Bootmen, Catfish in Black Bean Sauce, Dungeons and Dragons, Fanny and Alexander, A Hard Day's Night, Milestone Films Retrospective, One Day in the Life of Andrei Ansenovich, Proof of Life, Sacrifice, The Vertical Limit

30 Frames a Second
See Stranger Suggests. A documentary on the WTO by local filmmaker Russ Thompson. Thurs Nov 30 only. Seattle Asian Art Museum

Beware
Kicking off three weeks of teen exploitation films featuring great music is this 1946 rarity, starring the great Louis Jordan. Wed Dec 6. JBL Theatre at EMP

*Cyclo
Tran Ahn Hung's follow-up to The Scent of Green Papaya is this superior film--a rabid, caustic diatribe of Colonialism, and the best film yet to come out of Vietnam. The story centers on a young rickshaw driver and his sister, and their fate at the hands of a poet/gangster (played by the handsome Hong Kong action star Tony Leung). We see each of the characters come of age in a society that cannot sustain them, in a nation destroyed by vaguely defined foreign powers. The film is especially brilliant in its use of color, and features what must be the most disturbingly psychedelic sequence ever to come out of Asia, with superb camerawork throughout. (Jamie Hook) Thurs-Sun only. Little Theatre

The Day the World Ended
1956's The Day the World Ended isn't the greatest of Roger Corman's no-budget masterpieces, or even especially distinguished among his early efforts; but it still has clever use of deserted locations, some efficient thrills, and a story simple enough to not get in the way of the modest pretensions. In 1970, nuclear holocaust destroys renders all life on the planet horribly mutated monsters--except, of course, our seven heroes, who must overcome their own hang-ups if they are to survive. Entertaining enough, though the director wasn't yet as inventive at hiding his lack of funds as he would become. Corman doesn't strike me as superstitious, but he must have particularly dreaded the year 1970; he later ended the world then again in Gas-s-s-s! (Bruce Reid) Fri-Sat only. Grand Illusion

Dialogues with Madwomen
An impassioned condemnation of the failings of psychiatry, law enforcement, family, and the whole damned patriarchal mess, Allie Light's Dialogues With Madwomen never condescends to its audience or, more important, the seven women that are its subjects. Each has been diagnosed with mental illness; each recounts their own horrific stories of abuse, rape, or stigmatization. Had the movie consisted of nothing but these seven women's testimony, that would have been harrowing enough. Light regrettably attempts to visualize some of the memories and dreams recounted, an effort that always fails. When she just films her subjects, however, she achieves poetry. (Bruce Reid) Sat Dec 2 only. 911 Media Arts

*Krogstad's Universe
See Stranger Suggests. The homegrown mania of Karl Krogstad is unleashed for one night only. Wed Dec 6 only. Little Theatre

*Lies
Reviewed this issue. This Korean art film tells the fractured story of an S&M relationship between a 38-year-old married sculptor with an inordinate interest in all things fecal and an 18-year-old student who enjoys giving him what he wants. (Caveh Zahedi) Opens Fri Dec 1. Egyptian

Light Keeps Me Company
Reviewed this issue. The venerable Sven Nykvist, cinematographer for Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen, among others, is the subject of this documentary. Opens Fri Dec 1. Grand Illusion

The Making of Electric Ladyland
Another fetid breath exhaled from the tomb of Hendrix wafts through the Experience Music Project. Plays with Hendrix concert film Band of Gypsys--Live at the Fillmore East. Thurs Nov 30 only. JBL Theater at EMP

My Friend Paul
Jonathan Berman's My Friend Paul follows the director and his childhood best friend, who is on probation after serving time for bank robbery. Simply put, Berman is eager to make a documentary, Paul is eager to stay out of prison and make some money. A parade of preoccupied and disinterested old friends each pontificate on "What happened to Paul?" until it is clear that he no longer has a true friend in the world. Worth seeing, if only for its unintended indictment of self-serving friendship. (Jason Pagano) Fri Dec 1 only. 911 Media Arts

