From the Oct 2 – Oct 8, 2003 issue

Film

Film Shorts

LIMITED RUN


Brave Little Toaster
See Blow Up. "What are you going to do, suck me to death?" Columbia City Cinema, Sat at 2 pm.

* The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Illusion, atmosphere, and eye make-up are what this legitimately creepy silent classic are all about. If you've been saving up your drugs, you won't be sorry if you take them now. (SEAN NELSON) Rendezvous, Wed at 7:30 pm.

Demon Lover
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun at 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:40 pm, Mon-Thurs at 7, 9:40 pm.

* First Person Cinema
See Blow Up. The conclusion of the First Person Cinema series begins on Thursday, October 2, with First Person Shorts, which comprises four short films, ranging from eight minutes to 32 minutes, offering as themes childhood (again), love triangles, homelessness, and naked, troublesome mothers (in Gay Block's film Bertha Alyce). The next night, October 3, offers two films, the quality of which I can't attest to: Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII, directed by Academy Award winner Aviva Slesin, and The Same River Twice, which, like Put the Camera on Me, looks back on the past with a contemporary eye. Its subject, apparently: a group of former hippies who contrast their current lives with their time spent as river guides during the 1970s, when they were freer, routinely naked, and living a communal life. And finally, on Saturday, October 4, and Sunday, October 5, the series culminates with a presentation of Andy Warhol's screen tests, which were created from 1964-1966 and included such notables as Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Dennis Hopper, Mama Cass, and Salvador Dali. A panel discussion will follow the Saturday screening, moderated by Lyall Bush and featuring Greg Kucera, Eric Fredericksen, and Tara Young--all smart people closing out a smart, solid, personal series. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Little Theatre, see Movie Times for full details.

The Howlin' Wolf Story
Purporting to be the "first comprehensive film" on its titular subject, Don McGlynn's recent documentary is a straight historical take on Howlin' Wolf's career and life--complete with home movies and a wealth of live footage. JBL Theater, Wed at 7 pm.

The Nightmare Before Christmas
"BUNNY!" Egyptian, Fri-Sat at midnight.

Pieces
The latest installment of the Grand Illusion's favored blend of midnight movie, Pieces continues the mindless gore with something about a chainsaw, a mess (and I mean mess) of nubile co-eds, and a human jigsaw puzzle. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat at 11 pm.

Psycho
"I'll lick the stamps." JBL Theater, Thurs Oct 2 at 7:30 pm.

* Ride with Zeke
Punk rock at its most belligerent, and the most genuinely imposing band to come out of Seattle in as long as I can remember, celebrate the release of their brand new DVD. 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.

* The Third Man
See Blow Up. Columbia City Cinema, Sat at 7:30 pm.

Unknown Pleasures
Not much happens in Jia Zhangke's third film, which gives what does happen a pointedly longing quality. Two boys in their late teens drift through Datong, a blighted, burned-out industrial Chinese city. They hang out, smoke, ride around on motorbikes. One of them aimlessly (but rather doggedly, in contrast to everything else) pursues an actress whose boyfriend is a gangster; the other tries to escape the city and his mother by joining the army, but fails because it turns out he has hepatitis. There's a sort of Tarantino-like acceptance of violence and bad news; in fact, Tarantino hangs over this film like a sort of minor malignant god. Somehow, though, the star of the film is Datong: The ruined spaces, the rotting tea shops, the unfinished highway all give the still-unknown pleasures of Unknown Pleasures an unexpectedly lovely sheen. (EMILY HALL) Grand Illusion, Fri at 6, 8:30 pm, Sat-Sun at 3:30, 6, 8:30 pm, Tues-Thurs at 6, 8:30 pm.

