By Times Staff Writer
Published September 18, 2003
Anger Management
DIRECTOR: Peter Segal
CAST: Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler, Marisa Tomei, Lynne Thigpen, John C. Reilly, John Turturro, Kevin Nealon
SYNOPSIS: Sandler plays Dave Buznik, a guy who is sentenced to anger management therapy he doesn't need but gradually will as he deals with the wacky psychologist (Nicholson) who's supposed to cure him but instead goads him for the fun of it.
WHAT WE SAID: Times film critic Steve Persall gave Anger Management a B-, writing: "Segal turns his movie into a block party with too many people trying to wear lampshades for anyone to have a chance to be funny. Except, of course, Nicholson and Sandler. This is a movie match made in hysteria, with Nicholson's devilish mugging competing against Sandler's man-child mumbling for the biggest laughs in the film."
MPAA RATING: PG-13, profanity, crude sexual content
RUNNING TIME: 110 min.
Confidence
DIRECTOR: James Foley
CAST: Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Donal Logue, Luis Guzman
SYNOPSIS: A young, attractive con man (Burns) inadvertently takes money from a powerful older criminal (Hoffman), then works with him to try to con someone else out of even more. Much like The Sting.
WHAT WE SAID: Times correspondent Marty Clear gave Confidence a B. "Given that he's treading such familiar territory, director James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross) does a pretty good job of keeping Confidence lively. . . . It helps that Foley has assembled a cast packed with hot young stars (Burns, Weisz), wizened veterans (Hoffman, Garcia) and I've-seen-that-guy-before character actors (Giamatti, Guzman).
MPAA RATING: R; language, violence and sexuality/nudity
RUNNING TIME: 98 min.
TV on DVD
Soap, The Complete First Season
CAST: Billy Crystal, Katherine Helmond, Diana Canova, Richard Mulligan, Robert Guillaume
SYNOPSIS: Soap, which ran from 1977-81, was one of the most talked-about TV shows of its time, featuring Billy Crystal as prime-time TV's first openly gay character. A parody of soap operas, the show told the never-ending saga of sisters Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell and their families, which included sassy butlers, a war hero who thinks it's still the 1940s and a husband who claims to have been abducted by aliens. The three-disc set includes 25 episodes.
