Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne star.

Here's what other critics say about "The Madness of King George:" Bob Strauss/Los Angeles Daily News: ... the film has quite noticeably been shorn of nearly 45 minutes' worth of footage for its American run. The gaps in the complex and wide-ranging narrative are, well, maddening; so much is going on here, on both personal and political levels, that it would have been nice to get the full impact of everything rather than the Cliff Notes synopses.

Arthur Agee shoots a basket for St. Joseph High School in "Hoop Dreams."

Holy burning bag of dog doo, "Billy Madison" sort of survives such humor. The perpetrator, Adam Sandler, shouldn't quit his night job any time too soon. Still, there's enough potential here to put him on the bigscreen map, even if he's only a singlelane dirt road.

There have been some pretty hard women featured in films over the years. About the hardest one recently was Kathy Bates' character in "Misery." She so reveled in torturing James Caan that you suspected she once might have been married to him.

"The Quick and the Dead" stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Gene Hachman, Staron Stone and Russell Crowe.

Stuart Wilson and Ben Kingsley star in "Death and the Maiden."

Whoopi Goldberg, Mary-Louise Parker and Drew Barrymore in 'Boys.'

Johnny Brennan, left, and Kamal Ahmed reach out and touch an angry mob boss through a series of crank calls in "The Jerky Boys."

I stopped looking forward to John Carpenter's movies the year Ronald Reagan treated Walter Mondale like Road Runner treats Wile E. Coyote. From 1976 through 1982, Carpenter directed "Assault on Precinct 13," "Halloween," the underrated "Elvis" with Kurt Russell, "Escape From New York" and a sharp remake of "The Thing." He wrote and produced most of them, even composed his own music.

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke

William Gates goes up for an easy lay-in.

Omar Epps stars in "Higher Learning."

How could an action-adventure film that cost $34 million, most of which clearly went into pyrotechnics, computerized special effects and scenic locations, end up looking cheap, silly and lifeless? To find out, see "Highlander: The Final Dimension." The third and last episode of the series starring Christopher Lambert as a time-traveling Scot is an incoherent mess.

Gary Oldman stars as Ludwig van Beethoven in "Immortal Beloved."

Here's what other critics say about "Immortal Beloved:" Steven Rea/Philadelphia Inquirer: There is, however, one achingly beautiful cinematic passage that, while it doesn't redeem all the other hammy nonsense, does bring a glimpse of pure poetry to the film. It is the image of the boy Beethoven, having fled his abusive father, floating on a lake illuminated with the reflection of a million stars, as the "Ode to Joy" finale of the "Ninth Symphony" roils around. All the silly sleuthing, all Oldman's niggling imitations, pale by comparison to this one majestic moment. Michael Wilmington/Chicago Tribune: Yet, for all its obvious transgressions against history or taste, "Immortal Beloved," like Gance's "Grande Amour," rises past silliness toward some of the high chill of the real man's greatness and sorrow. Janet Maslin/New York Times: If the accomplishments that inspire awe here are Beethoven's rather than Rose's, that's not surprising. Nor is it accidental: this filmmaker is so well attuned to his subject that he deliberately subjugates his imagery to the film's soundtrack.

"Higher Learning," starring Laurence Fishburne, rear, and Omar Epps, finished at No. 2.

'Death and the Maiden' *** 1/2 Theaters: Magic Lantern and Lyons Ave. Cast: Directed by Roman Polanski, it stars Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley and Stuart Wilson Running time: 102 minutes Rated R The setting of "Death and the Maiden" is a nameless South American country. But the screenwriter is Chilean, so it's easy to imagine Chile as the setting. The film features only three characters. But since the events dramatized have occurred in reality to hundreds of thousands of people, the characters seem universal. The story is fiction.

Henry Thomas, Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn star in "Legends of the Fall."