Works better as a look at life among a family of Croatian immigrants in Vienna during the nightmare years of the Balkan conflicts than an exploration of the psychosexual tension between a prostitute and her son.

Eastwood, ironically, is the weak link in the cast, a less-than-ideal choice to play a screw-up who squeaks through life on personal magnetism: He's got star quality, sure, even a certain remote sexiness, but he's no charmer.

The Duffs are certainly cute together, but not even their natural chemistry can enliven all the preachy bits about hard work and the meaning of happiness.

Director Joe Chapelle knows how to stage a spooky scene, and Going and McGowan supply a refreshing alternative to the shrieking bimbos so familiar to horror fans.

THE BLUES BROTHERS is a monument to waste, noise and misplaced cool, but it does have its engagingly nutty moments.

James Woods adds another hateful, embittered creep to his gallery of losers, neurotics and junkyard dogs with vampire slayer Jack Crow.

For all its action, suspense, and intricate plotting, THE PACKAGE comes across as a mostly leaden entry in the political-paranoia thriller category.

Despite desperate efforts to sell this umpteenth recycling of the Camelot legend as a Sean Connery vehicle, it's Richard Gere's film and he's not much of a Lancelot.

Hope and Crosby had been making "Road" films for 12 years when they did this, their sixth installment in the series, the only one in color. It was getting tiresome by that time, although they managed some fun out of the slim plot.

Unfortunately, the trajectory of Mueller and co-screenwriter Kevin Kennedy's repetitive screenplay echoes "Taxi Driver" so closely as to invite unfavorable comparison with Martin Scorsese's benchmark chronicle of alienation.

The basic problem is that most of the humor is based on things that are beyond parody. Bad television commercials and lame low-budget films are funny enough as they are; exaggerating their ridiculousness is unnecessary. What is successful is the painstakingly accurate recreation of everything from the commercials to the title skit. The talented filmmakers demonstrate that they can handle a multitude of directing chores, and, although the scripting may lack imagination, the visuals are handled quite well.

A mighty strange movie, one that updates Chaucer's story to wartime Britain.

Offers exactly what you've come to expect from the series: Bland but wholly innocuous family entertainment featuring a cute kid and an even cuter dog.

Francis Ford Coppola falls down and goes boom with this depressing, ill-conceived comedy.

An uneven and somewhat predictable thriller.

A dismal misfire that attempts to make black comedy out of the adventures of war correspondents and the dirty business of international politics.

The cast gives believable and realistic performances, with script and direction contributing a sleekness, although the underlying messages receive undue emphasis.

The bizarrely entertaining relationship that blossoms between Sciorra and Piven is far more amusing and convincing, which only underscores the lack of chemistry between the dewy leads.

There's no denying the freak-show appeal and you don't see frontal nudity like this on TV, but otherwise it's all as contrived and artificial as "Survivor."

The film starts in midbattle and scarcely slows up--a good thing, too, because the few slack spots are heavy-handed mystical interludes without a trace of humor.

Relentless parade of tragedy.

Clever enough; but, as is the case with all stalk-and-slash films, it becomes repetitive and boring very quickly.

Raoul Ruiz's absurdly overwrought phantasmagoria tries to recast the notorious Viennese artist's life as a kind of Divine Comedy: Inferno.

No Holds Barred is paced well, with broadly drawn good guys and bad guys. Somewhat problematic is the murky status of the wrestling fans in the film. The "goodness" of Hogan's character is so markedly contrasted with the grossness of the wrestling-bar patrons that the film actually appears to be criticizing its star's fans--who are, after all, also the film's audience.

There's no accounting for the success of this over the failure of Eastwood's infinitely superior Bronco Billy. The year 1978 was the year of heavy pictures, with The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, and Midnight Express. Perhaps people just wanted to sit back, eat some popcorn, and have a good old evening of cheer and laughter.

Comic Tommy Davidson, in particular, is hilarious as gangsta rapper Puff Smokey Smoke, who falls for Juwanna and then, in a twist lifted directly from the queen of all drag farces, 1959's "Some Like It Hot," decides he still loves her after she's exposed as Jamal. After all, nobody's perfect.

Predictable and ultimately saccharine, but occasionally enlivened by Wayans's rather vicious comic sensibility.

It's fast and furious, but suffers from an overstuffed plot.