BANDITS -- Varsity
BEDROOMS & HALLWAYS -- Egyptian
THE LIMEY -- Neptune
RANDOM HEARTS -- Various theaters
SUPERSTAR -- Pacific Place, Oak Tree, others
REPERTORY & REVIVAL
THE CENTURY OF CINEMA -- Grand Illusion
FILM NOIR FOREVER -- Seattle Art Museum
GOETHE: RARE AND ONSCREEN -- Speakeasy
JAPANESE FILMS -- Seattle Asian Art Museum
THE MAGIC FLUTE -- Little Theatre
NEGATIVE SKILLS -- WigglyWorld
OPEN SCREENING -- 911 Media Arts
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE -- Grand Illusion
ROMANCE -- Egyptian
SEATTLE HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL -- 911 Media Arts
SEATTLE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL -- Cinema 18, Hugo House, 911 Media Arts, Broadway Performance Hall
SPEAKING IN STRINGS -- Little Theatre
SPIKE & MIKE'S CLASSIC FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION -- Varsity Calendar
COMING SOON
October 15 -- Fight Club, Happy Texas, Stop Making Sense, The Story of Us, Head On, The Mating Habits of Earthbound Humans, The Omega Code
October 22 -- The Straight Story, Bringing Out the Dead, The Best Man, Crazy In Alabama, Body Shots, Joe the King, Bats, That's the Way I Like It, Truffaut: A Celebration, Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
American Beauty
Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a semi-typical suburbanite recalling the last year of his life. He's married to Carolyn (Annette Bening), a bitchy real estate agent more interested in the appearance of success than true happiness. Their daughter Jane (Thora Birch) is also unhappy, saddled with an awkward beauty that doesn't play in high school, and alienated from her dad because he lusts after every girlfriend she brings home. When a mysterious teen with a camcorder moves in next door, people learn to see themselves more clearly and everything changes. The first film of Broadway director Sam Mendes, the writing is snappy enough, and the actors are good enough, that you nearly forget how artificial the whole set-up is, this look at suburban life through the recollections of a dead, disgruntled pedophile. (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Guild 45th, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center
Bandits
A German rock 'n' roll movie about a group of girls who break out of prison and go on tour. Varsity
Bedrooms & Hallways
Rose Troche (Go Fish) is back with another witty romantic comedy. This time around, with a virtually lesbian-free plot, Troche explores the sexual confusions of a group of London men. Fri-Thurs Oct 8-14 at (Sat-Sun 1, 3:10), 5:20, 7:30, 9:40. Reviewed this issue. Egyptian
Better Than Chocolate
The setup is typical TV sitcom: Budding artist Maggie (Karyn Dwyer) falls in love with free-spirited Kim (Christina Cox), hours before she learns her mother and brother will be spending the summer with her. The catch? She's not out to mom yet. Despite complications, everything works out jim-dandy, like you knew it would. (Gillian G. Gaar) Broadway Market
*Blue Streak
Set in post-Rodney King, post-riot, post-O.J. Simpson L.A., Blue Streak is unexpectedly funny. It involves a black jewel thief, Miles Logan (Martin Lawrence), who has to con his way into the white LAPD so as to recover a stolen jewel he unluckily left in their building while it was under construction. Once in the department, he makes friends with the cops, gets a promotion, and before long he is brutalizing suspects in ways that impress his jaded colleagues, who are all under the eagle/legal eyes of public defenders. Martin Lawrence is in top form, and an unusually strong cast (including Luke Wilson, David Chappelle, Peter Greene) all give great performances. Most amazing of all is the smart direction from Les Mayfield, the man who brought us Encino Man and Flubber. Though not without flaws (it is, of course, a rehash of themes exploited by Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs.), the end result is satisfying. For once, here is a movie that is manic enough and mad enough to keep up with Martin Lawrence. (Charles Mudede) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree
Buena Vista Social Club
Director Wim Wenders and musician Ry Cooder collaborate on this documentary on the Cuban super-group the Buena Vista Social Club. Winner of the Golden Space Needle for Best Documentary. Guild 45th
*The CENTURY OF CINEMA
The "Century of Cinema" series gallops to 1956, with the John Ford/John Wayne Western classic, The Searchers. Never mind that this old-fashioned plot involves a young girl being kidnapped by "Injuns" -- this film's simple style (and Wayne's performance) alone will convince you that Westerns deserve to be more than just late-night-there's- nothing-else-on-TV entertainment. Sat-Sun Oct 9-10 at noon. Grand Illusion
Double Jeopardy