NOW PLAYING


* 28 Days Later
How do you like your pop-apocalypse, sci-fi horror? If you like it loud, smart, and scary as all get out, you cannot miss this. This film kicks ass. (SHANNON GEE)

* American Splendor
As a comic-book movie, American Splendor is more like Crumb and Ghost World than like Spider Man or The Hulk. Along with a deadpan sense of humor, the focus is entirely on character and not at all on spectacle. There's also a tone found in underground comics that this movie perfectly captures. Smartly constructed and often surprising, American Splendor indulges in how artificial the filmmaking process is, and ends up with a heartfelt portrayal of a very real man. (ANDY SPLETZER)

American Wedding
If you're finishing a trilogy about boners, boning, blow jobs, motherfuckers, call girls, and gay dudes, who needs a plot? Just please promise this is the last one. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

The Animation Show
There is enough good work on display in The Animation Show to satisfy animation freaks (that is, if they haven't seen everything already--chances are they have). This, though, is a bit of a problem; those who aren't rabid fans (or who merely enjoy what they've seen of currator Mike Judge's work) may find themselves underwhelmed; somewhat surprisingly, Judge and Don Hertzfeldt's control over the project does not make for the greatest animation compilation ever, but just another adequate one--no matter how the package is billed. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Anything Else
Woody Allen's films used to radiate a luxurious nostalgia for a New York gone by; now they're just nostalgic for old Woody Allen films. Jason Biggs, as a mini-Woody, is both excruciating and interesting--excruciating when he apes Allen, down to the syntax and adenoidal whine; interesting when he gives the character a darker edge, like there's an impatient brute inside him waiting to punch his way out. But Christina Ricci is no Diane Keaton--in fact, you come out of Anything Else with renewed appreciation for Keaton's performance in Annie Hall as an infuriating woman the hero can't stay away from. Ricci, on the other hand, is just irritating. Allen, in a meta-career role, plays a teacher and writer who tries to wean Biggs off all the things--analysis, difficult women, New York--that made Woody Allen Woody Allen. Maybe he can't take the competition. (EMILY HALL)

* Bubba Ho-Tep
In an East Texas convalescent home, a penis-cancer-ridden Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) are awaiting death. The two geezers are revitalized when they band together to fight a mummy who's been sucking the souls out of old people's asses. Surprise number one is that the film, while being a complete piece of trash, is actually pretty great. Aside from its crackpot intelligence, fine acting, deadpan absurdity, and startling sweetness, however, Bubba Ho-Tep is exactly what you'd expect. (SEAN NELSON)

* Cabin Fever
There is much that is right about Cabin Fever, director Eli Roth's attempt to revive the somewhat dormant gore genre. The film is suitably disgusting, suitably cheesy, and suitably stupid. The characters copulate and perish in a proper manner, and the entire endeavor is undertaken with tongue firmly implanted in cheek. But there is one thing that is not right about Cabin Fever, and that, to put it bluntly, is the finger-banging scene. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Casa De Los Babys
See review this issue. Metro, Uptown

Cold Creek Manor
In a word: yawn. (MEGAN SELING)

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
If Saturday Night Live has taught us anything, it's that there's a fine line between "comedy" and "beating a dead horse into the ground, picking its pulp-like carcass back up, and finely filleting the remains." Wait, did I say fine line? I meant GAPING CANYON. Deeply grating SNL alum David Spade explores this expanse with his latest--a fairly self-explanatory one note, sustained for an hour and a half.

Dirty Pretty Things
I'm sad to announce that Dirty Pretty Things is a failure. True, it is a beautiful failure, as it is beautifully shot, with beautiful set designs, and beautiful actors (Amistad's Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays, with great success, a fallen but still noble Nigerian doctor, and Amélie's Audrey Tautou, who plays with considerably less success a vulnerable Turkish immigrant); but in terms of its concept, plot, and general message, the movie falls apart shortly after it starts. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Duplex
Ben Stiller stars in another of his desperately middling marriages of Hollywood sub-royalty (Drew Barrymore) and cookie-cut plot in yet another Danny DeVito-directed film (in the tradition of Throw Mama From the Train, War Of the Roses, and Death To Smoochy) about a murder for convenience--this time for the sake of a rent-controlled apartment.

