Michael Keaton

In the 1990 movie "Pacific Heights," Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith lovingly restore a Victorian home with three apartments in San Francisco and live in the top-floor unit. They unwittingly rent one of the apartments to Michael Keaton, who turns out to be a psychotic who never pays the rent, destroys the unit, then connives to sue them.Among many Baltimore live-in landlords, it's become a cult movie illustrating the worst nightmare that can happen."Luckily Michael Keaton has steered clear of this house," said Peter Garver, a landlord in Mount Washington.

The title of "Desperate Measures" is supposed to refer to the lengths two diametrically opposed men will take to get what they want, but it more accurately reflects what audiences should take to escape from the movie.By turns depressing, laughable and shockingly dumb, this may be the one movie where a grisly bone-marrow transplant is a visual relief.Starring Michael Keaton, in what is commonly referred to as a "bold dramatic departure," and Andy Garcia, who should know better, "Desperate Measures" wants to be so many things that, of course, it winds up being nothing at all.As a psychological thriller, action drama, dark comedy and contemporary portrait of pure evil it fails miserably.

BOSTON -- From the very beginning it feels as much like a documentary as a fantasy. This is the story of one man's life, circa 1996, stretched thin over the cracks between work and family. It even offers a motto for the era: ''My whole life's an emergency!''At work, our hero Doug has just been handed a second job for the paycheck of one. At home, he guiltily catches up on his daughter's graduation from Camp Fire Girls via videotape.Putting it in a nutshell -- a hard one to crack -- the L.A. contractor and father describes his life this way, ''Work is first.

"Multiplicity" is about Bozos the clones.But the new Harold Ramis film, despite a few moments of sheer delirium, must be judged something of a disappointment following on Ramis' sublime "Groundhog Day," still the best comedy of the '90s.Like "Groundhog Day," "Multiplicity" is built on a premise it's probably best not to examine too carefully. Its plot: Send in the clones.In this one, ultra-harried construction supervisor Michael Keaton, working on a project at a genetic research institute, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown when kindly old Professor Leeds (avuncular Harris Yulin)

TELEVISION'A Private Matter'It's docudrama, which means you don't know what's true and what's invented. But it stars Sissy Spacek and Aidan Quinn, which means the acting is terrific. "A Private Matter," at 8 tonight on HBO, is set in 1962 and based on the life of the woman who played Miss Sherri on the "Romper Room" children's show. She took thalidomide while pregnant and then had to decide whether to have the child when she found out about the high risk of deformities her baby faced. Quinn and Spacek play the husband and wife whose private tragedy goes public.

'One Good Cop'Starring Michael Keaton.Directed by Heywood Gould.Released by Hollywood Pictures.Rated R.** There are 8 million stories in The Naked City and "One Good Cop" is two of them.The new Michael Keaton film offers a number of pleasures but it's compromised by its own identity crisis. It wants to be a gritty urban street drama; it wants to be a warm-hearted family drama. While there's no rule saying that it can't be both, the movie still seems at war with itself as it changes tones jarringly in each reel.

Here's my advice: Drop "Fred." It's dead.A murky slapstick of the id, "Drop Dead Fred" is a lame spinoff of "Beetlejuice," done on a 10th the budget with a 20th the wit. It features Rik Mayall -- a zany British comedian who appeared on "The Young Ones" on MTV -- as an emblem of Phoebe Cates' imagination. His mission: to teach her self-esteem while breaking every plate in Minneapolis.Mayall, who resembles that other irritating horror from the land of failed movies, Yahoo Serious, is the title character, an elf from the unconscious who, by one of cinema's dimmest strokes, only Cates can see. This produces endless sequences where Fred acts up in restaurants or museums and Cates starts screaming hysterically at him, only to reveal herself as completely insane to the onlookers.

Its morality might be slightly askew and its mood desultory, but ''One Good Cop'' is an absorbing, exciting film that engages the viewer.Michael Keaton stars as Artie Lewis, a New York cop who finds himself caring for the three orphaned daughters of a close friend, his partner who has died in the line of fire.Keaton's wife is happy to have the girls. She has not been able to have children, and she sees this as a second chance, a chance to have the children she wanted.Keaton is amenable to the suggestion, but he doesn't know how he'll be able to support the girls.

It takes too long for the victim to turn on the aggressor in ''Pacific Heights,'' and consequently the film, one that could have been most satisfactory, is only partly so.Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine are the young couple who buy a house in San Francisco for some $700,000. They can't afford it, but they think they'll be able to make the monthly payments if they rent out two apartments.A nice Asian couple moves into one. A psychopath moves into the other. Played by Michael Keaton, he is seemingly nice, but any fool could see through him. In defense of the landlords, they do see through him, but the guy is just a little too crafty for them.

'Pacific Heights'Starring Michael Keaton and Melanie Griffith.Directed by John Schlesinger.Released by 20th-Century Fox.Rated R.** 1/2In "Pacific Heights," Mr. Bland builds his dream house and Mr. Nightmare takes it from him.This mordant thriller has a nifty, original premise and an intriguing set of antagonists. It pits life-loving, planet-friendly yuppies against a psychopath in a game of wits and escalating violence in the battleground of California real estate law. Unfortunately, toward the end it gives up on cleverness and menace and simply becomes another horror picture.

