COMING SOON:

April 30 -- Idle Hands, SLC Punk, Entrapment, The King of the Masks, The Velocity of Gary, Open Your Eyes

May 7 -- The Mummy, Three Seasons, Detroit Rock City, A Midsummer Night's Dream

OPENING:

The Dreamlife of Angels -- Broadway Market
eXistenZ -- Pacific Place 11, Varsity
Foolish -- City Center, Lewis & Clark
Hideous Kinky -- Seven Gables
Lost and Found -- Lewis & Clark, Metro, Uptown
A Place Called Chiapas -- Egyptian
Pushing Tin -- Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

REPERTORY & REVIVAL:

The 1999 Video Shorts Festival -- The 911 Media Arts
B. Ruby Rich: A Critique of Works-in-Progress -- 911 Media Arts
COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM SERIES -- Cinerama
CRACKPOTS & OBSESSIVES -- Grand Illusion, Seattle Art Museum
EUROPEAN CINEMA & ETHNICITY -- Kane Hall
An Evening with Allan Sekula -- Henry Art Gallery
An Evening with B. Ruby Rich -- Kane Hall
Freakin' Hilarious Shorts! -- 911 Media Arts
FREE MOVIES -- 2nd Ave. Pizza
FRENCH FILM NOIR -- Seattle Art Museum
Independent Exposure -- Speakeasy
JAPANESE GHOST STORIES -- Seattle Asian Art Museum
Mighty Peking Man -- Egyptian
Mondo Cane -- The Little Theater
Mothra -- Grand Illusion
The Ogre -- Grand Illusion
ROBERT BRESSON FILM SERIES -- Grand Illusion

FILM SHORTS

10 Things I Hate About You -- Ten things I hate about this movie: 1. It just drips with saccharine. 2. Why set a movie in 1999, only to have bleedin' Letters to Cleo do cover versions of songs that were (presumably) written before most of the cast were born? 3. The film is loosely based on the heinous, misogynistic play The Taming of the Shrew. 4. For a film about high schoolers, there sure are a lot of thirtysomething actors. 5. The first kiss between "mysterious young man" Patrick Verona and "shrew" Katarina Stratford was SO syrupy and awful it nearly caused one of my companions to have a diabetic seizure. 6. We're expected to believe that Kat's sister, the airhead Bianca, would fall for the sap Joey Donner? Right. 7. At the "Riot Grrrl" gig, everyone is wearing Gap tops. 8. On what planet does anyone care about Letters to Cleo? 9. The photography sucks. 10. The movie is set in Seattle. How lame is that? (Everett True) Meridian 16, Metro, Redmond Town Center

The 1999 Video Shorts Festival -- The premiere screenings of the winning selections from the 18th Annual Video Shorts Competition. Entries include films from all over the U.S. and Europe. Thurs April 29 at 8, $4. 911 Media Arts

Alaska: Spirit of the Wild -- More of a nature documentary than a ghost story. Omnidome

Analyze This -- Paul Vitti (Robert DeNiro) is a New York mobster with problems: the pressure is killing him! With a big meeting of all the New York families coming up, he needs to get rid of his anxiety about [insert Italian stereotype here]. Enter Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal), a Jewish family therapist with [insert Jewish stereotype here]. Vitti wants Sobel to help him. Sobel just wants Vitti to leave him alone. What are they both to do? Analyze This is a [insert sarcastic film reviewer comment here], with a few laughs, but never anything special. Basically, it's exactly what you'd expect. (Bradley Steinbacher) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

B. Ruby Rich: A Critique of Works-in-Progress -- Learn from film theorist and critic B. Ruby Rich! Bring your work-in-progress documentaries to this intimate working session, and receive valuable feedback. Pre-registration is required. Sat April 24 at 10 am. Call 682-6552 for more info. 911 Media Arts

Central Station -- Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), who writes letters for the illiterate poor, takes in Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira) after his mother is killed. Walter Salles' affecting new film risks sentimentality in order to steer close to issues of the human heart, but it's blessed by two impeccable performances from Montenegro and de Oliveira. (Matthew Stadler) Metro

A Chinese Ghost Story -- Tsui Hark's frantically animated version of his live-action Chinese Ghost Story series of films. Egyptian

COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM SERIES -- To celebrate the grand re-opening (and multi-million dollar facelift) of the Cinerama movie theater, Columbia Pictures is presenting its 75th Anniversary Film Series. Fully restored prints of beloved classics -- including Lawrence of Arabia (in 70mm), Easy Rider, Taxi Driver, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and a director's cut of Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind -- will be shown during the two-week retrospective. Cinerama

Cookie's Fortune -- Robert Altman has taken a slight but enjoyable story and applied his familiar techniques of oblique angles, ragged narration, and busy ensemble casts. A suicide is covered up, and a man in imprisoned because of it. Other stories play out about the small town of Holly Springs. Plot, however, is not the main concern of the film. If you want them, there are plenty of thoughtful, even rueful, themes floating around the movie: idealized, hypocritical notions of the past and of honor, and the way family secrets hurt the person keeping them even more than the person who ferrets them out. When I think of this film, though, I keep coming back not to any ideas, but to its very last shot. Altman movies end with death so often it's practically a cliché, but here, after everything gets sorted out without too much harm to anyone, there's just a long, peaceful look at a lake, with fishing lines bobbing gently. As I said before, relaxed and mellow. Add to that: masterly. (Bruce Reid) Grand Alderwood, Guild 45th, Meridian 16

*CRACKPOTS & OBSESSIVES -- The Grand Illusion's Crackpots and Obsessives film series kicks off with Project Grizzly at the Seattle Art Museum, then moves over to the Grand Illusion for Les Blank's Burden of Dreams Sat-Sun April 24-25, the 8-Track tape collectors of So Wrong, They're Right on Mon-Tues April 26-27, Errol Morris' pet cemetery reverie Gates of Heaven on Wed-Thurs April 28-29. And that's just week one! Reviewed this issue. Grand Illusion, Seattle Art Museum

Dancemaker -- Though this documentary of famed choreographer Paul Taylor is strictly by-the-numbers, it benefits enormously from a subject who has all the seductive charms required for a fascinating portrait: calculated moments of intimacy with his dancers, well-timed tantrums, hard-nosed negotiations, and a self-deprecating air that's been honed to perfection. Many clips of his dances are included, and as someone unfamiliar with the art, they impressed the hell out of me -- save his latest, a Latin-themed piece whose rehearsals and debut the film is built around. It seemed no more than a pleasant number from a '50s musical to me, but if the filmmakers or anyone they interviewed ever thought Taylor was slipping, he's long since coaxed them to a place where he can do no wrong. I mean that as a compliment; sometimes people get so caught up in romantic notions about artists they forget 90% of the job is manipulating people for money and respect. (Bruce Reid) Broadway Market

Doug's First Movie -- And, hopefully, his last. Pacific Place 11

*The Dreamlife of Angels -- Isa (Elodie Bouchez) is a 20-year-old drifter, traveling from town to town picking up odd jobs and selling postcards that she makes out of magazine pictures. At a factory job she meets Marie (Natacha Regnier), a girl living alone who's about her age. The girls are opposites -- Isa disarms people with her smile, while Marie puts people off with a frown -- and they end up complementing each other perfectly. Being a French film, the story has a loose, life-like, "unstructured" structure, which I have to admit is refreshing after so many canned Hollywood films. Characters take center stage here, and they are well-rounded enough to hold everything together. (Andy Spletzer) Broadway Market

*EDtv -- Ed Pakurny (Matthew McConaughey) is our everyman (if "everyman" can mean a redneck living in San Francisco), and he's been chosen to star in a new show in which every minute of his life will be broadcast live on national television, unedited and uninterrupted, for an entire month. Slowly, the show begins to attract interest as viewers become intrigued by his budding romantic relationship with his brother's girlfriend, Shari (Jenna Elfman). Soon the nation is hooked on the minutiae of Ed's life, and his instant celebrity puts the kibosh on his relationship with anyone the cameras come in contact with. EDtv is a good-natured hoot, the likes of which we haven't seen from Ron Howard since his heyday of Splash (1984) and Night Shift (1982). Though it takes its shots at the television industry, the film's main target is the public's relationship with celebrity. (Wm. Steven Humprey) Pacific Place 11

Elizabeth -- This film details the ascension of Queen Elizabeth, and this brutal tale is filmed with a vibrancy and urgency matched by no other British or French costume drama. There's also a splendid performance by the Australian actor Geoffrey Rush as the somber security chief to Her Majesty the Queen. (Charles Mudede) Varsity

