Tools
Band of Outsiders
Jean-Luc Godard directs this story of two petty thieves and a botched robbery, dissecting and metamorphosing the crime film genre along the way. Rendezvous, Wed at 7:30 pm.
Cinema Explosion
If there is a general theme that unites the short films in Cinema Explosion, it is that being a human being is disgusting. In Apoplexy, a fun-loving meathead goes to a strip club and then a putting range, and then he dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. An Academy in Occupied America illustrates the lurid absurdity and of handing out Oscars while, elsewhere, we're handing out gas masks and bombing the shit out of people. And Angel Beach is a series of jittery, twitching 1960s photographs of women's bikini-clad body parts--stomachs, breasts, backs, butts, thighs, calves--quivering like creamy sun-tanned chunks of cheese. These are the highlights: There are 12 films total, and half of them suck. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE) Consolidated Works, Fri-Sun at 8 pm.
* Depth of Focus
This monthly screening series of short films with free food and a pay-as-you-exit policy, curated by the Puget Sound Cinema Society. Featuring films by the likes of Learning Corporation of America, Jim Minton, Bruce Conner, Sam Peckinpah, and Bill Viola, among others. For more info: www.scn.org/pscs. University Heights Center, Thurs at 8 pm.
Gerry
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun at 2:10, 4:30, 7, 9:20 pm, Mon-Thurs at 7, 9:20 pm.
Icons of the Silent Screen: Chaplin & Keaton
See Stranger Suggests. Grand Illusion, see Movie Times for details.
New Documentaries From the Middle East
Documentary films from some place nobody pays attention to anyway. Shorts to be screened include Jenin Jenin, Brothers and Others, Driving An Arab Street, At the Green Line, and Shahrbanoo. 911 Media Arts Center, Fri-Sun, see www.arabfilm.com for details.
* Pee-wee's Big Adventure
"Shhh! I'm listening to reason!" Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat at 11 pm.
Phantom of the Paradise
Brian De Palma's Faustian rock opera retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, as hosted by DJ Nate Manny. Sunset Tavern, Mon at 8 pm.
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.
* Taxi Driver
"I got some bad ideas in my head." Egyptian, Fri-Sat at midnight.
* Xanadu
The most important film of all time. JBL Theater, Wed at 7, 9 pm.NOW PLAYING
* About Schmidt
About Schmidt stars an exhausted Jack Nicholson as Warren Schmidt, an Omaha actuary facing the nothingness of retirement. At the end of his last day at the insurance agency, all of Schmidt's lifework is packed into blank boxes, the office is empty, and he has nowhere to go. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Adaptation
Charlie Kaufman--writer of Malkovich, co-writer and lead character of Adaptation--and Spike Jonze have created a rich entertainment. Still, not even Kaufman and Jonze can overcome the unfortunate fact that listening to a writer whine about how hard it is to write is always annoying. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Agent Cody Banks
"When it comes to girls, I suck." That's the central conflict in Agent Cody Banks, a dumb movie about a smart teenager who leads a double life: He's both a regular kid and a top-secret CIA agent. Oh sure, Banks gets to operate all kinds of high-tech gadgetry--but when it comes to bagging the girl at the end of the movie, no amount of training can prevent him from fumbling the most vital instrument he possesses. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE)
Blind Spot
She is in her '80s; she smokes cigarettes; and she is recounting roughly three years of her life in which she witnessed, from her secretarial position, the dreamy decline of her boss, Adolf Hitler. This documentary was shot on video shortly before her death in February 2002, and it offers no enhancements, no footage from the past, no music; all we have is her face, and the reality of her story. Her name is Traudl Junge, and she knew that her boss was a criminal. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Boat Trip
"Recked 'em? I nearly killed him!" Cuba Gooding Jr. and one of those fat guys from Saturday Night Live embrace (and embrace) the joys of man-love in the middle of the ocean. See Movie Times.