Kelly Macdonald, so memorable as the tragic victim of a psychotic assassin in No Country for Old Men, becomes another hit man's best friend in The Merry Gentleman. She should have quit while she was ahead. This attenuated urban mood piece is filled with Christian imagery and is also Communion wafer-thin. It stars Michael Keaton as morose professional killer Frank Logan. Office worker Kate Frazier (Macdonald) startles him out of suicide when she looks skyward to catch sight of the year's first snow and sees him teetering on a building ledge across the street.

Gather round, children, and let me tell you a story of yesteryear. It used to be that when it came time to head back to school, when the air took on the crispness of waning summer, when the first leaves fell from the trees, not only was it time for the Orioles to march into post-season play, and for the Colts to take the field with the same quarterback they had last year, it was also time for the new television season. Oh, yes, I know, the networks still have new shows and they still put many of them on in September, but back then, it was a real event.

In the 1990 movie "Pacific Heights," Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith lovingly restore a Victorian home with three apartments in San Francisco and live in the top-floor unit. They unwittingly rent one of the apartments to Michael Keaton, who turns out to be a psychotic who never pays the rent, destroys the unit, then connives to sue them.Among many Baltimore live-in landlords, it's become a cult movie illustrating the worst nightmare that can happen."Luckily Michael Keaton has steered clear of this house," said Peter Garver, a landlord in Mount Washington.

The title of "Desperate Measures" is supposed to refer to the lengths two diametrically opposed men will take to get what they want, but it more accurately reflects what audiences should take to escape from the movie.By turns depressing, laughable and shockingly dumb, this may be the one movie where a grisly bone-marrow transplant is a visual relief.Starring Michael Keaton, in what is commonly referred to as a "bold dramatic departure," and Andy Garcia, who should know better, "Desperate Measures" wants to be so many things that, of course, it winds up being nothing at all.As a psychological thriller, action drama, dark comedy and contemporary portrait of pure evil it fails miserably.

BOSTON -- From the very beginning it feels as much like a documentary as a fantasy. This is the story of one man's life, circa 1996, stretched thin over the cracks between work and family. It even offers a motto for the era: ''My whole life's an emergency!''At work, our hero Doug has just been handed a second job for the paycheck of one. At home, he guiltily catches up on his daughter's graduation from Camp Fire Girls via videotape.Putting it in a nutshell -- a hard one to crack -- the L.A. contractor and father describes his life this way, ''Work is first.

"Multiplicity" is about Bozos the clones.But the new Harold Ramis film, despite a few moments of sheer delirium, must be judged something of a disappointment following on Ramis' sublime "Groundhog Day," still the best comedy of the '90s.Like "Groundhog Day," "Multiplicity" is built on a premise it's probably best not to examine too carefully. Its plot: Send in the clones.In this one, ultra-harried construction supervisor Michael Keaton, working on a project at a genetic research institute, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown when kindly old Professor Leeds (avuncular Harris Yulin)

TELEVISION'A Private Matter'It's docudrama, which means you don't know what's true and what's invented. But it stars Sissy Spacek and Aidan Quinn, which means the acting is terrific. "A Private Matter," at 8 tonight on HBO, is set in 1962 and based on the life of the woman who played Miss Sherri on the "Romper Room" children's show. She took thalidomide while pregnant and then had to decide whether to have the child when she found out about the high risk of deformities her baby faced. Quinn and Spacek play the husband and wife whose private tragedy goes public.

Here's my advice: Drop "Fred." It's dead.A murky slapstick of the id, "Drop Dead Fred" is a lame spinoff of "Beetlejuice," done on a 10th the budget with a 20th the wit. It features Rik Mayall -- a zany British comedian who appeared on "The Young Ones" on MTV -- as an emblem of Phoebe Cates' imagination. His mission: to teach her self-esteem while breaking every plate in Minneapolis.Mayall, who resembles that other irritating horror from the land of failed movies, Yahoo Serious, is the title character, an elf from the unconscious who, by one of cinema's dimmest strokes, only Cates can see. This produces endless sequences where Fred acts up in restaurants or museums and Cates starts screaming hysterically at him, only to reveal herself as completely insane to the onlookers.

'One Good Cop'Starring Michael Keaton.Directed by Heywood Gould.Released by Hollywood Pictures.Rated R.** There are 8 million stories in The Naked City and "One Good Cop" is two of them.The new Michael Keaton film offers a number of pleasures but it's compromised by its own identity crisis. It wants to be a gritty urban street drama; it wants to be a warm-hearted family drama. While there's no rule saying that it can't be both, the movie still seems at war with itself as it changes tones jarringly in each reel.

Its morality might be slightly askew and its mood desultory, but ''One Good Cop'' is an absorbing, exciting film that engages the viewer.Michael Keaton stars as Artie Lewis, a New York cop who finds himself caring for the three orphaned daughters of a close friend, his partner who has died in the line of fire.Keaton's wife is happy to have the girls. She has not been able to have children, and she sees this as a second chance, a chance to have the children she wanted.Keaton is amenable to the suggestion, but he doesn't know how he'll be able to support the girls.