NORTHERN LIGHTS: NEW FILMS FROM ICELAND
Reviewed this issue. The massive Icelandic film industry begrudges us six films in this week-long festival. Opens Fri Dec 1. Varsity Calendar

Pizza & Movies
Join the wacky crew over at Second Ave Pizza in Belltown for their semi-regular movie "festivals"--where all things nostalgic, kitschy, and most of all fun, rule the screen (plus it's good eatin'). This week: Godzilla movies! Second Avenue Pizza

Plain Talk
More cerebral formality from Jon Jost, cinema's resident aesthetic curmudgeon. Fri-Sun only. Consolidated Works

*This is What Democracy Looks Like
This documentary, produced by the Independent Media Center and Big Noise Films, is partly a hokey, rock-the-protest video about the week the WTO came to Seattle. But it's also surprisingly captivating. It shows the mess of determined protesters, over-rehearsed cops, confused world trade representatives, blundering media, skittish politicians, and disgusting human-rights violations that made Seattle exciting for a week. Highlights include a guy in a suit comforting delegates as they cower inside a downtown hotel lobby, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz complaining about the "injustice" done to his store windows, and a "Strike fast, kick ass" sign the cops posted in one of their "peacekeeper" tanks. (Allie Holly-Gottlieb) Fri Dec 1 only. Independent Media Center

*Trade-Off
See Stranger Suggests. Winner of the Golden Space Needle Award for Best Documentary at this year's SIFF, Trade-Off is a from-the-trenches account of the WTO demonstrations and their political underpinnings. Cinerama

Witness to Murder
Barbara Stanwyck is the eponymous witness. I haven't seen the movie, but based on the plot summaries I've read, I'll bet dollars to donuts that George Sanders is the "suave killer." (Bruce Reid) Thurs Nov 30 only. Seattle Art Museum

Women in Film/Seattle seeks film, video, television, or new media work completed between Nov 1999 and Dec 2000 for the Seventh Annual Nell Shipman Production Excellence Awards. Entrants must live and/or work in the Pacific Northwest. Call 447-1537 to request an application; entries must be received by Dec 31.

102 Dalmatians
102 Dalmatians was really funny but pretty boring, because it seemed really long. For example, the movie wasn't very exciting because almost half of it was dating and talking about stupid stuff. Glenn Close was very good as Cruella. Most of the actors besides Glenn Close were corny, because everything they said you knew they were going to say, and they said it in a fake way. In this movie it seemed like there was only about 50 dogs, even though the name of the movie is 102 Dalmatians. All you saw were about 20 dogs escaping up the stairs, a few more dogs nursing, and a couple dogs helping the 20 dogs escape. We would have liked it better if we saw more dogs in the movie. (Sam Lachow & Maggie Brown, 10 years old) Majestic Bay, Metro, Northgate, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

The 6th Day
Ahh, the glory of the movie star! In The 6th Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a helicopter pilot who is mistakenly cloned, thus becoming a double. Of course, a dastardly corporation is behind it all, and Schwarzenegger must topple it single (or, in this case, double)-handedly. But just in case you are turned off by the thought of Schwarzenegger and his double, be assured that the true star of The 6th Day is Vancouver, B.C.'s fantastic new Central Library, designed by the great Moshe Safdie. Cast as the villain's corporate headquarters, this stunning building upstages everyone, especially in the action scenes. Let's hope Rem Koolhaas' new Seattle Public Library can put us on the action movie map as gracefully! (Jamie Hook) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Pacific Place 11, Varsity

Almost Famous
The truth of the matter is that this movie is nothing more and nothing less than a light and entertaining crowd-pleaser. Which is fine. Good, even. It's just that for a rock 'n' roll tour film set in 1973, the content comes across as so... clean--like R-rated content in a PG-13 package. (Andy Spletzer) Uptown

*Bedazzled
Stumbling across Bedazzled is like finding a bucket full of moonshine in the woods. It's not that the film is great, but it's awfully nice to meander into something that is simply, confidently good. Plus, I never knew that Brendan Fraser was HILARIOUS! His goofy, unrestrained performance as a schmuck making Faustian deals with the devil is a joy to behold--humble, manic, tidy, and sloppy all at once. (Jamie Hook) Uptown

