The May Lady; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; Venus Beauty Institute

All the Pretty Horses
See Stranger Suggests. Matt Damon finds action, romance, and danger south of Penelope Cruz's border. Opens Mon. Varsity

The Bishop's Wife
This schmaltzy supernatural romance about an angel falling in love with a married woman--one who called him down from Heaven to save her husband's parish, no less--could only work with an actor of astonishing skill and charm. Good thing Cary Grant was available. Treasured with great fondness by many people for reasons that are beyond me, The Bishop's Wife does at least manage not to embarrass its stars, which I suppose could be considered an impressive achievement. It's still pure holiday corn, though Grant makes it as palatable as it could be. (Bruce Reid) Sat-Sun only. Admiral

*Black Christmas
A Christmas Story was not Bob Clark's first Christmas movie. In 1974 he made Black Christmas, a slasher film set in a sorority. Well-made and quite suspenseful, it lays the foundation for When a Stranger Calls, Halloween, and much of Student Bodies. When the nicest sorority member is killed, then placed in a rocking chair in the attic, her body is never (and I mean never) found. Her sisters just think she's missing, which explains why they don't evacuate the house before others get slaughtered. Though the identity of the killer is easy to figure out, his psychosis is chillingly believable. Happy holidays. With Margot Kidder (as a drunk) and Andrea Martin. (Andy Spletzer) Fri-Sat only. Grand Illusion

Cast Away
Reviewed this issue. Tom Hanks is stranded on a tropical island with nothing but a volleyball and dreams of a third Oscar to keep him company. Opens Fri. Metro

Chocolat
Reviewed this issue. Juliette Binoche fiendishly bends the residents of a small French village to her will after engorging them with sexy, sinful chocolates. Opens Fri. Guild 45th

A Christmas Story
The beloved ode to BB guns, Ovaltine decoder rings, and tongues frozen on metal poles makes its annual appearance. Ignored when it came out, hailed as a classic shortly thereafter, and now rather overrated. Sure it's cute and all, and Darren McGavin is a hoot as the so-square-he's-surreal Old Man; but the nostalgia is laid on pretty thick, and Jean Shepherd's gravelly, chucking narration of childhood passions is just this side of condescending. But the film gets far more right than wrong about the seemingly insurmountable odds kids face to attain the object of their overwhelming desires--and you've got to love that lamp. (Bruce Reid) Sat-Sun only. Admiral

*Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Reviewed this issue. Can Hong Kong chop-socky and restrained, subtle melodrama live together happily ever after? They will if Ang Lee has anything to do with it. Opens Fri. Neptune

Dracula 2000
Are long capes and Hungarian accents still considered sexy by anyone? Still, here's the one holiday movie guaranteed not to even try to improve your morals, character, or feelings of goodwill. Opens Fri. Varsity

An Everlasting Piece
The Irish Troubles have been the inspiration for innumerable films, though this is probably the first one that's a comedy about wig sellers. Directed by Barry Levinson, farther from Baltimore than he's ever been. Opens Mon. Pacific Place 11

Expresso Bongo
In this 1959 film, a music manager/con artist (Laurence Harvey) cruises the espresso shops of London's Soho district looking for his next big score. He finds it with a bongo player/singer (Cliff Richard, known as England's Elvis). The manager takes him, gives him the unlikely stage name Bongo Herbert, then manipulates the press and everyone else to make him a star, taking a huge cut for himself along the way. Given 40 years of perspective, this manager is sort of a hero--manipulative, sure, but able to make something out of nothing. The performances are chock full of sped-up banter, which makes even the nice characters seem less than human, and Richard is flat as the teen sensation, but the b/w photography is often a treat and it's a good example of how the music industry always has been and always will be corrupt. (Andy Spletzer) Wed only. JBL Theater at EMP

Family Man
The first half of this movie is funny. Nicholas Cage, a fastidious, fabulously wealthy arbitrageur, is magicked into a lower-middle-class schlumph. I shall not soon forget his reaction when he opens his schlumph closet, and his schlumph mother-in-law and father- in-law are priceless. There's a moment in a bowling alley where I saw a glimmer of hope for the second half; it could have been a still funny and tender riff on the thought that happiness, like bowling, is a skill that can be learned and practiced. But no, instead we have to have some goopy gush about the path not taken and falling snowflakes. Don Cheadle is good. Josef Sommer is good. There's no law that says you can't walk out after the first half. (Barley Blair) Opens Fri. Metro

Finding Forrester
Reviewed this issue. The sappy Good Will Hunting grossed $100 million and snagged a few Oscars; the intriguing Psycho was a critical and commercial flop. Guess which one Gus Van Sant's trying to duplicate. Opens Mon. Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16

