Space Cowboys, Saving Grace, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Coyote Ugly, Wonderland, The Hollow Man, Emporte-Moi (Set Me Free), Mad About Mambo, Humanité

Brazil
A midnight revisit of Terry Gilliam's cult masterpiece, with its wild visuals and an Orwellian slant. Restored to its uncut European version (a new 35mm print). Fri-Sat July 28-29. Egyptian

*Breathless
If you've already seen your share of Scorsese's graphic mobster movies, check out this 35mm print of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1959), a tribute to the American gangster flick, in which a small-time French gangster (Jean Paul Belmondo in his debut role) falls in love with an American journalist. This classic easily qualifies as the most audacious debut outside of Citizen Kane. Opens Wed Aug 2. Little Theatre

*The Chelsea Girls
A stunning demonstration of the ultimate tedium of excess: Two films are projected simultaneously, side-by-side, one with sound, one without. Both are single-take, single-perspective, single-shot films. Typically, one film features a mostly static image, such as an extended shot of model/actress/chanteuse Nico crying while pretty polka-dot patterns of light play across her face. The other could show Mary Woronov playing dominatrix for an audience of young women in a room at the Chelsea Hotel; a kitchen with Nico, her boyfriend, and her son doing not much at all; or it could show Ondine shooting up speed while delivering an increasingly manic sermon. Depravity intersects boredom, and it's hard to tell whether the film is about depravity and boredom, or is merely depraved and boring. Still, it's the kind of thing one should see at least once in one's long life. Fri July 28. (Eric Fredericksen) Henry Art Gallery Auditorium

COEN BROTHERS RETROSPECTIVE
The Calculating Coens are often accused of creating soulless, tricky work that, in spite of its obvious technical appeal, conceals a cold, dispassionate heart. On the other hand, they are sometimes credited as the singularly most consistently interesting filmmaking team working in Hollywood. Judge for yourself in this one-week showcase of most of their work. From the moody calculus of Miller's Crossing to the overrated posturing of Fargo to the underrated excess of The Hudsucker Proxy, it's all up for grabs. But just try and watch Raising Arizona without laughing--10-to-1 you can't do it! (Jamie Hook) Opens Fri July 28, see Movie Times for full series listings. Egyptian

The Five Senses
Opens Fri July 28; See review this issue. Harvard Exit

Funny Old Films
Hokum Hall presents this summer series of lighthearted silent films with live musical accompaniment by the Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra, hosted by Professor Hokum W. Jeebs. This week features the quiet hilarity of Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), Honeymooniacs (1929), and A Pair of Tights (1928). Tues-Wed Aug 1-2. Hokum Hall

Independent Exposure
Thurs July 27; see Stranger Suggests. Speakeasy

Linda's Summer Movies
Back again for a sixth season, Linda's Summer Movies is the original outdoor drinking/film-watching extravaganza, presented, as always, FOR FREE!! By the time the plot falls apart, you'll be too drunk to care!! This week: who knows? It's all one big fucking surprise (Hint: Big Monsters!!!)! Wed Aug 2. Linda's Tavern

*The MASOCHISTIC ALLURE OF BETTE DAVIS
Bette Davis was the preeminent female star of Warner Brothers during the golden age of the Studio System. Her now-legendary battles with the bullish Jack Warner were as much an element of the appeal of her performance as the characters she gravitated to, as evidenced fully in Dark Victory. Her intense, sexually aggressive, ruthless persona was later mined to great effect in several later films, including the campy Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. Finally, there is the cult of All About Eve, showing in its fourth outing this summer. Thurs-Sat July 27-29; see Movie Times for full series details. 2nd Avenue Pizza

Mighty Joe Young (1934)
Just like 1933's King Kong, great ape movies are always better the first time around. To make it even more delightful, the Fremont Friday Night Movies have teamed up with Jet City Improv to turn the sound off and re-create dialogue and music--based on audience suggestions! Ooo-oo, aa-aa-oweee! Ook-ook-ook! Fri July 28. Fremont Friday Night Outdoor Movies

My Favorite Wife
Originally to be directed by co-scenarist Leo McCarey, who'd had a bad car accident, My Favorite Wife suffers a bit from lacking his humanity and sophistication, but remains a perennial favorite. Having been lost at sea for seven years, Irene Dunne returns home to find husband Cary Grant has declared her dead so he can marry Gail Patrick. Unfortunately, the pairing of Dunne and Grant only reminds you how much wiser and funnier McCarey's The Awful Truth is; but the comic rivalry of Grant and Randolph Scott, as a muscle man who'd been Dunne's companion on the island, has unexpected bonuses. Their mistrustful sizing-up of one another only seems more hilarious and beautifully acted the more you buy into the rumors. Thurs July 27. (Bruce Reid) Seattle Art Museum

Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps
Look out! Eddie Murphy and a cast of latex prosthetics are back in action! Question: Did Universal Studios have to pay him one salary or five? Metro

Obsessive Becoming
Fri July 28; see Stranger Suggests. 911 Media Arts

*The Other Cinema
A program of avant-garde films from around the Northwest and beyond, selected by experimental filmmaker Jon Behrens. Including work by Steve Creson, Martina Broner, Jon Berens, and Joel Schlemowitz. Sun July 30. Little Theatre

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Fremont Outdoor Cinema and its spunky sister, the West Seattle Walk In Cinema, offer the original outdoor-cinema experience. The travails of two drag queens and a transsexual (Terence Stamp!) on a trip across the Australian outback are the basis for this fabulous comedy. With a pre-screening drag show benefitting Three Dollar Bill Productions and the Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Fri July 28 (West Seattle), Sat July 29 (Fremont). Fremont Outdoor Cinema, West Seattle Walk-In Cinema

The Secret of Nimh
A non-commercial refuge from the voracious onslaught of summer cinema directed greedily at children, the Grand Illusion's Summer Children's Film Series is back for a fourth season. This week features Don Bluth's The Secret of Nimh, the animated saga of a field mouse's efforts to save her ill son with the help of the superintelligent rats of NIMH. Sat-Sun July 29-30 & Tues Aug 1. Grand Illusion

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
Gough Lewis proves as exploitative as the porno producers behind Annabel Chong's legendary 251-man gangbang in this poorly made, unsurprising documentary. Still, we get to see Chong outside of the porno realm, which is a pleasure no matter how you cut it. Especially sweet are the numerous scenes with her Singapore family and friends, in which, like most porn stars, Chong emerges against typecasting as loyal, thoughtful, and very much concerned about her "work" being contextualized. Still, the more lurid details of the film tend to overwhelm Chong, and we are left feeling used. Better you should read our interview with this issue. Varsity Calendar

Thomas and the magic railroad
See review this issue. Metro

WigglyWorld Summer Shorts
Thurs-Sat July 27-29; see review this issue. Little Theatre

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
When Rocky and Bullwinkle and the villains are pulled out of television, the situation starts to get out of hand; Bullwinkle gets stuck in a computer, Rocky forgets how to fly, and they accidentally fly in a plane to Washington D.C. instead of N.Y. (Sam Lachow) Aurora Cinema Grill, City Centre, Lewis & Clark, Redmond Town Center

Amazon
An IMAX examination of the lush forests and exotic animals of the Amazon river basin. Omnidome

Barbarella
Roger Vadim's 1968 space adventure with Jane Fonda as the titular nymphette on a futuristic sexual odyssey. Supple thighs, kick-ass boots, and big hair. Grand Illusion

Big Momma's House
In this weak comedy, Martin Lawrence is the good guy, Terrence Howard plays the bad guy, and sexy Nia Long is a woman. When she suddenly disappears, the FBI stakes out her Georgia grandmother's home, but when her grandmother is suddenly called out of town on an emergency, Special Agent Martin Lawrence assumes her grandmother's role--her bed, her clothes, her big butt, her Southern drawl. (Charles Mudede) Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11

But I'm a Cheerleader
Shorts director Jamie Babbitt's feature debut is a disappointment--strenuous stuff that seldom rises above frail, second-rate camp. There should be a few more inspired laughs in its tale of Megan (Natasha Lyonne), a top-notch student cheerleader thought to be lesbian who's sent to a camp where homosexuality is "cured." (Ray Pride) Broadway Market

Chicken Run
Chicken Run is about chickens trying to escape. It is very funny and exciting; each chicken has a great sense of humor and is weird. It all starts when Rocky the Chicken comes blasting over the fence and everybody thinks he can fly. Meanwhile, something fishy is going on--Mrs. Tweedy (the farmer's wife) has a machine that lets the chickens go in and pies come out. The chickens do whatever they can to resist becoming pies. (Sam Lachow & Maggie Brown) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

*Chuck & Buck
Chuck & Buck is an American fairy tale about obsession, repression, lust, and loyalty. As finally realized, Miguel Arteta's gay-stalker romantic comedy is none of those, but rather a film about identity, about self-image and comfort, about how our actions define us and how those definitions in turn make us act. A worthy centerpiece at the current banquet of independent film, Chuck & Buck is an excellent, original, subversive, and artistic film. (Jamie Hook) Broadway Market

