SHADOWS AND FOG (1992)

SHADOWS AND FOG (PG-13) Woody Allen in a rut, so busy cribbing from his favorite artists (Bergman, Kafka, Kurt Weill) that he forgets to be himself. Shot in black and white, the movie unfolds in the twisty, fog-enshrouded streets of what looks like Prague in the '20s, and it's framed as a murder mystery (a strangler is on the loose). Woody himself stars as a nerdier-than- usual version of the classic Allen loser. The movie is so tepid and ''small,'' so shamelessly patched together from other works, it's like a parody of everything that's ever gone wrong in Allen's filmmaking. Once again, he rounds up a juicy constellation of stars (Madonna, Jodie Foster, John Cusack, Kathy Bates), only to give each of them a few quick scenes. Once again, he peppers the screen with halfhearted gags and soggy dualities like, Is man spirit or merely flesh? You half expect the credits to read ''Directed by Ingmar Bergman, from a script by Dick Cavett.'' C

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