LIMITED RUN


*
Baron Blood

Bava and Blood and... oh, you get it by now.
Grand Illusion,
Fri-Thurs at 9 pm, no screenings on Mon.
Bowling For Columbine

See Stranger Suggests.
Egyptian Theater,
Sun at 8 pm.
The Breakfast Club
"My image of you is totally blown."
Egyptian,
Fri-Sat at midnight.
Breath Control
You ever seen Krush Groove? Damn, that's a good movie. And that "All You Can Eat" sequence with the Fat Boys? Fuckin' masterful! God, the Fat Boys were great. While Breath Control isn't exclusively about Buff "the Human Beat Box" Robinson (god rest his portly, spectacled soul), chances are any brief focus on this criminally overlooked Fat Boy will be well worth the price of admission to Joey Garfield's star-studded tribute to A.D.D.'s official artform: beat box. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
JBL Theater,
Wed at 7 pm.

*
Classic Doubles

Consolidated Works continues its multi-media exploration of duality with a series of late-'60s dual projector films (it was the '60s, when every idea seemed exciting), including works by Andy Warhol, Bud Wirtschafter, and Paul Sharits. The new ConWorks cinema is beautiful, and, need one mention, only about 20 feet away from the new full service ConWorks bar.
Consolidated Works,
Fri-Sun at 8 pm, 10 pm.
DAMAH Spiritual Film Festival
If the quality of religious entertainment is any indication, the Spiritual Film Festival (118 short, spiritual films) will most likely be the most important conglomeration of faith-based film you've seen all week.
Seattle Art Museum,
visit www.damah.com for full details.
Dollar a Day, Ten Cents a Dance
A documentary about Filipino farm laborers of the '20s and '30s.
Independent Media Center,
Mon at 7 pm.
Films of Peter Hutton

See review this issue.
Little Theatre,
Mon at 7 pm, 9 pm.

*
Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme

Along with Breath Control (see above), Freestyle is the singular feature of EMP's one-night hiphop film festival (again I must reiterate, where the fuck is Krush Groove?!?!), focusing on such lyrical luminaries as Mos Def, Freestyle Fellowship, Black Thought (of The Roots), Lord Finesse, and The Last Poets as they craft impromptu verse in footage shot over the last seven years. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
JBL Theater,
Wed at 9 pm.

*
Hell House

No ordinary haunted house, the Hell House helps to guide us sinners through the hurdles that the dark lord places in our path, from the gory perils of fetus removal to the horror of the "gay plague", in a truly horrifying display of fundamentalist fury. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Little Theatre,
Fri-Sun, Wed-Thurs at 7 pm and 9 pm.

*
Hysteria

When a Catholic boxer is gripped by visions of the blessed Virgin (and no, I don't mean Britney Spears), he travels to Oakland to carry out her strange plans. Did I mention he was Croatian?
911 Media Arts Center,
Fri at 8 pm.

*
In Praise of Love


See review this issue.
Varsity,
Fri-Sun at 12:30 pm, 2:40 pm, 4:45 pm, 7 pm, 9:15 pm, and Mon-Thurs at 7 pm, 9:15 pm.
LESBIAN AND GAY FILM FESTIVAL
The seventh annual Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival includes over 100 films and videos at four different venues for seven glamorous days. See Movie Times for full info, or
visit www.seattlequeerfilm.com.

*
Lisa and the Devil

Kojak (with hair even!) stars in this 1972, late-career Mario Bava slasher about a warped family haunted by family secrets. Featuring "Bava's most impressive scene of necrophilia"!
Grand Illusion,
Fri-Sat at 7 pm, 11 pm, Sun-Thurs at 7 pm, no screenings on Mon.

*
Quadrophenia

"We are the mods, we are the mods, we are, we are, we are the mods!"
Sunset Tavern,
Mon at 8 pm.

