Limited Run

12 Minutes Max
This edition of On the Boards' performance showcase features The Petting Zoo, a new animated short by the Stranger Genius shortlisted filmmaker Stefan Gruber (Anaelle). Plus a dance film by Michael Rioux—and plenty of theater and movement. On the Boards, Sun-Mon 7 pm.

The Animation Show
It's sad how much terrible animation makes it to mass market. The Animation Show, curated by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt, is a collection of animated shorts that span the world and are uniformly excellent. They break all the boundaries that Pixar should be breaking. They aren't all computer animated, although many of them combine hand drawn figures and computer animation. The stories are brilliant: One short is about evil children who kill animals and turn maggots into jewels with the help of an idol that they found in the stomach of a rabbit. There is a stick figure that descends into schizophrenia, and then comes back out to his same miserable life. There is a world with three islands, two of which are inhabited, and one that the other two are constantly (and hilariously) warring to occupy. These shorts are funnier, more vibrant, and more piquant than any animation in mainstream theaters. (ARI SPOOL) Moore, Thurs-Fri 8 pm. Curator Mike Judge in attendance.

Bring Your Own Projector
A weekly free-for-all that provides a wall onto which you project your Super-8 or 16mm film or slides or filmstrip or digital video or whatever, alongside many other simultaneous projections. (You may also bring DVD shorts and still slides to show using the complimentary in-house equipment.) Alibi Room, Mon Jan 22 at 6 pm.

Busting Out
A locally produced documentary about the American obsession with/prudery about breasts, plus sobering breast cancer stats and more. Keystone Church, Fri Jan 19 at 7 pm.

Deathstalker
The 1983 James Sbardellati film about a barbarian armed with a magic sword. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm. (Continues through Jan 27.)

Double Indemnity
Rescheduled due to snow closure. Billy Wilder, one of the cinema's least identified woman haters, lets his flag fly in this boilerplate noir starring Fred MacMurray as the chump who gets his clock cleaned by titanic ball-stomper Barbara Stanwyck while Edward G. Robinson slowly puts it all together. It's difficult to deny the artistry of this classic, but its actual power has been dulled by two generations of naked imitators. Still, among the important works of Wilder (whom I believe to be confoundingly over-admired), it's up there. (SEAN NELSON) Museum of History and Industry, Tues Jan 23 at 7:30 pm.

Drugstore Cowboy
"There's nothing more life-affirming than getting the shit kicked outta ya." Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.

Eve and the Fire Horse
Julia Kwan's Eve and the Fire Horse is a perfectly pleasant and emotionally resonant film that dares to suggest that religion—gasp!—can actually be a GOOD thing in a person's life! Set in the 1970s in Vancouver, the film is about the Engs, a multigenerational Chinese family whose young daughters, Karena (Hollie Lo) and Eve (Phoebe Jojo Kut), start to dabble in Catholicism. Their earnestness is sweet and amusing, and the young, nonprofessional actresses give winning performances. It's one of the most charming family films in recent memory. (ERIC D. SNIDER) Northwest Film Forum, Thurs Jan 25 at 7 pm. Eve and the Fire Horse opens the Northwest Asian American Film Festival. For more information, see www.nwaaff.org.

A Foreign Affair
Seattle Art Museum's Billy Wilder series (taking place at MOHAI) continues with this 1948 film set in postwar Berlin and starring Jean Arthur and Marlene Dietrich. Museum of History and Industry, Thurs Jan 18 at 7:30 pm.

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
A preview of a forthcoming public television program about machismo and misogyny in rap music and hiphop culture. Free with an email to rsvp@communitycinemaseattle.org. Northwest Film Forum, Sat Jan 20 at 4 pm.

Le Petit Lieutenant
See review this issue. Varsity, see Movie Times, p 78.

The Little Death
An enigmatic loner moves into a fleabag LA apartment complex, only to get tangled up with an upstairs neighbor (scripter Laura Lee Bahr) whose jittery exterior may hide something... sinister. Director Morgan Nichols's nifty little B&W crackerjack of a thriller blends the inexorable tarbaby plotting of classic noir and the off-kilter atmospherics of early Coen Bros. with highly enjoyable results. The second act could stand some tightening, but this is otherwise a stellar example of working within ones limited means: There's a terrific use of found locations, some amusingly hyperliterate (yet never annoyingly so) dialogue, and a final sting with some unexpected teeth. Be sure to stick around through the animated closing credits for one last aha. (ANDREW WRIGHT) Central Cinema, Thurs Jan 25 at 7, 9:30 pm. (Late show 21+.)

