CORRINA CORRINA (Directed by Jesse Nelson. Starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ray Liotta, Tina Majorino, Joan Cusack.)

Behind a successful woman is apparently a place few successful men like to stand. Since her rise to tops line status, Julia Roberts has been saddled with the likes of Kevin Jackson, Campbell Scott and Nick Nolte as her love interest. Whoopi Goldberg, perhaps the second most bankable female star of the moment, has been linked up onscreen with Ted Danson, Harvey Keitel and Sam Elliot, none of them major players noted for their romantic charms. In Corrina, Corrina she continues her run of bad luck with men by attempting to play romantic comedy with Ray Liotta.

Note to casting directors: Ray Liotta is a psycho. He may be a very talented actor, but no amount of thespian talent is going to get over those strange, piercing eyes, and only a facelift is likely to distract us from the pock-marked skin. He had a tough time establishing action credentials in No Escape, since he looked more like a villain than the villains, and he has a harder time playing a gentle father in this well meaning but mixed up attempt at making a comedy out of a racial drama. Liotta plays Jewish. Whoppi plays, well, black. And they cross the racial divide with barely a nod to the fact that the film takes place in the Fifties. Now if Liotta had played a member of the Ku Klux Klan, that might have at least been interesting. All I can say about Corrina, Corrina, is that this gal ain’t been on my mind since I left the cinema.