The Eruption of Mount St. Helens -- The mountain blew up in 1980, and has been blowing up on film ever since. Omnidome

*EUROPEAN CINEMA & ETHNICITY -- This series of FREE screenings continues with Bhaji on the Beach (Mon April 26 at 7), an unconventional road movie about a Saheli Asian Women's Group on a bus trip to get away from men, and Marius et Jeanette (Wed April 28 at 7), last year's Cesar-winning romantic comedy about a supermarket attendant and a cement laborer. Call 543-7542 for more info. Kane Hall

An Evening with Allan Sekula -- Artist Allan Sekula will introduce two French films in conjunction with his exhibition: Alain Tanner's Les Hommes du Port and Joris Ivins' A Valparaiso. Both films and Sekula's exhibition deal with "harbor life and maritime controversies." Thurs April 22 at 7:30, $6. Henry Art Gallery

An Evening with B. Ruby Rich -- Author, film critic, cultural theorist, and advocate for New Queer Cinema B. Ruby Rich will present an evening of dialogue and film. Rich will screen Lethal Lesbians, a film clip presentation on Hollywood's fascination with women who team up to kill. For more info, call 911 Media Arts at 682-6552. Thurs April 22 at 8, $10. Kane Hall

Everest -- The first IMAX footage ever shot on top of the world. Pacific Science Center

eXistenZ -- David Cronenberg's latest, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law. Think The Matrix only cheaper, better, and (undoubtedly) much less financially successful. Reviewed this issue. Pacific Place 11, Varsity

Foolish -- Dang it if somebody didn't do somethin' gal-darn stupid and got a movie made outta it. City Center, Lewis & Clark

Forces of Nature -- Ben (Ben Affleck) is trying to get to Georgia for his wedding. On the plane he meets Sarah (Sandra Bullock), a wild, bewitching woman with heavy eye-liner and streaks in her hair. The plane crashes and the two of them are forced to go by land, trapped together as one "hilarious" mishap after another thwarts their journey. Along the way, they sorta fall in love, but not really. Forces of Nature is every pathetic man's fantasy, not a female empowerment vehicle, which is surprising since it was directed by a woman. With the stable, pretty fiancé waiting for him at home (Maura Tierney), Ben struggles with his feelings for the irresponsible, sexy woman he stumbles across. In the end, love (not lust) conquers all, which is pure bullshit. (Bradley Steinbacher) Grand Alderwood, Pacific Place 11

Freakin' Hilarious Shorts! -- The title for this collection of comedy shorts -- "Friggin' Hilarious Shorts" -- is juvenile, inane, and, sadly, far and away the funniest thing about the program. I sat through all six shorts featured and only chuckled once. Since there's no since whipping horses as dead as these I'll just rattle off the list: Dave Hanagan's Go Swing Daddy, a lame noir-cum-dance parody; Bitter Kid On The Block, a lame MTV parody; Quest for the Noble Desert Poodle, obviously well-financed and technically proficient, it is a lame documentary parody; Flaccid Falls, a lame animated soap opera parody; and two lame kung-fu parodies: the brief, pleasant-to-look-at Enter the Shag, and Vanilla Guerrilla, which got the only laugh out of me when our hero took a death-defying running leap off a telephone pole. Fri April 23 at 8, $4. (Bruce Reid) 911 Media Arts

FREE MOVIES -- 2nd Ave. Pizza brings MORE free movies for patrons and anyone else who feels like wandering in. Thurs-Sat April 22-24. 2nd Ave. Pizza

FRENCH FILM NOIR -- Seattle Art Museum's tribute to the French masters of ironic fatalism and atmospheric, poetic realism. The series continues with Claude Chabrol's Les Cousins on Thurs April 22 at 7:30, and Rene Clement's Purple Noon on Thurs April 29 at 7:30. Call 625-8900 for more info. Seattle Art Museum

Go -- I don't know why movies that intertwine a number of disparate stories (Mystery Train, Pulp Fiction) so often pick three as the magic number, but here we go again. Three successive tales: a teen grocery clerk takes a stab at dealing ecstasy; a fellow clerk and his rowdy buddies head out on a road trip; and two actors agree to take part in a drug bust to clear their record. There's some funny scenes, though none of them manage to avoid either cliché, or a hip, ironic take on a cliché. Zero points for originality, then, but don't write the movie off entirely. There's a clutch of good performances (especially Sarah Polley as the would-be dealer, and William Fichtner as a cop), and a few moments do an excellent job capturing the madcap rush of adrenaline when you're young and stupid enough to think you can get away with anything. (Bruce Reid) Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

