Screen

...the joint chiefs, young and handsome presidential candidates - thumped away about a "missile gap...

...Not all of the subject matter translates popular terms some of the episodes ther fore take lay the basic groundwork for understanding, point attention may wander...

...The series, on PBS channels in late January and con-tining for thirteen episodes, has basically the same Boston-based (WGBH) production crew as its predecessor, it , also has many of the same strengths It tackles the subject of nuclear wan in both a scholarly and popular manner...

...in truth, Weaver's a wicked stepmother...

...On the other hand, some of his comments often have the edge of shrewd but unintentional out-of-the-mouths-of-babes satire: Asked what he thinks of Las Vegas, Raymond deadpans, "it's not K-Mart," his favorite place...

...The little people," Griffith inserts...

...And the whole is as wonderfully airy and liberating as that gorgeous opening shot...

...The scries producers have, of course a point of view, Constrvative groups like Accracy in Media will attack them as biased...

...It's a one-note performance, but so securely and firmly held that you lose awareness that Hoffman's acting...

...The screenplay (by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow) tries, in effect, for a blend of the unique material on autism with Hollywood formulas: the lost brother, the buddy film, the conversion of Scrooge, the cross-country trek...

...it doesn't analyze every ethical problem related to it...

...War and Peat c in the Nucler Age...

...Its secretary pools are all shot to show how most women are trapped there...

...Director Barry Levinson manipulates most of the plot devices well, but finally their bulkiness cause the film to lose gas...

...For Tess McGill-a thirtyish Staten Islander who gets a college degree at night school-the holy grail lies across New York Harbor...

...a key business meeting is all male but for Griffith, who takes a deep breath walking in...

...Its key, again, is history- - not of a war but the anone matters of weapons systems., their evolution, their obsolescence and (especially the many missed chances of curtailing them...

...Griffith lets out full sexual throttle only in one line, which becomes that much more potent...

...making the complications of the subject as transparent us possible...

...English the bureaucratese under which tuch issues are often obseured...

...But it stresses valuable ideas about labor, initiative, and waste of talent...

...Hoffman pulls off one of his little wonders here: he sinks so deeply into the role that you really do think (to renew the old cliche) that you're watching the real thing...

...She assumes Weaver is her fairy godmother...

...armed with U-2 photographs, knew then how primitive the Russian systems were and warned of our " "military-industrial complex" with its need for a convenient enemy Had the country listened'to Eisenhower the episode inplies...

...He's startled at Griffith's (pretended) business aplomb: "you're like one of those crazed cops," he tells her, "who no one wants to ride with...

...On the Brink...

...Director Mike Nichols uses it both for the set (the background of Tess's daily migration to Wall Street) and for the film's theme of opportunity...

...TOM O'BRIEN...

...Everything in this movie, from its opening 360 degree aerial shot of the Statue of Liberty to the wittily cheerful last scene, is nearly perfect...

...Her body is buxom, but her voice svelte, and she uses the contrast to generate shy, hesitant glamour and grace...

...Its title could be Ms...

...obsessive rituals of eating, sleeping, and recreation...

...Raymond's deep need for television also gets eerie after a time: implicit but undeveloped is the idea he's not the only case...

...The former is finely obnoxious...

...McGill Goes to the Big City, or Cinderella in an Alcott and Andrews Suit...

...Nichols and Wade wisely keep the film's sex fairly chaste (by today's standards...

...so too the photography of lower New War & peace for viewers & scholars Vicinam A Televiston Histroy has spawned a successor...

...York seaport and skyscrapers from Michael Ballhaus (Oscar-nominated for Broadcast News...

...Best of all is the film's tone of dignity without solemnity...

...The Statue of Liberty is not there just as part of a travel poster...

...As with some handicapped by autism...

...Gradually he becomes aware of the math skill and puts it to use...

...Of greatest values not their facility with technical matters but their view of Soviet policy through the last several the ducers (Zvi-Dor Ner and Liz Deane) don't leaden, are "just like us," but they do show that they are trapped like our own leaders between fear of fear of losing...

...His attitude toward flying and driving, albeit childish, also has enough reality to chill...

...Hoffman is as good as Sellers, but Rain Man is not as individual...

...Ford is sweetly not in control here...

...Hoffman's rituals with maple syrup and cheese balls are hysterical...

...Griffith's pal and fellow secretary is played with broad winning "working girl" mannerisms by Joan Cusack (an aide in Broadcast News...

...Carly Simon provides a gorgeous lyric for the opening, a rock hymn on "the new Jerusalem...

...In Rain Man, it's math, and Hoffman gets some of his greatest mileage from the deadpan way such a savant pulls superhuman calculations...

