Trailers/TV spots

Peter Sellers is the poet of slapstick (Village Voice) - and here he rhymes yet again as the hopelessly clueless inspector Clouseau. "Give me ten men like Clouseau, and I could destroy the world," Inspector Dreyfus (Lom) said in A Shot In The Dark. But in The Pink Panther Strikes Again, he actually tries! Driven mad by Clouseau's incompetence, Dreyfus commandeers a doomsday device and threatens global destruction. His only demand? Clouseau's death. The world community's response?

Woody Allen stars in Picking Up the Pieces, playing a butcher named Tex who cuts up his adulterous wife (played by Sharon Stone) in a jealous rage. On his way to bury the pieces, he loses her hand on the side of the road, where it's found by a blind woman--and miraculously gives her back her sight. Before long, the hand has become a religious relic, drawing huge crowds to the small town of El Nino, New Mexico, and testing the faithlessness of a straying priest (David Schwimmer), who's in love with the town's leading prostitute (Maria Gracia Cucinotta, from Il Postino).

Australian model George Lazenby took up the mantle of the world's most suave secret agent when Sean Connery retired as James Bond--prematurely, it turned out. Connery returned in Diamonds Are Forever before leaving the role to Roger Moore and Lazenby's subsequent career fizzled, yet this one-hit wonder is responsible for one of the best Bond films of all time.

Roger Moore was nearing the end of his reign as James Bond when he made Octopussy, and he looks a little worn out. But the movie itself infuses some new blood into the old franchise, with a frisky pace and a pair of sturdy villains. Maud Adams--who'd also been in the Bond outing The Man with the Golden Gun--plays the improbably named Octopussy, while old smoothie Louis Jourdan is her crafty partner in crime. There's an island populated only by women, plus a fantastic sequence with a hand-to-hand fight that happens on a plane--and on top of a plane.

Europe won't suvive Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo and their Griswold offspring when a whirlwing trip across the continent wreaks hilarious havoc. After winning a tour package in a game show, the bickering Griswald family carve a trail of destruction through England (where they knock over Stonehenge), France, Germany, and Italy. Somehow Ellen (Bevery D'Angelo), the mom, gets kidnapped by gangsters, leading to a car chase that reunites the family, despite their differences.

Neil Simon wrote this 1976 spoof in which virtually every famous fictional detective of the 1930s and 1940s congregate at the home of a mysterious fellow (Truman Capote) to try and solve the mystery of who's trying to kill them all. Simon's jokes are mostly obvious, and the film's real appeal is the clever concept matched with fine--sometimes legendary--actors. Peter Falk plays a very Bogart-like Sam Spade equivalent, James Coco is a Hercule Poirot wannabe, Peter Sellers does a Charlie Chan bit, David Niven and Maggie Smith are reflections of Nick and Nora.... You get the picture.

Tom Hanks and Shelley Long star in this offbeat, slapstick comedy about a young couple duped into buying a large mansion only to find that the problems and rennovations needed may be more than they can handle... in both their pocketbooks and relationship. The unfinished domicile becomes a metaphor for their troubled relationship, as evidenced by Long's character's attraction to a madman violinist (Alexander Godunov).

Marking a welcome return to the breezy style of Thelma & Louise, Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men reminds us that the director of Gladiator is equally adept with quirky comedies and offbeat characters.

Sandra Bullock stars as a bumbling female FBI agent assigned to go undercover as a participant in the Miss United States beauty pageant when it is discovered that one of the contestants is being targeted for murder. Benjamin Bratt leads the undercover team, while also playing the reluctant love interest. Candice Bergen and William Shatner manage the pageant and hire Michael Caine to turn Bullock from rough and tumble agent to stunning beauty queen. The physical transformation is impressive, although the klutzy personality remains.

Chevy Chase and Darryl Hannah star in, and John (Halloween) Carpenter directs a lighthearted adventure: a Wall Street analyst becomes invisible after a lab accident, leading to complications both comic and romantic. Chevy Chase plays a investment banker who gets exposed to fusion energy and becomes invisable. Daryl Hannah plays a TV/film maker who discovers what happened to him, and falls in love with him (the romance is actually honest, and not cliched). There are some good ILM effects work and the ending is not a tragic one - it's a comedy with a bit of heart.