Edward Scissorhands

And now you know my secret shame: it took me this long to get around to watching one of Tim Burton's best movies. What's to be said? It's like looking back at the moment when Johnny Depp really became a star, when Winona Ryder was still the next great thing. Mostly, it's just a wonderful movie, a modest fable about an outcast and how he stays that way, despite a brief interlude of acceptance. Whether you want hope or despair, you can find equal doses here, and you'll enjoy what you get to the fullest.

Practical Magic

I forgot it almost as soon as it finished rewinding. But if you watch it you get to look at Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, so that's something.

Radio Days

Maybe this is where the downward slide started. Woody Allen's self-indulgence, which served him well early on, began to pull him down with this bit of autobiography. A nice idea--life during Allen's childhood, in the "radio days"--arrives too disjointed, too hit or miss, too erratic to be called a success. The film is better during the family sequences than the inevitable, shoehorned-in Mia Farrow storyline (back when she and he were still tight). The overall cast is excellent, the presentation is sterling and accurate to the period, but that self-indulgence--and some heavy-handed "statement" scenes--do just enough to pull this movie down. Not awful, but not what could have been.