*Gods and Monsters -- Excellent film about the death (and life) of James Whale, one of Hollywood's first "out" gay directors, and famous for Frankenstein and his bride. Broadway Market

Goodbye Lover -- Patricia Arquette, Don Johnson, Dermot Mulroney, and Ellen DeGeneres, along with a slew of other has-beens, star in this dark comedy about love, revenge, and murder. Grand Alderwood, Metro, Pacific Place 11

Hideous Kinky -- Kate Winslet makes a brave career move after Titanic: another period piece. In this one she plays a hippie. Seven Gables

*Independent Exposure -- Seattle's longest-running forum for short films and videos strikes again, with a program that balances humor with serious subjects -- occasionally (as in the best of the arts) in the same pieces. Thurs April 22 at 7:30, $4. (Andy Spletzer) Speakeasy

Into the Deep -- An IMAX film in 3-D, putting you right into the aquarium. Pacific Science Center

JAPANESE GHOST STORIES -- A man's hiking trip through a forest becomes a metaphysical journey (complete with spirits, a haunted pond, and an electronic music score) in Demon Pond. The last film in the Asian Art Museum's series of ghostly tales from the Japanese cinema. Sun April 25 at 1:30, $6. Seattle Asian Art Museum

Life -- Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence star in a comedy about two men who spend their whole lives trying to escape from prison; one's been sent away for soliciting sex from a transvestite, the other for waving a gun wildly around on a crowded L.A. street. Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

Life Is Beautiful -- Like any good comedian, Roberto Benigni (and his co-writer Vincenzo Cerami) knows how to plant the seed for a gag early on, let it sit, then return to it much later for the payoff. The opening, which seems so frivolous, is all groundwork for what Benigni knows will be the toughest sell of his life: comedy in the Nazi camps. Employing the understatement and flair for timing that comedy requires, Benigni captures detail after detail in a far more devastating way than more earnest films on the subject could manage. (Bruce Reid) Harvard Exit, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

The Living Sea -- It's alive! See fish and waves and whales and jellyfish, all in that big-screen IMAX format. Omnidome

*Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels -- The coolest fucking British film you will see this year. Period. Set in the East End of London, it's a fast, frantic, and frequently flippant ride through the social strata of gangland as four wide boys send one of their number, cardsharp Eddie (heartthrob Nick Moran), to take on local crime boss Hatchet Harry (P. H. Moriarty) at poker. They soon find themselves in debt to the sum of half a million nicker, and they're not helped by the fact that Harry has put his debt collector Big Chris (soccer hardman Vinnie Jones) on their tails. It's a tidy movie -- all the dead bodies are shot and accounted for -- and it's also got a wicked, very English sense of humor. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels makes Tarantino look like the art school, panty-waisted wuss he undoubtedly is. (Everett True) Uptown, Varsity

Lost and Found -- David Spade strikes out on his own in this new comedy about a geek who tries to woo his neighbor by stealing her dog (HAW!). Oh, and there's some new fat guy who's supposed to be the "new Chris Farley." Lewis & Clark, Metro, Uptown

*The Matrix -- Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn) has been searching for the One, a cyber-Christ who will destroy the Matrix and wake people out of their preprogrammed idea of life. He thinks he has found Him in Neo (Keanu Reeves). With the knowledge that the Matrix is a computer-created dream, Morpheus and his rebels (with equally stupid names: Trinity, Cypher, Switch, Apoc, etc.) can run and jump and fight with superhuman power, but are hunted down by super-agents who want to cleanse the system. Sure, the character names are stupid, the barroom metaphysics ("Hey, what if life is just a dream?") are simplistic, and the cyber-Christ story is predictable, but the action scenes -- even the ones that use that 180 degree near-freeze frame -- make this otherwise boring movie worth seeing. From the directors of Bound. (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Meridian 16, Neptune, Northgate, Redmond Town Center, Southcenter

