FREEZE FRAMES

July 10, 1987

ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING - They aren't supposed to leave the house, but a friend needs help. So the sitter and the kids head for the big city, where they get mixed up with gangsters, blues singers, and other folks they never met in the suburbs. The jokes and situations are aimed squarely at teen-age audiences, as in so many summer movies. The story has explosions of hilarity, though. Chris Columbus, in his first outing as a director, keeps the action smooth and speedy. (Rated PG-13) FULL METAL JACKET - Stanley Kubrick views the Vietnam war through the eyes of a young Marine recruit. The first portion takes place in boot camp, dominated by a drill sergeant whose filthy, dehumanized language prefigures a climactic burst of violence. The scene then changes to the Vietnamese city of Hue during the Tet offensive, where the recruit ends up fighting a blind battle with a lost and leaderless patrol. Kubrick uses these situations to explore the ``duality'' of human beings and their contradictory urges to destroy and to heal. He also sets up a duality of his own, by filming dark and explosive material in a fluid, elegant cinematic style. (Rated R) INNERSPACE - Scientists shrink a researcher to microscopic size and get ready to inject him into a rabbit. But villains mess up the experiment, and our hero finds himself wandering through the innards of a stranger who's never heard of all this. The action is lively and sometimes funny. But the story is far from original, and the adventure wears thin long before it's over. The director, Joe Dante, doesn't quite recapture the sense of antic pop-culture fun that spiced the best parts of ``Explorers,'' his last science-fiction adventure. (Rated PG) KARMA - In the late 1960s, the love relationship of a South Vietnamese couple is harshly disrupted by the new values thrust on them by war. Working with an all-Vietnamese cast and crew, Ho Quang Minh produced and directed this slow-moving but sometimes visually striking drama, which is the first Vietnamese feature to play theatrically in the United States. (Not rated) SPACEBALLS - Mel Brooks parodies the ``Star Wars'' saga. Rick Moranis is funny as the Darth Vader character, and Brooks has some amusing moments as Yogurt, a Ben Kenobi-like wise man who satirizes Hollywood's money-mad mentality. But most of the action is incredibly stupid and crude, even by Brooks's deliriously vulgar standard. Where are the Jedi when we need them? (Rated PG) THE SQUEEZE - Naked greed is the theme of this comedy thriller about a scheme to rig a state lottery. The laughs are few, the characters are silly, the violence is surprisingly nasty. Roger Young directed. (Rated PG-13) TO NEW SHORES - Zorah Leander stars in this 1937 revival about an Englishwoman who takes the blame for a crime and gets deported to Australia, so her no-good boyfriend won't suffer. Ably directed by German filmmaker Detlef Sierck before he came to Hollywood and became known as Douglas Sirk. (Not rated)

RATINGS: Films with ratings other than G may contain varying degrees of vulgar language, nudity, sex, and violence.