Forrest Gump
Already one can feel the overwhelming love and acclaim for Forrest Gump receding into the distance and diffusing like any ill-thought-through passion, or like its hero's own oblivious jog through American history. Six Oscars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and Bubba-Gump theme restaurants? As meaningless as Vietnam, the Black Panthers, and AIDS. Majestic Bay

Malena
Director Giuseppe Tornatore spun childhood nostalgia into international box-office gold with Cinema Paradiso (1988). With Malena, he tries to repeat that success by making an art-house Porky's set in Sicily during World War II. Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro), not even a teenager but wanting to grow up quickly, starts hanging out with the older kids who ogle Malena (Monica Bellucci), a beautiful woman whose husband is off at war. Actually, the whole town ogles Malena, to the point where she's been unfairly painted as the town slut. Renato thinks he's different from the townsfolk, but she's never more than his masturbatory fantasy; a fact made distastefully literal by the end of the film. Pretty cinematography and a pretty girl do not make up for the ugly, voyeuristic core of this film. (Andy Spletzer) Opens Mon. Harvard Exit

Miss Congeniality
If a movie about the F.B.I. infiltrating a beauty pageant stars Sandra Bullock and Michael Caine, but all anyone is looking forward to is William Shatner's hammy turn as a tacky host, isn't it time for Hollywood to rethink its priorities? Opens Fri. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro

*My Twentieth Century
Blessed with the gentle surrealism and genuine whimsy that remain Ildikó Enyedi's greatest gifts as a director, My Twentieth Century more than makes up for its total lack of organization or even purpose by alternately charming and amazing you. Loosely constructed around twin sisters, born in 1880 and entering the new millennium as a prim, bomb-throwing radical on the one hand and a sexually adventurous free spirit on the other (both played, in a pair of amazing performances, by the luminous Dorota Segda), the film rambles along with little incident but great charm. I know for a fact that if you're in the wrong frame of mind the film can grate; but surrender to its pixilated mood and it's quite lovely. (Bruce Reid) Opens Wed. Little Theatre

One Day in September
Reviewed this issue. Palestinian terrorists, worldwide media coverage, and (here's a new one) German bureaucratic inefficiency combine to make a tragedy out of the '72 Munich Olympics. Opens Fri. Egyptian

*ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE MARATHON
See Stranger Suggests. "Hey, Rock, watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat." "That trick never works." "This time for sure!" Tues-Thurs only. Grand Illusion

*State and Main
Reviewed this issue. David Mamet drops the potty-mouthed, bottom-of-the-barrel losers hustling for a dime, focusing this time on a bunch of potty-mouthed, top-of-the-food-chain losers making a movie in a small town. Opens Fri. Guild 45th

102 Dalmatians
102 Dalmatians was pretty boring because it seemed really long. 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) Factoria, Metro, 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) Grand Alderwood, Pacific Place 11

*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, Varsity

*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) Aurora Cinema Grill, Broadway Market, Metro

Bounce
Ben Affleck's a successful ad exec with an empty life; Gwyneth Paltrow's a real estate agent 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, 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 she'll rightfully dump him. This movie is very wrong on many levels. (Andy Spletzer) Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

*Charlie's Angels
Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu kick, chop, giggle, and dance their way through some sort of story involving technical thievery or... something. 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) Meridian 16, Oak Tree

Defining the 1970S
At last, I thought, TV without all those icky shows, pure TV--90 minutes of TV commercials. My heart made a tiny little leap. Dennis Nyback has assembled some 130 TV commercials from the Golden Era of TV commercials, the 1970s, with a few earlier ones for spice, and arranged them in loose classifications like "The Joy of Cooking: Food in a Box" and "The Tao of Tide: The New Religion of Detergents." Some of the stock is badly faded, some of the intertitles are weak, the collection is spotty, but I enjoyed myself. (Barley Blair) Little Theatre

Dude, Where's My Car?
It's unfair to complain that Dude, Where's My Car? lacks the utter, beguiling brilliance of the two Bill & Ted's films, since this is not a smart film about two dumb kids, but rather an unapologetically dumb movie about two dumb kids. Of the pair, Ashton Kutcher has more lanky, dope-fuzzy appeal than the frankly simian Seann William Scott, but the actors aren't the point either. All that matters is that our heroes wander oblivious through extraordinary circumstances; that enough jokes are made about sex, dope, and hauling out garbage; and that the special-effects for the alien morphing scene (don't ask) are tacky enough to chuckle at. The only fresh idea is actually a charming one: this may well be the first buddy movie where the two pals willingly share a wet, sloppy kiss and feel none the worse afterward. Chalk one up for dumb movies. (Bruce Reid) Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

