Another World is Possible
A screening presented by Dyke Community Activists, the Seattle-produced Another World is Possible documents this year's Brazilian World Social Forum, a massive convergence of nations virtually ignored by the United States. Also screening is Mulukuku: Women Organized for Health and Dignity, a documentary regarding a rural Nicaraguan co-op triumphing over government oppression to bring much needed medical support to their community. 911 Media Center, Sun at 6:30 pm.
The Apparent Trap
Two shorts that recontextualize pop culture. The Apparent Trap is a murky act of will which combines images from the like-titled Disney film about twins with creepy matching footage of grown-up lesbians at a David Lynchian summer camp. It's the kind of film where they superimpose phrases like "every negation is first an admission" all over the place. I think it's about gender issues or some shit. Gone fares better, if only because the source material (PBS' An American Family) lends itself more easily to the contemporary world, in this case, a room at the Chelsea Hotel, where a dykey underground journalist comes out to her boozh mom over a Le Tigre soundtrack. (SEAN NELSON) Consolidated Works
Bio Zombie
George Romero meets a modern Hong Kong shopping mall as a whole mess of flesh-eating zombies take on a band of captive mall employees with names like Woody Invincible, Crazy Bee, and Sushi Boy. In Cantonese with English subtitles. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat at 11 pm.
* The Birds
Alfred Hitchcock's 1962 classic, starring Tippi Hedren as the most hated woman in the avian universe. Grand Illusion, Fri-Thurs at 6 pm, 8:30 pm.
Dada Cinema
"It is the spectators who make the pictures." Rendezvous, Wed at 7:30 pm.
The Daddy of Rock and Roll
See review this issue. JBL Theater, Wed at 7 pm, 8:45 pm.
* Dog Soldiers
Soldiers on a training exercise run across some blood stains where a squad of special-ops forces used to be, and embark on a mission to find out what exactly wiped them out. As it happens, the answer is werewolves. This smart and scary horror film has as much respect for the werewolf genre as it does for the military, which is a rare combination. (ANDY SPLETZER) Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat at 7 pm, 9 pm.
* How's Your News
See review this issue. Little Theatre, Thurs-Sun at 7 pm, 9 pm.
KUROSAWA & MIFUNE Festival
See review this issue. An entire week of "graceful macho" cinema, devoted to the collaboration of two Japanese greats: Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Series includes The Seven Samurai, Kurosawa's compelling version of a "Western." Varsity, see Movie Times for dates and times.
* Night of the Hunter
"I feel clean now. My whole body's just a-quivering with cleanness!" Sunset Tavern, Mon at 8 pm.
* Princess Mononoke
As anyone who's seen a Hayao Miyazaki film will attest, the story you follow is secondary to the sights you behold, which make a better plea for ecological sanity than the sometimes heavy-handed script. (Bruce Reid) Egyptian, Fri-Sat at Midnight.
SEATTLE HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL 2002
Not for the blissfully ignorant or the faint of heart. This series of political and often disturbing films runs the gamut of human rights issues, examining violence, hardship, and struggle all over the world while you plant your ass in a soft, plush theater seat. 911 Media Arts Center, Frye Art Museum, Grand Illusion, see 911media.org for specific information.
SNEAK
After six years of success in the Bay Area as the Camera Cinema Club, this film preview series returns as "Sneak" in Seattle. For more information check out the website www.sneakfilms.com. Pacific Place, Sun at 10 pm.
