MOVIES

...Nino Manfredi plays the beleagured Italian, and his wistful face is a gem all by itself...

...Annie Girardot is a dedicated police inspector, Philippe Noiret a cranky cop-baiter, but somehow, in the best movieland tradition, they find they have an awful lot in common...

...It's the patriotic thing to do and besides, it was a pretty weak year...

...Made in Brazil by a director still in his twenties, Dona Flor is especially notable for its intense, emotionally involving sexual encounters...

...Another line-action cartoon a la Star Wars, Superman bolsters its visual extravagance with pleasantly deadpan performances from Reeve and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, while Ned Beatty is a surprise treat as the bumbling, criminal mini-mind, Otis...

...Superman — Superman wouldn't be super if he couldn't fly, and this film would be rather ordinary if it weren't for the superb special-effects work that allows Christopher Reeve to leap tall buildings...

...The nine ten-best, in alphabetical order: ¶ Bread and Chocolate — This sweet, poignant film about an Italian immigrant trying to earn a living in icy Switzerland has what so many recent American films badly lack: an uncloy-ing, unsentimental feeling for people, a humanity that is both real and touching...

...Grease — Rest assured that this is the only ten-best list in America that dares put this slick money-maker on it, and it is here for a purpose — to emphasize that criticism is essentially a personal art, that critics are basically just folks with their own quirky likes and dislikes, and that, no matter what some lofty practitioners may want you to believe, no one has a direct line to eternal standards of quality...

...The story of two guys from New York on a mordant, death-obsessed Christmas Eve odyssey in Los Angeles, Hot Tomorrows is, on its own small-scale terms, simply brilliant...

...Laugh, I thought I'd die...

...Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands — A charming tale of a widow who misses her profligate rake of a husband after marrying a goody-two-shoes druggist...

...Martin — George Romero does nothing to hurt his Night of the Living Dead -based reputation as a master of low-budget horror with this modern day vampire story set on the outskirts of Pittsburgh...

...One man's Grease may be another man's poison, but friends, that's horseracing...

...As a voluntary first effort to halt that trend, this year's traditional eleven ten-best films will include only nine choices...

...Not a slick film, though it does have moments of technical brilliance, Martin smartly demonstrates that an original approach is possible even in the most hackneyed genre...

...Though President Carter did not specifically ask critics to help out, that was surely an oversight: In what other area of American life have things gotten so overinflated as in the rhetoric of praise...

...Rain is terrifying and engrossing at the same time, a modern master-work by anyone's standards...

...As for the worst film of the year, that, unfortunately, was no contest either: Woody Allen's benighted Interiors, a drama so angst-filled and ersatz as to be ultimately ridiculous, easily took the honors...

...Though its emotional coldness is an almost fatal Kenneth Turan regularly reviews films for The Progressive...

...However, Martin Brest, who wrote, directed, and produced Hot Tomorrows on a tiny budget, displays such an intuitive flair for the process of filmmaking, such an audacious grasp of the potentialities of the medium, that his success makes other tyro efforts like Claudia Weill's cloying Girlfriends look puny by comparison...

...Dear Detective — Nothing is harder to pull off than a mixing of genres, but Philippe De Broca, who juggled comedy and crime a decade ago in That Man From Rio, does it again here...

...Hot Tomorrows — It's a bit unfair including this, since it hasn't been seen outside of Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles and it is as yet without a theatrical release...

...Then the dead husband suddenly reappears and things get deliciously complex...

...Who'll Stop the Rain — Easily the film of the year, crackling with slightly warped menace, blessed with exceptional acting from Nick Nolte and Michael Moriarty, and faithful in spirit to Robert Stone's excellent Dog Soldiers...

...flaw, the physical beauty on display is so awesome, the spectacular Nestor Almendros photography is so extraordinary, that attention must be paid...

...Yes, Pittsburgh...

...Days of Heaven — This has been called a zombie masterpiece and truer words were never spoken...

...How much longer, after all, can the public tolerate elephantine blurbs about films being towering achievements, profound, immortal, unforgettable, exceptional, without getting ill all over their thesauruses...

...Soon the critical vocabulary will be worth as little as the feeble dollar...