Back To the Future
"Why don't you make like a tree, and get outta here?" Fremont Outdoor Movies, Fri at dusk.
Ball of Fire
Gill-packed with Hollywood royalty, the Billy Wilder-penned Ball of Fire is a screwball comedy modeled cartoonishly after the Snow White story--substituting literary professors for dwarves and a stripper for a princess. Starring the incomparable Gary Cooper alongside Barbara Stanwyck, with Howard Hawks directing. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs at 7 pm.
Donnie Darko
"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!" Egyptian, Fri-Sat at midnight.
Friday Night
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun at 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:15, Mon-Thurs at 7, 9:15.
Kikujiro
Japanese director Beat Takeshi Kitano's most recent film, Kikujiro, again stars the charismatic Kitano in the lead role, as an ill-tempered thug who escorts an abandoned nine-year-old boy on a quest to find his mother. A modern Japanese variant of the curmudgeonly-adult-tramsformed-by-the-innoncence-of-a-child genre, Kitano's film, while streaked with brilliance, is nevertheless disappointing for those expecting the bold originality of Kitano's last film, Fireworks. Lacking narrative drive, Kikujiro unfortunately ends up feeling overly long and slightly self-indulgent. (Caveh Zahedi) Grand Illusion, Fri at 8:30 pm, Sat-Sun at 4, 8:30 pm, Mon-Thurs at 8:30 pm.
* My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Family, the movie! I love how this movie has been playing for like 25 years and has made 200 grillion dollars and no one I know has ever seen it. (SEAN NELSON) Renton Outdoor Cinema, Sat at dusk.
National Lampoon's Vacation
"I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy Shit!" Redhook Moonlight Cinema, Thurs at dusk.
* Polyester Prince Roadshow
See Blow Up. Rendezvous, Sat at 7 pm.
Pura Handa Kaluwara
The fourth film in Seattle Art Museum's South Asian Reels series, Pura Handa Kaluwara (or Death on a Full Moon Day) concerns the blind patriarch of a Sri Lankan family rocked by the violent death of his son. Seattle Art Museum, Fri at 7 pm.
The Road Warrior
"Lingerie. Oh, remember lingerie?" Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat at 11 pm.
Super-8 Open Screening
See Blow Up. This monthly, theme-based screening series at the Little Theatre is open to anyone with a reel. Just drop your film off at the theater 48 hours prior to the screening, and boom: You're in the show. Little Theatre, Wed at 8 pm.
They Drive By Night
See Stranger Suggests. Grand Illusion, Fri at 4:30 pm, 6:30 pm, Sat-Sun at 2, 6:30 pm, Mon-Thurs at 6:30 pm.
Video Gangs
The premiere of a new snowboarding film. [Spoiler Alert:] Dude goes down hill--repeat. Chop Suey, 9:30 pm.
* Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
"Schnozzberry? Who ever heard of a schnozzberry?" Fremont Outdoor Movies, Sat at dusk
NOW PLAYING
* 28 Days Later
Animal activists accidentally release a rage virus on London that turns the population into cannibalistic predators who could outrun a zombie anytime, anywhere. The unaffected few band together and end up in a military compound where the soldiers are as bad as the infected. Yes. This film kicks ass. (SHANNON GEE)
American Wedding
If you're finishing a trilogy about boners, boning, blow jobs, motherfuckers, call girls, and gay dudes, who needs a plot? This third piece of the American Pie trilogy doesn't measure up to the first. And American Wedding definitely belongs to Stifler, who learns that in order to be the star of a Hollywood comedy, you're gonna have to eat shit from time to time. Just please promise this is the last one. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Bad Boys 2
A Miami drug dealer plans his escape to Cuba--that is, if Will Smith and Martin Lawrence don't riddle him with bullet holes first. Riddle is indeed the right word here, for Smith and Lawrence's raison d'être in Bad Boys II appears to be to dispose of enemies with as many rounds as possible. Why use two rounds to disable an opponent when you can use 50? Why shoot that bad guy when you can blow him 30 feet into the air? This is Michael Bay 101. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Bend It Like Beckham
Stuff happens and challenges are overcome, but the predictable conventionality of the plot structure is expertly obscured by the pleasures of the journey. (SANDEEP KAUSHIK)
Bruce Almighty
Just when you thought there was nothing worse than an earnest Jim Carrey comedy, it hits you like a sack of shit in the kisser--there is something worse, and that's an earnest Jim Carrey comedy that casts the overacting, overarching comedian as God. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
* Buffalo Soldiers
See review this issue. Varsity
Camp
See review this issue. Egyptian
* Capturing the Friedmans
To watch the Friedman family fall apart after the father and youngest brother are accused of molesting kids in the family basement is like watching a Greek tragedy unfold, five people inexorably pulled down by their flaws, by personality, fate, and human failing--the angry elder brother, the bitter mother, the passive, tired father. This doesn't mean that Capturing the Friedmans is simple; you'll spend hours afterward arguing what really happened, and who behaved, in the end, the worst. Those arguments might surprise you. (EMILY HALL)
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Full Throttle is not so much a movie as a string of inside jokes, action sequences, costume changes, and shots of Diaz's ass, but that's the point, right? (EMILY HALL)
Dirty Pretty Things
I'm sad to announce that Dirty Pretty Things is a failure. True, it is a beautiful failure, but in terms of its concept, plot, and general message, the movie falls apart shortly after it starts. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Finding Nemo
From the facial expressions of the fish and background shots of gently swaying sea grass, to expansive harbor shots of Sydney and the continual mist of plankton wisping by, every frame has been so detailed and obsessed over that the film stuns. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Freaky Friday
Despite the generally amiable Jamie Lee Curtis and the overwhelming presence of feigned teen rock band sequences (the greatest joy that the pubescent live-action genre affords), the new Freaky Friday movie is not the old Freaky Friday movie. Absent: Jodie Foster, Barbara Harris, Boss Hogg, and (in the most unfortunate oversight) the earth-shattering car-chase/water-skiing/hang-gliding finale. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Gigli
Chief among Gigli's failings is the fact that the picture simply isn't bad enough; if, like me, you've looked forward to seeing the film with a Showgirls level of anticipation--which early word seemed to promise--you will leave the theater supremely disappointed. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Housekeeper
The Housekeeper is simply and perfectly about a 51-year-old sound engineer who has a brief romance with his 21-year-old housekeeper. The young woman seduces the old man; the couple then takes a vacation by the sea. The movie is perfect.
How To Deal
Mandy Moore thinks she's too fast for love--that is, until a greasy-haired boy starts flirting with her and she falls for his lines like any dumb girl would (he pulls the Jedi Mind Trick on her ass, for chrissakes! Talk about cheeseball!). See this movie you will not; like this movie you will not. (MEGAN SELING)
* The Hulk
Whether or not you buy the beast onscreen is dependent upon just how far you yourself are willing to leap--but the old tale has been given a modern overhaul by Ang Lee and writers James Schamus, John Turman, and Michael France. It may be a failure, but it's an interesting one. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
I Capture the Castle
Taking back the English period piece from those Merchant-Ivory hacks, this is one girl's coming-of-age film that anyone can enjoy. Two sisters live with their family in a remote castle, and their romantic prospects are severely limited until two American brothers inherit the land they are living on. The star of the movie is good old-fashioned repression, and it is refreshing to see the more traditional happy ending replaced by unresolved longing. (Andy Spletzer)
The Italian Job
Pompous jackass Edward Norton and inflection-handicapped pretty boy Mark Wahlberg team up in a remake of the 1969 heist comedy, and somehow, shockingly, the result is not completely fucked--a sturdy, if unsurprising, summer fluff piece. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Johnny English
Despite its appearances, Johnny English is not a British film. It is an American film. As American as Rowan Atkinson's previous effort, the dismal Bean. Which means, in short, he gets shit stuck in other shit. And is shat upon. Shit, shit, shit. Shit every-which-a-way. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life
It's come to this: a movie where all the references are not to previous adventure flicks, but to special effects from previous adventure flicks. But originiality of plot line is hardly the reason to see this, of course. The reason is Angelina Jolie, in a parade of urban-guerrilla/rave-girl outfits. She is rather magnificent, even when she's ridiculous. (EMILY HALL)
Le Divorce
See review this issue. Guild 45th, Meridian 16
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
A lame exercise in myth-historical revisionism in which the action is dull, the dialogue witless, the effects absurd, and the story about as lucid as Ronald Reagan. (SEAN NELSON)
Masked and Anonymous
As a movie, Masked and Anonymous is a mess (albeit one with a knockout cast and some admirably big ideas). But as a cinematic rendering of the Bob Dylan experience, it's a beguiling, frequently intoxicating artifact. (DAVID SCHMADER)
The Matrix: Reloaded at IMAX
Geeks get a chance to see Trinity's PVC-clad heart-shaped ass in three-story-tall glory. This is an enhancement, to be sure, but much like Attack of the Clones' stint at IMAX, The Matrix: Reloaded's transition from big screen to really fucking big screen seems completely unnecessary.