*Croupier
A bottle-blond exponent of God's lonely man takes a job in a private London casino and gets embroiled in some serious heist-related trouble. Mike Hodges, who directed the semi-obscure British new wave classic Get Carter, brings grace and severity to what could have just been neo-pulp. Instead, like the best pulp, Croupier becomes high lowbrow, thanks to a seasoned director's eye for detail, pneumatics, and sexy actors. (Sean Nelson) Broadway Market

Disney's The Kid
Yet another switcheroo movie about an aging robber baron achieving redemption by literally massaging his inner child. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll drain your body of the dangerous pus that makes knocking down artists' lofts to build condos so darn hard. (Tamara Paris) Aurora Cinema Grill, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro

Dolphins
80-foot tall dolphins--tell me more! Pacific Science Center IMAX

The Eruption of Mount St. Helens
Volcanos in IMAX--am I in Heaven? Omnidome

Everest
Mt. Everest on the big screen--is this cinema or what? Pacific Science Center IMAX

Extreme
Extereme sports extremely big--color me stoked! Pacific Science Center IMAX

Gladiator
War hero General Maximus (Russell Crowe) is stripped of his position by a scheming new Caesar (Joaquin Phoenix). Escaping too late to save his family, Maximus falls into the hands of a slaver, and with the help of a former love and rough-but-likable gladiator pals, seeks his revenge by finding glory within the Coliseum. (Tom Spurgeon) Aurora Cinema Grill, Pacific Place 11, Varsity

Gone in 60 Seconds
To protect his little brother from an injurious limey, master car thief Nicolas Cage comes out of retirement, recruiting his old friends to help him steal 50 fancy cars in one night. The film is not actually good, but it's so much better than you expect it to be that it seems good. (Sean Nelson) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11

*High Fidelity
A romantic comedy for guys. John Cusack plays the cynically introspective Rob Gordon, the owner of a small record store who, for various reasons, has shit luck with women. He's a jerk, basically, but he's not altogether clueless about his jerkiness. (Kathleen Wilson) Metro

The In Crowd
It's important for film scholars and fans alike to see all types of movies, but this will be the worst you'll see all year. Lower-class Adrien is befriended by Brittany, queen of the "in crowd," but soon learns wealthy people have problems too. They are all alcoholics and drug addicts, and we later learn one of them (Brittany) has committed a couple of murders, and tries to implicate Adrien after finding out about her troubled, violent past. In the great Hitchcock tradition, the resolution hinges on the damning evidence of an everyday item: lip gloss. (S. R. Burford) City Centre, Redmond Town Center, Southcenter

Jesus' Son
What Jesus' Son addresses at every moment, in every shot, is the great question of philosophy and literature: What makes existence both trivial and all-important? In the end, Jesus' Son beautifully captures the very twilight of life, that strange space humans occupy between the very small and the very large; between everything and nothing. (Charles Mudede) Harvard Exit

*The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
Aviva Kempner's nostalgic love letter to '30s-'40s Jewish baseball player Hank Greenberg, who overcame prejudice to rock the big leagues. Crest

Loser
Small-towner Paul (Jason Biggs, the pie-fucking guy from American Pie) gets a scholarship to a New York City college where folks make fun of his silly hat. At school he falls for Dora (Mena Suvari, the rose-petal girl in American Beauty), who's busy shtupping her professor, but eventually... oh hell, it's a romantic comedy, what do you think happens? Unfortunately, writer/director Amy Heckerling hasn't provided a script that develops any believable chemistry between Paul and Dora. And with only a smattering of genuinely funny supporting-character scenes, ultimately nobody wins watching Loser. (Scott McGeath) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro

Me, Myself and Irene
Dildos, dog shit, the suffering of children and animals, physical disabilities, graphic violence, and Jim Carrey's rote performance beamed to the camera via satellite while he was taking a nap all conspire to make this a film that future generations will undoubtedly study as a sort of Rosetta stone of our cultural sicknesses. (Tamara Paris) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree

Michael Jordan to the MAX
See the greatest basketball player in history as nature intended: on a 3,500-square-foot movie screen! Seattle IMAX Dome Theatre

*Mission: Impossible 2
Criticizing the finer points of movies like Mission: Impossible 2--and yes, it does have finer points--is like picking gnat shit out of pepper. I loved this movie. I loved the profligate back flips in the fight choreography; I loved the preposterous motorcycle chase/joust. But most of all, I loved the giddy sense of hyperbole and spectacle that coarsed through the whole enterprise. (Sean Nelson) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16

Mysteries of Egypt
Find out what the heck's going on over in Egypt, anyway. Omnidome

