Louise Lasser

For R&B, no one beats original Chess masters The youngsters did a fine job re-creating the classics on the "Cadillac Records" soundtrack. But a closer listen to the originals, collected for easy replay on the new "The Best of Chess Records" (MCA/Chess/...

2 stars (out of four) For Woody Allen, "delivering" on screen is a basic instinct, like his need to make more films than he has ideas for. When Allen, now 70, acts in his own films he's so focused on keeping up the energy and hammering home the punch...

1 star (out of 4) It's hard to say whom writer/producer/first-time-director Gary Preisler had in mind as an audience when he conjured up "National Lampoon's Gold Diggers." It lacks the kind of bite and bile that would make it appeal to teenagers and yet...

Well, it's not as if National Lampoon's good name hasn't previously been besmirched on a movie or television screen. A cursory search of the Internet Movie Database turns up 20 titles staking claim to the satirical magazine's legacy, and with the...

You recall the prime-time Emmys. That annual television feel-good of cosmic hair and designer name-dropping? That pantheon of cosmetic tweaking, frozen smiles and scripted ad-libs? That Sunday gridlock of stretch limos from Malibu to points east? Yup,...

Friday June 22, 2001      In Amos Kollek's heartfelt romantic comedy "Fast Food Fast Women," the women by and large are not fast. Nor is the service always speedy at the Manhattan diner where one of the film's key figures works. She's Bella (Anna...

"American Pie," "Scary Movie," "Rush Hour" and "Doctor Dolittle" all get second chapters and "Jurassic Park" gets a third, while director Tim Burton puts his own spin on "Planet of the Apes." Unofficial sequels also pop up, like John Singleton's "Baby...

Friday October 16, 1998      Don't be surprised when the laughter "Happiness" creates sticks in your throat: It's supposed to. Writer-director Todd Solondz has come up with a desperate comedy of longing, misery and misplaced need whose effects are...

Friday October 20, 2000      Hubert Selby Jr. has said of Darren Aronofsky's startling film of Selby's 1978 novel "Requiem for a Dream" that it brought him to tears, adding that he believed that "anybody who has lived on this planet will recognize...