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* The Awful Truth
A 1937 screwball comedy starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sat 7 pm, Sun 7, 9 pm, Mon 7 pm, Tues-Thurs 7, 9 pm.
* Bad Santa
Thank the Lord someone has finally helped take the piss out of Christmas with a pure, spitefully cynical spirit. And that person, surprisingly, is Billy Bob Thornton. The usually despicable actor is the pants-wetting, booze-swilling Man in Red crowning the sour Christmas tree that is Bad Santa. Allowing me to review this movie was one of the best Christmas gifts I could receive this year; it's the antithesis of a feel-good film--actually, it's a feel-shitty film that, if you love brutal humor, will warm you like spiked eggnog. Directed by Terry Zwigoff (mastermind behind Crumb and Ghost World), Bad Santa tells the story of Willie T. Stokes (Thornton) and his "small person friend," Marcus (Tony Cox), who've conjured up a yearly scheme posing as Santa and his elf at various department stores around the country, only to rob the places blind on Christmas Eve. The premise is simple to decipher, but it's the intrusions on good taste that make this movie brilliant. Nothing is sacred in Bad Santa--not a child's trust, not a sick alcoholic's slumps into oblivion, and definitely not the "most wonderful time of the year." Zwigoff (and executive producers the Coen brothers) take an irreverent attitude toward everything, replacing the sugarcoated holiday films of yore with a shiny new slime-coated lease on lewdness. (JENNIFER MAERZ) Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
* It's a Wonderful Life
Shortly after It's a Wonderful Life's 1946 release, James Agee, the most astute and eloquent American film critic of all time, noted the film's grueling aspect. "Often," he wrote, "in its pile-driving emotional exuberance, it outrages, insults, or at least accosts without introduction, the cooler and more responsible parts of the mind." These aesthetic cautions are followed, however, by a telling addendum: "It is nevertheless recommended," Agee allowed, "and will be reviewed at length as soon as the paralyzing joys of the season permit." Paralyzing joys are the very heart of George Bailey's dilemma; they are, to borrow words from George's father, "deep in the race." The sacrifices George makes for being "the richest man in town" resonate bitterly even as they lead to the finale's effusive payoff. Those sacrifices are what make It's a Wonderful Life, in all its "Capraesque" glory, endure. (SEAN NELSON) Grand Illusion, Weekdays 6, 8:30 pm, Sat-Sun 3:30, 6, 8:30 pm.
The Late Show
A film-based variety show, this edition featuring Gregg Lachow's Father and Son, plus looped films including My Super-8 Day: Days 3, by Alex Simmons; My Super-8 Day: Day 4, by Drew Warren; Theories in Ambient Television Braodcasting: Sequence 1, by Brian Short; Workers Exiting a Factory, by Allison Paye; and Flowers, by David McDonald. Northwest Film Forum, Sat Dec 18 at 11 pm.
The Manson Family
Started in 1997 and completed just last year, Jim Van Bebber's re-creation of the slide of Charles Manson and his followers from love-happy hippies to satanic killers has two parts: one is very bad and the other is incomplete. The bad part functions as a modern-day frame to the most famous crime of 1969. It concerns a group of Marilyn Manson-like teenagers who, out of boredom, kill a local producer working on a TV documentary on Charles Manson (Marcelo Games). Van Bebber could have easily cut this dead contemporary chunk and been left with the well-acted retelling of how Manson's circle of followers formed and deformed; the film's details of life on the love farm, and the reenactment of the gory murders, are impressively realistic. Still, even this better part of the film is, at root, disappointing because Van Bebber fails to adequately reconstruct the charged political environment that shaped the ideas that were finally and horrifically realized by the Hollywood murders. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Northwest Film Forum, Daily 7:15, 9:15 pm (no show Mon).
Meet Me in St. Louis
Judy Garland meets a nice boy. Movie Legends, Sun Dec 19 at 1 pm.