Bowling For Columbine
For a while, Moore seems on to something--a culture of fear endemic to our country--but in the end, dumps psychological complexity in favor of cheap shots. (SEAN NELSON)
Bringing Down the House
Bringing Down the House is the latest example of a burgeoning genre of American cinema--Socratic comedies, films that make a show of pretending to be dumber than they are. For the majority of its journey across the screen, it is as expert as fluff gets. Queen Latifah and Steve Martin navigate the deeply familiar plot with enough wit and flair to keep the audience howling with glee, stumbling only in the final quarter with--I wish I were kidding--the bumbling kidnap of a wealthy dowager. Still, it is the model of a film that aims low and triumphs, and you should go see it. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Catch Me If You Can
Long stretches of Catch Me If You Can are filmed so lazily, in a manner so devoid of energy, that a thrilling, near-unbelievable true story rendered completely unbelievable. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Chicago
If you didn't get to see the Broadway revival, catch the movie. Enduring Richard Gere's Billy Flynn is a small price to pay to watch the Fosse-inspired choreography and Catherine Zeta-Jones' star-turn as Velma Kelly. (DAN SAVAGE)
City of God
Cidade de Deus curiously fails to comment on the reason why most of the people who live and die in Brazil's ghettos are brown, beige, and black. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Cradle 2 the Grave
Starring rapper DMX as Tony Fait, charismatic ringleader of a band of jewel thieves who heist some mysterious black diamonds, the film starts out promisingly as a goofy caper flick but soon kills itself with bad action sequences, inexplicable racial jokes, and dishonest writing. (SCOTT McGEATH)
Daredevil
Stunningly bad.
Dreamcatcher
America has had something of an uncomfortable break from both Stephen King horror adaptations and body-snatching alien movies--so thank god for Dreamcatcher. See Movie Times.
* Far From Heaven
Far from Heaven pays homage to Douglas Sirk's classic 1956 melodrama All That Heaven Allows, upping the ante by introducing intricate new threats to his heroine's true love--threats that would've landed Sirk's film in the studio censor's blender. But Todd Haynes' pitch-perfect inclusion of sexual confusion and racial bigotry into Sirk's original mix gives him the power to transcend his source material and create a melodramatic masterpiece all his own. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 2 does not blur the lines of reality or explore the dark reaches of the director's mind. All it has to offer you is awesome killing. It's great. (KATIE SHIMER)
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)
* Gangs of New York
Combining real history, richly imagined historiography, and classical melodrama, Gangs of New York tells the story of Amsterdam Vallon, a young Irish immigrant (Leonardo DiCaprio) in mid-19th-century New York City seeking to avenge the murder of his father by a rival gang leader (Daniel Day-Lewis). Scorsese portrays the birth of a nation as a violent, ritualistic collision between two men. (SEAN NELSON)
Gods and Generals
The most vacuous, poorly acted, and pathetic depiction of the War of Northern Aggression ever committed to celluloid. (SEAN NELSON)
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
As American conservatives denounce the French (Freedom Fries anyone?), the French retaliate by releasing a film starring Amelie's Audrey Tautou--the most beloved French export to come along since the first Gulf War--in a fairly nasty role as a rather cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs young Parisian woman. Is the film any good? Oui. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) See Movie Times.
* The Hours
Script by David Hare, whose previous work I regard as self-absorbed Brit-babble, from a novel I haven't read by Michael Cunningham that won a Pulitzer, kiss of death, about a writer whose life is a lightning rod for stupidity about mental illness and feminism. I was prepared to hate this movie. I didn't. This is a really good movie. (BARLEY BLAIR)
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Pardon me while I vomit into my popcorn bag.
The Hunted
In The Hunted, a problematic soldier played by Benicio Del Toro is trained to be a killing machine for some elite army unit. The uneven story fails to properly explain why and how the once brave soldier Del Toro went insane and started killing deer hunters in the woods; or why Tommy Lee Jones, who is an excellent killer and hunter, is also a pacifist who worries about the hunting of wild animals, refuses to use a gun, and has never killed a person. The movie, in a word, lacks everything that would make it a reasonable film. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Irreversible
So here it is, the big French rape movie, so bleak and brutal that it is impossible to recommend. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Jungle Book 2
AKA Clear Cut!
