Tools
Anchorman
Pompous news anchor Will Ferrell meets up-and-coming newswoman Christina Applegate. Bluster ensues.
The Awful Truth
SAM kicks off its Happy 100th Birthday, Cary Grant series with this 1937 screwball comedy. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs July 8 at 7:30 pm.
Bad Girls Go to Hell
A 1965 black-and-white sexplotation film by Doris Wishman. Rendezvous, Wed July 14 at 7:30 pm.
Big Fat Liar
Kid writes essay. Big fat movie exec steals it for a movie. Kid takes revenge. U District Outdoor Cinema, Sat July 10 at dusk.
Breakin'
For those who like to breakdance all night long. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
* 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) Fremont Outdoor Movies #1, Fri July 9 at dusk.
Classroom Classics
More movies you (or perhaps your parents) were weaned on. Linda's, Wed July 14 at dusk.
The Door in the Floor
An adaptation of John Irving's A Widow for One Year, this movie is about a man and a woman and their yard-work boy.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Fans of the novels won't be disappointed by Chris Columbus' adaptation, which is so faithful that it often feels like they just pointed a camera at the book and said "Action!" Those who haven't read it--myself included--may fail to be captivated by what feels like an exercise in defining the difference between page and screen. I had been led to believe there was some underlying artistic merit in the stories of Harry Potter, and maybe there is, but not in the film. The actors, sets, and effects are all great, but this really is a movie just for kids. (SEAN NELSON) Fremont Outdoor Movies #2, Sat July 10 at dusk.
Holiday
Holiday gives Katherine Hepburn one of her best roles--smart, sexy, with just the right touch of movie star martyrdom--as a dissatisfied rich girl who falls in love with her brother-in-law to-be. If it seems incongruous to focus on Hepburn while the film is screening in a Cary Grant series, just watch how generous Grant is to his leading lady, how his glow in her presence makes us love her all the more, and see if you don't agree he was the best screen partner she ever had, Spencer Tracy notwithstanding. (BRUCE REID) Seattle Art Museum, Thurs July 15 at 7:30 pm.
Kiss Me Deadly
Seminal (and by that I mean having to do with semen) '50s film noir about hard-boiled Mike Hammer, sadism, and the quest for the Great Whatsit. Movie Legends, Sun July 11 at 1 pm.
A Relative Thing
Filmed on Bainbridge Island, A Relative Thing makes good use of the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and the talent of our local actors playing dysfunctional siblings who reunite during a family emergency. I just wish it could have carried the graceful strides of its lovely first 20 minutes throughout its languishing 110-minute run time. (SHANNON GEE) Playing with Seattle Film Institute student shorts. Seattle Art Museum, Sun July 11 at 7 pm.
Sleepover
Graduating eighth-grade girls are BOY CRAZY! They also HATE EACH OTHER! And that's what this movie is about.
Sneak
The Sneak series of film previews concludes its third season. For more information, see www.sneakfilms.com. Pacific Place, Sun July 11 at 10 am.
The Story of the Weeping Camel
Set in modern Mongolia, The Story of the Weeping Camel has two plots: one concerns humans, the other camels. The human side is about a nomadic family that, one day, happens to be in need of something from the city (batteries, I think). The family elders decide to send two boys to the city to buy this needed thing. The boys travel on camels, arrive in the city, and while looking for this thing (maybe it's not batteries, but a violin), they discover the pleasures of television. The human plot ends with the boys erecting a satellite dish next to their family's yurt. In this respect, The Story of the Weeping Camel is much like Close to Eden (1991), which opens by depicting the primitive life of a Mongolian shepherd and ends with the shepherd watching the first George Bush on a color TV.
Considerably less interesting than the human plot, the camel plot concerns a mother camel who rejects her baby camel. The baby wants mommy to feed her but mommy refuses to open her legs and feed the starving baby. If the mother were not a camel then one would understand why she wouldn't want that ugly little creature sucking on her breasts. But she is a camel, and all camels are ugly--her rejection of her baby makes no sense at all. At the center of the camel plot is a long birth scene that corresponds with a death scene at the center of Close to Eden. But unlike the noisy and messy birth of the camel, the death of the sheep in Close to Eden is beautiful and peaceful: The shepherd cuts a hole in the sheep's flesh, sticks a hand into its chest, and kills the animal by slowly and lovingly squeezing its heart. The sheep dies with its pride intact. There is no pride in the birth of the camel in The Story of the Weeping Camel, just a shameful pool of pus and blood. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Varsity, Fri-Sun noon, 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:10 pm, Mon-Thurs 7, 9:10 pm.