New Work by Mark O'Connell
A screening of new motion collages by video/media artist Mark O'Connell. 911 Media Arts, Thurs Dec 16 at 7 pm.
* Outfoxed
In terms of display, Fox News has all of the codes of a neutral network--serious-looking anchorpersons at prime time, political analysts in power suits, casual morning shows--and this is why people believe it is legitimate: It looks like the real thing. But this is old news; anyone who lives in this city knows very well what Fox News is all about--that it's staffed by absolute nutters who yell at their guests and tell them to shut up. So why is this documentary of any value to us? Because the Fox News it describes is even creepier than you imagined. The little internal memos from the top that strictly dictate policy, the micro-management of employees and information, the encouraged "us against the rest" mentality--this has added up to an institution that has completely lost contact with reality. (CHARLES MUDEDE) New Freeway Hall, Thurs Dec 16 at 7:30 pm.
* The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Initially, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was meant to be a simple profile of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez--a headstrong brown man who has the balls of a bull, the air of a visionary, and the courage of a madman. While filming, though, Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain suddenly found themselves documenting, on April 12, 2002, the fall of a president besieged by his right-wing (and evidently CIA-supported) opponents. Chavez is defiant at first, but then surrenders, not because he is scared but because he doesn't want blood to be shed. And this is the truth that The Revolution Will Not Be Televised brings to light, a truth that was pretty much ignored/obscured by CNN and other American news sources: Chavez does not see himself as the most important human in Venezuela--if such were the case he would have fought to the death to stay in power. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Savery Hall, Room 239, Tues Dec 21 at 7:30 pm.
The Shop Around the Corner
Jimmy Stewart stars in this sweet 1940 romantic comedy, which was butchered, then raped, then pissed on, then murdered under the aegis of being "remade" as You've Got Mail. Grand Illusion, Northwest Film Forum, Mon Dec 20 at 7 pm. Holiday Ball follows at 9 pm.
Winter Solstice Surf
Doesn't it seem a little cold to be thinking about surfing? Rendezvous, Tues Dec 21 at 7:30 pm.
You Better Watch Out!, AKA Christmas Evil
See Blow Up. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sat 9, 11 pm.
NOW PLAYING
After the Sunset
In which a superthief (Pierce Brosnan, apparently laying off the Pilates) ponders retirement in paradise while his FBI nemesis (Woody Harrelson, pupils fully dilated) hovers in the wings waiting for a slip-up. There's the germ of a clever premise here--invincible man of action done in by inertia--but any initial potential is thoroughly stymied by shoddy execution and mounting narrative indifference, culminating in a final heist that makes The Great Muppet Caper look like a piece of crackerjack precision. Director Brett Ratner (Red Dragon) appears to be aiming for a genially sloppy, Rat Packish tone (St. Frank is mentioned more than once), but the shambling results come off more as a bunch of slumming actors grinning at each other while rapidly developing melanoma. (To be fair, this does mark a significant improvement over the director's previous efforts.) On the plus side, Salma Hayek wears a constant slew of severely overstuffed bikinis, which honestly may be worth a matinee. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Alexander
To be honest, if you've seen one sword-and-sandals epic, you've seen them all. Oliver Stone's film, despite its hefty budget, does little to expand the genre. Alexander exposes the fatal flaw of biopics: Interesting lives, those worthy of the biopic treatment, are usually far too burly to be contained in a single film. The best biopics--David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Spike Lee's Malcolm X--are able to flesh out and smartly condense at the same time. Alexander, under Stone's thundering direction, reduces matters to the depth of CliffsNotes. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Alfie
Even in a picture that doesn't require him to do an accent (do people just not notice how terrible he is at doing accents?) pretty boy Jude Law remains unconvincing, even while playing a quintessential narcissist. Recasting the central character as a little boy lost, rather than a predator, director Charles Shyer squanders all the attraction and complications of the original role--you don't hate Law's Alfie; you're supposed to pity him because he's afraid of commitment, which is bullshit, because fear of commitment is never compelling. (SEAN NELSON)
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
You know the god-awful musical? This is the movie.