NOW PLAYING
8 Mile
See review this issue. Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Neptune, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center, Woodiville 12
* 8 Women
On the surface, jealousy is the combative common ground the film's eight women share in the home of a murdered man--who is a husband, a father, a brother, a son-in-law, and a philanderer in relation to the various characters. The women candidly sing and dance to their inner feelings, while hiding away their jealousies or hurling bold suspicions at one another. (KATHLEEN WILSON)
Abandon
A suggestion for a better title: "Inept." A rich student at some unnamed East Coast college went missing two years ago, and is suspected to be dead. A local cop (Bratt) is assigned to figure things out, and the trail leads him to the missing student's former girlfriend (Holmes). But wait! Maybe the missing student has returned? And maybe he's really a murderer? Whatever. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Auto Focus
Auto Focus is a monument to everything rotten in so-called "bio-pics" today; it is based on nothing but rumor and innuendo. It is not the true story of Bob Crane's life. Period. (SCOTTY CRANE)
The Banger Sisters
Goldie Hawn plays an aging groupie in this cloyingpiece of false, middlebrow claptrap. (SEAN NELSON)
The Barbershop
Starring two popular rappers, Ice Cube and Eve, Barbershop is about a young man (Ice Cube) who reluctantly runs a barbershop he inherited from his recently departed father. The best part in the movie concerns the scientific difference between good booty and bad booty. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Bloody Sunday
A faux-documentary account of January 30, 1972, when British troops fired on Northern Irish civilians, killing 13 people and wounding 14 others. With its gag-making handheld camera and its austerely non-acting Irish actors, Bloody Sunday tries to suggest that it's a serious moral inquiry. How can we tell it's not? Because one side is all good and the other is Eeee-vil (George W. Bush please take note). (BARLEY BLAIR)
* The Bourne Identity
I'll be hornswaggled if The Bourne Identity isn't a tight, satisfying exponent of its genre. (SEAN NELSON)
Bowling For Columbine
For a while, Moore seems on to something--a culture of fear endemic to our country--but in the end, he shortchanges the psychological complexity in favor of cheap shots. He wants to say something great, but ultimately doesn't. Can't, maybe. Because he isn't really a social critic, he's a demagogue. (SEAN NELSON)
Brown Sugar
Hollywood's first hiphop romance, Brown Sugar is fucking filled with rappers, who are on the whole bloated and boring. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Comedian
The reason this documentary will stand as a work of greatness for decades to come is simple: It absolutely nails the psychology of the standup comic, the most narcissistic, petty, self-obsessed, hateful, and bitter breed of entertainer known to mankind. (SEAN NELSON)
* The Fast Runner
The filmmakers have lovingly reconstructed every detail of prehistoric Inuit culture. (MATT FONTAINE)
Femme Fatale
See review this issue. Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12
Formula 51
This movie has a little bit of everything: its bad ass comes from blaxploitation (Samuel Jackson); its pace and action from Hong Kong cinema (director Ronny Yu); its object of desire from La Femme Nikita (Emily Mortimer); and comedy/sidekick from lad films (Robert Carlyle). The result is utter rubbish. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Frida
Frida is yet another artist's story that has been stripped of nuance and turned into a paean to something indiscriminately called "living," here with requisite Latin heat and groaning tables of erotically charged food. (EMILY HALL)
Ghost Ship
A haunted old 1953 cruiseliner in the Bering Sea is the setting for this plot-weak but gory-effects-heavy horror flick, in which ghosts, carnage, and surprise twists keep you on the edge of your seat. (AMY JENNIGES)
* Heaven
Written by Krzysztof Kieslowski (director of the Three Colors trilogy) and directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Heaven begins with an English schoolteacher, Cate Blanchett, attempting to assassinate a notorious drug dealer with a bomb. The terrorist is captured, and during the interrogation a young Italian police officer, Giovanni Ribisi (who is actually great in this film), instantly falls in love with her. The terrorist eventual falls in love with the police officer. Both accept their fate, escape from the police station, and dreamily drift to the blue nothingness of the end. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
I-Spy
Almost proof that chemistry can trump originality. Almost. An update of the '60s TV show, I-Spy slaps the brilliance of Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson together and places them in a creaky, fairly inane plot. There are explosions, fights, and an invisible military jet (no, really), but what makes the flick tolerable is the humor of its stars. Murphy and Wilson's talents are wasted here, to be sure, but what little breathing room is given proves superduper entertaining. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Jackass: The Movie
Jackass is a perfect film. (SEAN NELSON)
Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie
The computer-animated version of the pamphlets you find at bus stops.
