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:

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (PG-13)
In another sad example of failing to live up to her Oscar potential, Angelina Jolie reprises her role as world adventurer Lara Croft. In Cradle of Life, she finds the fabled Pandora's Box, which will let loose all kinds of badness if it gets into the clutches of a Chinese mob boss. Can Lara and all her gadgets stop the worst from happening?
Prediction: Despite being panned by critics, the first Tomb Raider made money, hence this sequel. Word is that the special effects (which include an underwater bicycle chase) will be neat, but it won't improve upon the original.

Seabiscuit (PG-13)
Seabiscuit was a little horse who surprised everyone by winning races across America back in the 1930s. Tobey Maguire (Spider-man) plays Red Pollard, the tough jockey who survived a few serious accidents to ride the spindly legged thoroughbred to fame. Written and directed by Gary Ross, the film is based on Laura Hillenbrand's wildly popular book.
Prediction: With the line-up of Maguire, Chris Cooper and Jeff Bridges, how can you lose? It'll be the best horse movie since The Black Stallion and make little kids want to be jockeys instead of NBA players.

Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (PG)
Writer/director Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Til Dawn, Desperado) brings us the third adventure of kid spies. Carmen (Alexa Vega) gets trapped inside a virtual reality game by the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone). To help save her, brother Juni (Daryl Sabara) solicits the skills of Dora (Selma Hayek), a secret agent who uses her pigtails to fly.
Prediction: The trailer makes it look like every out-of-work actor in Hollywood wants to jump on the Spy Kids bandwagon (even George Clooney makes a cameo). But the 3-D glasses gimmick is pretty cool, and kids like that sort of thing.

Swimming Pool (R)
Nothing is what it seems in this highly acclaimed drama. British mystery writer Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) takes a vacation at her publisher's house in the South of France, only to get drawn into the bizarre life of his wild-child daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier).
Prediction: Given its intriguing plot, Swimming Pool will be a better vehicle to communicate director Francois Ozon's detached style than his previous attempts (8 Women, Under the Sand).

Hardly Glamorous

Smart people wish they were cooler, and cool people want to be perceived as smarter. But the two types find it so hard to spend time together that they never get to learn this truth: Neither camp is all it's cracked up to be.

With her solid performance in Laurel Canyon (R, 2002), Frances McDormand proves she can swing with both groups. Laurel Canyon turns McDormand from the straight-laced mom of a rock journalist in Almost Famous into a rock 'n' roll sex kitten. She's still a mom—of Sam (Christian Bale)—but one who produces rock records, sleeps with the lead singer and smokes copious amounts of dope.

When the scholarly Sam and his fiancé Alex (Kate Beckinsale) arrive in Laurel Canyon, they find Jane (McDormand) in the middle of recording and smoking up with the band. The awkward mother-son relationship ensues. While Alex works on her dissertation and gets distracted by the rockin' in the studio, Sam starts his residence at a local hospital and befriends Sara (Natascha McElhone), a gorgeous second-year resident.

Written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, the film is slow at times, but the tension and intimacies that develop are fascinating. McDormand is frisky and bluntly sexual, but her concerns about aging lurk just beneath the surface.

Cholodenko's talent is her ability to write realistic stories and get complex performances from her actors. Her first film High Art(1998) was praised for its realism and a standout performance by Ally Sheedy as a heroin-addict photographer.

Less potent, however, is City By the Sea(R), McDormand's other film from 2002. Based on a true story, the film portrays the unfortunate life of New York detective Vincent LeMarca (Robert DeNiro), who grew up in the shadow of his father's crime and has paid for his sins through a failed marriage and nonexistent relationship with his son Joey (James Franco). McDormand is Michelle, Vincent's girlfriend and upstairs neighbor. Their relationship bears the weight of LeMarca's past when he learns his son may have killed a drug dealer. The cop attempts to bring Joey to justice, in the process trying to rectify some wrongs.

The story plods along, leaving the most interesting part of the film director Michael Caton-Jones' adoring shots of New York City. In contrast to Vincent's cozy apartment and Joey's ragged lifestyle, the cityscape shines like jewels, samples of a kind of glamour that real people rarely experience.

—Paige M. Travis

July 24, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 30
© 2000 Metro Pulse