Limited Run

Blueprint for a Bikeable City
Screenings of Easy Rollin' (a doc about transportation alternatives in Vancouver, BC) and We Are Traffic!: A Movie About Critical Mass, followed by a panel discussion. 911 Media Arts, Fri Jan 5 at 7:30 pm.

Bring Your Own Projector
A weekly free-for-all that provides a wall onto which you project your Super-8 or 16mm film or slides or filmstrip or digital video or whatever, alongside many other simultaneous projections. (You may also bring DVD shorts and still slides to show using the complimentary in-house equipment.) Mad visual cacophony ensues. Alibi Room, Mon Jan 8 at 6 pm.

Cry-Baby
"He likes his women bad, Lenora, not cheap." Central Cinema, Fri-Sun, 7, 9:30 pm. (Late shows 21+.)

Double Indemnity
Billy Wilder, one of the cinema's least identified woman haters, lets his flag fly in this boilerplate noir starring Fred MacMurray as the chump who gets his clock cleaned by titanic ball-stomper Barbara Stanwyck while Edward G. Robinson slowly puts it all together. It's difficult to deny the artistry of this classic, but its actual power has been dulled by two generations of naked imitators. Still, among the important works of Wilder (whom I believe to be confoundingly over-admired), it's up there. (SEAN NELSON) Museum of History and Industry, Thurs Jan 11 at 7:30 pm.

Ghosts on the Highway: A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club
A documentary about the singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his seminal rockabilly band The Gun Club. Northwest Film Forum, Mon-Thurs 7, 9 pm.

Howl's Moving Castle
My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke—when it comes to animation gods, there's Hayao Miyazaki, and then there's everybody else. Although reportedly considering retirement after completing the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, Miyazaki was apparently intrigued enough by the prospect of adapting a novel by children's author Diana Wynne Jones to return to the drawing board. Now that the collaboration has finally made its way to the States, the results show that the material might actually have been too perfect a match for the director's patented sensibilities. For the first time, the Master's wondrous imagination feels slightly... familiar. (ANDREW WRIGHT) Seattle Asian Art Museum, Sat Jan 6 at 1:30 pm. (Free.)

Impeach Bush and Cheney
Writer John Nichols urges you to impeach the president. Keystone Church, Fri Jan 5 at 7 pm.

Independent Exposure
The microcinema series celebrates their best shorts of 2006, including experimental film and video, found footage industry commercials aimed at dentists, and an animated film about Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi. Central Cinema, Wed Jan 10 at 7 and 9 pm.

Karla
A thriller based on the notorious Ontario murder/rape team of Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo. Central Cinema, Thurs Jan 11 at 7, 9:30 pm. (Late show 21+, continues through Jan 14.)

Linda Linda Linda
Oh no! The guitarist broke her finger, the singer quit, and now the cute Japanese pop band can't play the important show that could very well make them the most famous band in the world (or so they seem to think). The remaining girls try to salvage the band by searching for new members. One way to choose a new singer is to ask the next girl who walks down the street. Problem is, the new girl has never been in a band before and she hardly speaks Japanese. (MEGAN SELING) Grand Illusion, Weekdays 6:30, 8:45 pm, Sat-Sun 4, 6:30, 8:45 pm.

Old Joy
This quiet film about the gray-green colors and elliptical lives of the Pacific Northwest is a good counterpart to Police Beat, though Charles Mudede will probably thrash me for saying so. While Z in Police Beat couldn't understand why anyone would leave the city for the dubious pleasures of camping, an aging Portland hippie named Kurt (Will Oldham, who's a truly magical actor) can hardly discern where his house ends and nature begins. Even when he convinces his friend Mark (Daniel London, less accomplished but acceptable) to drive him out into the woods, he finds a moldering couch to use as a bed. The complex interactions between Kurt and Mark never quite amount to a plot, but when you can watch two nearly-middle aged guys drink beer and soak silently in a built hot springs without getting bored, it's quite an accomplishment. Also notable: Peter (Benjamin Smoke) Sillen's gently distracted cinematography, and a cameo from Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick as a pot dealer. (ANNIE WAGNER) Northwest Film Forum, Daily 7, 9 pm. (Continues through Jan 18.)

One Shot Film Challenge
Seattle filmmakers try their hand at short films composed of a single long take. Northwest Film Forum, Thurs Jan 4 at 8 pm.

Rear Window
Hitchcock's Rear Window stands as perhaps the greatest film whose subject is film itself: sitting in the dark, watching stories play out on a screen/through a window. (BRUCE REID) Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.

