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:

Dysfunktional Family (R)
Ninety minutes of raunchy talk from stand-up Eddie Griffin.
Prediction: Raunchy, crude (laugh), racist, homophobic. Possibly with one or two more laughs.

Lost in La Mancha (R)
An account of director (and former Monty Pythoner) Terry Gilliam's disastrous attempt to film a new version of Don Quixote.
Prediction: If obsessed filmmakers being thwarted in their quest to achieve brilliance is your thing, check this out.

A Man Apart (R)
A DEA agent Sean Vetter (Vin Diesel) loses his girlfriend in what appears to be an act of retaliation for his nabbing a Mexican drug lord. A sleaze called Diablo (Timothy Olyphant) steps in to fill the vacuum in the drug cartel. Sooner or later, a confrontation must take place.
Prediction: Big bald Vin is the hot action thing these days, but really, this looks like same ol', same ol'. If guns blazing nonsensically is your thing, go for it.

Phone Booth (R)
Colin Farrell stars as a self-absorbed user of a guy, who, after making a call to his mistress in a phone booth (so his wife won't see a record of the call) answers the phone when it rings immediately after he finishes his call. A sniper (Kiefer Sutherland) has Farrell in his sights and demands that Farrell admit all the wrongs he has perpetrated in his life—or he'll kill him.
Prediction: The press has been pretty good on this one. Now, admittedly, director Joel Schumacher has been responsible for a few clunkers, but word is he's turned in a taut, claustrophobic drama.

What a Girl Wants (PG)
A headstrong New York teen (Amanda Bynes) leaves her mom (Kelly Preston) to find her dad, a British lord (Colin Firth) who deserted her. Soon, she rocks his world.
Prediction: What is this? Is their some machine out there churning out "daffy" girl movies? View from the Top, Sweet Home Alabama, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, Bridget Jones's Diary...sisters, this is not what you had in mind when you demanded more meaningful roles, was it?

High Stakes

It really wasn't a big surprise when Sarah Michelle Gellar announced recently that this year would be her last year starring in the TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series worked great as a metaphor for teenage girls growing up in the world and as a fun sci-fi adventure show. But with Buffy and her friends all grown up after saving the world countless times from unspeakable evil, the symbolism is getting tired and the action stale.

Creator Joss Whedon may retool the series with Gellar's departure, but I doubt the show will achieve the greatness of earlier seasons. A friend of mine has a theory that the third season of any television series is the best, because the writers and cast have hit their stride but aren't yet bored.

The theory appears to hold true for Buffy. The 22-episode third season, which was released on DVD in January, focuses on Buffy's senior year in high school as she tries to accept who she is and struggles to get over her first love—a good vampire named Angel, whom Buffy had to kill in season two. (Angel comes back from the dead, so to speak, as a good guy.) We get perverse, humorous takes on teen runaways, loyalty, social outcasts, authority, the prom, and graduation day.

And the villains are usually hilarious. The key baddie in season three is Sunnydale's mayor, who is preparing to ascend into demonhood during the graduation ceremony. He's aided by sexy slayer-turned-bad, Faith. The DVDs also offer the usual candy of commentary from the producers as well as interviews. The fourth season of Buffy is due out in June, but season three is likely the peak of the series.

For those who can't get enough Buffy, there's the first season of Angel, which was released in February. A spinoff of Buffy, it is a much darker series, featuring Buffy's ex-lover fighting supernatural evil on the mean streets of L.A. And following the third-season-is-best rule, the first season is uneven, as it struggles to find its own tone and place. Some of the shows are of the monster-of-the-week variety. But by the season's conclusion, it shows plenty of promise. Buffy guests in a few episodes, and when the two finally put their romance behind them, Angel begins to develop its own mythology.

—Joe Tarr