Dave Kehr

On the basis of the clunky, uncertain ''This Is My Life,'' Nora Ephron seems unlikely to enter the exalted and rarefied ranks of such successful writer/directors as Preston Sturges, Billy...

Though it never overcomes the massive problems inherent in expanding a 10-minute TV sketch into a 90-minute movie, Penelope Spheeris` adaptation of Mike Myers` ''Wayne`s World'' packs a surprising amount...

The new breed of psychological thriller announces itself by three unmistakable signs: Armani suits, intimations of roaringly perverse sado-masochistic relationships, and Richard Gere. It also helps if the action takes...

Steven Soderbergh`s ''Kafka'' is a surprisingly cold, gray and flavorless follow-up to ''sex, lies and videotape,'' Soderbergh`s 1989 debut feature and one of the most popular independent films ever made....

David Seltzer`s ''Shining Through'' aims for the delirious, doom-laden romanticism of a Hollywood espionage thriller from the war years but plummets to Earth in slightly less exalted territory. It isn`t...

One of the special privileges of the cinema is the way it can step, effortlessly and imperceptibly, from the concrete and immediate to the abstract and universal-from object to metaphor...

Professionally executed but not particularly distinctive, ''Juice'' is the first directorial effort of Ernest R. Dickerson, the talented cinematographer who has shot all of Spike Lee`s films, from ''Joe`s Bed-Sty...

Smug and sophomoric, ''Grand Canyon'' is an attempt by writer-director Lawrence Kasdan (''The Big Chill,'' ''Silverado'') to summon up all the fears and disappointments he senses as a wealthy white...

The last few years have seen Chicago`s commercial art theaters all but abandon ambitious foreign language programming, and now the ranks of the non- commercial venues seem to be thinning...