FREEZE FRAMES

A weekly update of film releases

THE FISHER KING -A radio talk-show host, on the skids after a disaster in his career, meets a sidewalk schizophrenic who's questing for the Holy Grail, which he thinks is stashed in a local billionaire's mansion. When it isn't bogged down in romantic subplots, Terry Gilliam's dark comedy has great energy and visual imagination. But its view of urban homelessness and hunger is sadly insensitive, suggesting that such miseries wouldn't matter if the downtrodden only had Robin Williams around to make them chuckle through the ir pain. (Rated R) RAMBLING ROSE - She's a vivacious young woman whose eagerness for life and love creates one scandal after another, to the chagrin of the respectable middle-class family that's given her a home. Fine performances lend style and substance to the drama, and there's a welcome concern with feminist issues running through Calder Willingham's screenplay. The ending is very weak, though, and a surprisingly explicit sex episode seems out of sync with the picture's overall tone. Directed by Martha Coolidge. (Rated R)

SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL - None of the above comes off very well in this ferociously satirical look at modern greed and vulgarity. As always in his one-person shows, Eric Bogosian wrote all the material and plays all the characters, who deliver monologues as penetrating as they are sardonic. John McNaughton directed the movie, filmed onstage before a live audience. (Rated R)