Big Trouble, Chop Suey, High Crimes, National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Son of the Bride, Y Tu Mama Tambien

Aberdeen
A new twist on the roadtrip/buddy genre: a father-daughter junkshow hit the road in Norway and try to get to the mother's deathbed in Scotland. There's a fierce chemistry between the father, the big drunk Tomas (Stellan Skarsgard) and his coltish, cocaine-addicted daughter Kaisa (Lena Headey), as they snarl at each other, impose their bad humor on a kind stranger (the cute cute cute Ian Hart), and generally behave very badly on their way back to watch Helen (Charlotte Rampling, beautiful like a holy woman) die. Although Aberdeen relies overmuch on certain TV-movie tropes, there is no easy epiphany, and goodness is hard-won--and God help you, you begin to care. (EMILY HALL) Grand Illusion

* Adventure Divas New Zealand: Stroppy Shielas & Mana Wahines
A screening of the new episode in the "Adventure Divas" current series about New Zealand. This local independent production company founded by Holly Morris, formerly of Seal Press, has created excellent programs about Iran, Cuba, and Iran. In the New Zealand series, Morris interviews a Maori pop singer and prime minister Helen Clark, and hunts down the elusive Keri Hulme, author of The Bone People. It mixes the travel and biography genres to create something original and smart. REI

AFRICAN CINEMA NOW
This week: Faraw! Mother of the Dunes. Seattle Art Museum

Big Bad Love
Arliss Howard's film debut is based on the short stories of Mississippi writer Larry Brown. Howard plays Leon Barlow, a Vietnam veteran with a drinking problem, and an aspiring writer with a blizzard of rejection letters. In her return to the silver screen, Debra Winger, who is Howard's real-life wife and the film's producer, plays his beleaguered ex-wife Marilyn. The film is overripe with magical-realist whimsy that upends the lean lyricism of Brown's stories. The relentless fades and cuts are supposed to imbue the roil of creativity, imagination, and alcoholism, but after a while become just annoying, like a drunk. Winger's performance is passionate and layered, but ultimately it's Howard's antihero and his self-indulgence that remains the focus and quickly grows tiresome. (NATE LIPPENS) Varsity

Clockstoppers
A teenager accidentally activates a machine that enables him to make time stand still. So did the director when he picked up a camera. Factoria, Meridian 16, Oak Tree

Death to Smoochy
Danny DeVito directs this dark comedy about fictional children's TV icon Smoochy, a purple rhino (note to Jerry Falwell: Purple Rhino--that's the butch version of a Teletubby). Disgraced comedian Robin Williams plays disgraced kids' show star Rainbow Randolph (Jerry...). The only bright spot: the lovely and sardonic Catherine Keener, who we hope was paid very well. Varsity

* Hedwig and the Angry Inch
With its charming pop-art magical realism, cinematic flashbacks, and the ability to present intimate documentary-style footage of Hedwig's misfit band on tour with their charlatan business manager (an excellent character addition), the movie version of Hedwig emphasizes the rich plot far better than the stage version did. (JOSH FEIT) Egyptian

The Panic Room
Reviewed this issue. David Fincher, the director of Se7en, scares the bejesus out of Jodie Foster. Reviewed this issue. Neptune

The POUND ON FILM
Ten local artists were each given one roll of super-8 film and the topic of candy to create a three-minute short. That's 30 minutes of DIY treats. Director Kim Beecroft's Sex Ray, about horny housewives, will also be screened. Pound Gallery

The Rookie
In The Rookie, Dennis Quaid and Disney bring to the screen the real-life story of a baseball player-turned Texas high-school science teacher-turned baseball player. (SONIA RUIZ) Metro

SHORT FILM NIGHT
Laurel and Hardy in Double Whoopie, Midnight Patrol, and Tit For Tat. Sit & Spin

* Trembling before G-d
See Stranger Suggests. A thoughtful documentary on gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews. Metro

TWO SILENT OZ FILMS
The Magic Cloak of Oz and The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Hokum Hall

