LIMITED RUN
The 39 Steps
Alfred Hitchchock's mid-thirties film about counterespionage. Museum of History and Industry, Thurs January 26 at 7:30 pm.
The Abortion Diaries
This 30-minute documentary by Penny Lane is simply constructed: In conversations with women in their homes and around a dinner table, Lane asks them about their abortions. Some women tell stories about so-called "crisis pregancy centers" and dangerous illegal procedures in developing countries, but mostly they talk about going to school and escaping loser boyfriends and using birth control. The movie is clear-eyed and surprisingly compelling (though I could have done without the twee zine-style intertitles about guilt and mothers and other topics that the interviewees weren't actually bringing up). It's the kind of thing you'd like to force Hillary "sad, even tragic" Clinton to watch. Not to mention Sam Alito. (ANNIE WAGNER) 911 Media Arts, Wed Jan 25 at 8 pm.
The Aristocrats
In The Aristocrats, a film co-directed by Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette, dozens of legendary (and sub-legendary) comedians tell variations on the dirtiest joke in the world. At least, that's what the movie pretends to be. In the end, the joke is just a vehicle for allowing these humormongers the opportunity to flex muscles their entertainment careers seldom allow them to flex. It's been at least two decades since Martin Mull has had a vehicle capable of expressing his brilliance, and he all but steals The Aristocrats. That honor belongs to Gottfried, whose performance of the joke at a Friars Club roast forms the soul of the film. (SEAN NELSON) Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight. Friday screening introduced by The Stranger's own Sean Nelson, Emeritus.
The Cannonball Run
Burt Reynolds stars in this 1981 movie about an illegal auto race. Sunset Tavern, Thurs Jan 19 at 7 pm.
Cape of Good Hope
This convoluted and well-meaning South African film may leave you wondering whether the Afrikaners of Cape Town have a custom of pausing awkwardly before answering a conversation partner. But I think that's just the bad editing. Cape of Good Hope is about a white lady named Kate (Debbie Brown), who runs an animal shelter and has chipper conversations with her employees: Sharifa, a good-natured Muslim suffering from infertility and an asshole husband, and Jean-Claude (Eriq Ebouaney), a handsome and even pleasanter Congolese refugee suffering from xenophobia. Meanwhile, Lindewe (Nthati Moshesh), a black South African, tries to balance going to college, raising her unconscionably adorable son, and working as a domestic for a couple of insensitive racists. Through a series of plot contrivances—which include but are not limited to a trained dog, tango lessons, a fictitious snake charmer, and sexual assault—the stories link up and everybody learns it's better to associate with people as nice as oneself. (ANNIE WAGNER) Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7, 9:15 pm, Sat-Sun 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15 pm.
The Cheat
Sadly, this is not a biopic about the fuzzy yellow sidekick on Homestar Runner. Happily, it is a screening of the silent Cecil B. DeMille film about scandal and early 20th-century masochism. Paramount, Sun Jan 22 at 4 pm.
David Lynch Birthday Party
An organization called the David Lynch Foundation (a group that advocates for transcendental meditation in schools, among other things) hosts a birthday party in the filmmaker's honor. At 7:30 pm they'll show the videotape of Lynch's recent lecture on meditation at the UW, at 9:30 they'll show Elephant Man, and at some point they'll serve cherry pie. Rung Theatre, Fri Jan 20 at 7 pm.
Fight Club
"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise." Central Cinema, Sat-Sun 3:30, 6:30, 9:30 pm. Late show 21+.
Following Sean
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun 12:40, 2:45, 4:50, 7, 9:05 pm, Mon-Thurs 7, 9:05.
The Gate 2: Trespassers
A 1992 Canadian film about a character's ill-advised experiments with the portal to hell in his friend's backyard. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
Heavy Metal Parking Lot w/ Judas Priest: Live in '86!
Jeff Krulik's 15-minute cult classic featuring gut-bustingly funny interviews with fans outside a 1986 Judas Priest/Dokken show. Sunset Tavern, Tues Jan 24 at 8 pm.
I Am Cuba
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, and financed by the Soviet Union, I Am Cuba is an epic that contains neither hard individuals nor personal experiences, but only subjects of a world-historical movement, a mass advancement, a triumphant (and bloody) march from a state of raw economic exploitation by multinational corporations and the American tourist industry to a new state of socialized production, education, transportation, and health. The subjects in the movie are wired to the spirit of the times. The melancholy prostitute, the severe soul singer, the serious student, the mountain peasant, the sugarcane farmer, his beautiful children, even his horse—from within each the whole idea of freedom is emerging. And the greatness of the revolution is matched by the greatness of the film's form. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Northwest Film Forum, Sat-Sun noon.
Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom and Pop
An agitdoc about traveling across the United States without doing business with any corporations. A discussion with filmmakers Hanson Hosein and Heather Hughes will take place between shows. Central Cinema, Wed Jan 25 at 6:45, 9 pm.
Kung-Fu Grindhouse
The Kung-Fu Grindhouse series continues with Jefftowne, Troll 2, and Robo Vampire. Sunset Tavern, Mon Jan 23 at 6 pm.
Mad Max
"That scag and his floozie, they're gonna die!" Sunset Tavern, Wed Jan 25 at 7 pm.
Rebecca
"Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again." Museum of History and Industry, Thurs Jan 19 at 7:30 pm.
Seconds
A 1966 John Frankenheimer film about a secret organization that peddles a second chance at life. Movie Legends, Sun Jan 22 at 1 pm.
Two Towns of Jasper
In June of 1998, when I read what three men in Jasper, Texas, had done to James Byrd Jr. (killed him by dragging him for three miles from a pickup truck), my heart sank, my body hurt, and I almost started crying while still holding the newspaper. Now, after watching the documentary which followed the trial of the three men, there was no almost about it—I cried like a baby. (MEGAN SELING) Hearing, Speech, and Deafness Center, Sat Jan 21 at 7:30 pm.
The Warriors
No one knows the mean streets of NYC better than Walter Hill's 1979 masterwork, in which the shirtless, leather-vested Warriors must fight their way back to Coney Island against the 100,000-strong army of rival gangs who think the group killed Cyrus, a messiah of sorts whose rallying cry is the eternal "Can you dig it?!?" Part horror, part camp, and part violent paranoid masturbation fantasy, The Warriors should make any lover of cult cinema come out and play. (SEAN NELSON) Central Cinema, Thurs-Fri 7, 9:15 pm.
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
This lovely Mikio Naruse film, which opens a month-long retrospective of the director's work at Northwest Film Forum, is a black-and-white rumination on work and leisure in postwar Japan. It's also the perfect antidote to that nasty feeling of voyeurism you may have picked up watching Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is about Mama (Naruse regular Hideko Takamine), a middle-aged geisha in the Ginza district of Tokyo who's under pressure either to marry or to open her own business. A reading from a fortune teller gives her hope, and then the fulfillment of those very predictions dashes her dreams. Takamine is an immensely sympathetic performer, and she registers the way Mama's line of work affects her personality with subtlety and firmness. (ANNIE WAGNER) Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sun 6:30, 9 pm.
NOW PLAYING
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain achieves an elegant hybrid between the "masculine" genre of the Western and the "feminine" genre of melodrama. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Capote
Despite its limited scope—it addresses only the years that Truman Capote was writing his groundbreaking In Cold Blood, about a Kansas robbery turned quadruple murder—you want to call the film, after the fashion of ambitious biographies, "A Life." Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Truman Capote, and his is an enveloping performance, in which every flighty affectation seems an invention of the man rather than the impersonator. His pursed lips and bons mots and the ravishing twirls of his overcoat become more and more infrequent until all that's left is alcohol and a horrible will to power. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Casanova
Casanova treats 18th-century Venice as a place where spit-takes graced every meal, mandatory pie-fights broke out on the hour, and even the filthiest urchin possessed bullwhip comedic timing. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
If you weren't told as a small child, you probably know by now that the Narnia tales are Christian allegory. When Lucy stumbles into a mothball-filled wardrobe during a game of hide-and-seek, she enters Narnia, a land where it's always winter but never Christmas. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is decent entertainment—epic and scary and icily pretty. If only it were safe enough to send your freethinking children to. (ANNIE WAGNER)
The Constant Gardener
Following the disappearance of his activist wife, a middle-rung foreign ambassador goes proactive on a global scale, uncovering all sorts of corporate malfeasance before eventually zeroing in on illegal drug testing in the slums of Kenya. As in the best adaptations, there's a sense that The Constant Gardener is hijacking the source material in order to feed the filmmaker's personal obsessions. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Family Stone
In its attempt to be all things to all viewers, the holiday-themed smorgasbord The Family Stone hits every conceivable chord, no matter how much of a stretch. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Glory Road
Within the sports movie genre, Glory Road couldn't be more typical. It's Hoosiers with a Marcus Garvey book inserted here, a Martha and the Vandellas song tossed in there, and a historically accurate starting lineup in the final game. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Documenting the Red Scare clash between Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Joseph McCarthy, George Clooney's second trip behind the lens is a largely terrific picture: a scathing social document submerged within a deeply pleasurable entertainment. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Grandma's Boy
