12 Monkeys w/ La Jetée
The surrealist short that inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys boasts a visual poetry and narrative ingenuity that puts most science fiction (and a good deal of fiction fiction) to shame. (SEAN NELSON) Precedes 12 Monkeys. EMP's JBL Theater, Fri March 18 at 7 pm.
2005 Academy Award-Nominated Shorts
The Academy Award winner in the documentary short category is a rousing tribute to the school kids who participated in the 1963 Children's March in Birmingham, Alabama. Mighty Times: The Children's March also incorporates fictional elements, which is incredibly frustrating given that real photographic evidence of children being sprayed by fire hoses is what ultimately compelled President Kennedy to intervene. The Film Forum is also showing the rest of the nominees; Program 1 includes Mighty Times, plus Children of Leningradsky, and Hardwood, and Program 2 is Autism Is a World and Sister Rose's Passion. (ANNIE WAGNER) Northwest Film Forum. Program 1, Daily 7 pm. Program 2, Daily 9:15 pm.
Bad Guy
See review this issue. Northwest Film Forum, Daily 7, 9:15 pm.
Best of ASIFA East Animated Film Festival
A package of animated shorts, including Chris Hinton's 2003 work Nibbles. A gentle poke at consumerism and suburban recreation, Nibbles is notable for its pulsing animation, a loopy style that lands somewhere between a toddler's scribbles and Popeye. (ANNIE WAGNER) 911 Media Arts, Thurs March 24 at 7 pm.
Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom
Dut dut dut DAH, dut dut duh... Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.
It's Easier for a Camel...
It's Easier for a Camel... is a French comedy with all the makings of disaster. It's a vanity project, written and directed by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and starring none other than Ms. Tedeschi in the role of an overgrown baby named Federica. Moreover, the film's theme is the aching burden of massive wealth (hence the Biblical reference in the title); and it's easy to see where matters could have gotten entirely out of hand. But if there's such thing as a self-deprecating vanity project, this film is it. Federica is a sad, hilarious dreamer with a passion for working-class men (a lingering effect of growing up under the constant threat of abduction by Communist militants) and a penchant for adult ballet. When the film isn't lightly skewering Federica's family and friends, we're treated to her revisionist flashbacks and wild flights of fancy, which swing fabulously between whimsy and unsentimental self-regard. You may feel guilty for enjoying this film, but you won't regret seeing it. (ANNIE WAGNER) Grand Illusion, Weekdays 6:30, 8:45 pm, Sat-Sun 4:15, 6:30, 8:45 pm.
Lord Love a Duck
A 1966 George Axelrod satire about a high-school boy who only wants to make the dreams of a cute girl come true. Movie Legends, Sun March 20 at 1 pm.
Mummy Mayhem!
A compilation of clips from mummy movies. Mmm, bandages. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
Prime Cut
It's hard to even know how to begin recommending Michael Ritchie's 100 percent effed-up mobster vs. hillbilly meat-packer thriller, but since space is tight, I'll boil it down like this: Lee Marvin against Gene Hackman, machine gun, human sausage, sausage as weapon, young Sissy Spacek (naked), early '70s organized crime and meat as allegory for America. And did I mention that Hackman's character is named Mary Ann? (SEAN NELSON) Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
Rooftop Shorts
A shorts program from Brooklyn-based underground film collective Rooftop Films. 911 Media Arts, Thurs March 17 at 7 pm.
Seattle Jewish Film Festival
Overall, what's impressive about the 5 films I've seen (out of 32) in this year's festival is that Jewish cinema is still engaged in a meaningful discourse about the identity of a people who are a multitude. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Broadway Performance Hall and 5th Avenue Theatre, see www.seattlejewishfilmfestival.org for schedule and details.