Kangaroo Jack
If there's one thing that I love more than talking animals in sunglasses, it'd have to be Christopher Walken. Well I'll be damned! Two great tastes....
* Laurel Canyon
Thoroughly modern young lovers Sam and Alex (Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale) are stranded at the home of Sam's mother, Jane, a famous record producer, played by Frances McDormand. A smart, emotionally insightful exploration of the multigenerational consequences of the quest to live free. (SEAN NELSON)
The Life of David Gale
David Gale has all the subtle artistry of a Twinkie. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The film resonates deeply, despite its potentially embarrassing fantasy trappings, because the filmmaker recognizes that violence and sacrifice are unavoidable aspects of the survival of civilizations. (SEAN NELSON)
Maid in Manhattan
Lopez and Fiennes have almost no chemistry at all, but they're pretty graceful about it, and the presence of Bob Hoskins, Chris Eigeman, Amy Sedaris, and Stanley Tucci has got to count for something. (EMILY HALL)
Old School
Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Vince Vaughn play a trio of buddies who gave up partying too soon, and who attempt to get back to their wild roots by starting a frat house on a college campus--a film as mushy as a freshman's brain on a Friday night. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
* The Pianist
This film is not about the indomitable spirit of a survivor. It's about how low a human being can sink in order to live. There's no heroism in the picture, and all redemption is tempered by the knowledge of what's coming next. It's here, in the deeply Eastern European black comedy, that the film and its maker mark their territory most boldly. (SEAN NELSON)
Piglet's Big Movie
Another exploration of the Jungian neuroses of Hundred Acre Wood's anxious citizens. See Movie Times.
The Quiet American
Michael Caine deserves all the praise he's received for his role as Fowler, while Brendan Fraser slightly overplays the wide-eyed idealism that inspired America's misguided involvement in Vietnam. (ANDY SPLETZER)
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Director Phillip Noyce makes all the right decisions in telling what could have been a big slab of moist, liberal liver and onions. Instead it is a measured tale of basic human desires asserting themselves in the most inspirational of ways. (SEAN NELSON)
The Recruit
Recent M.I.T. grad Colin Farrell is recruited by CIA agent Al Pacino. Why does Farrell spurn possible millions with Dell computers to become a spook? The disappearance of his father, who may have been an agent himself--oh, and the really hot CIA trainee he has his eye on might also have something to do with it. Predictably, everything is not what it seems. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Shanghai Knights
A sequel to the fairly entertaining Shanghai Noon, the 2.0 version re-teams Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan an sends them to London. Hilarity does not ensue. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Spider
A film pretending to be suspenseful as it winds toward a revelation that everyone but its main character can see coming a mile away. (SEAN NELSON)
Talk to Her
The story of two comatose women (one a female bullfighter and the other a ballerina), the two men who care for them, and the friendships that grow between them. Funny, strange, morally complex, and moving. (NATE LIPPENS)
Tears of the Sun
A Hollywood foreign-policy pipe dream, as our indefensible policy of only interceding in atrocity when American interests are at stake is abandoned, and the American military does right by humanity for a change--a plot decision that may make for smooth consumption by the American public, but which, in reality, is completely dishonest. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Two Weeks Notice
I'm ashamed to admit that I liked Two Weeks Notice. (KATHLEEN WILSON)
A View From the Top
Gwyneth Paltrow neglects to read another script before signing on the dotted line, and ends up in a movie as a small-town-girl-makes-good flight attendant. [Insert airplane disaster/career trajectory joke here.] See Movie Times.
Willard
Crispin Glover takes on the retread of Willard, the 1971 cult relic about a boy and his rats. Though he doesn't quite save it, Glover makes a backbreaking attempt to shoulder a film that in less capable hands might have been entirely insufferable. Oh, and his rendition of Michael Jackson's "Ben" that runs the closing credits is itself enough for a matinee ticket. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
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