Bad Education
The new Almodóvar movie, starring everybody's favorite Guadalajaran, Gael Garc,a Bernal.
Being Julia
Annette Bening throws herself into each dizzying emotion with abandon, but the histrionics are so grossly out of proportion with the charm or threat posed by her schoolboy lover that the emotional center of the film is hollowed out. The end is smashingly entertaining, but I'm not so sure it makes the tedious, feature-length setup worthwhile. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Blade: Trinity
The first movie in the Blade series is by far the best; the last is certainly the worst. But Blade: Trinity, which is directed by the writer of all three films, David S. Goyer, is not horrible--in fact it has the strongest dialogue in the series. What makes Trinity generally inferior is this: It's really two films instead of one--two films that are not at all complementary. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Desperate single women can be cute and funny. Moony, jealous women who obsess over their fancy boyfriends are neither cute nor funny. And that's all you need to know about this exceedingly lame movie. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Cachorro
Though the characters feel like they're drawn from real life, the tone of the film is lifted from the Lifetime channel. It's like a made-for-TV movie from a more enlightened society. I think it's because the music is schmaltzy and the grandmother-as-puritan villain is a little one-dimensional. Or maybe it's because the movie succeeds so well in making the idea of a gay single parent seem so normal that it gets a little boring. Which is not a bad thing, ultimately. (ANDY SPLETZER)
Callas Forever
Callas Forever swings wildly from one tone to another, and far too much of the film--the painful scene where Maria Callas pays an obsequious visit to a talentless painter's sixth-floor walkup, for example--is dedicated to grim '70s "realism." Zeffirelli lets his lush impulses take over only in little self-contained segments, including a truly great scene wherein Callas' friend Larry peers through a crack in the door to witness her in the midst of a weepy and thoroughly Sirkian meltdown. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Christmas with the Kranks
It would be a more enjoyable experience to drink egg nog vomit than to spend five minutes watching this crap. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Closer
Viewed scene by scene, the unfettered, constant venom on display in this film is bracing, thrilling, and almost as much fun to watch as it must have been to perform. Taken as a whole, however, it proves to be a bit too much of a bad thing. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
* 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)
Finding Neverland
Marc Forster's third film, Monster's Ball, was complete and utter nonsense. His fourth film, Finding Neverland, is ordinary and dry nonsense. Monster's Ball miserably failed to address the problem of racism; Finding Neverland simply fails to address the problem of death. Clearly, Forster is a director of the middling order. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
The Flight of the Phoenix
An update of the 1965 film about plane-crash survivors who attempt to reconstruct a new plane from the wreckage.
* 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)
The Grudge
The problem with the American remake of The Grudge is that the ghost never rests. You want a moment to look at Tokyo, to observe its traffic, its bright shops and busy bars--but that pleasure must be found in another movie (see Lost In Translation), because before the setting cools into the normal rhythms of urban life, yet another victim is being pursued and devoured. The ghost in The Grudge is to horror films what Ebola is to pathology. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* 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)
House of Flying Daggers
See review this issue.