Sky Blue
Juggling a plasma rifle and a book by Descartes simultaneously is usually a bad idea. Just try telling this to the majority of anime wizards, though, who for all their technical genius often insist on frontloading their future shocked plots with more high-minded digressions than even their jut-jawed heroes can successfully chew. Thankfully, Sky Blue, a new animated feature from Korea, ditches much of the ersatz philosophy and concentrates on pure explodo. Using a spiffy combination of CGI backgrounds and old-fashioned 2-D characters, it provides a feast for the eyes without overly taxing the brainpan. Granted, the premise--ragtag bunch of misfits storm a totalitarian nation in order to punch a hole in the poison cloud covering the atmosphere--is still pretty much a standard Final Fantasy template, yet the film tackles it with an admirable efficiency: characterizations are sketched out in a few brief yet effective strokes, potentially torturous backstories are dealt with in a single flashback, and the voices for the English dub seem to have been chosen for reasons other than mere celeb cachet. For wary viewers looking to dip their toe in the often daunting manga pool, this is a great place to start. (ANDREW WRIGHT) Varsity, Fri-Sun 12:40, 2:50, 5, 7:20, 9:40 pm, Mon-Thurs 7:20, 9:40 pm.
Sneak
The Sneak series of film previews continues its fourth season. For more information, see www.sneakfilms.com. Pacific Place, Sun March 20 at 10 am.
War at a Distance, w/ 60 Cameras Against the War
A video essay on the relation between war and technology. Consolidated Works, Fri-Sat 8 pm.
NOW PLAYING
The Aviator
Scorsese attempts to cover up the lack of depth in The Aviator by focusing heavily on both Hughes' love life as well as his daring in the skies, but no matter how many romantic entanglements and spectacular crashes we see, the film itself remains superficial. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Bad Education
Bad Education announces itself with a rich melodramatic subject--Catholic clergy sex abuse--only to reject all predictable conflict for an emotional and thematic territory all its own. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Be Cool
A movie exec (John Travolta) tries his hand in music and (what else?) meets a girl (Uma Thurman) along the way.
Because of Winn-Dixie
A kid named Opal finds a dog in a grocery store.
Being Julia
Annette Bening throws herself into each dizzying emotion with abandon, but the histrionics are so grossly out of proportion with the charm or threat posed by her schoolboy lover that the emotional center of the film is hollowed out. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Born Into Brothels
Rare is the documentary that feels too short, but this wrenching, multiple award-winning look at kids growing up within the squalid red-light sector of India begs out for a more detailed exploration. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Bride & Prejudice
Bride & Prejudice--even the title makes me simultaneously cringe and cackle--is shorter than you'd expect, some of the colors in that big party scene look a bit washed out, and a certain character bears an unmistakable resemblance to Ali G. But who cares? (ANNIE WAGNER)
Constantine
As crackpot Catholicism goes, Constantine ain't half bad--in fact, I enjoyed it far more than I expected. Keanu Reeves may struggle mightily during some of the quiet moments (if Latin wasn't already a dead language, he'd surely kill it), but his stumbles are more than made up for by the always welcome presence of Rachel Weisz. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Cursed
A werewolf movie by Wes Craven.