* Northfork
Filmed with little more than a gray palette, Northfork, which concludes brothers Michael and Mark Polish's trilogy (the film's siblings: Twin Falls Idaho and Jackpot), is a challenging picture--an exercise in magical realism, and an exploration of and rumination on death. While it is not entirely successful, there is enough mystery in the film to make it a worthwhile experience. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Pirates of the Caribbean
Watching Pirates of the Caribbean, I realized how supremely disappointing it is that in the 108 years of cinema, we are only just now being given a zombie pirate movie. The summer's best blockbuster. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
S.W.A.T.
Samuel L. Jackson plays opposite Colin Farrell in a film about the efforts of a Los Angeles-based S.W.A.T. team to ensure that a drug kingpin doesn't escape police custody. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12
Scorched
Only two of Scorched's eight main actors are responsible for its success. The other actors do not try to make us laugh, or at least laugh hard enough. Unfortunately, they actually act, giving us the depth and range of their characters, and attempt to transcend the limits of the low comedy. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Seabiscuit
Maybe I'm too cynical for Triumphant Lessons like this, but I like a little more grit under the nails of my Hollywood movies, and the manicured emotions in Seabiscuit are a bit too Hallmark for me, even if they are based on a true story. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Secret Lives of Dentists
See review this issue. Uptown, Varsity
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Tyler Durden and the chick from the T-Mobil commercials run into big birds and big fish and big goddesses and after a whole lot of swinging and flying through the air, all ends well. In conclusion: It's dumb. (MEGAN SELING)
* Spellbound
Jeffrey Blitz's amazing documentary chronicles eight near-teens as they compete in the National Spelling Bee. At least, that's the film's obvious premise; the less obvious one, what the documentary really is, is a love letter to America. National pride via a national bee. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Spy Kids 3D
With shots that stand to age as well as Jaws 3-D, the real tragedy of Spy Kids 3D is that the children of America live in a world where this sort of tripe stands as a pale approximation of the majesty that was Captain EO. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
The Swimming Pool
François Ozon's latest tribute to the sexy superiority of French women. Starring Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
It has been 83 years since the passing of the 19th Amendment, and now, finally, women are able to claim victory in the battle for equality. They have their own ultimate killing machine. Unfortunately, the film is not victorious in the least. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Whale Rider
Audiences at Toronto and Sundance loved this film and so will you if you like triumphant tales of charismatic youngsters who defy the stoic immobility of old-fashioned patriarchs. I like it because it captures traditional Maori ceremonies and songs on film while also showing that New Zealand is not just a backdrop for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Shannon Gee)
The Winged Migration
The makers of the insect documentary Microcosmos spent four years capturing impossible images of birds, via a bevy of methods and a gaggle of cinematographers. The result is a documentary that is as much about the wonders of flight as the migration of birds.