I * Huckabees
While there are many characters, themes, plots, and subplots in Huckabees, the real conflicts are all dialectical--existential detectives vs. nihilist temptress, surrealistic idealist vs. empirical purist, etc. And even though these precepts are embodied by famous actors, the entire film winds up feeling like an abstraction, rather than a dramatization, of a philosophical quandary. That doesn't mean Huckabees fails to entertain; it just means that the viewer is required to discern a pattern from a seemingly random blizzard of ideas blowing across the screen. (SEAN NELSON)
* The Incredibles
The Incredibles is done in true and beautiful Pixar style, but the action sequences are far more exhilarating than anything seen in Finding Nemo or Toy Story. Plus, the humans aren't annoyingly unattractive, and it's pretty damn funny to boot. (MEGAN SELING)
Into the Deep
As a romantic comedy, Into the Deep comes up drastically short. It's neither funny nor romantic. The chemistry between the main characters (fish with almost no lines and facial expressions that can be described as stoic at best) seems nonexistent until the male is fertilizing the female's eggs, and then--BOOM! Where did that come from? There is scant character development as the camera distractedly follows first one, then another, underwater species with an attention span reminiscent of Richard Linklater's Slacker. The gratuitous squid orgy offers the only titillation. When the entire lot dies after a frenzy of blood-engorged betentacled copulation, we wish the film would die as graceful a death. Instead, it goes on for another 10 minutes while the narrator explains that in the kelp forests, the circle of life and death is infinite--a final irritating example of the lack of respect the filmmakers have for their viewers. One would think this movie was made for small children and not discerning adults who enjoy watching a little hot fish sex. (A.J. GLUSMAN)
Kinsey
The first half of Kinsey is exciting on a micro scale the way Kinsey's work was exciting on a grand one: It demonstrates that reason can prevail over mythology. Unfortunately, because it's a movie, the second half allows mythology--the mythology of narrative--to re-intrude, and the picture grows musty. (SEAN NELSON)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
See review this issue.
The Machinist
I know you've probably read by now that Christian Bale lost a bunch of weight for this film, but I kid you not--NOTHING YOU'VE EVER SEEN BEFORE CAN PREPARE YOU FOR THE SHOCK OF HIS APPEARANCE IN THE MACHINIST. His body literally resembles that of a concentration camp survivor or advanced anorexia sufferer. The fact that he has transformed himself for a film that would otherwise be a complete throwaway is somewhat perverse, but the fact that he could do it at all is all the evidence you'll ever need of his commitment to acting. (SEAN NELSON)
Meet the Fockers
The sequel to Meet the Parents, starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller.
* The Motorcycle Diaries
This is a film that should be taken for what it is: a beautifully constructed road movie with a dash of conscience on the side. There is much to despise about Che Guevara later in his life; these early adventures help us understand where the eventual fanatic was born. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* 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)
National Treasure
Ultimately, National Treasure imagines an America that is supremely meaningful, that can be read (or decoded), and has a final reward for those who are super committed to disinterring the mysterious source of its greatness. But at the end of the movie the main mystery remains unsolved: Why was so much money, energy, and talent spent realizing what is evidently a dull and dumb script? (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Ocean's Twelve
The story is a mess, the scam is a fraud, and the performances are lazy and smug, but Ocean's Twelve has one major plus: the return of Steven Soderbergh's creative pulse. Visually, he's never been stronger than he is here, delivering a film so thoroughly coated in New Wave sheen that you can't help but be caught up in his energy. The Soderbergh of Out of Sight and The Limey is back, or at least the visual half of him is, and it's definitely a welcome return. Now if he'd just choose smarter projects... (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Polar Express
Here and there, Polar Express hits on an image or mood worthy of the season, particularly during the early scenes of the magical title vehicle, but the thundering need to make a state-of-the-art prefab classic steamrolls over most of the cheer. On Donner, on Blitzen, on Tron. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
* Ray
Despite a tendency to bathe in the molasses of sentimentality, Ray is a rich exponent of the biopic genre. It'd be crazy not to attribute the film's success to the brilliance of its subject, the inestimably great American composer Ray Charles, and the constant presence on the soundtrack of his songs, but the choices made by the filmmakers certainly don't hurt. Chief among them, the casting of Jamie Foxx, up to now a cloying black comic, and hereafter a dazzling performer capable of inhabiting one of the most recognizable faces of the 20th century in a mesmerizing feat of impersonation. Imposing a narrative on a life, especially one filled with so many contradictions (i.e. beloved entertainer/ abusive junkie cheapskate) may be a fool's errand, but this film is satisfying nonetheless. (SEAN NELSON)
Shall We Dance?