Dungeons & Dragons
Straight world: Please, please just turn away. Geeks like me: If you know the difference between a drow and an orc, it's too late for you anyway. It doesn't matter that this movie is wretchedly incomprehensible, or that it was made at least 15 years too late; the promise of seeing mages and Beholders and the Thieves' Guild and a deadly labyrinth is just too tempting, if only so we can go and harrumph our way through the whole thing. And let's finally face the facts, shall we? We're geeks by nature, we belong to this stuff; Dungeons & Dragons is really only as embarrassing and unbearable and uncool as we are. (Evan Sult) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Varsity

The Emperor's New Groove
The movie is bad, so I'm not going to judge or compare it to other bad Disney animation films. The Emperor's New Groove attempts to identify with black cool. But sadly enough, outside of the twisted slave/master relationship that exists between the emperor and the loyal peasant who saves his life, and Eartha Kitt's role as the empire's wicked witch, there is nothing really black about this film, which is shrouded in a mist of black themes, slang, styles. Imagine walking into a funk disco only to discover, once inside, that it's packed with knee-slapping square dancers. But despite this enormous letdown, Disney's marketers are well aware that America's cool codes are black codes. (Charles Mudede) Factoria, Majestic Bay, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

*A Hard Day's Night
Of course you're going to go see A Hard Day's Night, the wonderful movie about the Beatles made by Richard Lester in 1964 and rereleased in a glorious new print, as crisp and tasty as fresh lettuce--you'd be daft not to. (Barley Blair) Broadway Market

How the Grinch Stole Christmas
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. 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

*It's A Wonderful Life
Good friends, clumsy angels, and the suicidal banker who learns that the world does revolve around him. Grand Illusion, Victrola

The Legend of Bagger Vance
Story about how the 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 needed the love of a pretty woman (Charlize Theron), the faith of a child, and some Zen-like advice to get it back. (Andy Spletzer) Majestic Bay, Uptown

Little Nicky
The best moments in Adam Sandler's 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. (Bruce Reid) Pacific Place 11

Meet the Parents
Ben Stiller plays a male nurse about to pop the question to his girlfriend. But he realizes 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. (Tamara Paris) Aurora Cinema Grill, Pacific Place 11

Men of Honor
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 defy Holbrook. It's bad, but it's not especially bad. (Barley Blair) 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

Pay It Forward
This movie will probably earn somebody an Oscar, but it just made me feel like kicking a kid in the teeth. (Kathleen Wilson) Pacific Place 11

Proof of Life
Meg Ryan is moderately unhappy wife Alice Bowman, and when her husband is kidnapped by the Liberation of Army of Tecala, it's going to take every ounce of Russell Crowe's rugged good looks and subdued masculinity to bring him back alive! She then finds herself enveloped by the intoxicating Aussie sex appeal of the seasoned professional in charge of negotiating her husband's rescue. With David Caruso as another rugged, sexy man, you know, in that middle-aged way. (Jason Pagano) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree

Quills
Quills is loosely (very loosely) based upon the latter years of the Marquis de Sade's life. Shortly after the French Revolution, de Sade resides locked away in the Charenton mental hospital where he is allowed, briefly, to continue writing his pornographic prose. Though meant for private consumption only, the writings are secreted out of Charenton by the laundry maid, Madeleine (Kate Winslet), and their popularity on the streets of France causes outraged apoplexy among the powers that be. Unfortunately, the film seeks to rehabilitate de Sade's image into that of Brave Soldier in the Noble Battle against Hypocrisy. Which not only flattens and dulls the film's subject, it also makes for one hell of a hypocritical movie in its own right. (Bruce Reid) Harvard Exit

Red Planet
In American cinema, the worse the director, the more strangely symbolic the film becomes. Red Planet is a perfect example. The egg/sperm imagery throughout the film 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. Strange things! (Jamie Hook) Uptown

Requiem For a Dream
Requiem for a Dream comes off as so much high-school posturing: puerile; craven; and, in hindsight, embarrassingly tacky. (Jamie Hook) Broadway Market

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. Willis portrays Dunne, whose 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

*Vertical Limit
Three survivors are trapped after a disastrous attempt to climb K2, the most challenging mountain in the world. Fueled by a "reward" of a measly half-million dollars apiece, three teams of two climbers each risk their lives and set out to save those who are now stranded and left to die. And, just as your subconscious craves, the body counts grow higher, the scandals become sexier, and the obstacles hit one right after another in unbelievable proportion. It's a no-holds-barred world in the mind of a seven-year-old. (Megan Seling) Cinerama, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Northgate, Pacific Place 11, Southcenter

What Women Want
Reviewed this issue. Mel Gibson stars as a man who can hear women's most innermost thoughts in this feminist remake of the David Cronenberg sci-fi thriller Scanners. Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

*You Can Count on Me
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) Seven Gables