This film was something of a movie stunt: writer-director Blake Edwards cast his friends and family, gave them a structure, then had them improvise the scenes before he put them into a script. The result is so amazingly flat that you'll be astonished that anyone would think they were actually doing something interesting. The plot centers on a writer (Jack Lemmon) who, in his anxiety about the onset of his 60th birthday, doesn't notice that his singer-wife (Julie Andrews) is going through a crisis of her own: a throat ailment that may be cancer. The cast, which includes both Edwards's and Lemmon's kids, flutters around them searching for a way to kick-start the plot, but we're left to watch Lemmon twittering about in the midst of a very late midlife crisis. -Marshall Fine.

Fresh from the success of Roger and Me, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore made the mistake of trying his hand at fiction film. Hoping to satirize America's leap into the Gulf War (and its abandonment of its industrial base), he wrote and directed this disappointing comedy, which fell flat despite a cast that included Alan Alda, Rip Torn, Rhea Perlman, John Candy, and Kevin Pollak. The premise is that the president (Alda) is so far down in the polls that he has to create a war to bolster his popularity; he picks a fight with Canada, demonizing the bland denizens of the Great White North to the point that a group of Niagara Falls law-enforcement types (led by Candy in one of his final film roles) decides to invade on their own initiative. There are a couple of funny moments (mostly having to do with the propaganda campaign against Canada), but otherwise, a frozen stiff. -Marshall Fine.

Produced a year before Ron Howard's film of the doomed space mission hit Hollywood, To the Edge and Back brings the real faces of the Apollo 13 saga to the forefront. Astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise talk about the flight (Jack Swigert died in 1982) while the technicians, including mission operations director Chris Kraft and flight director Gene Kranz, recall the moon shot and the near-fatal explosion. It's still hard to make the story fill an hour, so there's time to examine the space race in general and show previous missions. The "showing" part is the program's weakness. Ron Howard used no real footage in his film, which was smart since there really isn't a lot of interesting footage, just the usual launch and TV transmissions. Simple computer animations fill in the gaps, yet even the money shot-a still picture of the damaged spacecraft-is not shown. Still, this is a key document for those digging to see the "real" behind the story. It works as a wonderful "extra" to the Oscar-winning Hollywood film. -Doug Thomas.

This faithful broadcast TV remake of the classic Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim musical looms as a career triumph for top-lined Bette Midler-and a bittersweet measurement of how far mainstream film and TV have retreated from the glories of musical theater. By the time Midler, as the mother of all stage mothers, observes, "I was born too early and started too late," it's only too obvious that the star's words are an ironic inversion. Had Midler been born earlier, she certainly would have reigned as a major musical comedy star. In a role form-fitted to Ethel Merman's brassy persona and brassier voice, Midler more than holds her ground musically and, especially, dramatically. Titled partly for its source, the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, Gypsy alludes as well to the itinerant life of her family. The show's focal point isn't the titular character, but rather her manipulative mother, Mama Rose (Midler), who channels her own frustrated dreams of stardom into Baby June, the curly blonde daughter who always eclipses sister Louise. The story follows Rose's machinations as she tirelessly reinvents June to defy the passage of time and even puberty itself. By the time Louise herself conquers the marquee as Gypsy Rose Lee, Rose's single-minded focus has alienated her long-suffering lover and agent, Herbie (a well-cast Peter Riegert), and surrendered to the inherent compromise of burlesque. Midler's Rose reveals glimpses of vulnerability and a delusional monstrousness that provide a dark, gritty subtext. Studded with wonderful songs, the Styne/Sondheim score underlines those themes deftly, especially in Sondheim's multileveled lyrics. [+]

Men of War stars tall, craggy Dolph Lundgren as a down-and-out commando who agrees to do another job because there's nothing else he knows how to do. He assembles a crack team and travels to an isolated Pacific island with orders to secure it for a mysterious business venture. But once there, he discovers an idyllic paradise with peaceful natives who welcome the mercenaries into their village. When Dolph learns what the venture is really about, he decides he's on the wrong side and, with part of his team, fights to defend the island from destruction. The first third of Men of War is drenched in sweaty machismo-the camera constantly lingers over rippling muscles and bruised skin during an endless bar fight. But once on the island, the mercenaries frolic sweetly with native children and the scenery is astoundingly beautiful (and beautifully filmed). A native who speaks English delivers some heavy-handed pacifist speeches. Then, as another team of more ruthless mercenaries arrive, the movie again turns into an ecstasy of gunshots and explosions-only, because of the genuinely charming middle third, there are actually some emotional stakes to the violence. Furthermore, the natives turn out to be not quite as peaceful as they presented themselves, adding some surprising layers to the movie's moral tone (likely due to the hand of co-screenwriter John Sayles, the man responsible for Brother from Another Planet and Lone Star). All in all, better looking and better written than any movie starring Dolph Lundgren has any right to be. [+]

In the late 1950s, director Fritz Lang returned to the German cinema, home of his great silent creations Die Nibelungen and Metropolis. His new project was, appropriately, a throwback to the early German days, a two-part cliffhanger originally conceived for the silents. The Indian Tomb is part two, picking up where The Tiger of Eschnapur left off, as a lovesick Maharaja exacts his vengeance. Once you adjust to Lang's measured pacing (and if you accept the variable acting), the movie's bright colors and complicated political machinations take over. Auteurists will recognize Lang's impeccable eye for screen space and his obsessive concern with the price of tempting fate. Even nonauteurists will appreciate the revolt of the underground leper colony and the cobra dance performed by Debra Paget, who wears something less than a bikini. This is melodrama served up without apology by a director more interested in patterns than psychology. -Robert Horton.

This follow-up to Warlock boasts more sophisticated visual effects, slicker production values, and bigger (and bloodier) action, but fans of the original's dry wit and tight story may be disappointed. It's really more a rehash than a sequel. The Devil is up to his old tricks again, sending his favorite son (the title character) on a mission to recover six runes-ancient stones that will allow His Satanic Majesty to escape Hell and once again walk the Earth. Leading the forces of good are a group of modern-day druids and a pair of teenage lovers who have no idea they've been selected to save the world. There are some genuinely spooky moments, a few laughs, and some nice visual touches, but the scattershot script keeps throwing out one cool idea after another, hoping something sticks. On the other hand, if watching Julian Sands writhe on the ground spewing black blood sounds like a good time, this may be just the ticket. Gremlins star Zach Galligan has a cameo (as the boyfriend of the Warlock's mom!) -Geof Miller.