*Best In Show
Christopher Guest's latest with Eugene Levy follows several dog owners on their quest for the blue ribbon at the 2000 Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. A well-executed, ridiculous little film lovingly mining ridiculous little people's ridiculous little lives. (Jason Pagano) Broadway Market, Grand Alderwood, Redmond Town Center, Seven Gables

*Billy Elliot
As the BBC put it, "You are heartless if you don't love every minute of this film"--and I'm not heartless. Thirty minutes into it, I gave in; there was no way I could hate it. I must make a confession: I almost cried during this film--yes, it's that touching. (Charles Mudede) Guild 45th, Harvard Exit

Bounce
Even fans of Don Roos' first film, The Opposite of Sex, will likely find Bounce to be bad. This being a Miramax production, it stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck. He's a successful ad exec with an empty life; she's a happy housewife married to a TV writer/failed playwright. In a Chicago airport, Ben gives the bad writer his ticket and then the plane crashes. A year or so later, he tries to buy off his guilt by giving the widow, now a real estate agent, a sale that she's not qualified to make. They start dating. Everybody knows that when she finds out he's a creepy death-stalker that she'll rightfully dump him. Everybody, that is, but her best friend, her kids, and writer-director Don Roos. This movie is very wrong on many levels. (Andy Spletzer) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Neptune, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

The Broken Hearts Club
Let's be frank: This film is so profoundly awful that it inadvertently succeeds in performing the tremendous social service of euthanizing the subgenre of the once-viable "gay film." God, it's bad. I will waste your time by telling you that the film is about a group of gay men in L.A. looking for meaning in their lives. But I can write no more. This film simply doesn't deserve it. (Jamie Hook) Broadway Market

*Charlie's Angels
Completely brainless, God bless its heart. Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu kick, chop, giggle, and dance their way through some sort of story involving technical thievery or... something. It doesn't really make sense, but then again, it doesn't really matter because director McG has created a world of lunacy where people levitate with relative ease, and there is absolutely no explanation for it. Hot chicks kick ass and fly, and either you accept it and have fun, or you don't. (Bradley Steinbacher) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

Dancer in the Dark
Dancer in the Dark is a wonderful film in theory. In exposition, however, it suffers gravely from director Lars von Trier's ingrained contrarian aesthetic and growing avant-garde laziness. When the film is not wantonly sadistic, it is simply sloppy in a poorly thought-out way. While von Trier maintains his unique facility for the direction of small, crying women, his other tricks seem woefully inadequate for pulling off the feat he sets out to accomplish. (Jamie Hook) Varsity

The Greatest Places
The Greatest Places was an in-between movie. It wasn't the best movie but it wasn't the worst movie. It was kind of like watching a fact movie that you watch at school. The neatest thing they showed in it were the animals, they showed them so close up it looked really neat. They even showed some animals I didn't know existed. There was one thing that they did that annoyed me. The thing is that when they were changing from place to place they didn't tell you that they were changing, so if they were changing from one desert place to a different desert place it was kind of confusing. I'd give this movie 3 out of 5. (Maggie Brown, age 10) Seattle IMAX Dome Theatre

How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Childishly mocked this issue. The Grinch is much different than the old cartoon. In this movie, the Grinch has a huge house with a telephone, a pulley, and trap doors. In the old cartoon he doesn't have any of that stuff. If you watch this you will find out where the Grinch came from, and why he hates Christmas. Like always, Jim Carrey is FABULOUS! He is sooo funny--you couldn't find a better actor to play the part. On the other hand, the actor who played Cindy Lou Who was not very good--she was pretty corny. The Grinch was funny but not as good as I thought it would be. (Sam Lachow, 10 years old) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Majestic Bay, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

The Legend of Bagger Vance
Bagger Vance opens with Jack Lemmon having a heart attack on a golf course, which sets the tone for the whole movie. Lying in the rough, Lemmon starts to narrate a story about how, when he was 10 years old, he and a mystical caddy named Bagger Vance (Will Smith) helped keep local golfer Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) from embarrassing himself in an exhibition match against the two greatest golfers in America. You see, Junuh "lost his swing" when he saw his buddies die in WWII, and he needs the love of a pretty good woman (Charlize Theron), the faith of a child, and some Zen-like advice from a mystical caddy to get it back. (Andy Spletzer) Cinerama, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Southcenter