NOW PLAYING


*
8 Women

On the surface, jealousy is the combative common ground the film's eight women share in the home of a murdered man--who is a husband, a father, a brother, a son-in-law, and a philanderer in relation to the various characters. The women candidly sing and dance to their inner feelings, while hiding away their jealousies or hurling bold suspicions at one another. (KATHLEEN WILSON)
Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever
Lucy Liu is, of course, hot. Antonio Banderas appears to be asleep throughout the film. And the director, "KAOS," appears to be harboring a substantial grudge against train boxcars, since at least twenty are incinerated during the film's finale. In short, yes, it's pretty bad. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Banger Sisters
After her daughter's eye-catching turn as a young groupie in Almost Famous, Goldie Hawn plays an aging one in this cloying, aggravating piece of false, middlebrow claptrap. (SEAN NELSON)

*
Baraka

This movie is what's known in cinephile circles as a "tone poem." All that means is there's no plot, no characters, and no literal meanings. All you get instead are some of the most beautiful images ever rendered for the screen. (SEAN NELSON)
The Barbershop
Starring two popular rappers, Ice Cube and Eve, Barbershop is about a young man (Ice Cube) who reluctantly runs a barbershop he inherited from his recently departed father. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Blood Work
Blood Work is a total bore. (MICHAEL SHILLING)
Blue Crush
The plot's trite and cheesy--girl from Hawaii kicks ass at surfing, meets boy from the mainland, almost gives up surfing, until a crucial competition arises and he rallies behind her--but the surf scenes are awesome. (AMY JENNIGES)
Brown Sugar

See review this issue.
Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place, Redmond Town
City By the Sea
De Niro faxes in a performance as--what else?--a world-weary cop in this dull and labored film soon to be clogging video-store shelves everywhere. (TAMARA PARIS)

*
Das Experiment

If you believe that humans have a core of decency within them, you may want to skip this one. (SEAN NELSON)

*
The Fast Runner

The first feature-length film entirely in the Inuktitut language. (MATT FONTAINE)
Four Feathers
This adaptation of the A.E.W. Mason novel about the glory of Her Majesty's Empire is a good deal more skeptical than its predecessors. But while director Shekhar (Elizabeth) Kapur's revisionist eyes find some chilling contrasts, the overall effect is that of a pre-built battleship being crammed into a whiskey bottle. (SEAN NELSON)

*
The Good Girl

When it comes to deep, dark cinematic comedy, Miguel Arteta and Mike White have cornered the market. Following 2000's Chuck & Buck comes The Good Girl, which explores similarly perverse terrain--the soul of a woman trapped by fate and circumstance, driven to commit acts of deeply iffy morality and legality. (DAVID SCHMADER)

*
Igby Goes Down

A sharply-observed film down to the upturned collars and half-Windsor knots, Igby gets to the heart of its characters without either indicting or apologizing for its cultural framework. (SEAN NELSON)
Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie
The computer-animated version of the pamphlets you find at bus stops.
Just a Kiss
Marisa Tomei only improves with age. Always a fine comedienne, she has become a fantastic actress, as well, and if you'll forgive me, is foxier than ever. She is also the ONLY good thing about this execrable "quirky" romanticom about the sexual escapades of a bunch of overwrought and overwritten New Yorkers. (SEAN NELSON)
Knockaround Guys

The story of four young associates of La Cosa Nostra lost in a small Montana town, looking for a suitcase of money gone missing, Knockaround Guys has nothing original to offer in matters of plot or themes. So unless you'll watch anything wiseguy-related, you can wait for this one to come out on video. But then you should rent it, because there are several entertaining moments when the culture of Shrimp Scampi and black stretch limousines crashes head-first into the world of Merle Haggard and Ford pickup trucks. This is a fine film to watch while doing something else. (MICHAEL SHILLING)
Factoria, Pacific Place, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12
The Last Kiss
This movie stars a lot of beautiful Italian people you've never heard of, and it's set in Italy, where everyone cheats on each other and it's always raining. (MEG VAN HUYGEN)
Lilo & Stitch
Lilo is Disney's best since Aladdin, and it's a tad less racist, too. (ANNIE WAGNER)

*
Lovely & Amazing

This follow-up to the similarly graceful Walking and Talking is a shrewdly respectful character study of a fractured family of women trying to ride herd on their raging neuroses. Fantastic acting and sensitive writing underscore the simple DV directorial approach. (SEAN NELSON)

*
Minority Report

Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise team up for this well-made futuristic thriller. (SEAN NELSON)

