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GOLD DIGGERS: THE SECRET OF BEAR MOUNTAIN
Transplanted to a small Northwestern town, an L.A. mall girl (Casper's Christina Ricci) befriends a troubled tomboy (My Girl's Anna Chlumsky), and they embark on a treasure hunt. Filmed in Canada, the kid flick offered its stars more action than they expected. ''We had to swing across a gorge, and being used to the laws in L.A. about kids doing stunts, we had no idea,'' says self-proclaimed ''scaredy cat'' Ricci, 14. ''I did it, but they hadn't told us I would be doing it.'' (Nov. 3)
THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN
The directors of 1991's Delicatessen perplexed the opening-night audience at Cannes with this nightmarish, not-for-kids fairy tale, in which a carnival strongman (Ron Perlman) tries to rescue a boy from a cyclops who steals children's dreams. ''[The filmmakers] like to travel in a postapocalyptic world which is slightly askew,'' explains Perlman. ''It's a great big cinematic brawl that's a feast for the senses.'' (Nov. 10)
RECKLESS Mia Farrow is thrust into a life on the run after her husband hires a hitman to kill her on Christmas Eve. So begins an otherworldly comic odyssey based on an Off Broadway hit by writer Craig Lucas (who mined similarly fantastical territory in Prelude to a Kiss). ''Everyone in the film has a secret,'' says Scott Glenn, playing half of a strange couple who adopt Farrow's character. ''And those skeletons are revealed during the course of the film.'' (Nov. 3)
JOURNEY OF AUGUST KING
Director John Duigan is best known for making small, smart movies set in Australian boarding schools (The Year My Voice Broke, Flirting). This time around, he takes on the American outback circa 1815. Jason Patric (Geronimo) plays a mountain man who smuggles a gorgeous runaway slave -- played by Thandie Newton (Jefferson in Paris) -- to safety in his often damp livestock wagon. ''It rained 50 percent of the shoot,'' says Newton. ''We only had seven weeks, but we managed to complete it.'' (Nov. 3)
PLUS: Produced by Noel Pearson (My Left Foot), FRANKIE STARLIGHT tells the tale of a dwarf who takes inspiration from the stars and from his mother's adventures with suitors played by Gabriel Byrne and Matt Dillon; a hospital haunted by a little girl's ghost provides the setting for THE KINGDOM, a four-hour-plus Twin Peaks-ish export from Danish TV; love comes after the baby's in the baby carriage in A MODERN AFFAIR, the story of a woman who falls for the sperm-bank donor whose child she bears; unconventional love forces a female theology professor to choose between her Christian minister fiance and a female circus performer in WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING; actor Robert Wuhl (Cobb) makes his directing debut with OPEN SEASON, a satire in which a ratings mixup has public-TV beating up on the networks; the madness of an approaching ECLIPSE inspires a stream of sexual encounters and liaisons in a dark Toronto; and as if the prospect of a theatrical version of Hellraiser weren't exciting enough, Pinhead returns to multiplexes everywhere in HELLRAISER IV.
