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:

Cat in the Hat (PG)
Two kids with nothing to do on a dreary day get a visit from the Cat in the Hat (Mike Myers), a clever, rhyming feline who encourages the kids to do things of questionable wisdom while their mother is out. Sean Hayes (Jack on Will & Grace) is the voice of the disapproving fish.
Prediction: It's creepy for grown people to dress up in furry costumes and freaky make-up and act out Dr. Seuss stories. But it's encouraging that the film earned a PG rating for "mild crude humor and some double-entendres." Sounds downright literary.

Gothika (R)
Criminal psychologist Dr. Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) is involved in a severe car accident after an encounter with a strange young girl. Miranda wakes up from the crash in the psychiatric ward of a penitentiary to discover that her husband has been murdered. With no memory of the night except for flashbacks of the girl, Miranda believes that she has been possessed and must solve the mystery behind her husband's gruesome death.
Prediction: Rain and lightning? Check. Eerie music? Check. Walking dead people? Double check. All elements are in place for Berry to deliver her finest performance since The Flintstones. Think The Silence of the Lambs meets The Sixth Sense—exactly the kind of movie that 13-year-old boys dream of sneaking into.

The Holy Land
Writer/director Eitan Gorlin's feature debut reflects the messy situation in Israel through a coming-of-age story. Young rabbinical student Mendy (Oren Rehany) becomes distracted from his studies by Sasha (Tchelet Semel), a 19-year-old Russian prostitute, and her clique of misfits hanging out in Jerusalem.
Prediction: Although Gorlin is working with the serious and intriguing issues of faith, politics and sex, his story never comes to any conclusions.

The Human Stain (R)
The life of respected college professor Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) is turned upside down when he's accused of racism, starts an affair with a cleaning lady (Nicole Kidman) and challenges her wild-eyed ex-husband (Ed Harris). This avalanche of unfortunate events serves to uncover the lie on which Silk has based his entire life. Based on the novel by Philip Roth.
Prediction: From the reviews, The Human Stain sounds a lot like many novels turned into films: great acting and scenery can't entirely make up for too many pieces not adding up to a satisfying whole.

Pieces of April (PG-13)
In an effort to mend rifts in her family (and salvage some relationship with her cancer-stricken mother), well-meaning bad girl April (Katie Holmes) invites them to her grungy New York apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. As the family caravans in an over-stuffed station wagon toward their dread—or surprise—April must find a working oven in which to cook the all-important turkey. Peter Hedges (What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and About A Boy) writes and directs.
Prediction: Holmes apparently has more tricks up her thespian sleeve than a crooked smile and sleepy gaze. Reviews peg the movie—shot on digital video—as a charming and unique family-tackles-the-holidays story.

Shattered Glass (R)
Based on the true story of 25-year-old Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen), freelance writer for Rolling Stone and staff writer for The New Republic, the film follows Glass as he breaks rules of journalism, inventing quotes, sources, and complete stories.
Prediction: Another argument that fact is more interesting than fiction, the cautionary tale of ethical journalism is more Showtime original movie than enlightening expose.

The Singing Detective (R)
Set in 1950s Los Angeles, Dan Dark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is a pulp fiction author who is hospitalized with a debilitating case of psoriasis. In a feverish state, he hallucinates about his failed marriage and career by envisioning himself in his novels as a detective that moonlights as a lounge singer.
Prediction: Downey, Jr. won the hearts of lonely, cat-owning women everywhere with his musical numbers on Ally McBeal, and rarely disappoints on screen. With nods at the Sundance Film Festival, the BBC mini-series-inspired Detective looks to be worthwhile film noir.

T for Blockbuster

Terminator III: Rise of the Machines (R, 2003) is a triumphant return for Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's easily his best since 1996's Eraser. While not as good as the first two, T3 is still a very solid action film. With a better supporting cast and James Cameron on board, this would have been a classic.

Veterinarian Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) discovers that, like John Connor (Nick Stahl), someone is trying to kill her. Not just any someone, but an evil T-X model Terminator, played by the statuesque model Kristanna Loken. Lucky for them, Arnold shows up to play a spirited round of defense in their high stakes game of human mortality. Complications arise as they attempt to stop SkyNet's launch and prevent a nuclear holocaust.

While Loken is attractive, she has very little screen presence. (Vin Diesel could have done so much more with the part). In the past Arnold had to battle Robert Patrick's unforgettable silent, relentless T-1000 and Michael Biehn's desperate presence in the original. The lack of a great villain is the weakest part of the film.

Director Jonathon Mostow gets credit for one of the greatest action sequences ever put on film. Connor is pursued by both Terminators, a platoon of riderless cars and a 100-ton construction crane on wheels that levels everything in its path, such as parked cars, telephone poles, small African nations and a gigantic glass facade of a multi-story building. This was a throwback to the films of the 1980s when they actually blew stuff up rather than resorting to computer trickery.

For more vintage Arnold, check out the sci-fi classic Total Recall (R, 1990). One of the most violent films ever made, Arnold is a man who orders virtual vacation memories of the planet Mars. An unexpected and harrowing series of events forces him to go to the planet for real and question everything from his sanity to reality itself.

Directed by Paul Verhoeven before he and co-star Sharon Stone did Basic Instinct, Total Recall stands as one of the top action films of the decade.

—Wes Bennett

November 20, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 47
© 2003 Metro Pulse