Rural Rock & Roll
Operating on the assumption that bands thriving outside major metropolitan areas get extra cred points and built-in "genius" status simply on grounds of geography, Los Angeles director (and erstwhile MTV Road Rules/Real World editor) Jensen Rufe has set out to document the insular underground scene loosely connected by the northern California towns of Eureka and adjacent Arcata. Filmed using a surprisingly amateurish, generic style (interview scenester saying something pithy, cut to scene of this person toiling on a zine, posting show flyers, or taking the stage at a house party), the 60-minute film follows 13 local bands as they revel in their DIY accomplishments and carefully cultivated eccentricities. The affection with which Rufe handles his subjects is occasionally touching, particularly in the epilogue detailing various post-production band break-ups and musician deaths. However, the unimaginative format fails to convey what makes this willfully unambitious scene meaningfully unique (indeed, perhaps it simply isn't) and often comes across like a failed attempt to make an indie rock version of This Is Spinal Tap. (HANNAH LEVIN) Northwest Film Forum, Thurs Jan 11 at 7 pm. (Director in attendance, screening followed by a show at Comet Tavern. See Up & Coming for details.)

Showgirls
Showgirls, the Paul Verhoeven/Joe Eszerhas (also known as Team T&A) debacle, has achieved a tremendous cult following among those who love camp 'n' catfights. In the wake of a special-edition DVD featuring his commentary and other glimmers of official approbation, our own David Schmader returns to give the flick his own special gloss. Triple Door, Thurs Jan 4 at 7:30 pm. (18+, For tickets, call 838-4833.)

The Treasures of Long Gone John
A feral child of flea markets and punk rock, Long Gone John is the grizzled proprietor of the indie imprint Sympathy for the Record Industry. Music fans know him for the 750+ records he's released by Hole, White Stripes, the 5-6-7-8s, Rocket From the Crypt, and others, but this vibrant doc focuses primarily on John's obsession with artists of a different stripe. From mixing one-of-a-kind vinyl colors, he graduates to commissioning sleeve art from rising stars of the Juxtapoz set, then becoming a collector and patron of same: Frank Kozik, Coop, Tim Biskup, Shag. As his home turns into a bursting-at-the-seams museum of memorabilia and new acquisitions, the "art pirate" moves into a third phase, serving as midwife to contemporary toy and collectible creators. Like its subject, The Treasures of Long Gone John is a teeming but well-organized riot of sights and sounds, celebrating John's boundless enthusiasm (and that of his admirers) without hemming him in. (KURT B. REIGHLEY) Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sun 7, 9 pm.

Recently Reviewed

Apocalypto
Mel Gibson, by all appearances, is an arrogant, hateful man—wouldn't want him as a neighbor, wouldn't want him as a friend. But for all his lunacy, the crazed Catholic makes spectacular movies: Passion and Apocalypto are the intellectual equivalent of snuff films. Gibson takes an idea (in Passion, the suffering of Christ; in Apocalypto, the end of civilization), pushes it off a cliff, and documents, in loving detail, its long fall onto the rocks below. Then, for good measure, he pans slowly across the splattered remains. In Apocalypto, Gibson has grafted his eschatological fantasies onto the Mayans, giving him license to imagine the fall of the corrupt secular West without having to wrestle with the political implications. Whatever its spiritual symbolism, Apocalypto is fun to watch and vividly gross in that special Mel Gibson way—there are spurting head wounds, oozing sores, blood sports, decapitations, face chewing, and battle scenes featuring the finest in 15th-century bludgeon technology. It's spectacular like his last movie, except with more trees and fewer Jews to hate on—and the name Jaguar Paw is so much awesomer than Jesus Christ. (BRENDAN KILEY)

Charlotte's Web
As children's entertainment goes, the hybrid live-action/computer-generated Charlotte's Web is basically faultless. There's a serene lesson about death and another about the contribution of spiders to the ecosystem; it makes learning new words seem fun and, dare I say, sophisticated; it's free from those horrible jokes designed to keep the kids twirling their cowlicks while their cynical guardians snicker (except for the cut to the plate of crackling bacon, which is taken from the book). But it's also insensitive to the things that make a movie burrow into your heart. (ANNIE WAGNER)