Libby Parsons' (Ashley Judd) perfect life is straight out of J. Crew, at least until she's framed for her husband's murder and goes to jail. While in prison, Libby discovers her husband is very much alive and shacked up with a family friend. Six years later she's released and she heads out on an obsessive quest to get her son back. Tommy Lee Jones is the gruff 'n' tough parole officer who tracks her down when she violates parole, but ends up taking her side when he sees how driven she is to clear her name. Despite the tense moments and brief thrills, the movie asks too much of you. Judd is supposed to be so sympathetic and likeable, they must have thought you'd be too busy rooting for her to notice the farfetched circumstances or gaping holes in logic. Even with her undeniable beauty and talent, Judd can't possibly save this blurry mess. (Min Liao) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center
Drive Me Crazy
She's All That starring Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11
Elmo in Grouchland
Elmo and grouches. Elmo makes us grouchy. Go to hell, Elmo. Redmond Town Center, Uptown
FILM NOIR FOREVER
Cigarettes are everywhere, ladies are sexy broads with red lipstick, and men have hats and stubble. There are more intellectual aspects involved when describing film noir -- history, style, lighting, elements of plot -- but eh... film noir can be fun, too. SAM's popular series starts with Criss Cross (1948), a backstab-heavy "B-noir" (Thurs Oct 7 at 7:30); Vincente Minelli's Undercur-rent (1946) follows, with Kate Hepburn and Robert Mitchum (Thurs Oct 14 at 7:30). $48 full series pass; call 625-8900 for more details. Seattle Art Museum
For Love of the Game
For love of misogyny! Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is a 40-year-old pitcher throwing in his last game, which happens to be a perfect game, a no-hitter. Jane (Kelly Preston) is his girlfriend who has decided to end their relationship because... well, Billy has
been nothing but an asshole to her for the past five years. Over the course of the game, Billy is "in the zone," flashing back to the past, re-living his mistakes. By the end, he has thrown the perfect game and learned absolutely nothing about himself. Still, Jane takes him back. Costner's attempt to resurrect the magic of his '80s baseball movies does little but make women look stupid -- stupid for falling for someone like Billy Chapel, stupid for staying with him when he's such a prick, and stupid for taking him back simply because he's thrown a perfect game and now that he's retiring he needs something in his life to replace baseball, a woman. Ugh. (Bradley Steinbacher) Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center
GOETHE: RARE AND ONSCREEN
This may be your only chance to catch four never-released and not-on-video film versions of the formidable Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's writings. Straight from the Goethe-Institut to our humble Speakeasy. This week, see Rudolf Thome's Tarot, (1986) along with the animated How the Fox Trapped the Bear (1930). Tues Oct 12 at 8; call 728-9770 for more details. Speakeasy
Guinevere
Harper (Sarah Polley) is a crushingly insecure 20-year-old who embarks on an affair with a photographer (Stephen Rea) at least twice her age. In telling her story, director Audrey Wells is able to not only deal honestly with female sexuality, but to present it and its accompanying personal growth in a light that does not completely defame the involvement of a Lothario. I have a feeling it won't work for everybody: There's a cool polish to it where others might want some edges, but for whatever Wells may have done too slickly, she did make a film in the United States that shows a woman's rite of passage as an event with no losers and no winners, only participants. That, in and of itself, is an achievement. (Steve Wiecking) Harvard Exit
Jakob the Liar
In the latest Holocaust comedy, Robin Williams is a Jew in a Polish ghetto during the Nazi occupation. Ultimately, it's a risky film that doesn't take enough risks. (Steve Wiecking) Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16
JAPANESE FILMS
In conjunction with SAAM's Modern Masters of Kyoto exhibit (and the geisha craze sweeping the nation), this brief film series looks at the impact of Western culture on traditional Japanese ways. The last film is The Family Game, a satire of industrialized Japan and all of its seemingly flawless nuclear families. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Sat Oct 9 at 1:30, $6; call 625-8900 for more details. Seattle Asian Art Museum
*The Limey
Steven Soderbergh's latest, one of his greatest, starring Terrence Stamp and Peter Fonda. Reviewed this issue. Neptune
Lucie Aubrac