*
Moonlight Mile

I know this film looks like a sappy weeper, and it kind of is, but as a story of bereavement, commitment, and coming of age (and finding the limits of each), it is also funny, smart, and exquisitely well acted by Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, and Jake Gyllenhaal. (SEAN NELSON)
Mostly Martha
American audiences are hot for foreign films about food. Sandra Nettelbeck's Mostly Martha, a German production, is compatible with this American fantasy--but the result feels much less crude than the escapist "foreign" fantasies American audiences have become accustomed to. (ANNIE WAGNER)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
This romantic comedy is based on the one-woman show of Second City alumna Nia Vardalos, who also directs.
One Hour Photo
One Hour Photo is at best a mildly surprising thriller, and at worst a rather dull affair. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

*
Red Dragon


See review this issue.
Road to Perdition
Sam Mendes has done the impossible: He has made a film that is even more smug, phony, and wasteful than American Beauty. (SEAN NELSON)
The Rules of Attraction

See review this issue.
Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Varsity, Woodinville 12

*
Secretary

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, a slightly retarded nymphet secretary just released from a loony house, who develops a subversive relationship with her employer, played by James Spader. Part of Secretary's singular quality is that the heroine's problem is never resolved. She entrenches herself deeper and deeper in her "sick" dependency, and ultimately, it becomes her virtue. (MEG VAN HUYGEN)
Signs
Signs would have been exceptional if not for the necessity of elaborate surprises. All the things I like about M. Night Shyamalan's movies (the X-Files-like moodiness, the theological questions, etc.) are imprisoned by the necessities of plot twists. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Skins
Skins is set on the most impoverished reservation in America, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, and describes the day-to-day world of a reservation cop (Eric Schweig) who has an eccentric understanding of the law and how it should be administered. At the end of Skins, we don't so much have a story or a clear idea of the cop than an impression of the deep sorrow that suffocates him and his fallen community. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Spider-Man
As filmed by Sam Raimi, Spider-Man trots out a predictable (and cloyingly Victorian) boy-girl story. (JOSH FEIT)
Spirited Away
In spite of its conspicuous cute deficiency, Spirited Away is by all means a striking visual composition--just make sure you're not drowsy going in. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Stealing Harvard
Completely unnecessary. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Sweet Home Alabama
A lesson that's already been taught in one hackneyed comedy after another--namely, that poor white Southern folk are fat, dumb, and wear Jaclyn Smith, but the boys are hot and they ain't as stupid as city folk think, 'cause they have heart. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Swept Away See Stranger Suggests.
Guild 45th, Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center
Swimfan
Fatal Attraction for teens, with neither tension, nor boobies. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

*
Tadpole

Tadpole is a witty, intelligent, and unsentimental coming-of-age comedy in which a precocious preppie teen's lustful projections (onto his stepmom, whoa!) are part of a much larger picture, and the lusty boy is a too-smart-for-his-own-good kid who learns a lesson about snobbery and poseurdom. (SEAN NELSON)
The Transporter
You see, there's this guy, a kinda shady guy, who's British but is a master of Kung Fu, and his job is to transport materials--shady materials, of course, because, as stated before, he's a kinda shady guy--for various individuals, and he has this rule that he never wants to know exactly what he's transporting, but, you see, here's the thing: This bad guy, who's American, hires him to transport something and when he does he opens it, breaking his big rules, and it turns out to be a really hot Chinese woman, and once that happens, well, you know, all hell breaks loose--not spectacular hell, but more of a muddling, dimwitted hell. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place, Redmond Town Center, Varsity, Woodinville 12
Trapped
The screening of this kidnapping drama, starring Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, and Courtney Love, was yanked at the last minute. Draw your own conclusions on that one.
Tuck Everlasting

See review this issue.
Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro, Woodinville12
The Tuxedo
The Tuxedo is a bad kung fu film because it spends too much time and energy developing its sorry plot (a spy spoof), and the fight scenes are worth shit. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Wasabi
If you are into action films, do not go see Wasabi. It is a hackneyed buddy picture about a violent Parisian cop who goes to Japan to settle an old romantic score and in the process dispatches most of the Yakuza without breaking a thumbnail. However, if you want to see blockbuster cinema that accidentally reveals some acute differences between French and American men, ones that will balance out the memory of the foul French guy who always tries to pick you up in the coffee shop, this film has a number of interesting and revealing moments. (MICHAEL SHILLING)
White Oleander See review this issue.
Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12
XXX
Just how bad is XXX? Worse than you've imagined. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)