The Fighting Temptations
Cuba Gooding Jr. continues his winning streak of zany fish-out-of-water comedies (in the now-illustrious tradition of Boat Trip and Snow Dogs) with a role as a shallow chump who must successfully champion a ragtag gospel choir or risk losing his family's inheritance. And as you might well expect, Cuba's fish-out-of-water has long since begun to smell like shit. Costarring Beyoncé Knowles' abs, the paper-thin story is unimportant--functional only in its ability to daisy-chain together a series of rags-to-riches musical sequences, of which you are assured many. (ZAC PENNINGTON)

Freaky Friday
Despite the generally amiable Jamie Lee Curtis and the overwhelming presence of feigned teen rock band sequences (the greatest joy that the pubescent live-action genre affords), the new Freaky Friday movie is not the old Freaky Friday movie. Absent: Jodie Foster, Barbara Harris, Boss Hogg, and (in the most unfortunate oversight) the earth-shattering car-chase/ water-skiing/hang-gliding finale. Present: an univested Jamie Lee, obligatory modernizations, and (most inexplicably) something called "Asian voodoo." (ZAC PENNINGTON)

* In This World
Harrowing, I guess, would be the right word for this story of two Afghan boys making the dangerous overland journey from a refugee camp in Pakistan to London. Every stop could be the end of the road; at every turn it seems about as likely that they will be enslaved or killed as anything else. Jamal and Enayat are sent by their families on this journey with only a dim sense of what will happen when (if) they arrive, and an even dimmer sense of the consequences of such a dangerous trip. Winterbottom used nonactors for the two lead roles, and allowed the story to be shaped by their evolving relationship so that the film's natural documentary feeling is earned beyond the rather nauseating handheld jitters. (EMILY HALL)

Jeepers Creepers 2
You'll never want to ride a school bus in a rural area again. This cheeseball horror flick is guaranteed to make you jump occasionally, but I can also guarantee that you'll laugh out loud (and disturb the other moviegoers) at the absurdity of the winged part man/part bat creature that terrorizes, chases, and tries to eat a football team and its cheerleaders. (AMY JENNIGES)

Km.0
This lightweight Spanish farce pretends to be about romance and destiny, but it's really about sex and money. Ah, but I'm making it sound better than it really is. Seven couples agree to meet face to face for the first time at Kilometer Zero, the central square of Madrid, and things go hilariously awry when the wrong people connect. Just to give you some idea: The young director goes to meet the actress, but instead heads off with the prostitute who was there to meet the businessman, who hooks up with a gay guardian angel. Halfway through, the movie threatens to become interesting when a woman cheats on her husband with a gigolo who might just be her long lost son. Then things get all dumb again. I cannot recommend this movie. (ANDY SPLETZER)

* Lost In Translation
Lost in Translation is a tiny movie, as light as helium and draped upon the thinnest of plots. There is very little conflict, and even fewer twists and turns. It is as close to a miracle as you're likely to get this year. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* Luther
In Luther, which is directed by Eric Till and stars Shakespeare in Love's Joseph Fiennes as Martin Luther, the German theologian is portrayed as a radical liberal, as a man who spoke for the people and openly opposed the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church--its politics, its reading of the Bible, its shameless profiteering from the suffering and ignorance of the poor. Luther is successful because it's not really about Martin Luther at all, but about the general mood of an important period in Western history. The way the film is edited, written, photographed, and directed captures, as if from a mountaintop, a wider, larger arena of events, so that what is seen is not an individual but a whole society under great transformation. Not the will of Luther but the will of the abused German masses fuels the motor of this movie's epic narrative. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Mambo Italiano
See review this issue. Harvard Exit

* Matchstick Men
Ridley Scott has never been known for a feather touch; when given the choice during his lengthy career between beauty of image and subtlety of character, image has almost always trounced. But surprisingly, subtlety is in abundance in his new picture Matchstick Men, and the result is his best film since Thelma & Louise. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

My Boss's Daughter
Much to my editor's shagrin, Ashton Kutcher spends another hour and a half desperately trying to fuck another trashy Hollywood blonde (in this case Tara Reid)--to little avail.

New Suit
See review this issue. Metro

Once Upon a Time In Mexico
Forget about everything the El Mariachi "trilogy" has come to represent in the past, and see Once Upon a Time in Mexico for Johnny Depp. That is the only aspect of the film that doesn't sell the audience short. (KATHLEEN WILSON)

Open Range
Part standard Western, part attempted romantic epic, Open Range starts patiently and solidly, but ends up rushing through its climax; the romance, such as it is, takes it in the teeth, and what was meant to be big and important is instead messy and clumsy. Which is too bad, because it has one of the best shootouts in years. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Out Of Time
Denzel Washington gets set up again (can't America just leave a successful, sensitive, and respectable African American man alone? I mean, can't they?!?!), this time as a respected police chief, who must cover his tracks before being pinned with a murder. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Woodinville 12

