1992: The Best & Worst Movies

2. THE BODYGUARD Based on a 17-year-old script Lawrence Kasdan should have left in his bottom drawer, this piece of kitsch about a pop-singer-turned-actress (Whitney Houston) and the bodyguard (Kevin Costner) who shields her from a crazed fan is all slack romantic posturing. Houston and Costner never let down their superstar auras long enough to act.

3. PRELUDE TO A KISS In this version of Craig Lucas' painfully precious Broadway trifle, Alec Baldwin marries Meg Ryan only to see her magically transformed into an old man. Then he realizes he loves her (him?) anyway. If something like this has happened to you, you might actually enjoy this movie.

4. COOL WORLD The return of Fritz the Cat's Ralph Bakshi. A comic-book artist (Gabriel Byrne) gets sucked into his own cartoon. Surprise! — it's even more boring than his life. As always, Bakshi's view of women makes one long for the tender romantic humanism of Bob Guccione.

5. HOFFA They should have buried the script along with Jimmy Hoffa's body: This biographical epic about the infamous Teamsters leader is a turgid dud. As Hoffa, Jack Nicholson puffs out his chest, contorts his lips into a dufus grimace, and blares out every word in the same abrasive whine — he's like James Cagney on helium. Still, it isn't really Nicholson's fault that Hoffa fails to generate a shred of interest (or empathy) as a character. As written by David Mamet, who also scripted the brilliant Glengarry Glen Ross (talk about comedowns), Hoffa leaps from one muddled, chaotic subplot to another. It never begins to clarify the particulars of Hoffa's life — like, say, why he wanted to lead the Teamsters in the first place. Yet director Danny DeVito seems to think he's making Citizen Jimmy: He lays on the swirling crowd scenes and grandiose camera work, all of which only emphasize the void they're surrounding.

Honor Roll:

Best Independent Films

BAD LIEUTENANT Harvey Keitel gives a cathartic performance in Abel Ferrara's supremely nasty tale of a modern sinner.

ONE FALSE MOVE Carl Franklin's thriller glides along on the knife edge of its characters' passions.

GAS FOOD LODGING Allison Anders' lovely comic drama about a divorced mother and her two daughters looking for love in the sunbaked Southwest.

MISTRESS A scrappy inside-Hollywood satire with moments as hilarious as anything in The Player.

Best Scene Stealers

MICHELLE PFEIFFER, Batman Returns. Meow!

WES STUDI, The Last of the Mohicans. He plays the evil Magua with a vengeful stare that hypnotizes the camera.

JUDY DAVIS, Husbands and Wives. And you thought Annie Hall had self-esteem problems.

Hottest Inner-City Fire

SOUTH CENTRAL A father-son melodrama more passionate than Boyz N the Hood.

JUICE Spike Lee's cinematographer, Ernest R. Dickerson, proves a true director in this chilling slice of life.