagined it would be.

The result is a movie that's hard to laugh at when its hero would surely be either in jail or perhaps even a mental institution were he to behave the way he does on screen in real life.

City Hall is inside information in search of a movie, a forced marriage between the trappings of reality and the fantasy of a jerry-built plot. Reasonably intelligent, neither offensive nor enticing, it passes its time on the screen without providing compelling reasons for audiences to either go or stay. [16 Feb 1996, p.F1]

Beautiful Girls follows the boys as they work their way through these crises, and it's about as much fun as a neighborhood bar on a Tuesday night. Its crisis: not much happening.