* Pirates of the Caribbean
The summer's best blockbuster. And Johnny Depp gives one of the best performances of the year. Perhaps maybe Oscar will finally realize that comedy also takes acting talent? (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Prey For Rock and Roll
See review this issue. Varsity

The Rundown
The Rock, the guy from Dude, Where's My Car? (no, the other one), Ewen Bremner and Christopher Walken--in a cast destined for greatness--come together to fight crime or some shit in the Amazon. Most assuredly trash, but have you see the Rock's eyebrows? Hypnotizing.

School Of Rock
See review this issue. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12

Seabiscuit
Maybe I'm too cynical for Triumphant Lessons like this, but I like a little more grit under the nails of my Hollywood movies, and the manicured emotions in Seabiscuit are a bit too Hallmark for me, even if they are based on a true story. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

Secondhand Lions
A film about a boy who is left by his mother to spend an indefinite amount of time with his uncles, who, upon first impression, are stubborn hicks with a big barn. Through stories told by Michael Caine, the boy soon learns that his uncles are not hicks at all, but war heroes with glorious pasts. The eldest uncle, Duvall, was in his youth a man of action, a great soldier who defeated powerful sheiks and seduced a dark woman while riding a wild horse on the shores of Arabia--a man-among-men who, even in his old age, has not lost an inch of his erection. Impressed by this example of pure manhood, Osment switches his dependency on Mommy for an even more unhealthy dependency on this violent father figure. This movie just sucks. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

* Spellbound
Jeffrey Blitz's amazing documentary Spellbound chronicles eight near-teens as they compete in the National Spelling Bee. At least, that's the film's obvious premise; the less obvious one, what the documentary really is, is a love letter to America. National pride via a national bee. The kids are the American dream, on stage, trying to remember how to spell "logorrhea." (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Spy Kids 3D
The third installment of Robert Rodriguez's kiddie franchise rests firmly in two dimensions for the bulk of its duration. With shots that stand to age as well as Jaws 3-D, the real tragedy here is that the children of America live in a world where this sort of tripe stands as a pale approximation of the majesty that was Captain EO. (ZAC PENNINGTON)

Taking Sides
See review this issue. Metro

* Thirteen
That the teenage years are difficult is not news--it's something we've known for years, thanks to afterschool specials and blunt and terrifying movies like Kids. But stories about teens going out of control tend to inspire more polemic than art, encouraging viewers to identify the problem--the broken home, the oblivious parents, the oversexualized media--and turn the story into a message. What makes Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen more potent is that she offers no such easy outs, but rather points out the vulnerability of the whole structure (family, school, self) that keeps a teen from self-destructing. (EMILY HALL)

Under The Tuscan Sun
Under the Tuscan Sun is based on Frances Mayes' nonfiction bestseller and stars Diane Lane, who manages to save the film from utter formula. And it is formula--the sex talk can't disguise the fact that this film is designed to make your mother feel good. Lane is the plucky divorced heroine, who impulsively buys a crumbling villa in Tuscany and discovers that "family" need not conform to the customary model but can be anything one makes of it (this last bit is Hollywood's favorite beaten horse). There are cute Italian people, cute Polish laborers, beautiful wildflower-filled vistas, and the obligatory gay best friend--a stock role salvaged by the splendid Sandra Oh. The movie is pleasant anyway. (CLAUDE ROC)

Underworld
Once again Romeo & Juliet is dusted off and given a refurbishing. This time the setting is the gloomiest of all gloomy cities, where vampires and werewolves wage a secret, exhausting war with one another. The experience: much Matrix-like action (save for the wire work), crackpot dialogue, and a PVC-clad heroine (Kate Beckinsale) who looks sexy as all get out, but can barely muster a sprint thanks to her garb. The result: A boring, uninspired hack work. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* Whale Rider
Audiences at Toronto and Sundance loved this film and so will you if you like triumphant tales of charismatic youngsters who defy the stoic immobility of old-fashioned patriarchs. I like it because it captures traditional Maori ceremonies and songs on film while also showing that New Zealand is not just a backdrop for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Shannon Gee)