A CRITICAL GUIDE: STAYING IN: VIDEO NEW RELEASES

Bullets Over Broadway (15). The comedy of the year, and one of Woody Allen's best. John Cusack plays a struggling playwright who casts a mobster's girl in order to get the thug to finance his latest play. Allen (for once not starring) and co-writer Douglas McGrath build a flawless comedy from this solid foundation. Chazz Palminteri plays the moll's bodyguard, who turns out to have a talent for writing, rescripting the play to its benefit. Jennifer Tilly is screechily mannered as the dumb girlfriend. And there are exquisite supporting performances from Dianne Wiest's narcissistic drama queen, and Jim Broadbent's compulsively overeating British thespian, wolfing down sandwiches. He brings new humour to eating disorders.

Rudy (PG). Laughable-but-sweet true tale of a shrimpish kid who wouldn't give up in his determination to play college football. Quentin Curtis