BABETTE'S FEAST
***½
Denmark
Two spinsters in an isolated Danish town take in a French housekeeper, who, upon winning the lottery, repays them with an elaborate French dinner.
A warm, witty, elegant fable, though certainly better suited to the short film format.
dir: Gabriel Axel
cast: Stéphane Audran, Birgitte Federspiel, Bodil Kjer, Ghita Norby, Jean-Philippe Lafont, Jarl Kulle, Bibi Andersson

BARFLY
***
USA
A barfly poet meets an alcoholic woman.
A murky, bittersweet tale of two unlikely survivors, based on autobiographical writings by Charles Bukowski. The performances are pretty thin and the majority of the picture rests on a line between honest and self-absorbed.
dir: Barbet Schroeder
wr: Charles Bukowski
cast: Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway, Alice Krige

BROADCAST NEWS
***½
USA
A neurotic TV news producer falls for an ambitious anchorman who represents everything she hates.
While painting a convincing portrait of television journalism, it spends too much time on romantic comedy to rise above a status of smart, entertaining fluff.
dir: James L. Brooks
cast: Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Lois Chiles, Joan Cusack, Jack Nicholson

THE DEAD
***
USA
Two Irish spinster sister throw a dinner party for friends and relatives in the winter of 1904.
A master's swansong, based on Joyce's most celebrated short story. Elegant, if somewhat slight.
dir: John Huston
wr: Tony Huston
ph: Fred Murphy
m: Alex North
cast: Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann, Rachel Dowling, Cathleen Delany, Helena Carroll

DROWNING BY NUMBERS
***
Three women sharing the same name drown their respective husbands.
A colourful, surreal black comedy in its maker's instantly recognizable, insufferably pretentious style. The characters though are more vital than in other Greenaway pictures, so it's one of his more bearable ones.
wr/dir: Peter Greenaway
cast: Bernard Hill, Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Juliet Richardson

EMPIRE OF THE SUN
***½
USA
In china at the outset of WWII, an 11-year-old English boy is separated from his parents.
Fascinating if not particularly insightful. Generally compelling, but at two-and-a-half hours (about two of which are necessary), it's also exhausting.
dir: Steven Spielberg
wr: Tom Stoppard
cast: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Nigel Havers, Joe Pantoliano

FATAL ATTRACTION
**½
USA
After a one-night-stand, the woman develops an unhealthy infatuation.
The most hysterical argument pro married men's castration. Unmistakably a product of its time, a sensation back then, and still quite notorious, if ludicrous.
dir: Adrian Lyne
cast: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM
**½
USA
In Saigon 1965, an irrepressible radio show host strikes an unpleasant chord with the management.
Williams himself was obviously the one to compose the exhilarating radio monologues and, always the good sport, he keeps fighting through the mercilessly cheap scriptwriting dumped onto him, but ultimately, to little avail.
dir: Barry Levinson
cast: Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker, Tung Thanh Tran, Chintara Sukapatana, Bruno Kirby, J.T. Walsh

HOPE AND GLORY
****
UK
The life of a London family during the blitz of WWII.
Episodic, tragi-comic wartime reminiscing through the eyes of a child. Warm, funny and affecting, it's probably Boorman's most autobiographical picture and his most likable.
wr/dir: John Boorman
ph: Philippe Rousselot, John Harris
cast: Sarah Miles, David Hayman, Sebastian Rice-Edwards, Sammi Davis, Geraldine Muir

HOUSE OF GAMES
***½
USA
A psychiatrist gets involved with a con man.
A smart, talky, plot-twist driven con men thriller.
wr/dir: David Mamet
cast: Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna

THE LAST EMPEROR
***½
Italy/China/UK
The life of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China.
The direction is self-conscious, self-indulgent and often clumsy, and there is absolutely no insight to the central character even after almost three hours. But it differs from the standard Hollywood biopic in that it's not entirely caught up in its subject's nobility and it does manage to hold your interest. The photography helps.
dir: Bernardo Bertolucci
ph: Vittorio Storaro
cast: John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole

LAW OF DESIRE
***½
Spain
A typically, nuttily convoluted early Almodóvar package, involving a gay filmmaker, his transsexual movie star sister and his naively psychotic fan. The plot is driven by murder, burning passion, incest and amnesia. The score consists of a homage to Hitchcock, sleazy porno ambient muzak, a poignant Belgian chanson as well as an assortment of smooth Spanish pop songs that, I swear, carry hints of an emotional undercurrent to the cheeky, gaudy, cathartic kitschiness.
wr/dir: Pedro Almodóvar
cast: Eusebio Poncela, Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas

THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
***
UK
A Bond picture more solemn than is standard.

