Like Percy Adlon’s previous Marianne Sa>gebrecht vehicle Bagdad Cafe, this is a fanciful, gentle satire about American life seen from a Bavarian angle. This time Sa>gebrecht plays Rosalie, a Bavarian-born housewife in Stuttgart, Arkansas, who has a slew of kids and is married to a pilot (Brad Davis) whose faltering eyesight is used as a rather heavy-handed metaphor for what this movie is basically aboutthe sweet naivete of American consumer society in the 80s. The possessor of 37 credit cards, numerous bank accounts and fake IDs, and a computer, Rosalie keeps her family happy through diverse scams straight out of Reaganomics. And they all delightedly watch TV commercials together, simultaneously reciting the familiar patter verbatim. Full of bizarre camera angles and lighting schemes, the movie is rather weak from a narrative standpoint, and a running gag about Rosalie’s confessions to a priest (Judge Reinhold) grows mechanical and tiresome, but if you liked Bagdad Cafe, you’ll probably be charmed. Scripted by Adlon with his wife and coproducer Eleonore Adlon and Christopher Doherty; with Alex Winter, Patricia Zehentmayr, John Hawkes, and Erika Blumberger (1989). (JR)