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:

Freaky Friday (PG)
Disney updates its 1976 live-action comedy with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan starring as the mom and daughter who switch bodies for a day. They argue a lot and can't fathom seeing through the other's eyes—until a fortune cookie curse causes the big switcheroo. Mom gets a makeover and her chance to rock, and the kid has to fake her skills as a psychiatrist, but they learn to appreciate each others' lives.
Prediction: This latest version doesn't sink to the usual "Teens are cool. Parents are square" stereotypes, plus the actors are having loads of fun. The critics have been surprised and charmed, one calling the film, "like Face/Off without the excessive violence and the doves."

The Hard Word (R)
This violent Australian love story has Quentin Tarantino style with a noir sensibility. Inspired by Bonanza, writer/director Scott Roberts created the Twentymen brothers, a family of thugs who get sprung from prison to attempt one last job. Dale (Guy Pearce, Memento) leads the gang, while his wife Carol (Rachel Griffiths of HBO's Six Feet Under) has an affair with brother-in-law Frank (Robert Taylor). More twists and turns than The Usual Suspects.
Prediction: Although everyone agrees that Griffiths is mesmerizing, the film has received mixed reviews for being long, convoluted, and predictable. But Pearce and Griffiths are such good actors that fans of their work and the genre itself won't be disappointed.

Russian Ark (NR)
Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov started with an amazing idea: To shoot a 90-minute version of Russia's tumultuous history using hundreds of actors all inside the Hermitage museum. All in one take with a digital camera. And he pulled it off in a film that's a beautiful, dreamlike document of the museum's art and the country's past.
Prediction: You won't have to know much about Russian history to be fascinated by the concept and the resulting film.

S.W.A.T. (PG-13)
In the film based on the mid-'70s television show, Samuel L. Jackson stars as a S.W.A.T. team leader who must prepare new recruits LL Cool J, Michelle Rodriguez, and Colin Farrell (in the role originated by Robert Urich) to go up against a drug kingpin (Olivier Martinez) who offers $100 million to the crafty person who can break him outta jail.
Prediction: Cool music, impressive special effects, and Sam Jackson will play the same bad-ass dude he usually does.

Genre Bending

Takashi Miike puts American film directors to shame. Most of them manage to pull off a movie every year or two, if that. Not Miike. In 2002 alone, the Japanese director helmed seven films. The year before he directed seven more. If even a few of them are half as imaginative, engrossing, and downright brilliant as the two I recently viewed, Miike is a director to be reckoned with.

One need look no further than 2001's The Happiness of the Katakuris for proof. A remake of the Korean black comedy Quiet Family, Happiness imagines what might happen if John Irving and Harold and Maude writer Colin Higgins rewrote The Sound of Music, added claymation, and set the whole thing in Japan.

The Katakuris are a dysfunctional family with the dream of running an inn in the countryside. Unfortunately the inn attracts guests who have the odd habit of turning up dead by morning. The family fears the expired guests will ruin their new business, and set about burying the corpses in a grove behind the inn.

As is, the movie's setup is hilarious. Add a family who breaks into song and dance at whim, a con man impersonating a member of the English royal family, random claymation sequences, and singing cadavers, and what you get is a zany comedy abandoning any semblance of convention. Miike plays willy-nilly with genres, blending drama, horror, mystery, and even karaoke. But the film is also a touching family-friendly work that will make you feel good all over.

In contrast, Miike's Audition is downright disturbing. What first appears to be a romantic comedy ends up somewhere Hitchcock could only dream of. When middle-aged widower Aoyama decides to remarry, he and a director friend hold a fake movie audition to find a bride. Aoyama interviews 30 young women and falls hopelessly for Asami, a former ballet dancer with a suspicious past. Miike combines the ultra-violence of Tarantino and graphic novel writer Garth Ennis with the surrealistic dreamscapes of Lynch. What results is a hellish courtship that will give you second thoughts about ever blind dating again.

—Lloyd Babbit

August 7, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 32
© 2000 Metro Pulse