THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

The Five Senses ( New Line ) : One of the best things about watching Jeremy Podeswa's The Five Senses ( and there are many good things ) is that it is a reminder of what an exceptional and gifted actress Mary-Louise Parker is, and how she keeps getting better with every acting role. In this film, she plays an in-demand baker whose unusually decorated cakes are all the rage, and yet her sense of taste is in question. Her taste in men is better, if also bit shaky, especially when Roberto ( Marco Leonardi ) , a terrifically sexy man with whom she had an affair in Italy shows up on her doorstep. Her best friend Robert ( Daniel MacIvor ) is a gay man who cleans houses for a living, is unlucky in love, and has the most remarkable sense of smell. Ruth ( Gabrielle Rose ) , a masseuse with a troubled, voyeuristic daughter named Rachel ( Nadia Litz ) represent touch and sight, respectively, although their powers in these areas are useless when Rachel loses the young daughter of one of her mother's clients in a park. Rounding things out is Richard ( played by Philippe Volter ) , an eye doctor who is losing his hearing. Generously acted and creatively scripted and directed, this is the home-video must-see of the new year. On a scale of 1 to 10: 8.5

Autumn In New York ( MGM/ Lakeshore ) : Sticky and weepy movies in which one of the romantic leads is stricken with an incurable illness, thereby limiting ( thankfully ) the time the couple has together, come and go like muscle spasms or waves of nausea. I don't think that this Richard Gere/Winona Ryder vehicle will do anything for the genre; not even bury it for good. What it will do is remind audiences that Ryder was once capable of making the best of a bad situation, although the odds were against her. Gere, still cashing in on his movie star good looks, might want to consider a love story with a woman ( or a man, for that matter ) his own age in the future, just for the sake of his credibility. As an orphaned 22-year-old milliner with a malignancy growing in the chest cavity surrounding her heart ( HOW SYMBOLIC!!! ) , Ryder's Charlotte is an innocent from another time who is running out of time. As a 48-year-old restaurateur with an insatiable appetite for women, Gere's Will falls for Charlotte and, unfortunately, the cinematic magic falls flat. Reprising her cantankerous and liquored-up old gal routine, Elaine Stritch devours scenery, but will still make some queens happy for her time on screen. This contrived tearjerker may leave more dry eyes ( and empty seats ) in the house than it intended. On a scale of 1 to 10: 3 ( now available )

The Cell ( New Line ) : If you can imagine the movie The Silence Of The Lambs co-written and co-directed by David Lynch and Ken Russell, then you are on your way to getting a feel for this uneven and unreal, but never boring horror/ detective flick. Taking Clarice Starling's ( from Silence ) people skills a step further, gifted child psychologist Catherine Deane ( Jennifer Lopez—YEAH RIGHT! ) is working with a comatose boy via a radical and experimental procedure. In another part of the country, maniacal serial killer Carl Stargher ( the ubiquitous Vincent D'Onofrio ) is kidnapping women, imprisoning them in a tank ( or cell, if you will ) in an abandoned warehouse, where he slowly drowns them ( and videotapes the proceedings ) , then turns them into mannequins. This behavior, caused by a "rare form of schizophrenia" that is "triggered by trauma," has its root in the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, who once became particularly enraged when he caught young Carl playing with dolls—get the connection? When disheveled FBI agent Peter Novak ( a scruffy Vince Vaughn ) arrives on the scene, he convinces Catherine to enter the killer's mind after he goes into a coma similar to her boy patient's. The scenes in Stargher's mind are a cross between a Nine Inch Nails video and a Pierre Et Gilles photo exhibit, and will make fans of The Matrix-like visual effects very happy. Those of us who want a coherent storyline will have to look elsewhere. On a scale of 1 to 10: 5 ( now available )