In Shall We Dance?, which is directed by Peter Chelsom, an estate planner (Richard Gere) wants to fuck a mysterious dance instructor (Jennifer Lopez). His marriage is safe, dull, and very white; in a flash he sees the exact opposite of all that he is--a brown voluptuous woman. She thrives in the heart of the city (Chicago); he is imprisoned in the suburbs. She has passion; he has a pension. As always, the north wants to hump the south. He makes a cautious move toward his desire, but what he ends up with are a bunch of dance lessons instead of sex. His wife (Susan Sarandon) suspects he is having an affair; but she soon learns that he is spending his nights practicing the tango. The movie ends with the marriage reaffirmed and a return of peace to the kingdom of the petty bourgeoisie. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Shark Tale
Dreamworks' newest faux-Disney offering is a drably animated parable about the perils of watching too much Cribs. Will Smith provides the voice of a lowly fish named Oscar, a whale-wash employee who can only fantasize about appearing on a billboard in the ocean equivalent of midtown Manhattan. But then a freak accident kills a shark who'd been pursuing Oscar, and the boy from the reef's South Side seizes the opportunity to reinvent himself as a shark-slaying celebrity. Clearly, the ruse can't be sustained for long. (ANNIE WAGNER)
* Sideways
While Sideways is a road movie, it's a lazy one; the distance traveled, both physically and emotionally, is short. Blessed with pitch-perfect performances, especially by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church (who really is an actor on the downslope of his career), Sideways is a slight film, to be sure, but it's also one of Alexander Payne's least snide efforts; known for rolling his eyes at his characters as much as he rolls cameras on them, the director keeps himself mostly in check here. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Spanglish
See review this issue.
* The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
Based on Nickelodeon series, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie appeals to both the easily entertained and those who appreciate the power of double meaning--i.e., an ice cream bender that cause SpongeBob and Patrick to pass out, and wake up crimson eyed and quick tempered. The film follows in the footsteps of smart-ass cartoons like The Simpsons and Ren and Stimpy. Except SpongeBob's moneyshot is a cameo by David Hasselhoff. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Team America: World Police
Heavily inspired by Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds series (which was recently bastardized by Paramount into a puppet-free "adventure"), the marionette work in Trey Parker and Matt Stone's film is truly amazing. The action sequences, and even the quiet moments, are triumphs of design, beautifully photographed by Bill Pope and far more complicated than any sane person(s) would even attempt, let alone succeed at creating. It's not just an homage to Anderson, it's a completion of the creepy world Anderson was so obsessed with. Team America's comedy may run from inspired to painfully flat, and the politics may be far too simplistic, but Parker and Stone have done one thing better than anyone has before: They've made the greatest marionette movie of all time. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Vera Drake
The title character, played with impossible pathos and naiveté by Imelda Staunton, is a housekeeper, mother, visitor of shut-ins, and part-time abortionist. She is paid for polishing fireplace grates in rich people's homes, but the latter three functions--feeding and clothing her family of four, putting the kettle on in the cramped flats of various invalids, and pumping the uteruses of troubled women full of a noxious solution of carbolic soap--she performs gratis. The narrative is clearly engaged in modern political struggles, but at the same time it's a bruising, classical tragedy about a woman whose passionate altruism brings pain and suffering upon herself and the people whom she loves. (ANNIE WAGNER)
A Very Long Engagement
See review this issue.
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)
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
In this documentary, media critic Danny Schechter proves without a doubt that the major news complexes in America misinformed (and continue to misinform) the public about the war in Iraq. Not only did they circulate bad information supplied by the war-hungry White House, but they also refused to report on anything that contradicted the Bush administration's ideology and imperial schemes. The lines between the president's office, the Pentagon, and the press were effectively erased, and all that we heard during the days leading up to the war was one message: Weapons of Mass Destruction. The only problem with Schechter's documentary is that it hurts the soul and mind to watch it, simply because Weapons of Mass Deception's case against Bush is perfectly rational, and yet, Bush is irrationally still in office. This is the age of unreason. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
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