* Style Wars
See Stranger Suggests, page 25. Style Wars is actually a bad documentary. It doesn't bother to name the writers and breakdancers it interviews (thus Crazy Legs or Seen or Case 2 are reduced to street anonymity), and it spends too much time talking to crazy Mayor Ed Koch, who wants to use wild wolves to guard New York City's trains from graffiti writers. But despite all of its failings, Style Wars is still a must-see for anyone who is a real hiphop head, because it does have rare footage of great break dance crews and legendary graffiti writers, and though it takes place in the early years of modern hiphop, it's really about the twilight years of graffiti writing as a public art form. In a word, this documentary is about death. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Half of a double-header at Grand Illusion, daily 5:30, 8:30 pm.
* Wild Style
See Stranger Suggests, page 25. One half of a hiphop double-header at the Grand Illusion, this 1982 narrative film is famous for its old school breakdancing footage, curbside MCs, and other relics of a bygone era. Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7 pm, Sat-Sun 4, 7 pm.
* Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Gene Wilder proves once again that he was indeed the greatest American actor of the 1970s with his titanic performance in this kinky, creepy, macabre, yet heartwarming musical classic. Sidewalk Cinema, Fri July 9 at 9 pm.
Zatoichi #5: On the Road
Catch up on your Japanese pop culture with the fifth movie in the long-running Zatoichi series--the inspiration for the recent revisionist take by Beat Takeshi. Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.
NOW PLAYING
America's Heart and Soul
Disney's reintroduction to the documentary is a kind of catalog illustration of right-wing talking points, filled with all the best and coolest-sounding things about cute, plucky poor people who never let adversity get them down, and artists/hobbyists who perform the kinds of activities that appeal to the SUV crowd. (ADAM HART)
Around the World in 80 Days
The only adults I can fathom wanting to watch this unfunny movie are masochistic Californians just dying to see their elected governor prance about in a hot tub and gaze lustily at pale French maids. The Jackie Chan action sequences are few and feel tacked-on, and the cheesy message about the evils of 19th century colonialism is cheerfully undermined by the xenophobia in the rest of the picture (the aforementioned Schwarzenegger plays a ditzy, polygamous Turkish prince whose most prized possession is a Rodin sculpture of himself). (ANNIE WAGNER)
* Before Sunset
The best romances force you to care unreasonably about their characters, and watching Jesse and Celine reunited, I couldn't help but feel a bittersweet twinge; I was 21 when Before Sunrise was released--just as dreamy and dewy as I could be--and now, nearly a decade later, their return feels like the arrival of beloved, yet somehow forgotten, friends. I fell in love with them then and, as I found out, I'm still in love with them. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* The Chronicles of Riddick
Vin Diesel reprises his night-visioned antihero from Pitch Black and proceeds to stomp ass across the universe in this crazily overstuffed space opera, the first in a projected trilogy. While writer/director David Twohy's earlier films (The Arrival, the woefully underseen Below) had a lean, propulsive genre ingenuity that belied their minuscule budgets, his first crack at James Cameron-style hugeness is wildly entertaining in a Dune/Flash Gordon sense, but proves ultimately just too damned gargantuan to sweat the small details at which he normally excels. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Clearing
What a waste of a slick, well-executed kidnapping. (ANDY SPLETZER)
* Control Room
Like the recent documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Control Room offers us a look from the inside of the other side. Al Jazeera has 40 million viewers in the Arab world, and it shows its part of the world things that the American networks don't show their part of the world. The future may very well recognize Al Jazeera as the first genuinely global institution of the 21st century. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
The Corporation
Basically, the movie looks down upon the masses of people who thoughtlessly consume products made by corrupt corporations. But you know what? I identify more with the masses than I do with the filmmakers; if I want to spend 145 minutes being told I'm an idiot, I'd rather spend that time in the singles bars. (ANDY SPLETZER)
* The Day After Tomorrow
German director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla) has saved the disaster film. The Day After Tomorrow returns the spectacle back to we the people. For the first time since 2001, the spectacle of mass destruction is the source of pleasure rather than terror. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* De-Lovely
De-Lovely is perfumed with preciousness, and ultimately suffers from the self-consciousness of its Hollywood gloss, as well as the difficult-to-swallow progressiveness of its characters. (Oddly enough, the sub rosa insinuation of Cole Porter's homosexuality in the 1946 biopic Night and Day rings much truer to the life one imagines a gay man leading in the '20s and '30s.) Still, the fine performances of Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd diminish the film's more troublesome liberties. (SEAN NELSON)
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
In this upstanding comedy, a group of friends enters a dodgeball tournament in order to defend their local gym from being turned into a corporate health club. What happened to the good old days, when dodgeball was about throwing a ball at someone's head?
* Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut
Having studied the film carefully a few times, I still can't tell if the plot's weird calculus--what actually happens, to whom, and where, and when--actually adds up to anything more than a semi-random sequence of related but unconnected events. What I can say, however, is that the film resonates with a uniquely American kind of sadness. (SEAN NELSON)
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Whereas the last Michel Gondry/Charlie Kaufman collaboration, Human Nature, eventually crumbled under its own quirkiness, Eternal Sunshine finds director and scribe fitting perfectly together. This is a film that travels far beyond most of our imaginations. It is also one of the most beautifully assembled romances you will ever see. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Facing Windows
Throughout the film, Ferzan Ozpetek's golden light conveys romance and elegy at once, and several times he brings striking images of great beauty and depth to the screen. The film's opening sequence depicts a bloody handprint fading over time as dawn light illuminates the wall that carries it, moving the narrative forward by 50 years. The handprint faded from the wall but replayed in my mind long after the film's screening. (MIKE WHYBARK)
* Fahrenheit 9/11
Michael Moore is a propagandist, taking the fight to the opposition on their terms, and winning. Because of his motives and his audience, this propagandist is the most important filmmaker we have, and Fahrenheit 9/11 is the best film he's ever made. (SEAN NELSON)
Garfield: The Movie
Bill Murray once starred in Stripes, Meatballs, Rushmore, and numerous other funny-as-shit classics. For those movies, we will always love him. But the next generation, the generation that is currently young and dumb enough to be easily entertained by a fat, computerized cat, what are they going to know Bill Murray as? The fuckin' voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie! I don't really understand why this movie had to be made. Obviously nothing interesting happens. It isn't funny. At the screening I attended, a part that drew a good amount of laughs was Garfield asking "Got milk?" after drinking some milk. I mean, is that funny? What? No. Stop it. (MEGAN SELING)
* Good Bye Lenin!
Because of Christiane's exceptionally delicate condition, her son Alexander cannot inform her that East Germany is no more, and so he maintains the inside of Christiane's room in the state of East Germany. The trick, and it is a trick devised by the clever director (Wolfgang Becker), works. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Alfonso Cuarón, who has taken the directing reigns from Chris Columbus this time around, has not turned the Potterheads' god into bullshit. Early word on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was that it was the best of the series, and for once early word was correct; for the first time in the franchise's existence, a film has achieved the level of art. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Kill Bill Vol. 2
As a whole piece (as it was originally intended), Kill Bill would've toppled over, eventually landing with a thud upon its inevitable anti-climax. There are some surprising fits to be found in Vol. 2 (including the Uma Thurman squaring off with Elle Driver, a romp that owes much to the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona), but the final tally fails to shatter the earth--a shame, since Vol. 1 built hopes up so high. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
King Arthur
See review this issue.
* Mean Girls
Really, when you think about what sort of crap is out there for teenagers, about how teenagers live and interact and what Hollywood thinks is at stake for them (Chasing Liberty, anyone?), Mean Girls starts to look great. It's funny, lively, and smart, with a couple of characters who seem realer than not, and had I seen it as a teenager it might have changed something for me. (EMILY HALL)
* Napoleon Dynamite
In this charming new film, 24-year-old writer/ director Jared Hess mines the nebulous area between popular chic and weirdo freak, where outcast attributes are both quality, subtle comedy, and a charmingly dark part of our collective high-school unconscious. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
The Notebook
The Notebook, which was directed by Nick Cassavetes (talentless son of supremely talented John Cassavetes), is based on a Nicholas Sparks tome, and it bears the mark of all his work. That mark is complete and utter bullshit, and the end result is a bullshit film--a weepy, obvious, and painfully unromantic romance. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Raising Helen
More than anything, actually, this movie feels like a PG-13 version of Sex and the City, where instead of the cherubic moneybags Carrie Bradshaw you have the fairly well-off and cherubic Helen Harris, both of whom everyone always adores. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Sacred Planet
No one who has graduated from the fifth grade ever goes to see IMAX movies. So I can't imagine that it's worth my time to tell you about the latest IMAX addition, Sacred Planet, because what do you care? You don't want to go see a beautifully filmed educational movie showing some of the most breathtaking areas of the world (like Namibia, Thailand, and Borneo). (MEGAN SELING)
* Saved!
This film knows exactly what it is--a teen flick with a humanist agenda--and Brian Dannelly picks his battles to suit his aims. Even with its too-pat ending (complete with syrupy underscoring--a duet of Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows" sung by Mandy Moore and Michael Stipe, one of the film's producers), Saved! closes with a tableau that will leave unreformed fundamentalists gaping in horror. Score one for the good guys. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Shrek 2
Shrek 2 can best be described with a shrug. As in: It's fine, no big deal, just what you would expect. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Spider-man 2
Going into a Spider-Man film we surely expect the spectacular, but even the spectacular has limits. All films, even fantasy ones, need to at least touch upon reality. It can be the lightest of touches, but there must be substance there for us to grab onto--otherwise, why should we bother watching? In Sam Raimi's vision of Spider-Man, however, his normally manic camera joins with CGI to create a work that is often completely fraudulent. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Stepford Wives
The original, 1975 version of The Stepford Wives was a dark, brilliantly creepy psychological thriller focusing on a small town's conspiracy against the wives of its inhabitants. Like The Shining without all the blood, the madness is subtle, edging into the plot with subtle clues but holding on to the story's gripping twist until the end. The bright and shiny new millennium edition not only completely changes the ending, it's also too campy, two-dimensional, and sanitized for what was a very chilling portrait of domination and control in a sci-fi war of the sexes. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
* Super Size Me
Lest you think that this film is only for Fast Food Nation types, that it's aimed only at those who already have the information, remember that Morgan Spurlock put his own body on the line to get your attention. That's why he did it. He did it for you. (EMILY HALL)
The Terminal
If an army of critics line up to heap praise upon Steven Spielberg's The Terminal, as early Internet firings hint that they will, then something has gone terribly wrong in the world. This is easily the worst film of Spielberg's career, surpassing even blemishes like Always, Hook, and A.I. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Two Brothers
Jean-Jacques Annaud's great trick is to turn the essential, undeniable, heart-exploding adorability of the cubs into the stuff of proper drama. Annaud handily pulls off that feat by making Sungha and Kumal distinct characters--one is timid and sweet, the other ferocious--and by suffusing their plight with emotions you can only call human. Because this is a movie about animals, he also supplies an endless array of scenes in which beasts suffer and die at the hands of men. And because the animals remind you of your sweet little housecat, you cry. But somewhere in there, you also become invested in the story, which is so primary as to be almost Greek, and is told with techniques so purely cinematic as to confirm the essential power of movies. (SEAN NELSON)
What the #$*! Do We Know?!
This ungainly, inane film purports to be about quantum physics but is really about the power of positive thinking, with a midlife-crisis plot (starring Marlee Matlin) and some childish cartoon figures and a series of talking heads who can't stop using the word "paradigm." (EMILY HALL)
White Chicks
The Wayans brothers protect the hotel-heiress Hilton--err, Wilson--sisters from a heinous kidnapping plot.
Stranger Personals
Anchorman
Pompous news anchor Will Ferrell meets up-and-coming newswoman Christina Applegate. Bluster ensues.
The Awful Truth
SAM kicks off its Happy 100th Birthday, Cary Grant series with this 1937 screwball comedy. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs July 8 at 7:30 pm.
Bad Girls Go to Hell
A 1965 black-and-white sexplotation film by Doris Wishman. Rendezvous, Wed July 14 at 7:30 pm.
Big Fat Liar
Kid writes essay. Big fat movie exec steals it for a movie. Kid takes revenge. U District Outdoor Cinema, Sat July 10 at dusk.
Breakin'
For those who like to breakdance all night long. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
* 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) Fremont Outdoor Movies #1, Fri July 9 at dusk.
Classroom Classics
More movies you (or perhaps your parents) were weaned on. Linda's, Wed July 14 at dusk.
The Door in the Floor
An adaptation of John Irving's A Widow for One Year, this movie is about a man and a woman and their yard-work boy.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Fans of the novels won't be disappointed by Chris Columbus' adaptation, which is so faithful that it often feels like they just pointed a camera at the book and said "Action!" Those who haven't read it--myself included--may fail to be captivated by what feels like an exercise in defining the difference between page and screen. I had been led to believe there was some underlying artistic merit in the stories of Harry Potter, and maybe there is, but not in the film. The actors, sets, and effects are all great, but this really is a movie just for kids. (SEAN NELSON) Fremont Outdoor Movies #2, Sat July 10 at dusk.
Holiday
Holiday gives Katherine Hepburn one of her best roles--smart, sexy, with just the right touch of movie star martyrdom--as a dissatisfied rich girl who falls in love with her brother-in-law to-be. If it seems incongruous to focus on Hepburn while the film is screening in a Cary Grant series, just watch how generous Grant is to his leading lady, how his glow in her presence makes us love her all the more, and see if you don't agree he was the best screen partner she ever had, Spencer Tracy notwithstanding. (BRUCE REID) Seattle Art Museum, Thurs July 15 at 7:30 pm.
Kiss Me Deadly
Seminal (and by that I mean having to do with semen) '50s film noir about hard-boiled Mike Hammer, sadism, and the quest for the Great Whatsit. Movie Legends, Sun July 11 at 1 pm.
A Relative Thing
Filmed on Bainbridge Island, A Relative Thing makes good use of the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and the talent of our local actors playing dysfunctional siblings who reunite during a family emergency. I just wish it could have carried the graceful strides of its lovely first 20 minutes throughout its languishing 110-minute run time. (SHANNON GEE) Playing with Seattle Film Institute student shorts. Seattle Art Museum, Sun July 11 at 7 pm.
Sleepover
Graduating eighth-grade girls are BOY CRAZY! They also HATE EACH OTHER! And that's what this movie is about.
Sneak
The Sneak series of film previews concludes its third season. For more information, see www.sneakfilms.com. Pacific Place, Sun July 11 at 10 am.
The Story of the Weeping Camel
Set in modern Mongolia, The Story of the Weeping Camel has two plots: one concerns humans, the other camels. The human side is about a nomadic family that, one day, happens to be in need of something from the city (batteries, I think). The family elders decide to send two boys to the city to buy this needed thing. The boys travel on camels, arrive in the city, and while looking for this thing (maybe it's not batteries, but a violin), they discover the pleasures of television. The human plot ends with the boys erecting a satellite dish next to their family's yurt. In this respect, The Story of the Weeping Camel is much like Close to Eden (1991), which opens by depicting the primitive life of a Mongolian shepherd and ends with the shepherd watching the first George Bush on a color TV.
Considerably less interesting than the human plot, the camel plot concerns a mother camel who rejects her baby camel. The baby wants mommy to feed her but mommy refuses to open her legs and feed the starving baby. If the mother were not a camel then one would understand why she wouldn't want that ugly little creature sucking on her breasts. But she is a camel, and all camels are ugly--her rejection of her baby makes no sense at all. At the center of the camel plot is a long birth scene that corresponds with a death scene at the center of Close to Eden. But unlike the noisy and messy birth of the camel, the death of the sheep in Close to Eden is beautiful and peaceful: The shepherd cuts a hole in the sheep's flesh, sticks a hand into its chest, and kills the animal by slowly and lovingly squeezing its heart. The sheep dies with its pride intact. There is no pride in the birth of the camel in The Story of the Weeping Camel, just a shameful pool of pus and blood. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Varsity, Fri-Sun noon, 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:10 pm, Mon-Thurs 7, 9:10 pm.
* Style Wars
See Stranger Suggests, page 25. Style Wars is actually a bad documentary. It doesn't bother to name the writers and breakdancers it interviews (thus Crazy Legs or Seen or Case 2 are reduced to street anonymity), and it spends too much time talking to crazy Mayor Ed Koch, who wants to use wild wolves to guard New York City's trains from graffiti writers. But despite all of its failings, Style Wars is still a must-see for anyone who is a real hiphop head, because it does have rare footage of great break dance crews and legendary graffiti writers, and though it takes place in the early years of modern hiphop, it's really about the twilight years of graffiti writing as a public art form. In a word, this documentary is about death. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Half of a double-header at Grand Illusion, daily 5:30, 8:30 pm.
* Wild Style
See Stranger Suggests, page 25. One half of a hiphop double-header at the Grand Illusion, this 1982 narrative film is famous for its old school breakdancing footage, curbside MCs, and other relics of a bygone era. Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7 pm, Sat-Sun 4, 7 pm.
* Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Gene Wilder proves once again that he was indeed the greatest American actor of the 1970s with his titanic performance in this kinky, creepy, macabre, yet heartwarming musical classic. Sidewalk Cinema, Fri July 9 at 9 pm.
Zatoichi #5: On the Road
Catch up on your Japanese pop culture with the fifth movie in the long-running Zatoichi series--the inspiration for the recent revisionist take by Beat Takeshi. Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.
NOW PLAYING
America's Heart and Soul
Disney's reintroduction to the documentary is a kind of catalog illustration of right-wing talking points, filled with all the best and coolest-sounding things about cute, plucky poor people who never let adversity get them down, and artists/hobbyists who perform the kinds of activities that appeal to the SUV crowd. (ADAM HART)
Around the World in 80 Days
The only adults I can fathom wanting to watch this unfunny movie are masochistic Californians just dying to see their elected governor prance about in a hot tub and gaze lustily at pale French maids. The Jackie Chan action sequences are few and feel tacked-on, and the cheesy message about the evils of 19th century colonialism is cheerfully undermined by the xenophobia in the rest of the picture (the aforementioned Schwarzenegger plays a ditzy, polygamous Turkish prince whose most prized possession is a Rodin sculpture of himself). (ANNIE WAGNER)
* Before Sunset
The best romances force you to care unreasonably about their characters, and watching Jesse and Celine reunited, I couldn't help but feel a bittersweet twinge; I was 21 when Before Sunrise was released--just as dreamy and dewy as I could be--and now, nearly a decade later, their return feels like the arrival of beloved, yet somehow forgotten, friends. I fell in love with them then and, as I found out, I'm still in love with them. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* The Chronicles of Riddick
Vin Diesel reprises his night-visioned antihero from Pitch Black and proceeds to stomp ass across the universe in this crazily overstuffed space opera, the first in a projected trilogy. While writer/director David Twohy's earlier films (The Arrival, the woefully underseen Below) had a lean, propulsive genre ingenuity that belied their minuscule budgets, his first crack at James Cameron-style hugeness is wildly entertaining in a Dune/Flash Gordon sense, but proves ultimately just too damned gargantuan to sweat the small details at which he normally excels. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Clearing
What a waste of a slick, well-executed kidnapping. (ANDY SPLETZER)
* Control Room
Like the recent documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Control Room offers us a look from the inside of the other side. Al Jazeera has 40 million viewers in the Arab world, and it shows its part of the world things that the American networks don't show their part of the world. The future may very well recognize Al Jazeera as the first genuinely global institution of the 21st century. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
The Corporation
Basically, the movie looks down upon the masses of people who thoughtlessly consume products made by corrupt corporations. But you know what? I identify more with the masses than I do with the filmmakers; if I want to spend 145 minutes being told I'm an idiot, I'd rather spend that time in the singles bars. (ANDY SPLETZER)
* The Day After Tomorrow
German director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla) has saved the disaster film. The Day After Tomorrow returns the spectacle back to we the people. For the first time since 2001, the spectacle of mass destruction is the source of pleasure rather than terror. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* De-Lovely
De-Lovely is perfumed with preciousness, and ultimately suffers from the self-consciousness of its Hollywood gloss, as well as the difficult-to-swallow progressiveness of its characters. (Oddly enough, the sub rosa insinuation of Cole Porter's homosexuality in the 1946 biopic Night and Day rings much truer to the life one imagines a gay man leading in the '20s and '30s.) Still, the fine performances of Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd diminish the film's more troublesome liberties. (SEAN NELSON)
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
In this upstanding comedy, a group of friends enters a dodgeball tournament in order to defend their local gym from being turned into a corporate health club. What happened to the good old days, when dodgeball was about throwing a ball at someone's head?
* Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut
Having studied the film carefully a few times, I still can't tell if the plot's weird calculus--what actually happens, to whom, and where, and when--actually adds up to anything more than a semi-random sequence of related but unconnected events. What I can say, however, is that the film resonates with a uniquely American kind of sadness. (SEAN NELSON)
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Whereas the last Michel Gondry/Charlie Kaufman collaboration, Human Nature, eventually crumbled under its own quirkiness, Eternal Sunshine finds director and scribe fitting perfectly together. This is a film that travels far beyond most of our imaginations. It is also one of the most beautifully assembled romances you will ever see. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Facing Windows
Throughout the film, Ferzan Ozpetek's golden light conveys romance and elegy at once, and several times he brings striking images of great beauty and depth to the screen. The film's opening sequence depicts a bloody handprint fading over time as dawn light illuminates the wall that carries it, moving the narrative forward by 50 years. The handprint faded from the wall but replayed in my mind long after the film's screening. (MIKE WHYBARK)
* Fahrenheit 9/11
Michael Moore is a propagandist, taking the fight to the opposition on their terms, and winning. Because of his motives and his audience, this propagandist is the most important filmmaker we have, and Fahrenheit 9/11 is the best film he's ever made. (SEAN NELSON)
Garfield: The Movie
Bill Murray once starred in Stripes, Meatballs, Rushmore, and numerous other funny-as-shit classics. For those movies, we will always love him. But the next generation, the generation that is currently young and dumb enough to be easily entertained by a fat, computerized cat, what are they going to know Bill Murray as? The fuckin' voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie! I don't really understand why this movie had to be made. Obviously nothing interesting happens. It isn't funny. At the screening I attended, a part that drew a good amount of laughs was Garfield asking "Got milk?" after drinking some milk. I mean, is that funny? What? No. Stop it. (MEGAN SELING)
* Good Bye Lenin!
Because of Christiane's exceptionally delicate condition, her son Alexander cannot inform her that East Germany is no more, and so he maintains the inside of Christiane's room in the state of East Germany. The trick, and it is a trick devised by the clever director (Wolfgang Becker), works. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Alfonso Cuarón, who has taken the directing reigns from Chris Columbus this time around, has not turned the Potterheads' god into bullshit. Early word on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was that it was the best of the series, and for once early word was correct; for the first time in the franchise's existence, a film has achieved the level of art. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Kill Bill Vol. 2
As a whole piece (as it was originally intended), Kill Bill would've toppled over, eventually landing with a thud upon its inevitable anti-climax. There are some surprising fits to be found in Vol. 2 (including the Uma Thurman squaring off with Elle Driver, a romp that owes much to the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona), but the final tally fails to shatter the earth--a shame, since Vol. 1 built hopes up so high. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
King Arthur
See review this issue.
* Mean Girls
Really, when you think about what sort of crap is out there for teenagers, about how teenagers live and interact and what Hollywood thinks is at stake for them (Chasing Liberty, anyone?), Mean Girls starts to look great. It's funny, lively, and smart, with a couple of characters who seem realer than not, and had I seen it as a teenager it might have changed something for me. (EMILY HALL)
* Napoleon Dynamite
In this charming new film, 24-year-old writer/ director Jared Hess mines the nebulous area between popular chic and weirdo freak, where outcast attributes are both quality, subtle comedy, and a charmingly dark part of our collective high-school unconscious. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
The Notebook
The Notebook, which was directed by Nick Cassavetes (talentless son of supremely talented John Cassavetes), is based on a Nicholas Sparks tome, and it bears the mark of all his work. That mark is complete and utter bullshit, and the end result is a bullshit film--a weepy, obvious, and painfully unromantic romance. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Raising Helen
More than anything, actually, this movie feels like a PG-13 version of Sex and the City, where instead of the cherubic moneybags Carrie Bradshaw you have the fairly well-off and cherubic Helen Harris, both of whom everyone always adores. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Sacred Planet
No one who has graduated from the fifth grade ever goes to see IMAX movies. So I can't imagine that it's worth my time to tell you about the latest IMAX addition, Sacred Planet, because what do you care? You don't want to go see a beautifully filmed educational movie showing some of the most breathtaking areas of the world (like Namibia, Thailand, and Borneo). (MEGAN SELING)
* Saved!
This film knows exactly what it is--a teen flick with a humanist agenda--and Brian Dannelly picks his battles to suit his aims. Even with its too-pat ending (complete with syrupy underscoring--a duet of Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows" sung by Mandy Moore and Michael Stipe, one of the film's producers), Saved! closes with a tableau that will leave unreformed fundamentalists gaping in horror. Score one for the good guys. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Shrek 2
Shrek 2 can best be described with a shrug. As in: It's fine, no big deal, just what you would expect. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Spider-man 2
Going into a Spider-Man film we surely expect the spectacular, but even the spectacular has limits. All films, even fantasy ones, need to at least touch upon reality. It can be the lightest of touches, but there must be substance there for us to grab onto--otherwise, why should we bother watching? In Sam Raimi's vision of Spider-Man, however, his normally manic camera joins with CGI to create a work that is often completely fraudulent. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Stepford Wives
The original, 1975 version of The Stepford Wives was a dark, brilliantly creepy psychological thriller focusing on a small town's conspiracy against the wives of its inhabitants. Like The Shining without all the blood, the madness is subtle, edging into the plot with subtle clues but holding on to the story's gripping twist until the end. The bright and shiny new millennium edition not only completely changes the ending, it's also too campy, two-dimensional, and sanitized for what was a very chilling portrait of domination and control in a sci-fi war of the sexes. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
* Super Size Me
Lest you think that this film is only for Fast Food Nation types, that it's aimed only at those who already have the information, remember that Morgan Spurlock put his own body on the line to get your attention. That's why he did it. He did it for you. (EMILY HALL)
The Terminal
If an army of critics line up to heap praise upon Steven Spielberg's The Terminal, as early Internet firings hint that they will, then something has gone terribly wrong in the world. This is easily the worst film of Spielberg's career, surpassing even blemishes like Always, Hook, and A.I. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Two Brothers
Jean-Jacques Annaud's great trick is to turn the essential, undeniable, heart-exploding adorability of the cubs into the stuff of proper drama. Annaud handily pulls off that feat by making Sungha and Kumal distinct characters--one is timid and sweet, the other ferocious--and by suffusing their plight with emotions you can only call human. Because this is a movie about animals, he also supplies an endless array of scenes in which beasts suffer and die at the hands of men. And because the animals remind you of your sweet little housecat, you cry. But somewhere in there, you also become invested in the story, which is so primary as to be almost Greek, and is told with techniques so purely cinematic as to confirm the essential power of movies. (SEAN NELSON)
What the #$*! Do We Know?!
This ungainly, inane film purports to be about quantum physics but is really about the power of positive thinking, with a midlife-crisis plot (starring Marlee Matlin) and some childish cartoon figures and a series of talking heads who can't stop using the word "paradigm." (EMILY HALL)
White Chicks
The Wayans brothers protect the hotel-heiress Hilton--err, Wilson--sisters from a heinous kidnapping plot.
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