*Legend of the Drunken Master
Jackie Chan's best film is his 1979 breakout Drunken Master. This sequel from 1994 captures much of the high energy and goofy humor of that classic, and adds a greatly expanded budget that allows for some impressive sets, which the actors leap about and smash up to their hearts' content. The fight scenes are remarkable, but as always it's the throwaway bits that really blow your mind. Check out Chan's nimble leap up a wall and through an open transom; when you've picked your jaw up off the floor, remind yourself that's what movies are all about. (Bruce Reid) City Centre

Little Nicky
Adam Sandler has always been smart enough to cloud his aggressive gross-out humor (and nasty racism and homophobia) in a ragged, slapdash improvisatory structure that makes the films almost charming. The best moments in Little Nicky, a clunking, amateurish, but occasionally quite funny succession of gags about Satan's son hunting for his evil older brothers on the loose in New York, come from such odd cameos as Jon Lovitz, Regis Philbin, John and Reese Witherspoon (no relation to the best of my knowledge), and that "nice, sweet man" Henry Winkler, who all obviously dropped in for a day and riffed on their lines to their heart's content. Extra credit, too, for the deadpan newscaster who finds nothing especially amiss when "what appears to be a section of Hell" manifests itself in Central Park. (Bruce Reid) Aurora Cinema Grill, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Pacific Place 11

Meet the Parents
Ben Stiller plays Greg, a male nurse living in an unnamed metropolis, about to pop the question to Pam, his kindergarten-teacher girlfriend. But he realizes in the nick of time that he must first ask her father (played with vicious delicacy by Robert De Niro) for permission. Happily, a trip home to attend her sister's wedding presents the perfect opportunity. But wait! Complications invariably ensue, and each new catastrophic development drives a wedge ever deeper twixt Greg and his beloved. (Tamara Paris) Grand Alderwood, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

Men of Honor
"History is made by those who break rules." That's the tagline for Men of Honor, which takes place when the American armed services were being racially integrated. Cuba Gooding Jr. portrays Carl Brashear, the first black underwater salvage expert in the Navy. Robert De Niro gives a bland performance as the master chief diver (love those military ranks!) who first tries to break Gooding, and then, when Gooding has disobeyed several of his orders, embraces his cause. Hal Holbrook plays a completely gratuitous role as a crazy old base commander whose only function is to add another layer of disobedience, so that when De Niro changes to Gooding's side, they can both be defying Holbrook. It's bad, but it's not especially bad. (Barley Blair) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Majestic Bay, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

*Non-Stop
Take three losers--a would-be bank robber, a convenience store clerk with rock 'n' roll aspirations, and an incompetent bodyguard. Involve them in a plot that also includes a missing gun, a toy gun, big knives, short swords, gangster groups, a car full of cops, and a gauze mask. Satirize all the movies that all of these movie characters wish they were in. That's the task that Sabu set for himself when he wrote and directed Non-Stop. It takes six seconds--seven, tops--to realize that you're in the hands of a competent filmmaker. So stop reading right now and just go see it. (Barley Blair) Uptown

Once in the Life
So, y'all, I'ma tell you 'bout this FILM, yo. Coz this fuckin' film is the BOMB, yo. It's based on a fuckin' play by fuckin' Laurence fuckin' Fishburne, bitch. Yo! I'm not saying it's a bad film, sabes? I'm just here, yo--its like about fuckin' doin' crime, doin' time and shit, you know? On the streets of fuckin' Brooklyn and shit, livin' the life with my man "20/20" and "Nine Lives" and "Tony the Tiger." So, you wanna know if this fuckin' film is any fuckin' good? You don't fuckin' like this fuckin' genre? Back off, motherfucka! (Jamie Hook) Uptown