The Patriot
Mel Gibson stars as Benjamin Martin, a sweet single father of seven (of course his wife is tragically dead) who refuses to enter the brewing Revolutionary War because of his troubled past. But after being outraged when son number two is gunned down by a nasty Brit, you know the Gib will soon be unpacking his deadly tomahawk in the name of "FREEEEEDOOOMMMM!" (Gillian G. Gaar) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

The Perfect Storm
In its favor, The Perfect Storm has two superlatives: George Clooney and some fine, boiling seas. Unfortunately, the film itself--fraught with ham-fisted drama; painfully stupid dialogue; downright insulting characterizations; and some of the worst accent coaching ever--is awful. (Jamie Hook) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Neptune, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

Pokémon 2000
Unlike the first Pokémon movie, which took full advantage of the feature film format to tell a more complicated story worthy of the big screen, Pokémon 2000 is essentially a longer TV episode. Good point: none of the drippy songs that kiddie cartoons are usually stuffed with (songs that play over the credits don't count). Bad point: villanous duo Team Rocket aren't nearly nasty enough, even lapsing briefly into do-gooder-dom. (Gillian G. Gaar) Factoria, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

*Princess Mononoke
As anyone who's seen a Hayao Miyazaki film will attest, the story you follow is secondary to the sights you behold. The craggy reality of his twisting tree trunks capped with windblown tufts of leaves; the weighty presence of the rocks, the breathtaking vividness of light when the clouds part--all of these are rendered as gorgeously as any animation I've ever seen. (Bruce Reid) Crest

*Road Trip
Road Trip takes the 15-minute road-trip sequence from Animal House and expands it to feature length. In this case, "University of Ithaca" college student Josh (Breckin Meyer) accidentally mails his long-distance girlfriend Tiffany a videotape of him having sex with another woman, forcing him and a trio of college buddies to drive 1,800 miles to recover it. (Eric Fredericksen) Admiral

Scary Movie
The only thing scary about this movie is the script. In addition to quick parodies of dozens of teen horror flicks, Scary Movie is largely a satire of the Scream films--which are already satires (go figure). Director Keenen Ivory Wayans may have wanted to repeat the success of earlier physical comedy/sight gag films like Airplane or Animal House, but he wound up with something as torturous as an overwrought skit from SNL or his own Wayans Bros. sitcom. (Melody Moss) Factoria, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center, Varsity

Shaft
John Singleton's Shaft is uninspired; it just pushes black macho beyond the limit of good taste and utility. The way Shaft brutally beats up the drug-dealing teenager with the butt of his gun, the way he calmly guns down the Latino gang members or nearly kills the judge with his badge--it's a little too much, you will agree. (Charles Mudede) Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree, Uptown

Shower
Set in a wheezy old building in an overlooked corner of Beijing, a bathhouse serves as the social hub of an elderly fraternity. Contrary to what the lady's bottom in the advertisement promises, this film is populated almost exclusively by melancholic old men who predictably complain about youth and argue amongst themselves. (Jamie Hook) Seven Gables

SUMMER BLONDES
This week features the clangorous variations of "Small Town Girl Makes It Big" offered by three fascinating... I guess you'd have to call them stars: Lana Turner's melodramatic voraciousness is on hot display in Johnny Eager; the battered kewpie-doll availability of Marilyn Monroe is up for grabs in The Seven Year Itch; and the shy, wounded longing of Kim Novak shines through Boy's Night Out. (Bruce Reid) Grand Illusion

Sunshine
Sunshine is a long movie. It is about a prosperous and voluptuous Hungarian Jewish family's experience of the turbulent 20th century. In a word, it' s an epic with lots of sex: I think we see Ralph Fiennes' ass three times total. That's once an hour! (Charles Mudede) Metro

*The Virgin Suicides
The most consistent element of The Virgin Suicides is a steady stream of images that echo the feminine-hygiene commercials of the 1970s. If the film has a message, it seems to be that a mythologized purity of youth can't survive into adulthood. (Monica Drake) Crest

What Lies Beneath
A well-preserved pair of thoroughbred movie stars find that all is not well in their gorgeous New England home, what with the dead girl in the tub and all. The whole damn thing is ripped right out of the Hitchcock how-to manual, so of course it succeeds fantastically at its admittedly simple goal: scaring you so badly you throw your popcorn all over the people in the row behind you. (Tamara Paris) Factoria, Guild 45th, Meridian 16, Oak Tree

X-Men
X-Men is a modern comic book played completely straight. While this may be great news for comic book fans, for everyone else the experience of watching X-Men will be like seeing a less-expensive Matrix Lite with inexplicably odd plot quirks. (Tom Spurgeon) Cinerama, Factoria, Metro, Northgate, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center