* VISUAL MUSIC FESTIVAL
This week: An Evening With Ted Joans, Kinetica 3: "Bardo" and Contemporary Visual Music, Free Radicals: The Films of Len Lye, What Now? New Works throughout the week at the Little Theatre. The festival closes with Bruce Connor: Visual Music from the Permian Age at the EMP on Wednesday April 3. See Stranger Suggests. JBL Theater at EMP, Little Theatre

40 Days & 40 Nights
Josh Hartnett may be a hunk, but said hunkiness is not nearly enough to save 40 Days & 40 Nights, the latest example from director Michael Lehmann to prove that, Heathers aside, he is a complete hack. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center

All About the Benjamins
Ice Cube plays a bounty hunter in Miami who repeatedly chases down a small-time crook played by Mike Epps. They stumble upon a $20 million diamond heist and team up to get the loot. (BRIAN GOEDDE) Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11

American Adobo
Five Filipino best friends look for love in New York City with an Eat Drink Man Woman overtone. Metro

A Beautiful Mind
Stories about the insane are an inherent paradox. Because for a story to be compelling, it has to have rules, and an inner logic, whereas mental illness doesn't have rules, and treats logic as just another way of seeing. In the case of John Nash (Russell Crowe), the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician who suffered from schizophrenia, there is the added irony that a man of quantitative genius could lose all control of quantitative reality. With a deft directorial touch, the paradox of Nash's world could really come to life. But that would take more of a talent than Ron Howard. (MICHAEL SHILLING) Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

Black Hawk Down
As a filmmaker, Ridley Scott is an ad man forever in search of a product to sell. Like any good shill, this director can't be bothered to let messy details like politics, reason, or history overcomplicate his pitch. (SEAN NELSON) Meridian 16, Northgate

Blade II: Bloodhunt
This sequel to the 1998 original stars Wesley Snipes as human/vampire warrior Blade, based on the Marvel Comics character. It's not the particulars or the plot that matters of course. It's the great special effects, and Snipes looking all hot and threatening. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12

Dragonfly
A "supernatural thriller" that recedes from memory faster than Kevin Costner's hairline. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Meridian 16

E.T. (20th Anniversary)
Reviewed this issue. Cinerama, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Woodinville 12

* Gosford Park
Set in 1932, Gosford Park is a meta-mystery, meaning the setting, figures, and tropes of a murder mystery form the frame for the real concern (or concerns): class and gender rivalries; the rise of mass entertainment; and the dark history of the industrial revolution and British imperialism. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Aurora Cinema Grill, Majestic Bay, Pacific Place 11, Seven Gables

Happenstance
That oh-so-dazzling urban urchin, Audrey Tautou, is once again caught up in an intricate web of fateful occurrences on her way to finding true love. (TAMARA PARIS) Broadway Market

Harrison's Flowers
One of the many sad consequences of the brutal war in the former Yugoslavia has been the steady succession of bad films that have attempted to address it. Harrison's Flowers is the latest addition to this sorry list. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

I Drink Your Blood
This 1970 film features a band of Satanist hippies who terrorize the salt-of-the-earth locals. Grand Illusion

Ice Age
The recent boom in computer animation bodes well for the next generation, as their childhoods will hopefully not be squandered on lame-ass 2-D Disney musicals. Ice Age is littered with enough sophisticated jokes to entertain the adults, but is really nothing more than a fast-paced, shimmering toy for kids. Which is just the way it should be. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Majestic Bay, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12

* In the Bedroom
This langorous, beautifully acted film about erotic and familial entanglements in a small Maine fishing town one summer builds up to three moments of utter emotional brutality so severe that the long moments in between them thrum like high tension wires. (SEAN NELSON) Metro, Uptown

Iris
The brilliant British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench, Kate Winslet), a woman who lives most decidedly in the world of ideas, succumbs to the dementia of Alzheimer's, "sailing into darkness" as she so rightly puts it. (EMILY HALL) Broadway Market, Metro

* Italian for Beginners
The characters of Italian for Beginners begin in a state of despair. This being a romantic comedy, their lives begin to intersect through a series of coincidences--coincidences that could feel contrived, but due to the rough integrity of the script, performances, and direction (shaped in part by the monastic rigors of the Dogme 95 ethic), they feel like the organic waywardness of life. (BRET FETZER) Harvard Exit