Metroland -- In the suburbs of London, circa 1977, Chris (the very believable Christian Bale) seems content with a mortgage, good job, fine home, and a beautiful and dutiful wife (a rivetting Emily Watson), but he keeps daydreaming about the roads not travelled, especially when his childhood best friend Toni (the suitably baleful Lee Ross) shows up and accuses him of "selling out." What follows is a very revealing and moving insight into the psyche of a middle-class Englishman as he tries to understand his discontentment, and shrug off his roving friend's promise of a better life elsewhere. Back in '63, he and Toni harbored dreams of bohemian Paris, and by the late '60s we see Chris in flashbacks as he's living the dream: an aspiring photographer with a sexy French girlfriend. Despite his passionate declamation against England and all it stands for, Chris falls in love with the very English Marion, moves back, and settles down. The choices Chris is finally forced to make, and his learning to accept the choices he's already made, are what make the movie so compelling. (Everett True) This was written just before Everett moved to back to England, returning to the arms of his marriage-minded girlfriend. Harvard Exit

Mighty Peking Man -- Giant ape runs amok and destroys a model version of Hong Kong. Fri-Sat at midnight. Reviewed this issue. Egyptian

Mondo Cane -- Though you could easily see this as a precurser to "reality television", this 1963 film is more like a Disney travelogue gone bad. Without the immediacy of video, the "shocking" elements caught on film -- mostly having to do with odd foods, tribal customs, plus a bit of sex and violence -- are more often than not reenacted for the cameras. The soundtrack, however, is great, and becomes the main focus of the film once you start to tire of the "outrageousness" of the content. Thurs-Sun April 22-25 at 5:30, 7:30, 9:30. (Andy Spletzer) The Little Theater

Mothra -- The city of Tokyo is under attack! Inshiro Honda's Mothra chronicles the trials of an alien abduction and the vengeance of a giant moth. Dubbed into English for additional chuckles. Fri-Sat April 23-24 at 11:30 Grand Illusion

Never Been Kissed -- After about 20 minutes, I was getting to thinking about how much I hate Drew Barrymore: her smug, cloying superciliousness, the way she always plays the same saccharine, flaw-free character. After an hour, I was in love with her again. There's something about her smile, her rosy cheeks, the way she bites her lip when pushed, her... DAMN IT ALL! Never Been Kissed's basic premise is this: Drew is 25, she's never been kissed (yeah, right), and she works at the Chicago Sun-Times. She needs a break, so she's sent as an undercover reporter to her old high school where -- no, you must have peeked! She gets kissed! Can you believe it? Or how 'bout this? Executive producer Drew Barrymore decides to do a movie for all the ugly people out there, to show just how sympathetic she is to our plight. Gee, thanks Drew. (Everett True) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

October Sky -- As Sputnik orbits the Earth, four working class Virginia boys win a big national science contest with their rocket theories. A standard American fable. There is a great down-to-earth performance by Chris Cooper (of John Sayles fame), but after that you can forget this piece of sentimental, pro-NASA propaganda. Fri April 30; open captioned for the hearing impaired. (Charles Mudede) Meridian 16

*The Ogre -- From the director of The Tin Drum, a tale about an idealistic man drawn into the corruption of Nazi power. The Ogre stars John Malkovich -- in his best part in years -- as the tenderhearted lover of innocents who helps destroy everything he holds dear. Thurs-Fri April 22-23 at 5, 7:30, 9:45. (Bruce Reid) Grand Illusion

The Out of Towners -- Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn together again in this remake of the Neil Simon film. Expect not to laugh. City Center, Grand Alderwood

A Place Called Chiapas -- Nettie Wild documents eight months of uprising by the Zapatista National Liberation Army. Director Nettie Wild will be at the Friday and Saturday screenings. Fri-Thurs April 23-29 at (Sat-Sun 12:40, 2:50), 5, 7:10, 9:20. Reviewed this issue. Egyptian

Pushing Tin -- This is a therapy film for guys in the same way that Good Will Hunting was. John Cusack plays an air traffic controller with the emphasis on "control." He's the best there is, at least until Billy Bob Thornton shows up. The movie has a perfect opportunity to branch into comedy, but it decides to do drama. Not a bad choice, necessarily, it's even an interesting one. Billy Bob's character has a pretty, young, unstable wife (Angelina Jolie), and is a reformed alcoholic (which, mercifully, never really comes into play). Thornton also brings crack comic timing to every scene that calls for it. Cusack is the main character, however, and it is his wandering eye and overblown expectations of self-control that ultimately lead to trouble with his wife and a breakdown. You see, men need to give up control in order to find themselves. I'm not sure at all how women will take to this film, but men who are cheating on their significant others should avoid this film like the plague. (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