...Hoffman's Raymond also has sweet innocence and a singular cerebral gift...

...Working Girl may not be the best movie of 1988...

...At its best, Rain Man recalls Being There, Peter Sellers's wonderful portrayal of Chauncey Gardner, an idiot non-savant, whose fascination with television made for his absurd survival...

...Here are all the traits (culled from careful study and relationships that Hoffman developed with autistic individuals around New York): awkward, gawky movements and head postufe...

...Their pairing makes not just for convincing romance, but a more polished, truthful, and feminine Secret of My Success...

...Formulas stare out from under the surface of Working Girl, but they're disguised by the craft of everyone involved- Production design from Patrizia von Bradenstein (Oscar winner for Amadeus) is strong...

...Griffith turns in a strong, elfin performance...

...It covers the Eisenhower years, and consists of standard but sharp ctosscutting of newsreel materials and present-day interviews that detail the ironies of nuclear histroy...

...Weaver and Harrison Ford-an investment banker/Prince Charming-support Griffith well...

...and inability to choose...

...The film doesn't pretend to social realism about Wall Street...

...is a stunning example...

...Anyone who deats in such acnmymic noraenctclature faces the spylistic challenge of being both accurate and accessible.The WGBH produce-ers have at least consistently tried to translate into ordinary...

...The last scene (which could have settled for a conventional Prince Charming finale) is a gem of acting, writing, and directing: it involves only women, and repeats the film's populist point well...

...Cruise is perfectly cast: he has the right looks for callow youth, which, an object of worship in his other films, here becomes the source of satire...

...It's not profound, but pure, light romance comedy-a modest, modern fairy tale via the Brothers Grimm and Frank Capra...

...Cruise finds out the wealth has been left not to him, but a beneficiary in an autistic home, who turns out to be Raymond, Cruise's long-lost brother...

...Though none of it is oversensationalized, it does become tedious: Hoffman's character can't grow and Cruises can only grow in one direction...

...When she becomes assistant to an investment banker (Sigourney Weaver), she thinks she's got it made, and gives her "mentor'' her prime idea...

...These impress Tom Cruise, a West Coast foreign car salesman who's fast with deals, with women, and life in general...

...But given conventions in this sort of fairy tale...

...Back home in Ohio, after the death of his rich father (to whom he had not spoken in a decade...

...living in a world of one's own...

...In Working Girl, Griffith gives instead a sweetly poetic performance as a secretary with great but odd expectations of rising in business...

...Autism is a delicate subject to handle well...

...Levinson also redeems some of the tourism with good photography: maker of Tin Men, he loves to shoot steel and aluminum, and has a field day on a bridge in Cincinnati...

...Every one in authority-Hwnatorh...

...reluctance to make eye contact...

...Levinson does so, without pompously pretending that some gestures and sayings of autistic individuals aren't funny...

...A late episod...

...Cruise also has to learn new values, love for his brother, and answers to mysteries in his early youth...

...only a very strong actor can play second fiddle so well after becoming a superstar...

...Power to the people,'' Ford toasts at one point...

...When Weaver breaks her leg in a ski accident, Tess gets her chance for a little business, vengeance, and a mergers-and-acquisitions-style masquerade ball...

...inability to cope with emotional problems...

...Nichols's direction superbly weaves everyone together...

...For the right in this country, anything evades an "evil empire" view of Russia is still suspect, But the WGBH staff have labored to present their history in as objective a manner as possible...

...we would not have embarked on the "bold" mis-silc-bvulffang and militraypolicies of die early finally provoked the Russians.to, catch up...

...Tess is played by Melanie Griffith, mainly a steamy sex object in her previous film (Body-Double...

...Actress Valeria Golino helps as Cruise's girlfriend who gets fed up with his brashness...

...She is thinking of marrying a young Italian laborer, but her energy makes her want to broker "deals...

...Her Tess does a nervous but hopeful waltz on a class tightrope, innocent but indefatigable...

...it's sure close...

...Rain Man, with Dustin Hoffman as an autistic savant, is almost as good for its first half...

...Only Lisenhoucr...

...One early episode...

...just hear her on Madonna...

...He has a strong source, Kevin Wade's screenplay and the room it gives the actors to operate...

...Midway in the film his change of heart is convincingly, even movingly, conveyed in some good scenes, especially in a private dance between the brothers in Las Vegas...

...Missite Experimental reviews the bizarne history of the MX and its basing modes, but in such detail that at times the political aspect seems lost...

...The history isn't merely documentary: it points a few lessons...

...The task tries his patience, but he takes Raymond cross country to Los Angeles to force a change in the will...