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GRAY'S ANATOMY How do you make a monologue about a rare eye disease visually engaging? In this medical-comical monologue by Spalding Gray, director Steven Soderbergh (sex, lies, and videotape) fixes the problem by dressing the one-man movie in elaborate sets. Says the director, ''We used every trick in the book.'' (March 19)
CATS DON'T DANCE In this animated feature, Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) lends his voice to Danny, a Fred Astaire wannabe in 1930s Hollywood. Only Danny is a cat and can't understand why animals are relegated to playing animals. Neither can Bakula. ''Look at Babe,'' he says. ''Animals are always the biggest stars around.'' (March 26)
B.A.P.S In B.A.P.S -- short for Black American Princesses -- director Robert Townsend lifts Halle Berry and Natalie Desselle from a beauty shop in Georgia and drops them into the mansion of a Beverly Hills millionaire (Martin Landau). Berry's comedic makeover includes blond hair and gold teeth. ''She's the Revlon girl,'' says Townsend. ''I said, 'Let's break up your look.''' (March 28)
LOVE AND OTHER CATASTROPHES The traumas of coed dating, as depicted in this Australian Singles-like film, are nothing compared to what the cast went through during production: Members who weren't paid for their parts had to schedule runs to the unemployment office between scenes. ''The film was government funded, really,'' jokes actress Radha Mitchell. ''I was earning $170 a fortnight.'' (March 21)
CHASING AMY A lesbian (Joey Lauren Adams) falls in love with a guy (Ben Affleck), and the audience at Sundance fell in love with Amy, which received a standing ovation. It also put writer-director Kevin Smith, who clicked with 1994's Clerks and bombed with 1995's Mallrats, back on track. ''People ask me if I feel redeemed,'' he says. ''I don't. I just feel vindicated.'' (March 28)
THE DAYTRIPPERS New York highways serve as the set for much of this offbeat comedy (and '96 Slamdance prize winner). When one woman (Hope Davis) finds a mysterious love poem, she crams her family into a station wagon and treks into Manhattan to follow her allegedly philandering husband (played by Big Night's Stanley Tucci). Comedy vet Anne Meara appears as the clan's overbearing matriarch. ''It's literally a paper chase,'' Meara explains. ''In that miserable car.'' (March 5)
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Director Peter Spirer illustrates the RHYME & REASON of rap and hip-hop in this documentary featuring such stars as Ice T, Salt 'N' Pepa, and the Fugees. Sexual tension mounts in FEMALE PERVERSIONS, in which a successful lawyer (Tilda Swinton) explores her sexuality (Paulina Porizkova costars). One woman's life and sanity crumble around her in a single day in SUDDEN MANHATTAN. Chloe Ferguson stars as another young girl on the verge, as tension with her parents leads her to completely stop speaking in THE QUIET ROOM. Less quiet are the karate-chopping, Zord-driving, adolescent superheroes in TURBO: A POWER RANGERS ADVENTURE. In 1970s Northern Ireland, two boyhood friends become Protestant and Catholic enemies in NOTHING PERSONAL. Gregory Hines and Vincent D'Onofrio play a paraplegic and a blind man who each need GOOD LUCK when they venture to regain their self-esteem in a white-water rafting race. A military intelligence group is caught between death and intrigue after nuclear detonators fall into foreign hands in DEAD MEN CAN'T DANCE. Daniel Auteuil (Ma Saison Preferee) and Pascal Duquenne, who suffers from Down syndrome, shared the Best Actor prize at Cannes for THE EIGHTH DAY, the story of an emotionally dead businessman who finds renewal with the help of his Down-afflicted friend. In A MONGOLIAN TALE, a folksinger gives a second chance to the woman he left 12 years ago. Two young lovers are torn apart when one follows a messianic preacher to the Holy Land in JERUSALEM, Sweden's entry for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
