dir. James Mangold
When a film is as close to Psycho as Identity is, you hope it will bring something new to the table. Ah, well. Identity won't go down in history as the clever spin on Norman Bates it wants to be, but because it borrows so heavily from Hitchcock, it's not without some taut suspense. On a dark and stormy night, a psychologist (Alfred Molina) awaits a convicted mass murderer with new evidence that will save him from execution. Meanwhile, odd coincidences have stranded 10 strangers in a dilapidated motel, and they all have MacGuffins, er, secrets. There's a hooker (Amanda Peet), bickering newlyweds (Clea DuVall, William Lee Scott), a distraught family (including John C. McGinley), an actress (Rebecca De Mornay) and her bodyguard (John Cusack), a nervous cop (Ray Liotta) transporting a violent inmate (Jake Busey), and a sweaty motel clerk (John Hawkes). Victim number one wraps herself in a plastic curtain and gets gutted before you can say "shower scene." The subsequent body count works through its paces (lather, die, repeat) in the shadowy, increasingly supernatural atmosphere. Some will enjoy the thrill kill ride. Others will easily dodge the plot twists. No one, however, will escape the shrieking music cues. SHANNON GEE

Raising Victor Vargas

dir. Peter Sollett
Victor Vargas is a sexy fucker and he knows it: The opening shot of this movie (in which the lithe, crass, and beguiling 18-year-old begins undressing as he prepares to fuck a fat girl who has promised not to tell anyone) is not unlike those Antonio Sabato Jr. underwear ads from the '90s. Victor lives on the Lower East Side and has no worldly ambitions; all he has to speak of is a crush on Juicy Judy, who wears hoop earrings and too much makeup and thinks all guys are "dogs." Neither one of them has a phone at home, which suggests a rather improbable courtship, though they manage to run into each other enough times on neighborhood rooftops and at public swimming pools, and to the surprise of no one in the audience it all works out--each character (even among the overbearing and richly caricatured families) comes to a sensitive, deeper understanding of one another's longings and insecurities, which is a clean, comforting way to end a movie, but it's never how things turn out in life. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

Fellini: I'm a Born Liar

dir. Damian Pettigrew

Fri April 25-Thurs May 1 at the Varsity.
There are few pleasures in life more gratifying than listening to an Italian man speak in uninterrupted monologue. When the Italian in question also happens to be one of the most innovative artists of the last century--and thus, of all time--the pleasure is necessarily redoubled. And so it is that I'm a Born Liar, a documentary that consists mainly of talking-head interviews with the late great Federico Fellini interspersed with clips from many of his greatest films, is hereby guaranteed to delight Seattle audiences--at least partially because it offers a précis of Fellini's massive body of work. This précis both whets the appetite and affords viewers the rare treat of being able to discuss films they haven't actually seen.

With all that in mind, however, I'm a Born Liar is a film whose scope is narrow--though its singular focus rests on an artist whose work represents nothing short of an aesthetic paradigm--and whose construction is wholly conventional. Fellini talks about his process (exacting), actors talk about his directorial method (manipulative), collaborators talk about his mystique (immortal), and the clips holding the interviews together reinforce his genius (unfailing). SEAN NELSON

Confidence

dir. James Foley
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, every good con movie needs a good con. Unfortunately, Confidence is missing exactly that, inserting in its place yet another annoying performance by Dustin Hoffman. Starring Edward Burns and a bunch of other people nearly as irrelevant, Confidence moves at the kind of clip that can only be described as desperate. The story: A group of seasoned con men (led by Burns) pull a job and, in the process, accidentally rip off a pseudo-shady L.A. underworld figure known as the King (Hoffman). To make good to the King, Burns and his cronies pitch another job, this time against the King's #1 nemesis. Unfortunately, said job is neither intricate nor exciting, and, save for a performance from the always great Paul Giamatti, neither is the film. BRADLEY STEINBACHER

The Man Without a Past

dir. Aki Kaurismäki
Aki Kaurismäki's latest has charmed audiences at film festivals around the world, and it's easy to see why. Bathed in the perpetual golden light of northern Finland, the movie looks absolutely gorgeous. The camera rarely moves, which emphasizes the strong compositions Kaurismäki has set up with cinematographer Timo Salminen. The pacing is slow but confident, and once you lock into its rhythm it becomes completely engaging. Above all the movie is funny, eschewing the gross-out humor so popular today for the more gentle humor of silent films.

A man (Markku Peltola) arrives in town in the middle of the night and is mugged. Waking up in the hospital after being pronounced dead, he walks out with no money, no identity, and no memory of who he is. Adopted by a poor family who live in a freight container down by the waterfront, he develops a crush on a Salvation Army worker (longtime Kaurismäki muse Kati Outinen), and he works his way up to self-sufficiency in this society of poverty as memories of his less-than-noble past slowly come back to him. It all feels like a fairy tale, and like any good fairy tale it contains a heartfelt critique of society under its surface. What a great film. ANDY SPLETZER