Metro Pulse Online: Movies, Past &Amp; Future

Armed only with his mysterious mental connection to the feral minds of studio executives, the Movie Guru reveals just how good or bad this week's new releases will be:

Dark Blue (R)
On the eve of the 1992 L.A. race riots, a tough, whatever-it-takes detective (Kurt Russell) and his neophyte partner (Scott Speedman) investigate a quadruple murder. To solve it, they must battle outer evils and inner demons. Seriously.
Prediction: Training Day, Narc, and FX Network's The Shield are probably more worthy of your attention.

Gods and Generals (PG-13)
This prequel to 1993's Gettysburg follows the career of Gen. Stonewall Jackson (Stephen Lang). With Robert Duvall as Gen. Robert E. Lee and Jeff Daniels reprising his Gettysburg role as Lt. Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
Prediction: While Gettysburg was rightly acclaimed for its realistic depiction of that harrowing battle, sequels (or prequels) rarely maintain the focus of the original. For Civil War buffs only, most likely.

The Life of David Gale
Remember when you used to look forward to a movie starring Kevin Spacey? In this one he is David Gale, an anti-death penalty activist who finds himself on Death Row. Can ace reporter Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) ferret out the truth before (gasp!) it's too late?
Prediction: Liberal pap (not that we have anything against liberal pap) disguised as a thriller.

Nicholas Nickleby (PG)
Umpteenth rehash of Dickens' classic tale.
Prediction: We told you: Umpteenth rehash of Dickens' classic tale. What else do you need to know?

Old School (R)
Three thirtyish guys, longing for the glory days of college, start an off-campus fraternity.
Prediction: It's supposed to be funny. It looks stupid.

Tully (NR)
The Coates, a woman-less Nebraskan farm family, may be all male, but each member's got women on his mind. Tully Sr. (Bob Burrus) pines for his dear departed wife, Tully Jr. (Anson Mount) is the local Romeo, and youngest son Earl (Glenn Fitzgerald) has a thing for a girl who's just home for the summer. Besides the complications that ensue from their various feelings, the Coates family also possesses some dark secrets.
Prediction: Actually, this was first released in 2000 as The Truth About Tully, and it garnered mostly favorable reviews. If pot-boiler family intrigue is your cup o' tease (to mix a few metaphors), check this one out.

The Way Home (PG-13)
A big city boy who must stay with his small-village grandma has to unlearn the luxuries of civilization.
Prediction: The Way Home topped all Korean box office records in 2002, so it's surely a touching and heartfelt work.

The Vast Culkin Conspiracy

Ever since little Macaulay Culkin made the face that launched a thousand sequels (or two, anyway) in Home Alone, the Culkin clan has been a Hollywood mainstay. For a time, it seemed there was some union rule that every movie featuring actors under the age of 15 had to include either Mac or one of his siblings.

But time moves on, even for Culkins, and the inevitable child-actor dilemma arises: Who will hire you once your voice breaks? Mac is still working, according to various websites—he's in some forthcoming movie with Mandy Moore. But for the moment, the most promising career in the family unquestionably belongs to his little brother, Kieran. Kieran made his debut in Home Alone, in a small part as Mac's younger cousin, and he's built a respectable and steady resume. Now 21, he got good notices for the misfit drama The Mighty, leading to roles in last year's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and Igby Goes Down (R, 2002).

In writer-director Burr Steers' enjoyable first feature, a self-conscious updating of The Catcher in the Rye, Kieran plays Igby Slocum, the troubled younger son of a wealthy and supremely dysfunctional East Coast family. After bouncing out of prep school after prep school, hounded by a pill-popping mother (Susan Sarandon) and haunted by an institutionalized trainwreck of a father (Bill Pullman), Igby runs away to New York City. His misadventures are relatively low-key (barring rescuing pretty girls from a heroin overdose or two), and mostly involve coming to terms with the opposite sex and with his own fractured, damaged family. Culkin seems right at home as Igby, conveying both his smart-ass worldliness and emotional vulnerability without appearing to work too hard at either. His scenes with Ryan Phillippe, who plays Igby's older, more cynical brother, are full of convincing sibling subtexts. And Claire Danes makes an appearance, as a wandering Bennington drop-out who beds both brothers.

Also in the cast is yet another Culkin brother, Rory, who appears in flashbacks as a younger Igby. He also recently appeared in the small-town indie drama You Can Count on Me (R, 2001), about the difficult relationship between an adult brother and sister (Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney, with Rory as Linney's fatherless son). His effortless screen presence suggests we'll have Culkins to watch for some time to come.

—Jesse Fox Mayshark