The Children of Men
At first, Children of Men is less a fantasy film than a toe-curling dystopian landscape: a latter-day Hieronymus Bosch panel depicting a world come apart at the seams. Everywhere you look in this gray, concrete world, there's another expression of human distress, from noxious sentimentality to hysterical self-recrimination, from violence to paralysis and everything in between. The plot is part allegory, part political complaint—though any ultimate meaning (apart from the bromide "hold on to hope for the future") is difficult to discern. Luckily, moral lessons are largely irrelevant in an action thriller, and when Children of Men gets going, you'll be more concerned about catching your breath than figuring things out. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Code Name: The Cleaner
Beware the doldrums of January, when studios routinely dump their bilge in hopes of a few quick opening weekend bucks. Case in point: this anemic Brett Ratner-produced spy spoof, in which an amnesiac janitor (Cedric the Entertainer) stumbles into an espionage scheme. Things fall down, go boom. Whatever charisma the star has shown in past supporting roles is here rendered wholly inert, particularly when pitted against the constant vacuum-suck generated by director Les Mayfield (Flubber, The Man). Still, to be fair, there are a few decent ad-libs scattered hither and yon, and the always welcome Lucy Liu is a dependable hoot as a waitress who’s also a… a… nope, the whole thing’s passed safely out of my short-term memory. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Curse of the Golden Flower
Director Zhang Yimou, who brought American audiences such wirework bonanzas as Hero and House of Flying Daggers (and the quieter melodrama Raise the Red Lantern, his last collaboration with Gong Li), has attempted his most baroque story yet. Two corrupt royals pad around their gilded rainbow palace, attended by hordes of courtiers. Gong Li plays the buxom empress, who, when she's not pawing her stepson or quaffing strange elixirs, is prone to sudden tremors and sweats. Chow Yun-Fat, as the emperor, spends his time mourning his dead first wife and bossing around the imperial pharmacist. Turns out something's fishy—or technically, fungal—about the empress's medicine. Subplots involving the royal heirs follow. It's a relief when the mannered marital strife gets channeled into outright battle, but there's something disappointing about the fight scenes too. Ninja assassins swooping around are cool at first, but there's no ballet in the rectangular clash of color-coded armies seen from above. At root, this is a film about one color vanquishing another. You could watch a sunset for that. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Dreamgirls
There seems to be a lot of talk about Dreamgirls lately—talk of the Oscar variety (bzzzzzzzzt!), talk of the "this is a good movie" variety (psssssssh), talk of the "eeeeeeee!" variety (uuuuuugh). Now, I realize that Oprah reached down from her golden throne and touched you in your special area while whispering sweet nothings about Dreamgirls. I realize that Beyoncé's fake hair is really, really pretty. I realize that Jennifer Hudson is kind of a superchunk, but you kind of don't mind looking at her, and that kind of makes you feel good about yourself. But it's time for YOU to realize that this movie is not good. This movie is nothing but problems. And fat people don't need your pity. (LINDY WEST)

Eragon
Eragon, the first in a projected trilogy of kid-friendly fantasy epics, can barely muster enough energy to work on a cheese level. Debuting director/effects vet Stefen Fangmeier manages to pull off a few decent visual coups, particularly with a nicely animated blue-eyed dragon, but without the rich conceptual texture of the LOTR series (or, hell, even the goofy exuberance of The Beastmaster) to draw on, what remains is a load of generic mush perhaps best served as a piece of bitchin' '70s van art. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

The Good German
It does feel a little strange to reach for amusement when the subject is the fall of the Nazis and the fracturing of Berlin, and surely Steven Soderbergh didn't initially conceive of the project as unfettered entertainment. But then he decided to film the 1940s story with 1940s technology, and the result is sweetly absurd. George Clooney plays Jacob Geismer, a sexy correspondent for the New Republic who returns to Berlin only to have his wallet swiped by his driver. The city he finds is a cascade of picturesque black-and-white rubble, and atmosphere rushes into the theater like cold air. And that's before we meet our femme fatale (Cate Blanchett, purring her best Marlene Dietrich), the wife of a former SS officer. The cinematography is full of low angles, silky blacks, and brilliant whites—sometimes so eager to paint a dramatic picture that it clumsily veils or washes out the faces and actions in the frame. The story is almost beside the point. Who wants to pay attention to a plot about the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. vying for the same evil scientists when you can admire the shadows cast by wrought iron? (ANNIE WAGNER)

