Comedy

The champagne is flowing - and so is the fun - in this "delightful and sly" (Roger Ebert) romantic comedy about two people who belong together but just can't seem to tie the knot. Ushering in two Academy Award nominations, and starring Hugh Grant (Notting Hill), Andie MacDowell (Michael) and a superb ensemble cast that includes Oscar-nominee Kristin Scott Thomas, Four weddings And A Funeral is truly "a very special occasion" --Rolling Stone. Charlie (Grant) is always the best man but never the groom.

Matthew Perry stars as Alex Whitman, a New Yorker sent to Las Vegas to oversee a construction project. There he meets Isabel Fuentes (Salma Hayek) and some serious chemistry brings them together for one night. But Alex doesn't see Isabel again until three months later, when he learns that she is pregnant. On a whim and a prayer, he proposes. However, there's more to marriage than a Vegas chapel and an Elvis impersonator, as Alex and Isabel soon learn.

After the box-office failure of his first dramatic film, A Woman of Paris, Charlie Chaplin brooded over his ensuing comedy. "The next film must be an epic!" he recalled in his autobiography. "The greatest!" He found inspiration, paradoxically, in stories of the backbreaking Alaskan gold rush and the cannibalistic Donner Party. These tales of tragedy and endurance provided Chaplin with a rich vein of comic possibilities.

Figuring the answers to the mystery lie in the old Simmons mansion, so Luther Heggs (Knotts) visits the estate at the witching hour of midnight. Certain he's seen a ghost, Luther writes a story which makes front page news-and brings on a libel suit from the mansion's owner. When the trial judge orders an investigation=and no apparition appears-Luther is branded a fraud. That is, until he and his devoted girlfriend team up to uncover the mystery of the hauntings-and the true murderer-in this timeless comedy classic.

Not short on murder, mayhem, or any other screwball '70s conventions, Foul Play is a wonderful vehicle for Goldie Hawn. She plays Gloria, a librarian "ready to take a chance again," who ends up the target of an assassination ring. Chevy Chase, fresh off of Saturday Night Live, does the closest thing to real acting he would ever achieve (okay, maybe Fletch) as Tony, the cop assigned to protect Gloria. Dudley Moore made an indelible impression on American audiences as Stanley Tibbets, a surprisingly kinky symphony conductor.

Chevy Chase is at his hilarious best in this suspense-packed comedy thriller based on Gregory McDonald's best-seller. Irwin Fletch, a.k.a. Fletch (Chase), is an investigative reporter who's constantly changing his identity. While working on a drug expose, Fletch attracts the attention of a strange businessman (Tim Matheson) who wants to be killed so his wife will inherit more insurance. The wily Fletch senses a scam, and soon he's up to his byline in frame-ups, murder, police corruption and forbidden romance. It'll be the story of the year, if he can stay alive to meet his deadlines!

Matt Dillon stars in this coming-of-age story which is funny, fast-moving and surprisingly emotional. It's the summer of '63 and Jeffrey Willis (Matt Dillon) has decided to escape his poor Brooklyn family for the summer by accepting a job as a cabana boy at the El Flamingo Beach Club on Long Island. Working around the glitz and glamour. Jeffrey realizes that these "beautiful people" are a sharp contrast to his own family. Life in the fast lane seems much more appealing than what he's got at home.

Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage) is the quintessential Wall Street shark, scoring killer deals by day and shallow escort sex by night. His round-the-clock routine of empty luxuries is disturbed one lonely Christmas Eve when a gun-packing punk (Don Cheadle)--perhaps an angel of mercy--responds to an altruistic gesture from Jack by giving him "a glimpse" of the life he could have had.

Once you've seen Drumline, halftime shows will become works of art. This formulaic yet surprisingly captivating movie honors the military precision of college football marching bands, those battalions of eager, sternly disciplined brass sections, drummers, and fly girls who turn halftime shows into well-oiled Vegas variety acts on steroids. Devon (played by Will Smith protege Nick Cannon) is a cocky Brooklyn kid with a snare-drumming scholarship to (fictional) Atlanta A&T University.

Elf is genuinely good. Not just Saturday Night Live-movie good, when the movie has some funny bits but is basically an insult to humanity; Elf is a smartly written, skillfully directed, and deftly acted story of a human being adopted by Christmas elves who returns to the human world to find his father. And because the writing, directing, and acting are all genuinely good, Elf is also genuinely funny. Will Ferrell, as Buddy the adopted elf, is hysterically sincere. James Caan, as his rediscovered father, executes his surly dumbfoundedness with perfect aplomb.