Moving, empathic and ultimately as teasingly mysterious as the radiant smile of its star Elodie Bouchez, The Dream Life of Angels is a gritty portrait of two girls living on the margins of French society who meet in a garment-industry sweatshop near Lille. Flat-sitting, or maybe squatting, the home of a mother and daughter who are in hospital in comas after a car crash, for most of the film Isa and Marie are either doing crap, cash-in-hand menial jobs or unemployed after Isa, played by Bouchez, gets sacked and Marie, played by Natacha Régnier, quits out of sympathy. But director Erick Zonca (who was once a dishwasher in one of Martin Scorsese's favourite restaurants in New York) isn't out to make a patronising portrait of what it feels to be run over by life. His touch is feather-light, and ultimately this is a film about people, not statistics. It's much more a study of female friendship; the fragility of emotional connections and the pain love reaps. Zonca's nimble, 16mm camera makes the film feel extraordinarily light on its feet, his little jump-cuts in the middle of scenes adding skips. Altogether, it's an almost balletic piece of cinema. He wrote the film specifically for Bouchez, and in scene after scene he lingers lovingly on her, holding on her image for a second or two more than seems strictly necessary. The name of the movie is teasingly oblique, but despite her fetching eyebrow scar and scruffy jumpers, Isa has an ethereal quality that allies her with the heavenly bodies of the title, albeit with a backpack instead of wings. In fact, it's the bravery of the script, its refusal to spell things out for us, to let us draw our own conclusions from selective cinematic snapshots like the pretty pictures Isa cuts out of magazines to sell as cards, which makes this film such a winner. [+]

Two families, united by love, divided by pride.

Richard Gere plays an enrollee at a Naval officers candidate school and Debra Winger is the woman who wants him. That's pretty much it, story-wise, in this romantic drama, which is more effective in a moment-to-moment, scene-by-scene way, where the two stars and Oscar-winner Louis Gossett Jr. -as Gere's tough-as-nails drill instructor-are fun to watch. Sexy, syrupy, with occasional pitches of high drama (Gere having a near-breakdown during training is pretty strong), An Officer and a Gentleman proves to be a no-brainer date movie. -Tom Keogh.

Philadelphia wasn't the first movie about AIDS (it followed such worthy independent films as Parting Glances and Longtime Companion), but it was the first Hollywood studio picture to take AIDS as its primary subject. In that sense, Philadelphia is a historically important film. As such, it's worth remembering that director Jonathan Demme (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, The Silence of the Lambs) wasn't interested in preaching to the converted; he set out to make a film that would connect with a mainstream audience. And he succeeded. Philadelphia was not only a hit, it also won Oscars for Bruce Springsteen's haunting "The Streets of Philadelphia," and for Tom Hanks as the gay lawyer Andrew Beckett who is unjustly fired by his firm because he has AIDS. Denzel Washington is another lawyer (functioning as the mainstream-audience surrogate) who reluctantly takes Beckett's case and learns to overcome his misconceptions about the disease, about those who contract it, and about gay people in general. The combined warmth and humanism of Hanks and Demme were absolutely essential to making this picture a success. The cast also features Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas (as Beckett's lover), Joanne Woodward, and Robert Ridgely, and, of course, those Demme regulars Charles Napier, Tracey Walter and Roger Corman. -Jim Emerson.

When people think of James Dean, they probably think first of the troubled teen from Rebel Without a Cause: nervous, volatile, soulful, a kid lost in a world that does not understand him. Made between his only other starring roles, in East of Eden and Giant, Rebel sums up the jangly, alienated image of Dean, but also happens to be one of the key films of the 1950s. Director Nicholas Ray takes a strikingly sympathetic look at the teenagers standing outside the white-picket-fence '50s dream of America: juvenile delinquent (that's what they called them then) Jim Stark (Dean), fast girl Judy (Natalie Wood), lost boy Plato (Sal Mineo), slick hot-rodder Buzz (Corey Allen). At the time, it was unusual for a movie to endorse the point of view of teenagers, but Ray and screenwriter Stewart Stern captured the youthful angst that was erupting at the same time in rock & roll. Dean is heartbreaking, following the method acting style of Marlon Brando but staking out a nakedly emotional honesty of his own. Going too fast, in every way, he was killed in a car crash on September 30, 1955, a month before Rebel opened. He was no longer an actor, but an icon, and Rebel is a lasting monument. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

A perfect marriage of novel but incisive writing, acting and direction, Big is the story of a 12-year-old boy who wishes he were older, and wakes up one morning as a30-year-old man (Tom Hanks). The script by Gary Ross(Dave) and Anne Spielberg finds some unexpected ways of attacking obvious issues of sex, work, and childhood friendships, and in all of these things the accent is on classy humour and great sensitivity. Hanks is remarkable in the lead, at times hilarious (reacting to caviar just as a 12-year-old would) and at others deeply tender. Penny Marshall became a first-rate filmmaker with this 1988 work. -Tom Keogh A perfect marriage of quirky but incisive writing, acting and direction, Big is the story of a 12-year-old boy who wishes he were older, and wakes up one morning as a 30-year-old man (Tom Hanks). The script by Gary Ross (Dave) and Anne Spielberg finds some unexpected ways of attacking obvious issues of sex, work and childhood friendships, and in all of these things the accent is on classy humour and great sensitivity. Hanks is remarkable in the lead, at times hilarious (reacting to caviar just as a 12-year-old would) and at others deeply tender. Penny Marshall became a first-rate filmmaker with this 1988 work. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com-This text refers to the VHS tape edition.

"The book was better" has been the complaint of many a reader since the invention of films. The Green Mile is Frank Darabont's second adaptation of a Stephen King prison drama The Shawshank Redemption was the first) and is a very faithful adaptation of King's serial novel. In the middle of the Depression, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) runs death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Into this dreary world walks a mammoth prisoner, John Coffey (Michael Duncan) who, very slowly, reveals a special gift that will change the men working and dying (in the electric chair, masterfully and grippingly staged) on the mile. As with King's book, Darabont takes plenty of time to show us Edgecomb's world before delving into John Coffey's mystery. With Darabont's superior storytelling abilities, his touch for perfect casting, and a leisurely 188-minute running time, his film brings to life nearly every character and scene from the novel. Darabont even improves the novel's two endings, creating a more emotionally satisfying experience. The running time may try patience, but those who want a story, as opposed to quick-fix entertainment, will be rewarded by this finely tailored tale. -Doug Thomas.