John Savage

Okay, scratch that last bit. Salvador is actually a gripping docu-drama about the horrors of the revolution in that country in the mid-1980s. From raped nuns to the mass dumping of dead bodies, Stone's gaze is unflinching on the horrors that occurred, and Wood's Boyle is there to document it all, despite an utter lack of charisma, money, or morality.

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Lauren Ambrose stars in this strange and often baffling story of a girl, her mentally disabled sister, and a mother who ignores the former and dotes on the latter. Faced with going to college, Admissions tells us that Lauren shouldn't care because mom (Amy Madigan) doesn't care about Lauren. Admittedly, mom could give the redhead a little more face time, but she truly does have her hands full dealing with the other one (Taylor Roberts -- who gives the least believable "special" performance in history).

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The sixth line of my notes from the "Summer of Sam" preview screeningreads, "if Spike Lee wants us to sit here for 137 minutes, he'd betterpick up the pace."

An hour later, without a hint of an upswing in the movie'stempo, noticed I was near the back of the theater where there was a littlebit of light, so I pulled out the press kit and started reading it, justto have something to do.

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About 75 percent of "Message In a Bottle" is waiting for theother shoe to drop.

Robin Wright Penn plays a Chicago Tribune researcher whobecomes fixated on finding the author of a grief-filled love letter setadrift at sea. By the time she meets him, the letter has done a numberon her heart and she falls in love quickly with the achingly widowed, middle-agedsalt, played by a Kevin Costner, and spends most of the movie trying tofind the right moment to say "Hey, I read that letter to your deadwife that no one was ever supposed to see."

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