New wave singer Klaus Nomi looked like the product of a Japanese toy factory. A tiny, precision-built gnome, fashioned from points, lines, and triangles--spiked hair, bee-stung lips, exaggerated bow tie, stiletto boots, kabuki hand gestures--and starkly rendered in black-and-white (hinting at the expressionist innovations of his German ancestors). But when Nomi opened his mouth he was no joke, beguiling cynical, Reagan-era New Yorkers with faithful renditions of legit opera arias, sung in heartrending falsetto, as well as Marlene Dietrich and Lou Christie covers retooled to accentuate his outer-space persona.

Since few contemporary audiences got to see Nomi in his short-lived prime, director Andrew Horn includes ample performance footage--he practically upstages David Bowie on network TV--in this video valentine, underscoring the bizarre talents and charisma of this underrated cult figure. The filmmaker also shrewdly yet subtly rekindles the kitschy, let's-put-on-a-show aesthetic of Nomi's downtown NYC origins, shooting talking heads including actress Ann Magnuson, pop-art painter Kenny Scharff, and even a member of Twisted Sister (in one of the movie's most gut-wrenching moments), against what appear to be discarded backdrops from sci-fi sketches on The Muppet Show. Paper dolls model original Nomi show costumes; the singer's aging aunt, interviewed via audio only, is visually represented by a Polaroid picture posed in shoebox dioramas.

Like so many early casualties of the AIDS epidemic, Nomi's end came suddenly, and in seclusion. But for denouement of The Nomi Song, art imitates art--not life--juxtaposing hypnotic footage of Nomi performing in a grand, puffy-sleeved costume, accompanied by a full symphonic orchestra, as his final days are recounted by the colleagues he'd left behind in his stratospheric but too-short rise to fame. It's a fitting finale, worthy of any tragic heroine that ever strutted and soared at the Met or La Scala. KURT B. REIGHLEY

Melinda and Melinda
dir. Woody Allen
Opens Wed March 23.

It's funny that so many of Woody Allen's films revolve around fidelity. Not because of the pathetically sordid events of his own personal life, but because he has a fan base that remains steadfast and faithful. These are the people who will reflexively and devotedly hail his latest film, the tedious Melinda and Melinda, as a return to form. It's actually a return to two forms: the tragic and comic strands of romance and marital fidelity that the auteur has tirelessly (and often tiresomely) been threading over the course of his once-brilliant, ever-increasingly meaningless oeuvre.

In Melinda and Melinda, Allen separates the strands of tragedy and comedy into two parallel stories, both involving a woman named Melinda (played in both plotlines by Radha Mitchell). This isn't avant-gardism in the manner of a doppelganger, such as in the film The Double Life of Veronique. The bookending premise of the film is that two windbag playwrights are having dinner and contemplating their views of life--one tragic and one comic--which they then apply to a kernel of an anecdote told by another dinner guest. The framing device means that nothing much shown is truly at stake; it's two competing exercises in perspective taken to their mostly illogical conclusions. Melinda is presented as either a crazy harridan (with a frizzy perm) or a vapid neurotic (sleek bob), depending on the seesaw of dark and light. She is driven either to despair or to distraction. In the end, both storylines clamor to their respective unsatisfying conclusions (perms are always tragic). The playwrights congratulate themselves and wrap everything up with a cozy, clichéd lesson about life and art being a matter of perspective. The true lesson is that love conquers all, especially between a faithful audience and a stagnant filmmaker. NATE LIPPENS

In My Country
dir. John Boorman
Opens Fri March 25.

In My Country is about a black American journalist (Samuel L. Jackson) who visits South Africa to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings (between 1996 and 1998) for the Washington Post. He has an affair with a beautiful Afrikaner journalist (Juliette Binoche) who is covering the hearings for NPR. John Boorman is the director of this failed attempt to get to the heart of his long obsession: the nature of evil, which in In My Country takes the form of the Afrikaner male. In order to maintain apartheid, the Afrikaners utilized violence; but because violence has no boundaries, no limit, and is always out of control, the social system became an endless series of beatings, murders, and rapes. After the end of apartheid, the new South African government decided to offer amnesty to those who were part of this system of violence if they confronted the truth of their past actions. Boorman's movie is at its best when reenacting emotionally charged scenes from the hearings, and at its worst when trying to develop a romance between two very different people--a black American man who believes that all Afrikaners are guilty and should be punished, and a liberal Afrikaner woman who believes that, ultimately, black Africans will forgive white Africans and the country's wounds shall heal. But the flame lacks real desire and is altogether insignificant. What matters most are the hearings, the confessions of torture and murder, and the painfully difficult reconstruction of a great African nation that continues to be the subject of very bad Hollywood films. CHARLES MUDEDE

Walk on Water
dir. Eytan Fox
Opens Fri March 25.

During these days of predigested high concepts, slamming a movie for attempting too much seems wrong. Such, however, is very much the case with Walk on Water, the latest from the team of director Eytan Fox and screenwriter Gal Uchovsky (previously responsible for the same-sex soldiers in love SIFF fave Yossi & Jagger), which, despite an intriguing open-mindedness towards its potentially stock characters, ultimately bites off more than it can comfortably chew. The premise is pure Ludlum: A ruthless, grieving Mossad agent (Lior Ashkenazi) is assigned to track down and kill a long-vanished Nazi war criminal by getting close to his unsuspecting grandchildren as they tour the Holy Land. Give the filmmakers points for ambition, though, as they use their pulpish scenario as a springboard for a variety of seemingly disparate topics: nationalism, socio-political posturing, sexual identity, and a smattering of romantic comedy are just a few of the avenues explored, via a number of different languages and locations. While their scope is certainly admirable, somewhat less impressive is the way that they seem increasingly uninterested in resolving the framework they've established, wrapping up the spy saga with a noticeably lame finale. Still, what lingers past the clutter are the number of unexpected character moments, in which the director's naturalistic touch with actors is allowed to shine. For a film to tackle such a crazy quilt of ideas is perhaps certifiable. That it almost pulls it off is borderline miraculous. ANDREW WRIGHT

Miss Congeniality 2
dir. John Pasquin
Opens Fri March 25.

I never saw Miss Congeniality ONE. I don't think it really matters, though, because I was able to catch up with the story by reading the back of the box at the video store. It goes something like this: An awkward and homely FBI agent is forced to enter herself into a beauty pageant because some terrorist shit is goin' down. Of course she solves the case, wins over the heart of every American, and learns a huge lesson about herself. She also snags a dreamy hunk of a boyfriend. Aww! I love happy endings!

In Miss Congeniality 2, though, her fame precedes her and starts to play a negative role in her career. Around the same time, her dreamy hunk of a boyfriend also decides Miss Pushyjeans is moving too quickly and he can't take anymore of her stupid snorting laugh. He freaks out and dumps her.

Like every woman would in this situation, she decides to get as hot as possible to make him regret it. So she gets a stylist, starts wearing far too much make-up, and leaves her undercover days behind to become the public face of the FBI. Everyone loves the underdog and everyone loves a beauty queen, and the geeky snortasaurus rex is both of those things! Perfect! Anyway, William Shatner and an annoying prude with a crown get kidnapped and held on a $5 million ransom. So Bullock and her sassy bodyguard with anger-management issues start interfering with the case and ultimately save the day by feeling up Dolly Parton and dressing like Tina Turner. Seriously. Man, it sucks. MEGAN SELING