MAURICE
***
UK
A young English stockbroker struggles to come to terms with his homosexuality in the 1910s.
Despite their success with "A Room with a View" (1985), Merchant and Ivory were the wrong people to adapt Forster's posthumous, semi-autobiographical account of homosexuality in the repressive English society of the day. The subject matter is compelling, but its treatment is too discreet and antiseptic.
dir: James Ivory
cast: James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denhol Elliott, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw, Ben Kingsley

MOONSTRUCK
***½
USA
An Italian-American widow falls for her future husband's younger brother.
A calculated but exuberant, entertaining romantic comedy.
dir: Norman Jewison
cast: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello

NO WAY OUT
**½
USA
A CIA-liaison is pursued for the murder he is convinced was committed by the Secretary of Defense.
A fast-moving thriller with a twist ending, that is generally uninvolving since none of the characters is sufficiently developed and few of the performers are likable. Remake of "The Big Clock" (1947).
dir: Roger Donaldson
cast: Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young, Will Patton

PELLE THE CONQUEROR
***½
Denmark/Sweden
At the beginning of the 20th century, a Swedish immigrant worker takes his son to Denmark.
A sensitive exploration of a father and son relationship. Though the noble suffering gets a little monotonous after two and a half hours, the picture still carries an emotional impact.
wr/dir: Bille August
cast: Max von Sydow, Pelle Hvenegaard

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES
**½
USA
A businessman's attempts to get home for Thanksgiving are continually interrupted, usually by an unkempt shower-ring salesman.
A star pairing that barely makes an effort to even follow its well-established formula. There are surprisingly few laughs to be had.
wr/dir: John Hughes
cast: Steve Martin, John Candy

PRICK UP YOUR EARS
***½
UK
A biopic of celebrated English playwright Joe Orton, which flashes back and forth in time but avoids the biopic curse of trying to cram in too much of a great man's life into a 100-minute running time by concentrating primarily on Orton's relationship with Kenneth Halliwell, his lover of 16 years and eventual killer. There is still the feeling there are bits missing in the story: most jarringly, you don't get any sense of Orton's creative output. But while it's on, the picture is witty and engrossing, and uniformly well-acted.
dir: Stephen Frears
wr: Alan Bennett
cast: Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Wallace Shawn, Lindsay Duncan, Julie Walters, James Grant

THE PRINCESS BRIDE
***½
USA
A beautiful young girl finds true love in a farm boy but is forced to marry an evil prince.
A captivating, inconsequential, fast-moving and wholly enjoyable revisionist fairy tale.
dir: Rob Reiner
cast: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Peter Falk

RADIO DAYS
***½
USA
The radio craze serves as a catalyst for a soft-focus memoir of Woody Allen’s childhood as it unfolds during the years of WWII, just before TV broke out. There’s little of substance here, so you’d expect viewers in 1987 would have come out disappointed with the picture, arriving as it did straight after “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986). But it’s so joyous, warm and sentimental, you’d feel heartless to resist it. And it’s filled with great tunes from the period, and it looks really lovely.
wr/dir: Woody Allen
ph: Carlo Di Palma
cast: Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner, Michael Tucker, Dianne Wiest, Josh Mostel, Seth Green, Renee Lippin, William Magerman, Leah Carrey, Wallace Shawn, Kenneth Mars, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Diane Keaton

RAISING ARIZONA
****
USA
A childless couple decide to kidnap one of a set of quintuplets.
An original, offbeat and hilarious early Coen brothers comedy.
dir: Joel Coen
wr: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
cast: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson, John Goodman, William Forsythe

RED SORGHUM
***½
China
The un-Orthodox union of a rural Chinese couple in the 20s.
An odd, colourful, evocative folk tale.
dir: Zhang Yimou
wr: Gu Changwei
cast: Gong Li, Jiang Wen, Teng Rujun, Liu Ji, Qian Ming

ROXANNE
***½
USA
"Cyrano de Bergerac” in a contemporary mountain town setting with Steve Martin taking on scriptwriting and leading man duties. It’s difficult to tell when he isn’t being sarcastic, so the romanticising comes off as awkward. But overall, the picture is likable. The wisecracks seem to come naturally to the characters - the principal actors handle their lines with such charm and comfort, they do manage to really make it look effortless. The small town flavouring is also well measured.
dir: Fred Schepisi
wr: Steve Martin
cast: Steve Martin, Daryl Hannah, Rick Rossovich, Shelley Duvall, John Kapelos, Fred Willard, Max Alexander, Michael J. Pollard

THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN
**½
USA
A black comedy with a clever concept (owing a bit to Hitchcock's "Strangers on the Train" (1951)) but not as many laughs as would be expected.

THE UNTOUCHABLES
***½
USA
Elliot Ness pursues Al Capone.
An intelligent, well-crafted gangster thriller, with a climax lifted directly out of Eisenstein's "The Battleship Potemkin" (1925). It's only a homage, but it's still unwise in that it invites comparisons.
dir: Brian de Palma
wr: David Mamet
cast: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert de Niro, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Richard Bradford

WINGS OF DESIRE
*****
France/West Germany
An angel in Berlin falls in love with a human circus performer.
A moving, haunting meditation on love and death. Gorgeously photographed, it is arguably Wenders' masterpiece and he has never been able to live it down. The Berlin Wall plays a central role and is rather evocative of a now-bygone era, which in this picture is depicted as far less plausible than the existence of angels.
Fulfilling a tradition of ludicrous American remakes of European arthouse hits, this one was turned into a shoddy Meg Ryan vehicle, "City of Angels" (1998), that missed the point entirely.
dir: Wim Wenders
wr: Wim Wenders, Peter Handke
ph: Henry Alekan
ed: Peter Przygodda
m: Jurgen Knieper
cast: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk