From the Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2004 issue

Film

Film Shorts

LIMITED RUN


* Brighton Rock
Like Fritz Lang's M and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraí, Brighton Rock is a perfect crime film. It also stands as one of the best films that Britain has produced. Starring Richard Attenborough (who to my surprise was once a very young man--I have only known him as an old director of movies that deal with heavy subject matters like death and racism), Brighton Rock is about a small gang that has entered its final days. Several forces are working hard to erase the gang from the scene, one of which is a bigger gang that is set to run things around the sunny resort town of Brighton. The leader of the doomed gang, Attenborough, is trying by every means and scheme to beat back the competition, and also to cool down the heat that has been drawn by a series of suspicious deaths. But as with M, it is not the crime story that makes Brighton Rock a perfect crime movie, but rather, its seemingly complete representation of an underworld society (how it eats, drinks, dates, smokes, dresses). Great crime films are not psychological but sociological. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Seattle Art Museum, Sun Oct 3 at 4 pm.

* The Incident at Loch Ness
See Stranger Suggests. Varsity, Fri-Sun noon, 2:15, 4:30, 7, 9:15 pm, Mon-Thurs 7, 9:15 pm.

Johnny Eager
SAM's lesser-known film noir series opens with this 1942 film starring Lana Turner and Robert Taylor. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs Sept 30 at 7:30 pm.

The King of Masks
An 1996 film about an aging street performer in 1930s China. Seattle Asian Art Museum, Sat Oct 2 at 1:30 pm.

* Last Life in the Universe
This quiet film, with gorgeously communicative cinematography by Christopher Doyle, tells the story of a Japanese man with a penchant for suicide attempts who works in a little library in Thailand. His efforts to escape his suffocatingly geometrical existence are thwarted by all kinds of beeps and buzzings, which herald first a couple of yakuza types (one played by Takashi Miike) with no sense of personal space, and then a tiny, perfect love story involving a young Thai prostitute and her squalid home. The story trafficks in stereotypes and silliness, but the film somehow transcends them all through the main character's gentleness, obsession, and restraint. (ANNIE WAGNER) Grand Illusion, Weekdays, 6:30, 9:30 pm, Sat-Sun 2, 4:15, 6:30, 9:30 pm.

Monumental
I really don't care about nature. I hate walking in the woods, and prefer concrete to grass. In a word, I'm the worst person to review a film about a man who had an overwhelming passion for all things natural. According to this documentary, which is well made and scored by beautiful alternative rock, David Brower, a 20th century conservationist, fought hard to protect what was left of America's wilderness from the indefatigable progress of our overdeveloped society. He hated dams, which I think are really awesome (in both senses of the word). True, they kill everything with the water they hold, but a massive dam is as magnificent as a dramatic cliff--in fact, I will go as far as to argue that a dam is more magnificent than cliff, because a dam powers a whole metropolis whereas a cliff does nothing but be a cliff. But to hell with dams and cliffs, my main problem with heroic environmentalists like David Brower is not their convictions or positions or actions (those interviewed about Brower's life and character frequently say he was a man of action), but the way they make their arguments--meaning the language of environmentalism, which is so simple and makes nature seem so weak. A speech by Brower gives one the impression that nature has been reduced to a toothless lion. In an environmentalist view of things, human beings have all the power, and I can't separate this particular perception of the world with a certain strain of Western anthropocentricism. Enough said. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Mutiny on the Bounty
A famous miniature revolution in a very confined space spawned this Oscar-winning film by Frank Lloyd. Wawona, Sat Oct 2 at 7 pm.

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

Northwest Asian American Film Festival
All films screen at Theatre Off Jackson, unless otherwise noted. Imelda, a documentary about the infamous shoe collector, Thurs Sept 30 at 7 pm. Shorts package, including Wes Kim's fly film about Fremont and a documentary about New York artist Kazumi Tanaka, Fri Oct 1 at 7 pm. Long Life, Happiness, and Prosperity, a Canadian narrative film about Vancouver's Chinese community, Fri Oct 1 at 9 pm. Music package, including a featurette entitled The Life and Times of MC Beer Bong, Fri Oct 1 at 11:15 pm. A forum about Asian-American images in film, Sat Oct 2 at 1 pm. A history package featuring archival films about Asian Americans, Sat Oct 2 at 4 pm. Take Out, a 2004 narrative film about an illegal Chinese immigrant struggling to pay off his debt, Sat Oct 2 at 7 pm. After the Apocalypse, an experimental feature, Sat Oct 2 at 9 pm. A shorts package about food, including Sour Death Balls, I Hate Cheese, and Best of the Wurst, Sun Oct 3 at 1 pm. Two adoption-themed featurettes from Canada, Sun Oct 3 at 4 pm. Closing night gala at Seattle Asian Art Museum, Sun Oct 3 at 7 pm: The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam. For more information, please see www.nwaaff.org.

Northwest Film Forum Grand Opening Bash
A party celebrating the formal opening of Northwest Film Forum's new digs on 12th Avenue. Featuring music from Anna Oxygen and the Buttersprites and performances by Sarah Rudinoff and Nick Garrison. Northwest Film Forum, Thurs Oct 7 at 8 pm.

Our Man in Havana
This 1959 film, written and adapted by Graham Greene, is a spy thriller with a comic twist. Seattle Art Museum, Sat Oct 2 at 8 pm.

* The Third Man
If this movie doesn't glamorize the life of black market profiteers in immediate post-WW II Vienna, then no movie ever did. Joseph Cotten plays Holly Martins, a "scribbler with too much drink in him," trying to clear the name of his recently deceased best friend, the nefarious Harry Lime (Orson Welles, at his cherubic pinnacle). The acting, music, photography, and dialogue (script by Graham Greene, the British author, not the Native American actor) are peerless. (SEAN NELSON) Seattle Art Museum, Sat Oct 2 at 6 and 10 pm.

This Gun for Hire
Proto-film noir written by Graham Green and starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Seattle Art Museum, Sun Oct 3 at 2 and 6 pm.

THUNK w/ Everyday Something
Two snowboarding videos produced by Think Thank and Neoproto. Premier, Thurs Sept 30 at 8:30 pm.

Warsaw Uprising
A documentary about the 1944 battle that pitted the Polish Home Army against the Germans. Central Library, Sat Oct 2 at 2 pm.

Yor, the Hunter from the Future
A prehistoric warrior poses the age-old question, "Where did I come from?" Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
NOW PLAYING


* 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 Bourne Supremacy
The clock is ticking from the very first moment of this outstanding sequel, which meets the unenviable challenge of besting its predecessor, the fantastic Bourne Identity. Amnesiac super spy/assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon, who is now as hard as a diamond) comes out of hiding to confront his masters, who, as fate would have it, are already scouring the earth looking for him because they think he murdered some Russians and stole some secrets. And guess what: He did! Just not the Russians they think he killed. Sorry, forget the plot. Remember the dizzying fight scenes, the indefatigable cloak and dagger in which everyone is the smartest person in the room (and Bourne is the smartest of them all), the best car chase ever filmed (fact!). Remember director Paul Greengrass's masterful handheld choreography. Best of all, remember the supporting cast: Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles, Franka Potente, all of whom, along with Damon--whose robotic beauty has never better served a character than this one--help to elevate the Robert Ludlum pulp into a high lowbrow masterpiece. (SEAN NELSON)

* Bright Young Things
Stephen Fry knows just how to treat Evelyn Waugh's comic dialogue--the hilarity pounces out of nowhere, and it's lethal. When Stockard Channing, playing the evangelical Mrs. Melrose Ape, concludes her brilliantly loony exhortations and introduces her choir of American girl-angels, you might expect that the mirth has crested. But then the girls up the ante, launching lustily into the venerable hymn "Ain't No Flies on the Lamb of God." I think I nearly cried. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Bush's Brain
An unforgivably lazy documentary without any hint of doubt about its diabolical thesis, Bush's Brain is a panicky, literal-minded adaptation of the book of the same name. Using little more than secondhand information and an offensively opportunistic visit with a grieving war widow, the movie isn't content with characterizing Karl Rove as an amoral sonofabitch who runs campaigns so dirty they'd probably shock Joseph Goebbels. He is, as one talking head tells us, "co-president of the United States," with the entire government at his fingertips. (ADAM HART)

Cellular
A man receives a call on his cell phone, and the caller claims to have been kidnapped. But his cell battery is running out....

Collateral
As polished and pleasant as all this scenery is (and as good as both Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are), Collateral nonetheless fails, both as a thriller and as yet another entry into Michael Mann's brooding-men oeuvre. What may have been intended as a thinking man's thriller--patient, observant, character-driven--is thoroughly derailed by a surprising source: Mann's inability to shoot action. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Criminal
A remake of the Argentinean film Nine Queens (in which a con man takes a new apprentice under his wing--but is he merely doing a scam?), Criminal is twisty to a fault, delivering a ridiculous huh? ending that fairly well undermines the entire endeavor. If the hackasaurus M. Night Shyamalan has taught us anything it is that a twist for a twist's sake does nothing for either the film or the audience, no matter how cool it looks. Criminal looks cool, but in the end, despite the always-welcome presence of both John C. Reilly and Maggie Gyllenhaal, it will leave you pissed off. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

A Dirty Shame
A Dirty Shame tackles the very John Waters-worthy topic of sexual addiction, only to squander it in a pile of unfunny, obvious, and surprisingly tame jokes. Has popular culture finally out-crassed John Waters? (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* 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)

* 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)

First Daughter
This daughter-of-the-prez teen flick is surprisingly good, even though it's exactly like Chasing Liberty and even though it stars Katie Holmes of bland, excessively scrubbed Dawson's Creek fame. And I ought not neglect to mention that the plot argues for the reelection of a subtly right-leaning president. What's great about First Daughter, despite all these negative portents, is that Katie Holmes' character is fundamentally unlikeable. And Katie Holmes knows it. Watching an actress condescend to her own character--from inorganic grins to pantmomimes of sorority-girl fun--is deeply, perversely satisfying. (ANNIE WAGNER)

* The Forgotten
The Forgotten is a surprisingly strong mainstream thriller, with twists that are both implausible and utterly credible, thanks especially to the open-wound vulnerability of the great Julianne Moore. She plays a bereaved mother who suddenly begins to suspect that everyone around her--shrink, husband, neighbor--is part of a conspiracy to make her believe her dead son never existed. Because this is a thriller, she's right, of course, but in a world of infinite possibilities, the choices made by screenwriter Gerald DiPego and highly skilled genre director Joseph Ruben justify the thrills in a refreshingly inventive style. (SEAN NELSON)

Garden State
Zack Braff's debut film, Garden State, which he wrote, directed, and stars in, may very well be a similar act of egogasm (when you put Simon and Garfunkel on the soundtrack of your examination of disaffected twentysomethings, you're just asking for it), but it features enough odd grace notes among the rampant navel-gazing to warrant a watch. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Innocence is set in the year 2032, and concerns an android cop and his human partner trying to determine why a series of pleasure robots have turned into killers. What begins as a murder investigation ends as an ontological inquiry--an examination of the meaning of being. The fight and battle sequences are impressively complex, but the long sections of philosophizing are laughably simple. The director, Mamoru Oshii, forced his film to confront and answer the biggest of all questions about human existence. But Descartes has no business being in the land of anime. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

* Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
Directed by George Butler, and narrated by Ben Affleck, this documentary is about the birth of John Kerry's political career, which is completely opposite from that of his opponent in this year's presidential election. After returning from service in Vietnam, Kerry was instrumental in organizing what we now call "truth commissions" (Vietnam vets confessing their war crimes), as well as a major protest in Washington D.C. that involved Vietnam vets who were against the war. The documentary shows John Kerry speaking at the protest and managing it. But the heart of the documentary is the footage of 27-year-old Kerry in a moment of what can only be called American grace: testifying, on national television, as a decorated veteran, before the noble eagle-like men of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This is the most important moment of his political life, and he rises to the occasion--his speech is clear, economical, and powerful. At the end of the testimony, which runs 4 minutes, Kerry is famous. Richard Nixon recognizes him as a force and wants "to destroy him before he becomes another Ralph Nader." One hopes that the Kerry who courageously protested a bad war in 1971 will be the Kerry who is our Commander in Chief in 2005. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Head in the Clouds
See review this issue.

* Hero
Initially, Yimou Zhang, the director of such intimate character pieces as Raise the Red Lantern and To Live, may seem an odd choice to successfully rekindle the flaming swords and arrows of the martial arts genre, but from the opening frames he sells you. Hero melds modern wirework effects with the director's own mastery of character to create an awesome chop-socky epic with an honestly moving emotional backbeat. This time, at least, the hype can be believed. I could watch it every night. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

* Intimate Strangers
Directed by Patrice Leconte, Intimate Strangers has a strong start and a weak finish. The opening is strong because the premise actually works. But once the accountant is exposed, the comedy dies and a drama is born. With the comedy gone for good, all that's left to enjoy are the film's set designs and the cinematography, which works hard to capture the bourgeois elegance of Sandrine Bonnaire's face. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Ladder 49
See review this issue.

The Last Shot
This is one of the most painfully ludicrous movies you will ever see, so inept in its execution that it's sure to inspire many a slapped forehead. In order to bolster his FBI career, Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) conjures an idea: He'll pretend to produce a movie in Rhode Island, where the local crime boss, a relative of John Gotti, will hopefully flex his muscles with the unions--and hand Devine a major indictment. In order for Devine to make his plan work, however, he needs an unawares dope, some poor sap whose dreams are so inconsequential that they can be sacrificed by the feds. Enter Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick), an aspiring filmmaker who has for years struggled to get his beloved script made. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* The Manchurian Candidate
The film is far from flawless--silly flourishes include the painful cliché of the retired professor the hero turns to for advice, and a gross pantomime of mental illness that's lifted straight out of A Beautiful Mind--but it's just as mesmerizing and suspenseful as the original. (ANNIE WAGNER)

* Maria Full of Grace
Following an angelic (i.e., stunningly gorgeous) young woman--pregnant and sick of life in her one-factory town--who joins up with the local drug lord for a single trip across the Colombian border, this first film from writer-director Joshua Marston is an admirably restrained, even-handed debut that wisely avoids making sweeping societal pronouncements, shrinking Maria's world--whether she's in rural Colombia or big-city New Jersey--to the small circle of people who directly impact her life. (ADAM HART)

The Motorcycle Diaries
See review this issue.

Mr. 3000
Mr. 3000 (Bernie Mac) is an aging former baseball star who, upon discovering that several of his namesake 3000 hits were mistakenly counted twice, vows to regain his dignity, glory, and nickname by returning to the field.

* 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)

Princess Diaries II: Royal Engagement
The once very awkward and geeky Princess Mia is all growed up and graduated from college, and she's finally old enough to be crowned queen. Just so happens, the pretty princess' grandmother (the lady from The Sound of Music), who is currently queen, decides to "step down" (it's a Disney movie, brah, of course they're not going to kill anyone off), which would allow Princess Mia to be Queen Mia. Yippee! But there's a catch! Oh no! Mia can only be crowned queen, according to the rulebook, if she's married. And so if the very single Princess Mia can't bag a man in 30 days or less, a handsome and naíve jerk-off is gonna be crowned king! (MEGAN SELING)

Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Alice (Milla Jovovich) survives a dastardly laboratory incident! But now she has to flee from the undead! The horror.

Shark Tale
See review this issue.

* Shaun of the Dead
A sharp, clever, and gory horror-comedy that manages to be as scary as it is hilarious, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead shows all the marks of becoming a cult classic (and yeah, I know that sounds clichéd--but in this case, it's actually true). In the recent glut of financially successful zombie flicks--from 28 Days Later to the remake of Dawn of the Dead--the UK-made Shaun is the clear spiritual and intellectual winner, a film that simultaneously respects and satirizes the zombie genre. (ERIK HENRIKSEN)

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)

Silver City
Silver City is a toothless political satire weighted down by self-satisfaction, lame performances, and a plot that seems to understand that its only purpose is to motorize the anti-George W. Bush allegory that beats ineffectually where the film's heart should be. (SEAN NELSON)

* Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
This is perhaps the most expensive experimental film ever (think of a cheerful Lars von Trier's Zentropa, or a Guy Maddin film with a ridiculous budget), and as such it's fairly shocking that it exists at all. Studios are not ones to gamble, after all, especially on first-time filmmakers with cockamamie schemes about robots and fighter planes, but Conran has managed to make something in Sky Captain that both harks back and leaps forward at the same time, and it is without a doubt, on a purely technical level, one of the bravest major studio pictures ever released. (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)

Tae Guk Gi
Here is a truism: When the battle scenes in a war movie become too graphic, the movie essentially becomes an antiwar movie. This is the case of Tae Guk Gi, an epic about two brothers who are swept into the middle of the civil war between North and South Korea. The movie, which is directed by Je-Kyu Kang, makes obvious statements about how the war was meaningless--there were no real differences between the enemies, and ultimately what took place was brother killing brother, father killing son, son killing sister. However, these apparent criticisms of the civil war (which has yet to be resolved), and war in general, are not as powerful as the images of combat--exploding bodies, bullets striking heads and guts, grenades blowing off limbs. To show this is in great detail, which Tae Guk Gi does, is to make a final case against the state of war. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Vanity Fair
The problem with Reese Witherspoon as Becky is linked to the way this film tries to reinvent her character. Thackeray's secret sympathy for his conniving protagonist--who is so bad she even hates children--always seeps through the cynical narration. Becky Sharp is great because, no matter how much we admire her pluck from the safe distance of the 21st century, she was a terrible bitch. Mira Nair does not agree. (ANNIE WAGNER)

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)

When Will I Be Loved
This is what happens when a terrible filmmaker is given the freedom to believe he is an important artist. The filmmaker in question is James Toback, previous creator of such semi-improvisational trash as Black & White and Two Girls and a Guy, and if his new venture proves anything it's that shit lightning can strike not just twice, but thrice. The story? Nutshelled, it's like this: Neve Campbell takes a shower, masturbates, sleeps with a woman, sleeps with a man, sleeps with another man, accidentally causes a murder, and, for good measure, takes another shower. Everything else is superfluous--to Toback especially, since the sight of Campbell's ass is all he's apparently interested in. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Wimbledon
In this wretched, soulless tale of love on the courts of Wimbledon, tennis boy Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) meets tennis girl Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst) when a serendipitous keycard mix-up sends him into her hotel suite just as she's finishing her shower. The sad fact is that the best thing about this movie is the dorky, good-omen ball boy, who pops up whenever it looks like Peter is about to lose. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Without a Paddle
Without a Paddle is bad. Really bad. Terrible. Thoroughly derivative and unfunny, and obviously conceived at every step of production as nothing more than a cynical stab at key demographics. (ADAM HART)

The Yes Men
See review this issue.