Owen Gleiberman
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST Too much speculative ink has already been spilled over Mel Gibson's bloody Crucifixion saga. Could it actually be a powerful film? My mind is as open as my curiosity is large.
KILL BILL -- VOL. 2 Rumor has it that the sequel isn't just more of the same -- that it comes closer to the Quentin Tarantino who spun Pulp Fiction's narrative web.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE Jonathan Demme sounds like the ideal politically charged craftsman to stage a Denzel Washington remake of the 1962 assassination head-game thriller.
DOGVILLE Here's hoping that Lars von Trier breaks waves, not wind, in his Brechtian panorama.
ALEXANDER If anyone can bring off a world-of-the-ancients combat epic with imperial brains and style, it's Oliver Stone, who directs a blond Colin Farrell as the sexually ambiguous conqueror.
Lisa Schwarzbaum
SHREK 2 and SPIDER-MAN 2 My optimism is usually cut in half when the number 2 is added. But I'm hopeful that these can triumph over the enviable adversity of blockbuster success.
THE INCREDIBLES Whatever Pixar is doing, I want to be there.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE I'm primed for the remake, especially since Meryl Streep steps into the role in which Angela Lansbury once connived so chillingly -- divine political paranoia!
THE STEPFORD WIVES This remake, with a script by Paul Rudnick, will be either divinely subversive sociology or Isn't She Great-style arch preening.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST I don't know if ''looking forward to'' is the right phrase, but I want to see the movie for myself and tune out the noise surrounding it.