Knockaround Guys
The story of four young associates of La Cosa Nostra lost in a small Montana town, looking for a suitcase of money gone missing, Knockaround Guys has nothing original to offer in matters of plot or themes. (MICHAEL SHILLING)
Lilo & Stitch
Lilo is the studio's best since Aladdin, and it's a tad less racist, too. (ANNIE WAGNER)
* Moonlight Mile
I know this film looks like a sappy weeper, and it kind of is, but as a story of bereavement, commitment, and coming of age (and finding the limits of each), it is also funny, smart, and exquisitely well acted by Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, and Jake Gyllenhaal. (SEAN NELSON)
Mostly Martha
Sandra Nettelbeck's German production is much less crude than the escapist "foreign" fantasies American audiences have become accustomed to. (ANNIE WAGNER)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
This romantic comedy is based on the one-woman show of Second City alumna Nia Vardalos, who also directs the story of 30-year-old Toula who searches for love and self-realization.
* Naqoyqatsi
The long-awaited third chapter of his "life" trilogy, Godfrey Reggio's Naqoyqatsi examines life in war, or more generally, life as a constant battle between the warring impulses of consumption and conservation, technology and humanity, civilization and earth. (SEAN NELSON)
* Paid In Full
Based on a true story, Paid in Full paints a vivid and sincere portrait of the lives and times of a group of teenage Harlem drug lords in the early '80s. The film preaches against drug culture by using humanity in place of sensationalism or fear, and unlike Blow or Traffic, it works. (MEG VAN HUYGEN)
Pokémon 4ever
The fourth (4ever, get it?) Pokémon film.
Punch-Drunk Love
Starring Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Punch-Drunk Love is a confused story--not confusing to the audience, but confused within itself. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Real Women Have Curves
See review this issue. Harvard Exit.
* Red Dragon
Clunky and breathtakingly unoriginal, Brett Ratner's film is an absolute paint-by-numbers affair. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Ring
There are a few jumps here and there, along with one startling image near the end involving a TV, but for the most part The Ring just sorta trudges along, rarely surprising, often befuddling. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Roger Dodger
Directed by first-timer Dylan Kidd, Roger Dodger is all shaky handheld blundering, but Scott keeps the film afloat, paddling furiously through his lines and the marginally fleshed-out storyline. His efforts alone make the flick a worthwhile endeavor. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Santa Clause 2
The most unnecessary sequel since Silent Night, Deadly Night 4.
* Secretary
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, a slightly retarded nymphet secretary just released from a loony house, who develops a subversive relationship with her employer, played by James Spader. Part of Secretary's singular quality is that the heroine's problem is never resolved. She entrenches herself deeper and deeper in her "sick" dependency, and ultimately, it becomes her virtue. (MEG VAN HUYGEN)
* Singin' in the Rain
See Stranger Suggests. Cinerama
Spirited Away
In spite of its conspicuous cute deficiency, Spirited Away is by all means a striking visual composition--just make sure you're not drowsy going in. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Sweet Home Alabama
A lesson that's already been taught in one hackneyed comedy after another--namely, that poor white Southern folk are fat, dumb, and wear Jaclyn Smith, but the boys are hot and they ain't as stupid as city folk think, 'cause they have heart. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
The Transporter
You see, there's this kinda shady guy, who's British but is a master of Kung Fu, and his job is to transport materials. This other guy, who's American, hires him to transport something and it turns out to be a really hot Chinese woman. And then, all hell breaks loose--not spectacular hell, but more of a muddling, dimwitted hell. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* The Truth About Charlie
A remake of Stanley Donen's Charade, a communion-wafer-thin '60s comedy. The film, like its predecessor, is a smart kind of dumb; a romp with a love of movies, faces, and all things Francophile at the center. (SEAN NELSON)
Tuck Everlasting
A wonderful cast, lovely cinematography, and an almost Zenlike pace cannot overcome the fact that this story is about a 104-year-old guy who's doing it with a teenager! He is approximately six times her age! Yuck! (TAMARA PARIS)
The Tuxedo
The Tuxedo is a bad kung fu film. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
White Oleander
Oleander is a waste of talent (Michelle Pfeiffer and Renée Zellweger may not be great actresses, but they're better than this movie lets them be) as well as time. (SEAN NELSON)
XXX
Just how bad is XXX? Worse than you've imagined. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