The Magic Flute
It's not a simulcast, unfortunately, but Seattle opera fans can get a taste of what our suburban neighbors have been gobbling up: Metropolitan Opera productions beamed in to your local movie theater. This is Julie Taymor's (The Lion King) 2003 production—embellished with colorful Indonesian puppets in addition to the usual stern Masonic symbolism—which New Yorker critic Alex Ross called "deeply dazzling." Pacific Place, Tues Jan 23 at 7:30 pm.

Northwest Asian American Film Festival Pre-Festival Kickoff Party
NWAAFF kicks off with trailers, short films, and a screening of Eric Byler's My Life... Disoriented, a 27-minute featurette about sisters who move from urban San Francisco to the 61.8% white town of Bakersfield, California. Followed by a reception. Theatre Off Jackson, Wed Jan 24 at 7 pm. For information and reservations, see www.nwaaff.org.

The Photographer, His Wife, Her Lover
See review this issue. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Wed 7, 9 pm, Thurs 7 pm.

Quiet Films
Originally billed as "It's a Matter of the Stomach. Stomachs are very sensitive. A film and video program selected by Walid Raad" (a title I greatly prefer), this program includes films by Anri Sala, Peter Greenaway, Gene Gort, Lisa Steele, and Julia Metzer and David Thorne. Northwest Film Forum, Wed Jan 24 at 8 pm.

Romantico
Carmelo Muñiz, an illegal Mexican immigrant working in San Francisco as an itinerant musician, returns to the city of his birth to visit his family and attend to his sick mother. Carmelo is a gentle, hardworking man, at times bemused by the predicament of living in two worlds. Director Mark Becker doesn't do anything fancy; instead, he allows the poignant narrative—touching on everything from economic disparity to mortality—to carry the documentary. Scattered throughout the film, however, are luminous shots of Carmelo standing still (in the middle of the street, holding his guitar, in front of a cathedral) while the world rushes by around him. Adrift in a world that is far too complex to be understood, he stands and stares, uncertain about where to go, what to do next. In an already quiet film, these quieter moments are simple, understated, and devastating. (CHRIS MCCANN) Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7, 9 pm, Sat-Sun 3, 5, 7, 9 pm.

The Scratch
A 16mm crime thriller shot in Seattle for $7,000 by a Landmark Theatres employee named Jorge Suarez. Guild 45th, Thurs Jan 18 at 9 pm.

Search and Rescue
Northwest Film Forum's regular program of found archival films is supplemented this month by 16mm films from UW Special Collections, thanks to the American Library Association Video Round Table, which is having a conference in Seattle this month. Includes screenings of a John Denver-themed '70s documentary; The World Around, The World Within; and Love Shots, a short experimental film by Alan Downs. Northwest Film Form, Sun Jan 21 at 8 pm.

Sunset Boulevard
The story of Sunset Boulevard, as everyone knows (or should know), is about a young and indigent screenwriter who accidentally meets an aged and faded film star from the silent era, Norma Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson. The actress lives in a big house—like Dickens's Mrs. Havisham from Great Expectations—with a stuffy butler named Max von Mayerling, who is played by none other than the great Erich von Stroheim. The mad actress offers the mediocre writer the miserable job of doctoring her mad screenplay, Salome, which she hopes will launch her back to spectacular fame. Of course, the broke screenwriter says yes, and soon he becomes a kept man. The faded actress falls in love with her handsome catch, but the writer falls in love with a woman his own age, and so the actress shoots him dead for breaking her fragile heart. Wilder's film is about madness and fiction—or better yet, madness and cinema—in the way that Kafka is about madness and jurisprudence, or Ellison is about madness and race. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Museum of History and Industry, Thurs Jan 25 at 7:30 pm.

