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:

Anger Management (PG-13)
Adam Sandler plays mild-mannered business flunky Dave Buznik, who is mistakenly convicted of assault and sentenced to an anger management class run by looney-toon Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson), whose questionable methods only serve to make Buznik really, truly angry.
Prediction: Didn't Sandler play a semi-crazy aggressive dude in his last movie? Does it matter? If you like Sandler, you'll probably like this; otherwise, avoid it.

Bend It Like Beckham (PG-13)
Teen coming-of-age comedy focuses on an Indian-Anglo girl (Parminder Nagra) who idolizes star soccer player David Beckham, which is contrary to her orthodox Sikh parents' conception of girlhood. Determination, spunk, and the camaraderie of another female soccer player (Keira Knightley) transform her into a top-flight athlete.
Prediction: Big hit in Great Britain, good reviews all 'round, should bring on a big, fuzzy, feel-good feelin'.

House of 1000 Corpses (R)
Techno-metal artist and first-time feature film director Rob Zombie scared Universal so bad with horror movie House that they refused to release it, so lil' Lion's Gate picked it up. It's loosely a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, i.e., teenagers get lost in the middle of nowhere, end up in a house full of crazies, and all sorts of gross and macabre things befall them.
Prediction: An extremely gory homage to B-movie horror flicks, probably too gruesome and unoriginal to draw much of an audience. But Queen "B" Karen Black is in it!

The Safety of Objects (R)
Overlapping stories about four mundane middle-class families coping (or not) with the mundane problems in their mundane lives. Stellar cast includes Glenn Close, Robert Klein, Dermot Mulroney, Patricia Clarkson, Moira Kelly, and Mary Kay Place.
Prediction: It's probably well acted, but really, how many times can we tread these same suburban streets in search of a meaningful story?

Dick, Less

Deceased sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's work appears to be a deep well for Hollywood. Blade Runner from 1982 and 1990's Total Recall were adapted from his writings, as were last summer's Minority Report and the upcoming Ben Affleck vehicle, Paycheck. The three movies already in release have many elements in common (e.g., a strongly moral protagonist who, whether by choice or circumstance, finds himself pitted alone against a system gone wrong), but one theme resonates clearer than most: the question of identity, of "how can you tell if 'you' are you?"

Add to the Dick cinematic canon this past winter's Impostor (PG-13, 2002). It has the same components described above: Gary Sinese plays Spencer John Olham, a brilliant defense scientist (are there ever dumb defense scientists?) working on an "ultimate weapon" to defeat invading Alpha Centurions in the year 2079. After he and his wife return from a weekend getaway into the wilderness, Olham is accused by a Major Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio) of having been replaced by an Alpha Centurion creation: a biologically exact replica that has a bomb capable of causing incredible devastation implanted in its heart and a suicide mission programmed into its subconscious. Olham's dilemma is simple: How can he escape and prove his identity before Hathaway and his minions kill him?

The elements are there for a crackling good yarn, but the movie mostly runs in circles. Sinese is okay as Olham, but Madeleine Stowe as his wife is given too little to do, and Vincent D'Onofrio mistakes bluster for personality as Olham's persecutor. Besides pacing the movie poorly (start and finish are okay, but the middle is a long, pointless, draggy chase), Director Gary Fleder woefully overuses frenzied camera cuts to communicate Olham's confusion. Add too many cliches (a helpful character from the downtrodden, dark dingy slums contrasting with the bright shiny city, lots of chase scenes shot in dimly lit passages, etc.) and too many interesting but undeveloped points (e.g, a man-made shield that has been constructed around the Earth to protect it from alien bombs), and Impostor ends up the leakiest bucket yet drawn from the well of Philip K. Dick's oeuvre.

—Scott McNutt

April 10, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 15
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