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:

Bright Young Things (R)
Stephen Fry makes his directorial debut with this adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, a mad dash through London society of the 1930s. Wit and wackiness abound from a cast of young talent—Emily Mortimer, Stephen Campbell Moore and James McAvoy—plus old hats like Stockard Channing, Jim Broadbent and Richard E. Grant.
Now Showing: Downtown West

Criminal (R)
A remake of the 2000 Argentine hit Nine Queens, this who’s-conning-whom story is filled with clever plot twists, gritty dialogue and endless deception as veteran grifter Richard (John C. Reilly) teams up with clean-cut, quick-change artist Rodrigo (Diego Luna) in order to swindle three-quarters of million dollars out from under rare stamp collector and billionaire William Harrigan (Peter Mullan).
Now Showing: Downtown West

A Dirty Shame (NC-17)
John Waters’ latest stars Tracey Ullman as Sylvia, a prudish convenience store clerk who suffers a concussion and turns into a lustful beast, confusing her community and her husband (Chris Isaak). Selma Blair dons a frizzy wig and gargantuan fake breasts to play their go-go dancer daughter Caprice, whose stage name is Ursula Udders.
Now Showing: Downtown West

First Daughter (PG)
The light-hearted, romantic tale of college student Samantha (Katie Holmes) and her “resident advisor” love interest (Marc Blucas) who, unknown to Samantha, is really a Secret Service agent assigned to protect her. Did we mention the freshman’s overprotective father just happens to be the President of the United States (Michael Keaton)?
Now Showing: Carmike 10, West Town Mall, Farragut Towne Square, Foothills 12, Tinseltown USA

The Forgotten (PG-13)
Telly Paretta (Julianne Moore) is a mother coping with the horrible grief over the sudden disappearance of her son. The suspense/thriller takes off when various government counselors try to convince the desperate mother that her son was nothing but a fabricated memory and to continue searching for him would prove futile. Not convinced, she hooks up with a frantic father who is also being spoon-fed the same scandalous lies and, together they attempt to discover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances.
Now Showing: Carmike 10, West Town Mall, Farragut Towne Square, Foothills 12, Tinseltown USA, Halls Cinema 7

Shaun of the Dead (R)
Nothing will get an aimless 29-year-old off his slacker ass like an onslaught of ravenous killer zombies. Shaun (Simon Pegg) and his roommate Ed (Nick Frost) pick up shovels and cricket bats to crack some undead heads. Will saving London from ghoulies help Shaun win back his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield)?
Now Showing: Downtown West

It All Ends

Shortly after he learns he has terminal stomach cancer, Kanji Watanabe heads out for a night on the town with a stranger, trying desperately to embrace some of the life he’s frittered away.

A pencil-pushing bureaucrat, he winds up drunk in a smoky jazz club, where he requests an old tune, “Life Is Brief.” As the piano player plays Watanabe sings along: “Life is brief/ Fall in love maidens/ before your raven tresses/ begin to fade/ before the flames in your hearts/ flicker and die/ for those to whom/ today will never return.”

The focus of Ikiru—the 1952 movie by Akira Kurosawa—is whether meaning can be salvaged from a wasted life. It’s told in two parts, first from the perspective of Watanabe (played with restraint by Takashi Shimura), then from those whose Watanabe’s death has touched. It’s a sad movie that retains hope without drifting into melodrama or maudlin, feel-good platitudes.

Touching the Void is a very different kind of movie, but one that also examines how people confront the end. It’s a documentary about two British mountain climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who scaled the 21,000-foot Siula Grande in Peru. On the way down, Simpson shatters his leg and what follows has become legendary in mountain climbing circles. Yates attempted to lower his friend down the mountain in stages, but as a blizzard hit, he unknowingly drops Simpson over a cliff, where he dangled for a couple of hours as Yates tried to hold on. When he no longer could, he cuts the rope holding his friend, sending him down into a crevasse. As close to death as any of us get and still live, Simpson spends the next several days crawling back to the living.

Interspersed with stunning footage of the mountains, Simpson and Yates tell their story—which is so incredible and told with such emotional articulation that it rises above all the clichés of the wilderness survival genre.

In either case, you’ll think about how you’ll meet your own end, but also how you’re spending your life.

—Joe Tarr

September 23, 2004 * Vol. 14, No. 39
© 2003 Metro Pulse