To Sleep So As to Dream
A 1984 film that pays tribute to Japanese silent films of the early 20th century, To Sleep So As to Dream is about a private investigator with a penchant for hard-boiled eggs who gets involved in a mysterious kidnapping case. Accompanied by Aono Jikken Ensemble, with benshi-style silent-film narration. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sat 7 pm.

VJ Night
A monthly social/showcase, this edition featuring the work of trippy image-mixer Spyscience, AKA Tim Weeks. 911 Media Arts, Thurs Jan 18 at 7:30 pm.

West Side Story
The 1961 musical about gangsters in love. Central Cinema, Thurs-Sun 7 pm.

'What the Hell Did I Just Watch' Comedy Video Festival
Billed as "the only Seattle-based anti-film festival to pander directly to your misguided funny bone," What the Hell Did I Just watch screens amusing videos without regard to production values. Rendezvous, Sat Jan 20 at 7 and 8:30 pm.

The White Hell of Pitz Palu
See Stranger Suggests, p 25. Paramount, Mon Jan 22 at 7:30 pm.

Recently Reviewed

Alpha Dog
Writer-director Nick Cassavetes has aimed to make Alpha Dog a gritty and provocative condemnation of vacuous parenting—well-off kids with too little to do and too little supervision. The obvious reference to reach for is Larry Clark's Bully, which tilled similar ground. But while that film was eventually derailed by Clark's unfortunate obsession with young flesh, Alpha Dog is mired by an unnecessary faux doc framing, which finds the likes of Bruce Willis (and, in one particularly gruesome sequence, Sharon Stone in a fat suit), spouting forth to an unseen interviewer. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Children of Men
At first, Children of Men is less a fantasy film than a toe-curling dystopian landscape: a latter-day Hieronymus Bosch panel depicting a world come apart at the seams. Everywhere you look in this gray, concrete world, there's another expression of human distress, from noxious sentimentality to hysterical self-recrimination, from violence to paralysis and everything in between. The plot is part allegory, part political complaint—though any ultimate meaning (apart from the bromide "hold on to hope for the future") is difficult to discern. Luckily, moral lessons are largely irrelevant in an action thriller, and when Children of Men gets going, you'll be more concerned about catching your breath than figuring things out. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Dreamgirls
There seems to be a lot of talk about Dreamgirls lately—talk of the Oscar variety (bzzzzzzzzt!), talk of the "this is a good movie" variety (psssssssh), talk of the "eeeeeeee!" variety (uuuuuugh). Now, I realize that Oprah reached down from her golden throne and touched you in your special area while whispering sweet nothings about Dreamgirls. I realize that Beyoncé's fake hair is really, really pretty. I realize that Jennifer Hudson is kind of a superchunk, but you kind of don't mind looking at her, and that kind of makes you feel good about yourself. But it's time for YOU to realize that this movie is not good. This movie is nothing but problems. And fat people don't need your pity. (LINDY WEST)

Flannel Pajamas
"What's this movie about?" "Relationships or something." "I think they were on a blind date, and now they're in love." "What the fuck? Is he putting his jacket down on the puddle?" "That's stupid. And they're going on a picnic? Who goes on a picnic?" "Oh my god. Oh my god. Did she just say 'I need you inside of me'? Oh my god." (LINDY WEST)

Freedom Writers
Aren't white people awesome? And brave? Isn't it cool how we're always, like, going to the inner city and teaching minorities about tolerance and feelings and how to read? And when those crazy minos won't stop gangbangin', we're all, "Who here likes Too-Pack?" and then they're all, "I hate white people," but we're all, "What—are you trippin'?" and then we all have a good laugh. God, it's so great being white and hilarious. "My badness!" Holy shit. This movie has got to be joking. (LINDY WEST)

