That Oscar-winning title song buzzes in your ears long after the movie has stopped. The attraction here is youthful spirit and a pulsating score, because the weak story is merely a conduit for the song-and-dance numbers. The plot is every young woman's daydream come true. Jennifer Beals holds down a macho job as a welder by day, but performs erotic dance numbers in a club at night. It's not a strip club, so her morality remains intact. She dates her wealthy boss (Michael Nouri) and practices hard for the day she can audition for the upscale, local dance school, even though she has no formal training. It is malarkey, of course, unless you view this as total romantic fantasy. It works because you are carried along by the sheer force of the energetic, boisterous, MTV-style imagery by director Adrian Lyne. Beals is a plus as the stubborn, pouty, somewhat eccentric young woman made all the more interesting for her driving ambition. In the end, she is aided by her Prince Charming, who arrives bearing favors. [+]

Gary Sinise, who had built a certain following and credibility based on his work with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater (which he cofounded with John Malkovich, among others), nearly used it all up on this ridiculous farm story, starring Richard Gere and Steppenwolf alumnus Kevin Anderson. They play a pair of Midwestern farmers who, thanks to a combination of bad luck, bad weather, and Reaganomics, are about to lose the farm that's been in their family for generations. Rather than give it up to foreclosure, they burn it down in an act of protest, then go on to rob banks and otherwise become hayseed Robin Hoods (even attracting the attention of a Rolling Stone reporter played by Malkovich in one of the film's silliest touches). But Gere overacts and Sinise can't transcend what is essentially a witless and unlikely script by Chris Gerolmo. -Marshall Fine.

Jackie Chan, acting as writer and director as well as star, was quick to follow up the huge success of his contemporary action hit Police Story with a film that, despite a number of excellent action sequences, comes off as second-rate Jackie. Busted down to motorcycle cop due to his unconventional tactics and tremendous property damage, Jackie finds himself the target of the vengeful mobster he put out of business in the first film while simultaneously hunting down a team of bomb-happy extortionists and trying to salvage his unraveling love life (poor Maggie Cheung, who winds up almost as bruised and battered as Jackie). Jackie is chased by radio-controlled cars armed with bombs (à la The Dead Pool), ambushed in a playground in a terrifically choreographed tour-de-force where he single-handedly battles a dozen armed baddies while leaping through a jungle gym of obstacles, and makes his last stand in a fireworks warehouse just itching for a light. The generic story generates little interest and even the half-hearted slapstick misses the spark of his better work (such as the spectacular, stunt-filled follow-up Supercop), but Jackie is magic on the screen, a gymnastic dynamo with the clean-cut charm of the boy next door. The postfilm montage of outtakes is a painful reminder not to try these stunts at home. The American version features a rock-tinged score and sloppier dubbing than usual. Jackie again provides his own voice. -Sean Axmaker.

Stomp is a rhythmic, musical extravaganza that has stunned audiences across the globe. If you weren't lucky enough to catch them in your hometown (or you did and you crave more), now there's Stomp Out Loud, a special HBO performance that will bring the unusual musical feats right into your living room. You might just find yourself grabbing a broom or even your remote control to keep time. "It's comedy, it's theater, it's very physical, it's energetic, it's occasionally quite terrifying," says one performer. Taking their show from the theater to the streets, this astonishing troupe can make music out of just about anything and just about anywhere. The opening sequence shows them dangling by harnesses across the back of a Manhattan billboard drumming on hubcaps, pipes, street signs, and plastic garbage pails, all the while swaying and keeping in perfect time. You know how you like to groove along to the radio while driving? Stomp doesn't need a radio-they use their hands to make their own music while cruising the streets of New York. Using just basketballs in a steamy alleyway, the troop creates an incredibly intricate dance and sound with the street, brick walls, and Dumpsters. Included in the program are the push broom, garbage can, and pole dances, just a few of their best-known sequences. Stomp Out Loud showcases the performers in the theater, out about town, and in short humorous vignettes (love the recurring card game!). [+]

The temptation here is to make a joke about Intersection and dead ends-but this disappointing film has too much talent involved to kid about how wrong it went. Based on the French film Les Choses de la Vie, the film was adapted by the usually reliable Marshall Brickman (Annie Hall) and David Rayfiel (The Firm). Richard Gere plays a man caught between two women: his chilly, remote wife (Sharon Stone) and his vibrant young mistress (Lolita Davidovich). How the marriage declined, how the affair began, and how the two women's paths eventually cross-everything is seen in flashback after Gere's car spins out of control in a horrible accident. Director Mark Rydell has some of the squarest dialogue in recent movie history to work with, as he dissects how the marriage fell apart because of the wife's coolness and Gere's subsequent attraction to Davidovich's cocky young journalist. -Marshall Fine.