Dear Frankie
The premise of Dear Frankie, the latest lightly accented and life-affirming import from the good folks at Miramax, is enough to make the wary reach for the insulin: a stalled-in-neutral woman with a mysterious past (Emily Mortimer) hires a strong and silent sailor (Gerard Butler) to impersonate her deaf son's long-absent father for a weekend. Romance blossoms, life lessons are learned, shaky family ties are strengthened, etc. While it certainly sounds precious enough, it is to the film's credit that things never quite develop in the way expected, and with a mildly bittersweet resolution unusual to the genre. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
Diary of a Mad Black Woman flouts critical scrutiny so flagrantly that it feels redundant to call it a bad movie. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Downfall
There are a lot of sentimental war moments in Downfall, and the conceit that we are watching through the eyes of Hitler's sheltered and therefore ignorant (and therefore blameless) secretary, is flimsy on many levels. Because the characters are Nazis, their panic and its subsequent rash of suicides and murders are deeply satisfying. Because it's a movie, however, you're left with the unpleasant prospect of watching a bunch of rats slowly drowning for two and a half hours. There are better ways to go. (SEAN NELSON)
Gunner Palace
For its footage of Baghdad, which we are used to seeing primarily through cable-news-adapted night-vision goggles or through smoky rubble littered with bodies, Gunner Palace is an invaluable aid in imagining the reality of the current war. But as a chronicle of its subjects as people, as an investigation into the psyche or even the behavior of soldiers, the film is a lot more problematic. As the filmmakers grow increasingly attached to these soldiers, who brag, smoke, rap, shoot, swim, eat, fart, dominate, curse, cruise, and otherwise assert their personalities for the camera, the less sympathetic the soldiers actually become. They're such vulgar bullies that it's impossible to sign off on the unstated premise that they're somehow victims of the war effort, or even of class war. They're just a bunch of slow-eyed fucks, and when the film switches gears midway to become a first-person chronicle of the directors' concern for the boys, it's hard not to lose all sympathy for either party. (SEAN NELSON)
Hitch
For the most part, the movie is dull because Smith plays a playa (a man who has all the right moves). It's only late in the film where things turn lively, as Smith finally wakes up and begins to do more of what he always did when he was as a teen rapper and a '90s TV star: comedy. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Hostage
Bruce Willis is a retired hostage negotiator who has to buff up his old skills in a neighborhood convenience store.
Hotel Rwanda
Hotel Rwanda isn't a great film in terms of photography or casting (many of the extras do not look like Hutus or Tutsis). It's a film held up entirely by Don Cheadle. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
House of Flying Daggers
House of Flying Daggers, director Yimou Zhang's much-anticipated follow-up to Hero, suffers by comparison only to its older, more ambitious, brother. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Ice Princess
See review this issue.
In the Realms of the Unreal
Jessica Yu's multifaceted documentary manages to be several things at once: a biography of the reclusive outsider artist Henry Darger, an art analysis, and--in animated segments--an adaptation of his work. (NATE LIPPENS)
The Jacket
The Jacket, an impressively pedigreed jaunt through the future past, starts out like a ball of jittery fire, with some jarring imagery and an admirable vibe of freeform anxiety, but becomes increasingly, distressingly square as it nears the homestretch. As much as it monkeys around with the timestream, it can't quite shake a general air of narrative déjá vu. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Kinsey
The first half of Kinsey is exciting on a micro scale the way Kinsey's work was exciting on a grand one: It demonstrates that reason can prevail over mythology. Unfortunately, because it's a movie, the second half allows mythology--the mythology of narrative--to re-intrude, and the picture grows musty. (SEAN NELSON)
The Life Aquatic
Long stretches of The Life Aquatic feel malnourished, as if Wes Anderson spent so much energy creating the film's distinct reality that he forgot to provide reasons for that reality to exist. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Man of the House
A movie about a sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) who is entrusted with the lives of some vulnerable cheerleaders.
Million Dollar Baby
As sappy and Lifetime-y as the plot sounds, Clint Eastwood's skill with the performers keeps Million Dollar Baby afloat. Both Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman deliver graceful turns that mesh perfectly with Eastwood's grave brooding, and by the time the film takes a brutally tragic turn you can't help but find yourself yanked along emotionally. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Millions
See review this issue.
