Adam Sandler

REIGN OVER ME Sony Pictures / $28.95 In Reign Over Me, Adam Sandler delivers a performance of a man turned inward by his grief that is brilliant, corrosive -- and utterly mesmerizing. MASTERPIECE THEATRE: THE BRONTE COLLECTION WGBH Boston / $39.95 There is a rampant sexual energy in the writings of those two unruly Victorian sisters, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, that runs through the made-for-television versions of their two greatest works, respectively Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Up . . ( 4 STARS) If you haven't seen it, make sure you see it for the first time in a theater. The genius bar at Pixar has crafted this seriocomic fable about a 78-year-old widower who recaptures his zest for life with the help of a 9-year-old-boy as an old-fashioned sweeping adventure with inventive contemporary twists. In this 70th anniversary year, no film out today better captures the spirit of Hollywood movies circa 1939. Opening next Friday Aliens In The Attic : (20th Century Fox)

1 'Happy Gilmore': Adam Sandler trades in his hockey stick for golf clubs and gets beaten up by Bob Barker. Great start to your Sunday viewing (2 p.m., USA). 2 Baltimore's team?: Grab some friends and cowboy gear. Then line-dance your way around the tube and root for the Cowboys to rope the Steelers (4:15 p.m., chs. 45, 5). 3 Mids get a test: The streaking Navy men (7-1) step into ACC basketball competition vs. Virginia Tech in the BB&T Classic at Verizon Center (5 p.m., MASN). 4 By George: First Georgetown, now George Washington.

How many times can the high-school-musical narrative be retold and replayed? The ABC newsmagazine 20/20 takes a whack at this evergreen tonight with "Drama High: The Making of a High School Musical," which offers a backstage look at the making of a production of The Wiz at a high school in Virginia. There is no shortage of energy, excitement, hope and heartbreak as more than 100 students try out for four openings in the cast. I love this story, and it is one of the most durable in American popular culture.

"Happy Gilmore" has one good idea, and it generates laughs for about an hour. Unfortunately, there's still a half-hour left in the movie.The idea: a hockey mentality in a golf body. Happy, played by former "Saturday Night Live" Operaman Adam Sandler at a high pitch of adolescent fury, never really learned to skate, but boy, does he have a slap shot. Failing miserably on the ice, he bumbles onto a golf course, where his slap-shot muscles enable him to whack a golf ball 450 yards without a slice (yeah, right)

Adam Sandler plays a nice guy and Jack Nicholson an offbeat therapist who teaches him how to become a two-fisted nice guy in Anger Management, a movie with a plot so flimsy and laughs so scattered it should send all concerned toward Career Guidance. They gave Sandler a cute job as an executive assistant in a pet products company, an endearing assortment of ticks, like skittishness over penis size and the inability to smooch in public, and a smart, adorable, poetry-writing girlfriend (Marisa Tomei)

Have the movie studios forgotten how to market good, heartfelt dramas? Two of the best films this year, Mike Binder's Reign Over Me and Mia Nair's The Namesake, have been met with general disinterest at the U.S. box office. Reign Over Me, even with Adam Sandler in the cast, has taken in less than $20 million, while The Namesake has brought in less than half that. Both are examples of the kind of film people insist Hollywood doesn't make anymore: dramas where the conflict is between people and ideas; where emotions are honestly portrayed with a minimum of pyrotechnics; where sex and violence are secondary (if present at all)

The Simpsons spin-off Futurama may still be canceled, but the cult favorite has found a new life as a series of direct-to-DVD movies. Tonight, Comedy Central returns the gang to TV as it re-airs the first Futurama feature, Bender's Big Score. The film picks up where the show left off, with a sly reference to being canceled (Fox dumped it in 2003 after four years of monkeying with its time slot). Fry and the gang are charged with making a delivery to "the Nude Beach Planet," where characters' naughty bits are cleverly covered.

Along with the tabloid coverage and lawsuits, the best thing about being notorious has got to be doing movie cameos. It's easy work, and besides, when someone's tainted reputation precedes him or her, it's hard to be accepted as another character anyway.There are exceptions, of course. Take debutante turned revolutionary turned socialite Patty Hearst, currently in John Waters' "Pecker." She started out as a novelty cameo diva for Waters, but has managed to parlay it into an actual career.