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are reunited in this popular 1993 comedy, in which the Odd Couple veterans play John and Max (respectively), a pair of elderly bachelors whose lifelong friendship is based on mutual aggravation and constant bickering. Their competitive natures kick into overdrive when the beautiful Ariel (Ann-Margret) moves into their otherwise snowbound Minnesota neighborhood. She takes a liking to John, but after a lover's spat she also gives Max a chance at romance, and the long-time buddies reach a peak of grumpy rivalry. It's a stretch to think that Ann-Margret's dating choices would be limited to a pair of grouchy codgers, but sarcastic attitude and snappy dialogue made this a surprise hit (followed by a 1995 sequel), and Burgess Meredith adds plenty of spice as Lemmon's amorous old father. Don't forget to watch the hilarious outtakes during the closing credits! -Jeff Shannon.

Burglar may not be one of Whoopi Goldberg's best outings, but it does offer her several opportunities to cut loose as a comedian. She plays a bookshop owner with a shady past who is being blackmailed by a crooked cop and must perform one last heist. Naturally, everything goes wrong and a handsome lothario winds up dead. Whoopi must find his murderer before the police find her. There are a couple of unexpected twists to this formulaic tale though Hugh (First Wives Club) Wilson's direction can't always navigate the tonal shifts between comedy and murder mystery. But Whoopi holds it all together with strong assistance from a stellar cast including Bob Goldthwait, John Goodman, Anne DeSalvo, and Lesley Ann Warren. Goldthwait, who plays a dog groomer and Whoopi's wacked-out best friend, has several priceless moments featuring his squeaky-door crazy-man vocal delivery. Goodman and DeSalvo, both crackerjack comic actors, don't have nearly enough to do while Warren plays a curvaceous dentist and the ex-wife of the murder victim who seems to have suspect written all over her. -Richard Natale.

Born Free is a bona fide family classic. The tale of how Kenya game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy (on whose book the film is based, with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers in the principal roles) adopted and raised three orphaned lion cubs, taking a particular shine to the one they call Elsa before helping her return to the wild, is familiar by now; so's John Barry's Oscar-winning title song. And while the movie has its flaws (it contains references to "Bwana George" and such that would be considered frightfully un-PC nowadays), the animal footage, especially that of the lions in their various stages of development, is extraordinary and timelessly entertaining. DVD bonus features are limited to theatrical trailers, but the digitally remastered film can be viewed in both widescreen and full screen. A keeper. -Sam Graham.

Kiri Te Kanawa inspires a kind of affection that is accorded to few prima donnas, for the warmth and expressiveness of her singing, for her natural ease in operatic roles, and particularly for a sunny, outgoing personality that is clearly projected in her stage presence. Both the voice and the personality come through effectively in this presentation, which preserves the best moments from two concerts she gave in 1990 and 1991, with her own introductions and comments. The first, given outdoors during a homecoming tour of her native New Zealand, shows her achieving a remarkable feat of personality to match her excellent singing; she establishes a sense of intimate communication with an audience of 75,000. First, she sings an aria from an opera that was not otherwise part of her repertoire: the intense, anguished "Pace, pace" from Verdi's La forza del destino. This program is designed to show her versatility; besides arias by Verdi and Puccini, it includes My Fair Lady's "I Could Have Danced All Night," sung in a perfectly idiomatic style that would be out of reach for many opera stars, and a couple of songs in New Zealand's Maori language. A nice touch for a homecoming concert is her performance of "Home, Sweet Home" in Maori. The second half of the program is a selection of music by Handel and Mozart, given in a sharply contrasting environment: a snowy evening in the exquisite baroque chapel, designed by Christopher Wren, at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, England. A highlight of this segment, and a rare experience, is Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate, sung in its entirety, rather than the familiar, brilliant "Alleluia" segment that other sopranos use by itself simply to show off their technique. -Joe McLellan.