Pay It Forward
After having been instructed by his social studies teacher to make the world a more benevolent place, Haley Joel Osment starts at the bottom, where the bums live amid burning oil cans, of course. About five minutes into his effort, Osment thinks he's failed and that the world is, in fact, shit. It's a performance that'll probably earn somebody an Oscar, but it just made me feel like kicking a kid in the teeth. (Kathleen Wilson) Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

Red Planet
In American cinema, the worse the director, the more strangely symbolic the film becomes. Red Planet is a perfect example. For instance: the egg/sperm imagery throughout the film (this is a film about populating a barren wasteland, after all) is over the top. There is even a spaceship that blastulates just before hitting the surface of Mars--much as a zygote does before becoming embedded in the uterine wall. Plus, there is a great scene where sperm, represented by little bugs, which, in turn, represent God, attack Tom Sizemore and then explode. Strange things! (Jamie Hook) Aurora Cinema Grill, Meridian 16, Metro, Redmond Town Center

Requiem For a Dream
In Requiem for a Dream (based on the Hubert Selby Jr. novel of the same name, about the downward spiral of a trio of Brooklyn junkies), Darren Aronofsky opts to assault us with self-righteous imagery masquerading as some sort of daring bohemian technique. It is a conceit that manages to obliterate the few promising moments in the film. In the end, Requiem for a Dream comes off as so much high-school posturing: puerile; craven; and, in hindsight, embarrassingly tacky. (Jamie Hook) Broadway Market

Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
This is the season when the entertainment industry presents it's most enticing new kiddie-crack. Why waste time dabbling in the waters of those fancy foreigners with their unintelligible offerings (Teletubbies, Pokemon, etc.) or those epileptic fit-inducing upstarts who employ every cheap trick involving violence, sex, and subliminal messaging (everything on Fox Kids, for example). Your child does not need variety--your child needs success! And you know full well that the Rugrats have been, are, and for some time to come will be the bearers of the formula for success. Sing when you're winning my friends, sing when you're winning. (Kudzai Mudede) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree

Unbreakable
Bruce Willis sleepily stars as a mild-mannered security guard who walks away without a scratch as the sole survivor of a two-train pileup. Soon after, he is approached by Samuel L. Jackson, a comic-book collector who's become convinced that Willis is a charmed person, immune to harm, perhaps gifted with psychic powers. Dunne's grudging awareness that he is different from the rest of us is told with as little humor or even enjoyment as possible. Thus introducing a whole new genre: the glum, glacially slow, risibly pretentious superhero flick. (Bruce Reid) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree

What's Cooking?
What's Cooking? frames four ethnically diverse families who face quite modern dilemmas on this most obese of our national holidays, Thanksgiving. Will machismo prevail or get its ass kicked when Elizabeth's new lover and her separated husband both show up? Will the Seelings' dinner-party guests find out that the Seelings' daughter's housemate is really her lesbian lover? Of course they will! In revealing these coveted secrets (and others), director Duringer Chadha shows us all that the true meaning of Thanksgiving is social discomfort, and this discomfort becomes a necessary tool that is used to reinvent traditional ideologies to make room for emerging social identities. Ultimately, the movie functions as a feature length soap opera, embarrassing everyone involved under the auspices of a greater good. (Suzy Lafferty) Broadway Market

*You Can Count on Me
Happy people have always been suspect to me. They don't seem to know what they're talking about, and more importantly, they lack rhythm. As a teenager, alone in my teenager room in America, my greatest longing was for a state of sadness. My craving was so strong it became clear that "sadness" was the very root of desire for me. Now with my thoughts gathered in full-blown adulthood, I realize that all I wanted in my quest for "sadness" was to be an adult. In Kenneth Lonergan's, You Can Count On Me, "adult" and "sadness" and "American" become a knot of synonyms as the story focuses on the pure inability a brother and sister have with one another now that they're adults. It is as though being an adult, and a member of a grownup American family, is the path of loneliness and sadness. Without any trendy embitterment, the sad path of the story is inspired, beautiful and desirable. And the case is made for Loneliness as the Great American Pursuit. (Paula Gilovich) Guild 45th, Harvard Exit