Bong. Pot. Fart. If any of the preceding words made you laugh, get to the theater immediately. The latest from Adam Sandler's production company (does Rob Schneider make a cameo? Guess) is dumb at best and goddamned stupid the rest of the time, but there's something to be said for a comedy that's willing to go for the grossout. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The fourth Harry Potter: In which Harry takes off his shirt, learns the value of altruism, and discovers that Lord Voldemort has no nose. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Hoodwinked
Kids may have learned from video games how to tolerate multiple simultaneous perspectives (or so say the press notes) but I doubt they've learned to tolerate a boring story told four times over. Besides, the 3-D animation is worthless. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Hostel
A trio of moronic, partying backpackers are lured to a hostel in Slovakia, which is said to be stocked with nubile women. Before the trio meets its fate, there's a smidgen of humor that recalls Roth's far-superior debut splatter flick, Cabin Fever. But these are fleeting moments, and soon the hoses of blood are turned on full blast. (ADAM BREGMAN)
Jarhead
Jarhead follows a third-generation marine (Jake Gyllenhaal) on his downward slide toward would-be killing machine. Once he arrives in the desert, boredom quickly sets in, as he and his fellow roughnecks find themselves wandering around looking for something to shoot at. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
King Kong
Throughout, Peter Jackson manages to simultaneously convey the sense of a filmmaker at the absolute top of his technical game, and a kid deliriously hopped up on Pop Rocks, going nuts with his favorite action figures. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Last Holiday
Georgia (Queen Latifah) has only three weeks to live. She quits her job and heads to Prague for some pampering, strutting, and extreme sporting. The only funny part of this movie is, surprisingly, Gerard Depardieu. (LINDY WEST)
The Matador
Sporting a gold chain, a sleazy moustache, and an unfortunate haircut, Pierce Brosnan is amusingly weird as professional assassin Julian Noble. But all the eccentricities in the world can't save this preposterous pseudo-comedy. (ADAM BREGMAN)
Memoirs of a Geisha
The film is a confused mess—part chick flick drowning in silk brocade, part crass appeal to male voyeurism, and all woefully insubstantial. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Mrs. Henderson Presents
It's the very definition of melodrama, and it's awfully dumb. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Munich
Steven Spielberg has discovered a damning parable about America's post-9/11 strategy. He just hasn't turned it into a good movie. (JOSH FEIT)
One
In April, 2002, a middle-aged, Midwestern father suddenly woke with an idea to make a documentary, interviewing dozens of people, famous and otherwise, about the meaning of life. The result is a tour of the world's spiritual clichés: be here now, accept Jesus Christ, every man for himself, meditate, serve Allah, enjoy yourself, etc. (BRENDAN KILEY)
Pride & Prejudice
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy aren't so much in love as they are erotically enthralled. Their famous clash of wits isn't the cause of their affection; it's sublimation at its most sublime. In other words, forget stuffy: This Pride & Prejudice is totally hot. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Prime
As far as the main girl-boy-mom love triangle goes, Prime has a surprisingly light touch. The film isn't guilt-free entertainment, but with some nice Manhattan locations and a "Palestinians Do It Better" T-shirt to sweeten the deal, it isn't unpleasant either. (ANNIE WAGNER)
The Producers
Over the closing credits, Matthew Broderick sings "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway," which features the couplet: "Movies drag/Their endings sag." There's your self-written capsule review. (PAUL CONSTANT)
Rumor Has It...
The third act of this movie is all about narrowly escaping having sex with one's father. If the plot doesn't convince you that you'd be in for an hour and a half of blown-up daytime TV, the drab lighting, flat jokes, and lame attempt at skewering Pasadena's upper classes should do it. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Syriana
Syriana wades deep into the muck of the worldwide oil industry. The usual suspects will no doubt squawk about anti-Bush bias and the Blame America First syndrome, but anyone willing to look past the pundit noise will find a beautifully constructed and patient thriller. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Tristan and Isolde
Despite its attempts to be some sort of unrequested amalgamation of Braveheart and Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde just ends up feeling like the WB decided to do a period costume drama. The film's Irish and English locations are gorgeous, but in a too-slick, airbrushed sort of way; the shallow characters and soapy emotions feel the same. (ERIK HENDRIKSEN)
Underworld Evolution
Werewolves! Vampires! Review will be posted Friday at www.thestranger.com.
Walk the Line
Joaquin Phoenix is a damn fine Man in Black. Cash's strongest emotional elements are developed through his courtship of June Carter. Theirs is a fiery interplay, and watching their tenderness grow through time and tribulation makes for a powerful story, even if its main subject feels larger than any one film could ever encapsulate. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
The White Countess
All smoke and velvet and jewel tones, The White Countess is as pretty as a painting, and about as dynamic. (LINDY WEST)