A pointless French historical epic about a bunch of Resistance fighters standing up to those darn Nazis. Director Claude Berri (JĂ©an de Florette, Germinal) drains any sense of politics, intrigue, and humor out of the story, instead focusing on one woman who busted her Resistance-fighting husband out of Nazi jail. Here's the point: The Resistance is good, Nazis are bad, and that one traitor was bad too! How edgy. (Andy Spletzer) Seven Gables
The Magic Flute
This Ingmar Bergman flick will be screening concurrently with the Seattle Opera's production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Bergman's examination of the opera world involves a more behind-the-scenes glimpse of the cast, as the Scandinavian performers prepare for their roles backstage. Originally made for Swedish TV, this is a favorite among Bergman fans. Thurs-Sun Oct 14-17 at 4, 6:30, 9. Little Theatre
The Minus Man
There is nothing worse than a serial killer who thinks he's smart but is actually a great bore. Similarly, there is nothing worse than a director who thinks he's smart but is actually a great bore. The Minus Man is guilty of both of these sins, and should be punished. (Charles Mudede) Broadway Market
Mumford
Lawrence Kasdan makes movies about whiney white people; movies like The Big Chill and Grand Canyon (often referred to as "the worst movie ever made" here at the office). His new film, Mumford, is no exception. Dr. Mumford (Loren Dean) is the town of Mumford's #1 psychologist, only he's not really a psychologist, but rather a man in hiding who is only pretending to be a psychologist. This, by itself, is a fine premise for a film, but (surprise!) Mumford never really goes anywhere. In fact, it's rarely even funny. There are a lot of fine actors wandering through, but they never have anything very funny to say or do, which is a problem since Mumford is supposed to be a comedy. Still, it's no Grand Canyon, so there is an upside to everything. (Bradley Steinbacher) Meridian 16, Metro
*The Muse
Screenwriter Albert Brooks employs the services of Sharon Stone, a purported Divine Muse, in hopes that she will inspire him to write a smash comedy for Jim Carrey. Uptown
Mystery, Alaska
There is really no excuse for how bad this film is. Based on a true story of hockey players in small-town Alaska given the opportunity to play the New York Rangers in an exhibition match. Can this rag-tag team beat the professionals? Do we care? The movie plays like The Mighty Ducks for grownups, complete with fucking, cursing, and boozing, and who would think that's a good idea? (Charles Mudede) Grand Alderwood, Metro, Pacific Place 11
Negative Skills
No, it's not therapy. This is for the control freaks and indie filmmakers with a shoestring budget: Post-production whiz Andy Pratt will teach you the art of splicing and dicing your own negatives -- a must-have skill if you're serious about your movie. "Negative Cutting and Conforming," Sun Oct 10, 11am-4, $25; call 329-2629 for more details. WigglyWorld
Open House
The Seattle Film Institute is hosting its fall semester Open House, for those interested in upcoming classes. The courses -- "Hands on Filmmaking," "Screenwriting I," and "The Language of Film" -- cover all fields of filmmaking, including lighting, camera, cinematography, editing, history, and script structure. Class sizes are limited, check out the Open House and register! Sun Oct 10, 11am-1; call 329-6577 for more details. Seattle Film Institute
Open Screening
Aspiring film and videomakers show their stuff (VHS tapes, no longer than 10 minutes) and receive feedback from their peers in an "open mic" environment. Mon Oct 11 at 8, $1; entries are accepted between 7:30 and 8. 911 Media Arts
Perfect Blue
An animated psychological thriller from Satoshi Kon about a pop music star who ends up as a soap opera actress; scary enough, yes. But then her character's life begins to resemble her own, and reality and fiction become intertwined. Varsity
Plunkett and Macleane
It must run in the genes: With his debut feature, director Jake Scott shows the same fondness for slick, advertisement-style loveliness that his elders overindulge in. But whereas Ridley, and even Tony, manage to deliver a great film occasionally, Jake is all about flash and trash. Plunkett & Macleane -- starring Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller as the eponymous 18th-century highway robbers -- isn't so much an update on the gentleman bandit genre as a slacker-gangster film dressed up in powdered wigs and knee breeches. One bystander observes that our antiheroes at least have "style"; but style requires personality, and people are the one thing that doesn't seem to interest the filmmaker in the least. There are some pretty shots, and the leads are game, but with no characters that even approach two dimensions, the whole mess becomes dreary and dull. (Bruce Reid) Metro, Pacific Place 11
PRIDE AT WORK