The Good Shepherd
In The Good Shepherd, a tense Yalie named Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is tapped to join Skull and Bones on the basis of his WASP bona fides. Then, recruited to join the fledgling CIA, Edward soon gets molested by a heaving girl named Clover (Angelina Jolie, so intent on being sexy that she has no chance to act). Inevitably, Clover gets knocked up and he is forced to marry her. As imagined by director Robert De Niro, Edward's covert CIA activities consist of a series of passwords and trapdoors and secret underground intelligence lairs, interspersed with flash-forwards in which he stalks the crucial leak that spoiled his pet project, the invasion of the Bay of Pigs. But thanks to flat dialogue by Eric Roth, a studiously internal performance by Matt Damon, and a palette consisting largely of murky beige, it's impossible to get invested in the film. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Happily N'Ever After
It's a bad sign when the funniest part of your movie, by a landslide, is Andy Dick (especially in the role of a horrifying, shoddily animated part squirrel/part wizard), and it's double-extra bad when you don't even care. Happily N'Ever After, a hacky, Shrek-y, fractured fairy tale—and winner of World's Most Unforgivable Apostrophe (imdb tells me it's because the title Happily Never After was already taken…by a dirty dirty pornooooooo!)—is just such a movie. It couldn't be more thrown together: The characters are all plasticky and dead in the face; the pop culture references belabored beyond comprehension (remember that dance that David Brent does on the second season of The Office? That one you posted on your Myspace? Well what if… wait for it… an OGRE was doing that dance?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!). It's also an incredibly irritating logistical nightmare: Some residents of Fairy Tale Land live their stories over and over again, Groundhog Day-style, while others age normally. How does that work? Also, why is it acceptable in a kids' movie to talk about a "lube job" and "happy endings" and to say that a guy has "Prince envy," which is quite obviously a joke referring to penises? And speaking of royal penises, is it possible to make an animate movie or television show WITHOUT Patrick Warburton? Hollywood, pleas stop fracturing my fairy tales. (LINDY WEST)

The Painted Veil
The Painted Veil is set in Europe and Asia in the 1920s, particularly in Shanghai and remote China, a landscape of rivers and mountains and cinematic possibility, but the camerawork is nothing startling. The dialogue is adequate. The actors seem bored. It's based on a book I've never read—by W. Somerset Maugham, published 1925—and you get the sense that Maugham's novel must be rich with the kind of psychological detail you can't get from an extended shot of Naomi Watts staring into the rain, because that's about all that's going on here. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE)

The Pursuit of Happyness
Will Smith plays a hero straight out of a Horatio Alger novel except, you know, black (his race is never explicitly mentioned as a factor in his poverty and bad luck). He's hungry, scruffy, and beat down, but he doggedly pursues life, liberty, and happiness—a sentiment that, not incidentally, was adapted from Adam Smith's "life, liberty, and pursuit of property." Pursuit of Happyness is about poverty—fit for the desperately poor as a parable and the unconscionably rich as a chastisement. For the rest of us (the most of us) it's merely a two-hour distillation of an all-too-familiar fear. (BRENDAN KILEY)

Rocky Balboa
As a franchise, the Rocky saga has seen both improbable highs (IV's goofy triumph over Communism) and wincible lows (III's breakdancing robot), but the basic underdog formula feels untarnished by time and/or repetition. Functioning as a partial apology/do-over for 1990's lame Rocky V, Stallone's script finds the former champ on the decline, shambling through the streets of Philly mourning the loss of his wife. Fortunately, before things get too mawkish, a shot at redemption comes—a gimmicky Vegas exhibition fight. Cue the familiar montages of raw eggs, stair running, and meat punching. Stallone the actor proves to be Stallone the filmmaker's best weapon, constantly undercutting the thud of his scripted dialogue with mumbled asides, dopey jokes, and a general air of hangdog vulnerability that proves impossible to resist. As far as swan songs go, this is an improbably charming ride into the sunset. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Sweet Land
There's plenty of ambition and heart laid on the line in Sweet Land, particularly compared to most American indies—it's a period film spending serious amounts of time with the Lutheran farm folk of 1920 Minnesota, for one thing. It's also a parable about ethnocentrism, and a magnificently crafted piece of landscape portraiture. If that weren't enough, writer/director Ali Selim, in his first feature after decades as one of the country's most successful commercial directors, ruefully frames the story with contemporary action. Sweet Land almost never stops eulogizing its characters and their agrarian society. (MICHAEL ATKINSON)

We Are Marshall
On November 14, 1970, 37 members of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, along with its coaching staff and a number of fans, boarded chartered Southern Airlines flight 932. The plane went down in West Virginia, killing all 75 people onboard. After the requisite grief montage, Coach Jack Lengyel (a jokey, janky-jawed Matthew McConaughey) shows up to resurrect the team and teach Huntington how to believe in something again. Something like America. Or football. Or two hours of totally inappropriate flat-out comedy, bookended by meaningless sentimentality. There's something creepy about the way movies make you take sides. We root for Matthew Fox (as Assistant Coach Red Dawson) because he is handsome, because we are obsessed with Lost, but his character in We Are Marshall is a real person. He's probably still alive. He's probably not as handsome as Matthew Fox. We're relieved that that anonymous fat assistant coach took Matthew Fox's spot on the flight, but that assistant coach really existed. He is an actual dead person. (LINDY WEST)