The Motorcycle Diaries
This is a film that should be taken for what it is: a beautifully constructed road movie with a dash of conscience on the side. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Nobody Knows
Kids in cinematic jeopardy have traditionally been a bit of a cheap, sure-fire shot for filmmakers looking to spice up their melodrama. Nobody Knows, a new film from Japan, takes the scenario to such wrenching extremes that it's hard to imagine the subject ever being touched on lightly again. Based on actual events, the narrative follows four children as they are, by turns, transported by suitcase, forbidden to leave their two-room apartment, and ultimately abandoned by their mother (J-Pop star You, an aging Hello Kitty monster with the voice of Minnie Mouse). Left on their own with a dwindling supply of money, the kids, aged 5-10, spend six months staving off boredom, hunger and neglect in their increasingly filthy home. Sadly, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are nowhere to be seen to lighten the mood. Writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda's knowingly repetitious, minutely detailed approach to his subjects' deepening plight, filmed in what feels like real time, may occasionally plod, yet yields shattering dividends, to the point where the brief sight of a simple crayon doodle on a long overdue gas bill can bum you out for days afterwards. He also wrangles astonishing performances from his untrained actors, with nary a calculated moment to be found. Its 141 minutes are not an easy view by any stretch of the imagination, but the final devastating results aren't far from a masterpiece. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior
Whatever Tony Jaa may lack in charisma, he more than makes up for in utter and total bodily self-disregard; he delivers a constant stream of suicidally crazy-legged stunts that would make the Jackass crew reach for their Blue Cross cards. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Pacifier
Vin Diesel belongs as a villain, not as a Navy Seal who moves in with a suburban family (the specifics are unnecessary; all you need to know is that the plot, such as it is, is utterly idiotic), and despite his game efforts The Pacifier is painfully inept. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Paper Clips
A school in rural Tennessee collects millions of paper clips and installs them in a concentration-camp cattle car as school project and Holocaust memorial. In defiance of the flatfooted, unreflectively pious documentary video work, the project's glorious improbability held my attention. The participating kids and the dead they memorialize deserve better. (MIKE WHYBARK)
The Passion Recut
Under Mel Gibson's direction, there is not a whiff of threat in Jim Caviezel's Jesus, and once all the blood has dried, the major villains are little more than mindless monsters, with the Jews, in the end, receiving the brunt of the blame. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Now for kids!!!
Pooh's Heffalump Movie
Christopher Robin once again plays with his Pooh.
Racing Stripes
Shit yes! I've got it! I've come up with THE BEST MOVIE CONCEPT EVER! Listen up: It'll be a story about a zebra. A baby zebra who was abandoned by the circus in the middle of the night during a rainstorm, but then picked up by some retired and heartbroken racing horse coach guy who hasn't gotten over the fact his wife died during a horseracing accident. He'll bring the zebra home, his wannabe horseracing daughter with the bad hair will fall in love with it and raise it like a horse and everything. What's funny, though, is the zebra won't know he's a zebra! Hahaha! I know, right? Since he grew up on a farm around a bunch of racing horses, the zebra will think he too is a racing horse! Oh man! Hilarity abounds! (MEGAN SELING)
The Ring Two
A followup to the 1998 film The Ring, again starring Naomi Watts.
Robots
Robots may seem like a heartwarming children's flick that relies on dazzling animation to cover up a predictable storyline and not-as-funny-as-it-should-be dialogue, but really it's the most PUNK ROCK MOVIE ON EARTH. (MEGAN SELING)
Schultze Gets the Blues
See review this issue.
Sideways
Blessed with pitch-perfect performances, especially by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, Sideways is a slight film, to be sure, but it's also one of Alexander Payne's least snide efforts. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Travellers & Magicians
If I say that a film made by a Bhutanese lama is mediocre is that bad karma? The movie is shot to look as pretty as possible, and much of it passes as a pleasant postcard. At the end of the movie, parallels between life and art predictably lead to an epiphany. That the epiphany of the film feels so much like a lesson and happens to be deeply conservative--happiness resides at home--puts it in the category of every other religious film with a message. (NATE LIPPENS)
The Upside of Anger
See review this issue.
A Very Long Engagement
I'm not saying it isn't corny. What I'm saying is that it's a fantastic movie, and unless you're the stated enemy of life and all that makes it worth living, you'll probably fall for it. (SEAN NELSON)