The Out Front Labor Coalition is throwing a film fest/party with unlimited popcorn to celebrate National Coming Out Day! Three rare films -- Out At Work (6:00), When Democracy Works (7:15), and They Were Not Silent: Jewish Labor Movement and the Holocaust (8:00) -- will be screened, and proceeds will benefit the fight against I-992. Mon Oct 11 at 5:30, donation $10-20 or pay-what-you-can; call 903-9488 for more info. Seattle Labor Temple
Random Hearts
Sydney Pollack's new film, starring Harrison Ford and Kirsten Scott-Thomas as two people who meet after their spouses have been killed in a plane crash. Factoria, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Southcenter
Rebel Without a Cause
The 1955 classic (and one of James Dean's only three films) about three teenagers (Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo) who hate their parents, school, and everything else. Some things never change. Fri-Sat Oct 8-9 at 11. Grand Illusion
Romance
An uncut, uncensored, provocative French film, titled Romance. We all know what kind of movie this is. Pure smut. Don't see this with your parents. 18+ ONLY! Broadway Market, Egyptian
Run Lola Run
A young Berlin hipster named Lola has 20 minutes to find enough money to stop her boyfriend from being killed. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer tells the story three times, each with different but equally incredible twists, surprises, tangents, and endings -- which is exactly what makes this movie fun to watch. (Charles Mudede) Harvard Exit
Runaway Bride
Director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) reunites with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere to make another cheerful movie about two opposites who attract and (of course) end up together. What develops is typical Hollywood Lite. (Min Liao) Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Meridian 16
SEATTLE HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL
Not for the blissfully ignorant or the faint-of-heart. This series of political and often disturbing films run the gamut of human rights issues, in countries all over the world. From Cambodian struggles to war-ravaged Bosnia to post-massacre Tiananmen Square, these shorts examine the violence, hardship, and struggle of suffering people while you sit in your soft, plush theater seat. Oct 14-17, $5, call 720-1452 for more info. 911 Media Arts
SEATTLE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
In delicious honor of all things dirty, strange, and wrong: The Seattle Underground Film Festival has arrived (finally) to our hopelessly Aboveground town. Expect experimental, documentary, and offbeat shorts. Fri-Sun Oct 8-17, call 860-8590 or go to seattleundergroundfilm.com for more info; see complete listings in the Stranger Movie Times. Reviewed this issue. 911 Media Arts, Broadway Performance Hall, Cinema 18, The Richard Hugo House
*Sitcom
A tidy, long-standing domestic situation is threatened with change, but inevitably reverts to its original order by the end of the show, primed to be upset again next week. The television sitcom is an almost baroque image of stasis, a constantly spinning wheel that never moves forward. That is precisely the image that Françoise Ozon explodes in his hilarious debut feature, Sitcom. Like Bunuel before him, Ozon understands how the most deadly serious matters are best handled with a light, playful attitude. Unlike Ozon's previous shorts, which for all their brilliance felt hollow and calculating, Sitcom entertains even as it rips every standard of decency to shreds. It even has the good sense to turn on itself, confessing at the end that it's absurd to blame the problems of a family this messed up on a harmless little rat. Until Thurs Oct 14 at (Sat-Sun 3), 5, 7, 9. (Bruce Reid) Grand Illusion
*The Sixth Sense
Months after being shot by a former patient, child psychologist Bruce Willis has become obsessed with that failure, and his marriage is suffering. Meanwhile, he has started treating a new patient who, as you probably know from the ads, sees dead people. Though the direction of the story by M. Night Shyamalan is often obvious, the structure of his script is very smart. Most impressive is that we don't see the boy's ghosts for half the film. When we do it's quite scary, particularly knowing these are the dead people he sees all the time! (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center
Speaking in Strings
A documentary devoted to Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg: the Musician (famous classical violinist) and the Woman (depression, controversy, and dubbed by fans as "the bad girl of violin"). In this film by childhood friend Paola di Florio, Nadja explores her life, work, and struggles. Thurs-Sun Oct 7-10 at 5:30, 7:30, 9:30. Reviewed this issue. Little Theatre
Spike & Mike's Classic Festival of Animation
