• The Boy Who Could Fly -- A teenage girl befriends an autistic boy and tries to help him overcome his muteness in a tender and sensitive fable about the importance of friendship for those growing up in a socially inflexible environment. Nick Castle directs this unpretentious, life-affirming movie that uses brief but effective special-effects fantasy to provide some good-natured fun for youngsters. A-I-general patronage (PG) 1986
  
  
• Crimes of the Heart -- Mutual love and acceptance keep three sisters (Sissy Spacek, Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange) together and help them survive their personal problems in this adaptation of Beth Henley's p1ay. Bruce Beresford's direction elicits performances of insight, tenderness and forgiveness. Casual attitude toward infidelity and some crude language. A-III-adults (PG-13) 1986
  
  
• Down By Law -- This lighthearted comedy begins with a breezy introduction to three likeable but corrupt residents of Louisiana's bayou country. The friendship and humorous cameraderie which develops after they are wrongfully sent to jail propels them to escape detention and try to start new and more rewarding lives for themselves. Some profanity and nudity. A-III-adults (R) 1986
  
  
• The Mission -- In the 1750s, the large and prosperous Jesuit Indian missions were divided between Spain and Portugal. In dramatizing these events, Robert Bolt's screenplay focuses not on the religous but on the sociopolitical dimension of the colonial era and its injustices. The epic production is visually splendid but Roland Joffe's direction is erratic and bogs down in contrasting a nonviolent priest (Jeremy Irons) and one (Robert De Niro) who leads the Indians against a colonial army. Although dramatically flawed, the work recalls a past that provides a context for current Latin American struggles. Some violence and ethnographic nudity. A-III-adults (PG) 1986
  
  
• Mother Teresa -- Ann and Jeanette Petrie's feature documentary provides the definitive film portrait of the extraordinary woman who won the world's admiration and respect for her work on behalf of the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta as well as other impoverished areas of the globe through the labors of her sisters, the Missionaries of Charity. Narrated by Sir Richard Attenborough, the film documents the tireless physical and spiritual efforts of a person whose dedication to the sanctity of life transcends all political, social and religious boundaries. A-I-general patronage (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1986
  
  
• Platoon -- The Vietnam War as experienced by a raw recruit (Charlie Sheen) is evoked with relentless realism in scenes of battle and brutality in writer-director Oliver Stone's haunting reminiscence of its horrors and inhumanity. Its excessive violence, unrelenting profanity and graphic depiction of representative atrocities are stomach-churning, but serve as a corrective to Rambo-style romanticizations of the war. A-IV-adults with reservations (R) 1986
  
  
• A Room with a View -- Radiant romance set in Edwardian England depicts a love triangle resolved when the petulant heroine (Helena Bonham-Carter) chooses the good commoner over the wealthy toff. James Ivory directs from an adaptation of the E.M. Forster story of manners and self-determination. Scene of male nudity is a satiric comment on post-Victorian prudishness. A-III-adults (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1986
  
  
• The Sacrifice -- Swedish production in which a group of adults and a child pass through a night of confusion and fear, including portents of a nuclear_devastated landscape. Director Andrei Tarkovsky's murky religious allegory about an aging writer's bargaining with God to save others relies upon long silences, ritualized dialogue and beautiful but static photography. Subtitles. A very personal film about love and compassion, the effect is strangely cold and distant. A-III-adults (PG) 1986
  
  
• Stand by Me -- The power of this drama lies in the simple, profound truths four boys learn about themselves while on a journey through the backwoods of their rural hometown in the late 1950's. Director Rob Reiner's pre-teen coming-of-age picture carefully avoids excess while focusing upon simple tests of patience, courage, caring and the joys of male camaraderie. Some harsh language, uncharacteristic of the times, and brief violence but it is an experience some parents might wish to share with their youngsters. A-III-adults (PG) 1986
  
  
• Therese -- French dramatization of the life of St. Therese de Lisieux from age 15 when she joined a cloistered convent of Carmelite nuns to her death there 9 years later of tuberculosis. Director Alain Cavalier's impressionistic account of the young woman (luminously portrayed by Catherine Mouchet) who found personal joy, spiritual liberation and the sanctity of selfless simplicity within the restrictive traditions of an austere religious community will challenge contemporary viewers and confound some. The young may find its picture of 19th-century religious life more confusing than inspiring. Dubbed in English. A-III-adults (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1986

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