Kissing Jessica Stein
Three things are readily apparent within the first 10 minutes of Kissing Jessica Stein: Though the film ostensibly is about two straight women who decide to go lesbo and fall in love, Jessica Stein will end up with the guy she currently despises. Also, despite both women taking a freshman crack at the girl-girl thing, one is clearly more invested in the concept than the other. Finally, the too-close camera shots, the emphasis on fast, witty banter, and the overacting will be a niggling annoyance throughout the film. (KATHLEEN WILSON) Guild 45th

Lantana
A lantana is a pretty pink flower. Lantana the film is a bud that never blooms. The long, slow film opens with a dead body and ends with a couple dancing, and in between are 120 minutes of middle-aged people living miserably. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Broadway Market

Last Orders
The talents of six of the finest British actors alive are squandered by this moist little movie about a journey to deliver a dead man's ashes to the seaside. (SEAN NELSON) Guild 45th

Monsoon Wedding
Within the patchwork of marriage melodrama, Monsoon Wedding presents a subversive argument about the insidiousness of progress and its fluid relationship with tradition. Of course, it all comes out right in the end, but in getting to its satisfying resolution, it passes through so many uncomfortable revelations and unthinkable confrontations that it almost feels like watching history unfold. (SEAN NELSON) Harvard Exit, Redmond Town Center

Monster's Ball
Monstrous Balls is more like it. Hank is a racist prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton, perfect), son of a retired racist prison guard (Peter Boyle, who doesn't even try an accent), and father of a young, non-racist prison guard (Heath Ledger, who tries his hardest) in a Georgia State Penitentiary death row. Hank falls into a desperate affair with Leticia (Halle Berry, semi-plausible), a black woman, after both of their sons die. (SEAN NELSON) Meridian 16, Metro

* No Man's Land
War is--guess what?--hell in this story of the Bosnia-Serbia conflict, circa 1993. Surrounded by UN "peacekeepers," clumsy media vultures, and their warring rival factions, two soldiers cross into the zone between the bullets and clash about the war's origins and costs. (SEAN NELSON) Broadway Market

Resident Evil
If you're going to be foolish enough to make a movie out of a video game, this here is the way to do it. If you're a fan of the game, go see it. If you find yourself ridiculously baked, go see it. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

Scratch
Doug Pray, who directed the grunge documentary Hype!, wants to restore this early hiphop order ruined by the spectacular success of the rapper. The DJs interviewed in Scratch (Jazzy Jay, DJ Premier, DJ Q-Bert, and so on) consistently express ethics that are defined by an almost Buddhist-like selflessness in the service of hiphop art. The MC is corrupt; the DJ is faithful. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Broadway Market

Showtime
Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro star in this unlikely-buddy-cop film that satirizes reality cop shows on TV. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Varsity, Woodinville 12

* The Son's Room
Directed by and starring Nanni Moretti, this film tells the story of Giovanni, an Italian psychiatrist, and his family, as they struggle in the wake of a horrible tragedy. It's a heart wrenching drama that focuses on the finely tuned performances of Moretti and his wife, played by Laura Morante. (NATE LIPPENS) Uptown

Sorority Boys
To save money three frat boys go undercover in drag at a sorority. It's Bosom Buddies with nudity featuring the heartthrob without a pulse from Seventh Heaven. Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

The Time Machine
Guy Pearce and his cheekbones star in this update of the H.G. Wells sci-fi landmark. Factoria, Majestic Bay, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

* Trouble Every Day
Shane (Vincent Gallo) flies to Paris for his honeymoon with his wife June (Tricia Vessey). Once in Paris, Shane starts to search for his double: a black doctor by the name of Léo (the great Alex Descas). Leo's wife, Coré (Béatrice Dalle), is a highway vampire who lures men from the safety of their trucks and automobiles, and eats them alive during sex. What is disturbing about this film is not the two controversial gore/porn sequences, which will inevitably split critics' and audiences' opinions of the film, but the fact that it is about a nightmare that essentially has no dreamer. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Reviewed this issue. Varsity

We Were Soldiers
Scrawny little bastard Mel Gibson stars in this jingoistic turd of a Vietnam War film. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12