This latest round of animated shorts could have been assembled with a bit more care (it's as randomly hit and miss as ever), but I suspect my favorites are someone else's downers, anyway; all I can do is assure you that something's bound to catch your eye. Sometimes the digital stuff is cold and creepy (intentionally so in the case of the eerie "Bingo," a clown nightmare), though "VHX/Carrhot" provides a hysterical look at carrot exploitation flicks (don't ask, just watch). There's "Hum Drum," a funny new Aardman piece (no claymation this time); a lovely, watercolor memory called "The Queen's Monastery"; a psychedelic tribute to Busby Berkeley featuring live, dancing hands; and the sweet, Oscar-winning "Bunny," with a moving, end-credit song from Tom Waits. All in all, 17 shorts and the opportunity to see where animation is taking us. Not revelatory, but worth the trip. Fri-Thurs Oct 8-21 at (Sat-Sun 2), 4:30, 7, 9:30; all ages welcome! (Steve Wiecking) Varsity Calendar
Stigmata
Stigmata is atrocious: bad acting, silly attempts to generate mood by dumping a monsoon season rain on Pittsburgh, an annoying rock video aesthetic. It's so atrocious, in fact, that it sometimes threatens to become fun, but by the end turns out even worse than you could have imagined. (Bruce Reid) Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11
Stir of Echoes
Kevin Bacon hears dead people. Uptown
Sugar Town
Alison Anders (Gas Food Lodging, Grace of My Heart) takes a look at the L.A. music scene. Broadway Market
Superstar
Let's not kid each other: Superstar is an uninspired, disposable movie that looks like it was made for about two bucks, but if Molly Shannon's Mary Catherine Gallagher character, her painfully awkward Saturday Night Live Catholic schoolgirl, is someone you long to see pursuing her dreams then you will frequently laugh despite yourself. Unlike "Stupid Movie King" Adam Sandler, whose goofiness only extends to the point at which he can still get laid or have frat guys wanting to buy him beers, Shannon's comic energy is shamelessly, exquisitely unattractive (which means she's 10 times truer and funnier). Although director and Kids in the Hall alumnus Bruce McCulloch doesn't clear up all of the jokey deadwood, the film also features Shannon's fellow SNL gem Will Ferrell, and is, for hardcore fans, worth at least a guilty matinee. (Steve Wiecking) Cinerama, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree
T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous
T-Rex eschews the standard documentary format for a completely fictionalized story. The set-up's admittedly corny: Budding paleontologist Ally (Liz Stauber) doesn't get enough attention from her dad (thirtysomething's Peter Horton), so she ends up going back in time for face-to-face encounters with real dinosaurs, including the titular 'rex herself. Though the 3D effects are present from the start of the film, your senses are really awakened when you're transported to dino land and those frisky lizards are leaping all around you. The FX are so realistic, you'll swear you can feel the breath of Big Mama TR, and no matter how many times you've seen 3D films, you'll still be hard pressed to not duck when boulders and dino bones come whizzing straight at you. (Gillian G. Gaar) Pacific Science Center
*The Thomas Crown Affair
The new Thomas Crown Affair manages to keep the fun tone of the '68 version and update it at the same time, which is not an easy trick. Thomas Crown is a billionaire businessman who likes to rob art museums on the side. When a beautiful insurance investigator (Rene Russo) comes to town to recover a painting, she immediately suspects Thomas Crown. They fall for each other, all the while playing a flirtatious game of cat and mouse. (Bradley Steinbacher) City Centre, Grand Alderwood, Metro
Three Kings
Of all the wars in the past century, the Gulf War is the ripest for comedy. From the American standpoint, from our sofas and La-Z-Boys, the battle for Kuwait seemed more like a scrimmage -- a Harlem Globetrotters game, with Iraq stuck being the Washington Generals. David O. Russell's Three Kings taps into that viewpoint, then turns it on its ear. The story goes like this: At the end of the war, four U.S. soldiers (George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze) find a map leading to a bunker where gold stolen from Kuwait is being stashed, and must decide whether to help the natives who were encouraged by President Bush to rise up against Saddam and are now being slaughtered, or just steal the gold. In its efforts to be a comedy and a drama, as well as an action movie, Three Kings actually pulls it off, despite an occasional misstep. You laugh while you're in the theater, curse the U.S. as you leave, then relax in your La-Z-Boy once you get home. (Bradley Steinbacher) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Northgate