Letters from Iwo Jima
Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's smaller, subtitled, Japanese-centered companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers, thankfully finds the filmmaker on much firmer ground. Although not without its share of warts—mainly due to an occasionally pokey flashback structure—there's an intimate, feverish immediacy to it that the previous film lacked. Respectful without being overly reverent, it provides the new perspective on WWII that the earlier film promised, with a look into another culture that goes far beyond mere outsider novelty or politically correct lip service. (To get an idea of how it could have all gone wrong, look no further than Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, where the Japanese commanders are depicted as inscrutable, poetry-spouting androids of honor.) Here is a different take on the battlefield, one that provides a long-overdue illumination of the Greatest Generation's opposing image, as well as a compelling examination of the meaning of sacrifice and service when fighting an unwinnable war. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Miss Potter
In this dotty biopic, Renée Zellweger plays the eponymous authoress Beatrix Potter, and thoroughly botches the job. Cute and ruddy, Zellweger gulps air like a chipmunk tucking away nuts, squeaks and squirms her way into a simulacrum of abashed pleasure, twinkles her lidless eyes, and generally interprets Victorian spinsterhood as an unnaturally prolonged case of the cutes. The result is ghastly. Then, as an excuse to animate Beatrix Potter's creations (nicely executed by Passion Pictures), the producers decided that Potter had an overly personal relationship with her drawings of bunnies and frogs and puddle ducks. Miss Potter hallucinates her little avatars acting naughty or agitated whenever she's inclined the same way. The animation is cute, but the live-action commingling is distressing. Why couldn't these drawn animals be like every other inanimate object in movieland, coming alive only when their owner turns her back? (ANNIE WAGNER)

Notes on a Scandal
This is the picture of an absolute vampire: Her fingers are crooked, her love is morbid, and she refuses to be sustained by anything else but the freshest blood, the highest beauty. Going for the kill, Judi Dench satanically grows from a crusty history teacher into a god of her passion. She is a giant tearing the world apart for the blood she needs to survive. The wreckage piles up, the music swells, and we enter the region of opera. In addition, Cate Blanchett has the most beautiful lips in all of movieland. If it weren't for one editing mistake near the end—a failed attempt to show the enormous gulf between the subject and the object of its desire—then Notes on a Scandal would have deserved a standing ovation. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

The Painted Veil
The Painted Veil is set in Europe and Asia in the 1920s, particularly in Shanghai and remote China, a landscape of rivers and mountains and cinematic possibility, but the camerawork is nothing startling. The dialogue is adequate. The actors seem bored. It's based on a book I've never read—by W. Somerset Maugham, published 1925—and you get the sense that Maugham's novel must be rich with the kind of psychological detail you can't get from an extended shot of Naomi Watts staring into the rain, because that's about all that's going on here. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE)

Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth picks up scraps and notions from scattered fairy tales—fear of sexual maturity, thirst for rules and the righteous urge to subvert them, doubtful reconciliation with death—and weaves them into an original fantasy of furious power. After suffering through the many "fractured" adaptations that neuter their source material in the guise of updating it, I was beginning to worry that the primeval richness of fairy tales would have to be reserved for theater. Pan's Labyrinth chalked out an alternate route, and proved me wrong. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Set in a decidedly stank 18th-century France, Patrick Süskind's narrative tells the tale of a penniless near mute (newcomer Ben Whishaw) born with a sense of smell akin to that of an irradiated bloodhound. After learning the tricks of the trade from a has-been perfumer (Dustin Hoffman), he sets out to create the ultimate scent, a concoction that requires the use of, oh, a few dozen female corpses. Co-writer Tom Tykwer's screenplay retains the most striking aspects of the source material (often verbatim, courtesy of an intermittent voice-over by the priceless John Hurt) and improves on it in others, particularly in concocting a compelling motive for the rising body count. Most importantly, he keeps the essence which made the novel such a scabrous, compelling read: namely, the feeling that, no matter how loathsome the protagonist's actions, we still somehow want to see the sick bastard get away with it. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

The Pursuit of Happyness
Pursuit of Happyness is about poverty—fit for the desperately poor as a parable and the unconscionably rich as a chastisement. For the rest of us (the most of us) it's merely a two-hour distillation of an all-too-familiar fear. (BRENDAN KILEY)

Stomp the Yard
Stomp the Yard's previews will try to convince you that this movie is a dramatic portrayal of a heartbroken-on-the-inside-but-still-tough-as-fuck kid from the hood who's fighting one of life's ultimate battles (the death of a younger brother) while also trying to regain a sense of self after watching (and feeling responsible for) the death of said brother. But don't fall for that shit—Stomp the Yard is about motherfuckin' dancing. These Atlanta step crews with arms the size of my head have got some of the coolest fuckin' moves this side of Footloose. (MEGAN SELING)