Video Review: 'Pie in the Sky' (1996)

Can a traffic-pattern-obsessed guy (Charles, charming it up as he did in Threesome) keep his courtship of a wannabe avant-garde dancer (Heche, Demi Moore's pal in The Juror) from backfiring? Fine Line Pictures execs thought so few viewers would care that they dished out Pie in the Sky only to a few Seattle and Las Vegas theaters before throwing it to HBO. Here's hoping this sunny romance earns more than crumbs in rentals, since it's such an unusually sweet, sexy home companion. Writer-director Bryan Gordon copped an Oscar for the 1987 short Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall, and though his quirk-enamored sensibility tends toward one-note characters (Christine Lahti keeps her dignity as a lecherous landlady, while John Goodman plays a drunkard traffic reporter uproariously), his cute-as-a-button ensemble strikes a darn catchy chord. B