FREEZE FRAMES

THE ACCUSED - Jodie Foster gives the performance of her career as a working-class rape victim who insists on prosecuting all her tormentors. Jonathan Kaplan has directed the drama intelligently and imaginatively, capturing not only the events of the story but the nuances of American culture that spark such atrocities. Contains a graphic rape scene. (Rated R) BAT 21 - Gene Hackman gets shot down in Vietnam, and Danny Glover has to rescue him. The key performances are strong, and the action, based on real events, is reasonably suspenseful. Directed by Peter Markle, who gives the old war-story format a lot of energy without transcending it or coming up with any real surprises. (Rated R) LITTLE DORRIT - One of Charles Dickens's least engaging novels has been turned into a six-hour movie that tells the same story twice, from the viewpoints of two different characters. The cast is superb; the production is lavish; and filmmaker Christine Edzard deserves enormous credit for attempting such an audacious project. The adaptation is heavy-handedly written, though, and the story never picks up very much steam. (Rated G) MADAME SOUSATZKA - She's a piano teacher who gives her all to her pupils, including the young Indian prodigy who's her brightest new hope; and she demands their all in return. Although the film is manipulative and anything but subtle, Shirley MacLaine turns a new corner in her career with her all-stops-out performance, and the story has a momentum that never quits. Directed by John Schlesinger. (Rated PG-13) MYSTIC PIZZA - Emotions run high in this Connecticut pizzeria, where three young women deal with boyfriends, parents, and peers. In all, it's ``Diner,'' female style. Directed by Donald Petrie from a blatantly manipulative screenplay that took four people to cook up. (Rated R) SEVEN WOMEN/SEVEN SINS - A look at the ``seven deadly sins,'' with each portion directed by a different filmmaker. Most are disappointing, but there's a lot of visual invention in the ``Lust'' episode by Austrian director Valie Export, which satirizes today's body-obsessed Western culture. The other filmmakers are Bette Gordon and Maxi Cohen of the United States, Laurence Gavron of France, Chantal Akerman of Belgium, and Ulrike Ottinger and Helke Sander of West Germany. (Not rated) THINGS CHANGE - An aging cobbler finds himself in the company of thieves, spending some unexpected days with gangsters who need a favor from him. Joe Mantegna is wryly amusing as the story's main hoodlum, and Don Ameche is better yet as his befuddled new friend. But the screenplay, by David Mamet and Shel Silverstein, lacks the punch of Mamet's solo scripts; and the visual style of his previous film as a director, ``House of Games,'' was more pungent. (Rated PG) A WINTER TAN - Relentless drama based on the real experiences of a schoolteacher who went to Mexico in search of sexual excitement and plunged into badly self-destructive behavior. Her story is as caustic as it is cautionary. Directed by Canadian filmmakers Jackie Burroughs, Louise Clark, John Frizzell, John Walker, and Aerlyn Weissman. (Not rated)