7 TRUTH OR DARE Media cynics were so busy cataloguing the way Madonna controlled her image in this backstage documentary that they were only too happy to overlook everything she revealed. Her compulsive, spotlight-grabbing selfishness is there for all to behold, and that's the point: Madonna is so up-front about her need for attention-whether from her fans or her "family" of mostly gay dancers-that the more you experience her giddy, childlike narcissism, the more likable she becomes. What makes Truth or Dare exhilarating is that, beneath her well-documented poses, Madonna is one of the few pop stars left who conveys a vibrant sense of joy.
8 CITY SLICKERS Some of the best jokes of the year, and not just because they were well timed. This comedy about three urban dweebs working out their mid- life crises on the range has its gooey moments, but it also captures the farcical plight of baby boomers who can't seem to live up to their dreams of movie-bred heroism. Billy Crystal finally finds the perfect role for his wisecracking melancholy.
9 SLACKER A deliciously deadpan independent comedy that only pretends to be about the lives of semi-employed loafers hanging around the sunbaked college town of Austin, Tex. Sure, it's about these slackers-but it's also a slyly metaphysical portrait of the post-counterculture era, an era in which people, more and more, are living inside their own heads.
10 THE DOCTOR In a year in which every third movie seemed to be about a selfish yuppie confronting the error of his ways, this was the one guilt- redemption saga with true emotional resonance. Its story of an arrogant surgeon whose life is changed by his battle with throat cancer remains a bracingly specific character study, anchored by William Hurt's best performance in years.
THE WORST
1 HUDSON HAWK Yes, it truly was the worst movie of the year. Megabuck producer Joel Silver and star Bruce Willis seemed to think that if they took a purposefully nonsensical action-adventure story line, threw enough stuff (musical numbers, explosions, Sandra Bernhard) into the pot, and palmed the whole thing off as "tongue in cheek," they'd have a slam-bang winner. Instead they came up with a goulash no one could eat. The fact that Willis appears to be having a high old time doesn't help: He seems to be laughing at the audience for being suckers. Hudson Hawk is the first postmodern turkey-a fiasco sealed with a smirk.
2 AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD Perhaps the worst movie ever made about missionaries (it's certainly the longest). Kathy Bates and John Lithgow go head-to-head in the category of Most Hysterical Performance as an Insensitive White Person. An ooga-booga jungle fantasy in liberal drag, the movie isn't just morally pompous-it's ponderously dull.
3 THE BUTCHER'S WIFE Demi Moore must have had her choice of good roles after Ghost. Instead, she chose to play Marina, a golden-tressed clairvoyant who arrives in New York City and becomes a cosmic yenta. A sitcom sprinkled with New Age fairy dust, the movie sets a new standard for sheer dippiness.