Relax -- It's Just Sex -- P. J. Castellaneta's debut was the talky-but-engaging chamber piece Together Alone: two characters, one apartment, plenty to hold your interest. For his follow-up, he's gone the other way -- and, to my mind, stretched himself too thin -- by showing us the trials and tribulations of a dozen friends, including couples (straight and gay) and the obligatory lonely playwright. Not that the film isn't enjoyable. It's got a fair share of better-than-average sitcom zingers, a bright look, and a mostly winning cast. It's even willing to be less than smooth sailing all the way -- some of these people are uncharacteristically abrasive, and there's a bit of revenge on a would-be gay basher that's unapologetically nasty. But in its effort to cover all the bases, the film comes up with a group of people not likely to hang out together all the time. This lack of believability doesn't hurt the lighter moments; but when things get serious, it's fatal. (Bruce Reid) Broadway Market

*ROBERT BRESSON FILM SERIES -- Bresson devotees are in for a treat. The Grand Illusion's series continues with his renowned first feature film (no, not the lost comedy). Based on a Diderot novel, Les Anges du Peche tells the story of a young, affluent woman who enters a strict convent in search of salvation. Sun April 25 at 1, 3. Grand Illusion

Rushmore -- Wes Anderson (of Bottle Rocket fame) directs this a bouncy, yet strangely unemotional confection. Max (Jason Schwartzman), a teen prep school dreamer, befriends a much older steel tycoon (Bill Murray). Max's scholastic life hits the fan when his plans to impress a teacher he's fallen for (Olivia Williams) gets him expelled. To make matters worse, Murray falls in love with the very same woman. In the end you're left with solid performances all the way around, a few good laughs, and not a lot to write home about. Walk, don't run. (Wm. Steven Humprey) Metro, Pacific Place 11

Shakespeare in Love -- Certainly the idea is appealing: one of history's immortals, shown in his still-struggling youth, with eye-catching period details and a cast uniformly professional enough to carry it off with whimsy. But the film strains too much to flatter and please the audience, setting up predictable conflicts and getting out of them thro ugh the easiest ways possible. It's clever in a very simple way, content to show its hero as a great-man-in-waiting and its heroine as so improbably perfect she could only be a muse. (Bruce Reid) Factoria, Guild 45th, Uptown

Twin Dragons -- This 1992 feature, freshly dubbed into English, stars Jackie Chan in a dual role as twins separated at birth: one's an auto mechanic expert at martial arts, the other a classical musician who couldn't punch his way out of a paper sack. On their way to a loving reunion, they must deal not only with an inexhaustible supply of mobsters, but two would-be girlfriends. The seat-of-the-pants Hong Kong aesthetic shows its flaws here; no effort is made to even dress the two Chans similarly, or time their comings and goings logically, so the confusion of their friends and foes are not so much comic as exasperating signs of obtuseness. And in the most cynical fashion, only the first and last fight scenes have any energy. That finale, set in an auto warehouse, almost makes up for the rest of this listless movie. Try sneaking in for the last 20 minutes; otherwise skip it. (Bruce Reid) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16

A Walk on the Moon -- A lot of things happened in the summer of 1969. If you doubt it, just see this movie, which dutifully drags out all of them. The story of a housewife (Diane Lane) vacationing in the Catskills, who tires of her square husband (Liev Schreiber) and has a fling with the free-spirited traveling salesman (Viggo Mortensen) who visits weekly (no, really), A Walk on the Moon tries desperately to draw parallels between its everyday characters and the seemingly momentous changes going on in the nation. It doesn't work, mostly because neither the characters we're watching nor the times they live in ever feel anything more than a superficial rehash of everything you've heard and seen before. As with most actors-turned-novice directors, Tony Goldwyn does a nice job with his cast, but lets the narrative meander, even stall out at times. There's a kindness towards people that bodes well for any future projects Goldwyn attempts, but this one is just dumb and dull. (Bruce Reid) Pacific Place 11

Whales -- An up close and personal look at the largest mammals on earth. Omnidome


MOVIE TIMES