LIMITED RUN
5×2
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun 2, 4:30, 7:20, 9:30 pm, Mon-Thurs 7:20, 9:30 pm.
Après Vous…
A Miramax wet dream. The always dependable Daniel Auteuil stars as a restaurant manager who stumbles across a suicidal wreck (José Garcia) while on his way to dinner. He stops the sap from hanging himself, takes him into his home, and all hell quickly breaks loose. Amidst all the chaos, a clunky love story takes shape, and the farce, once beautifully set up, suffers mightily from the sudden invasion of a heart. Still, the film manages to hit more than it whiffs. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Derailroaded: Inside the Mind of Larry “Wild Man” Fischer
Josh Rubin’s strangely fascinating documentary parses the life of outsider musician Larry “Wild Man” Fischer. Growing up in the ’50s, Fischer was an undiagnosed manic-depressive schizophrenic who, after attacking his mother with a knife, landed in a mental asylum. Eventually he headed to California in the late ’60s, where Frank Zappa discovered him singing his own strange compositions for a dime a song along Sunset Boulevard. In a strangulated growl somewhere between a possessed Tiny Tim and Bobcat Goldthwait, Fischer’s music is something of an acquired taste. Zappa championed him and he led a convoluted career appearing on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and landing on the British Top 50 charts. Derailroaded is interspersed with plenty of talking heads delivering anecdotes, as well as footage of Fischer performing, but ultimately this is a film not about music or fame, but about the ravages of mental illness. Despite many moments of levity—such as a completely bizarre re-enactment of an interview between Dr. Demento and Frank Zappa, done with puppets—it’s a devastating portrait of delusion and fathomless despair. (NATE LIPPENS) Northwest Film Forum, Thurs at 8 pm (with director and guests in attendance), Fri-Sun 7:15, 9 pm.
The Godfather, Part I
“Mikey, you don’t come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Green like THAT!” Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.
Inferno of First Love
A 1968 Japanese film about two twitterpated kids. Savery Hall Room 239, Thurs July 28 at 7:30 pm.
L.A. Confidential
Kevin Spacey and Kim Basinger star in the neo-noir set in 1940s L.A. Central Cinema, Thurs-Sun 6:30, 9:30 pm.
Laura
Otto Preminger’s stylish film noir is a murder mystery set in high society New York. Movie Legends, Sun July 24 at 1 pm.
Linda’s Summer Movie Madness
This week: A Collection of Incredibly Stranger Films. The category includes shorts, trailers, TV commericails, and clips. Linda’s, Wed July 20 at dusk.
Magic and Ecstasy in the Sahel
A film by Hisham Mayet Miger about music and culture in the Sahel region of Africa. Rendezvous, Thurs July 21 at 8 pm.
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. It’s a refreshing break from routine, though it’s never quite gourmet cinema. (ANNIE WAGNER) Central Cinema, Wed-Thurs 6:30, 9:30 pm.
My Mother’s Smile
A Marco Bellochio movie that earned its fame by being excoriated by the Vatican, My Mother’s Smile has the plot of a sensitive art house film, but the tone of a psychological thriller. Ernesto (Sergio Castellitto) is a middle-aged lapsed Catholic who never really liked his dead mother. His reasons are hazy, but his mother’s treatment of his mentally disturbed brother seems to have been paramount. Ernesto’s brother wasn’t quite so indirect in his filial hatred: he’s the one who killed her. When Ernesto finds out that the Church wants to beatify his mother (the subtitles prefer the term “canonize,” but that’s the wrong translation) for her martyrdom, putting her one step closer to sainthood, he’s torn between testifying in order to stop the process and standing aloof in accordance with his atheism. The movie doesn’t really start going, though, until he finds out that his family had been keeping their highly organized sainthood campaign secret from him. As the absurd developments (and melodramatic editing) start to pile up, Ernesto’s own mental state is thrown into question. My Mother’s Smile is just shy of completely ludicrous—for one thing, Ernesto’s ex-wife is always shot from above, casting demonic shadows over her lidded eyes—but it manages to be creepy despite its patent excesses. (ANNIE WAGNER) Northwest Film Forum, Daily 7, 9 pm.
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure
“Shhh! I’m listening to reason!” Central Cinema, Sat-Sun noon, 2:15, 4:30 pm.
Q, The Winged Serpent
An ancient Aztec monster (writer/director Larry Cohen didn’t trust us to pronounce Quetzalcoatl) roosts on the Chrysler Building and terrorizes Manhattan in this schlocky 1982 film. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
Rolling Thunder
A 1977 movie about a Vietnam vet bent on revenge. Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7, 9 pm, Sat 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 pm, Sun 3, 5, 7, 9 om.
Twisted Flicks: Santa Claus Captures the Martians
If there were ever a plot that didn’t need to be messed with, it would begin like this: “The children of Mars covet earthly toys, and so they plot to kidnap Santa.” But this 1964 gem is in the hands of Jet City Improv, and mess with it they will. Fremont Outdoor Movies, Sat July 23 at dusk.
NOW PLAYING
Bad News Bears
Billy Bob Thornton coaches baseball. Now there’s a bright idea.
Batman Begins
Taking equal inspiration from Sin City creator Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One miniseries and artist Neil Adams’ classic grim and gritty ’70s run of Adam West apologia, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer’s scenario circles back to the basics and has a ball reinventing the mythos. As an origin story, it holds its own against the animated Mask of the Phantasm, previously the benchmark. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Bewitched
This Bewitched, by queen-of-cute writer/director Nora Ephron, is not a remake of the television show. It’s a movie about making a remake. You’d think this would lend the film some degree of ironic distance—or at least the opportunity to comment on the cultural significance of the original—but no. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The moment Willy Wonka makes his big entrance, cheering as an “It’s a Small World”-style diorama bursts into flames, it’s plain to see that Johnny Depp is in a world, and indeed a film, all his own. That’s fine, actually. Depp’s at his best in this mode; like Bill Murray and Peter Sellers before him, he has long since mastered the secret art of being better than the films he acts in. Unfortunately, director Tim Burton either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the source material is being undermined by Depp’s inventions. The problem—or maybe the point—is that the chocolate factory just isn’t very magical. Given the infinite possibilities of digital effects, Burton fails to invest the space with any sense of dimension. Kids still deserve better. (SEAN NELSON)
Cinderella Man
If a gnarled creature were grown in a lab, bred and designed by unfeeling scientists to spend its soulless existence craving and consuming only Oscars… well, it would still come up short to Ron Howard’s latest film. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Crash
Crash certainly doesn’t want for hubris, but ultimately stands as a case of laudable ambition overwhelming still-developing narrative abilities. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Dark Water
Japan has long existed without a decent rendition of Poltergeist to call its own. The wait is over.
Fantastic Four
Sometimes previews lie. Preemptively clobbered by fanboys and much maligned by critics, this easygoing adaptation of Marvel Comics’ oldest superhero team (Earth, Wind, Fire & Rubber) is actually sort of… neat. More explicitly kid-friendly than the rest of the recent wave of comic adaptations (no Batman Begins gravitas here), Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost’s zippy origin script benefits mightily from splash-panel perfect performances by Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans. The action set pieces suffer from below-par special effects (pity Mr. Fantastic), and a director (Barbershop‘s Tim Story) clearly out of his comfort zone, but the linking material still manages to capture the retro, slightly dorky charm of Stan Lee’s squabbling nuclear-radiated family unit. ‘Nuff said, true believers. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Happy Endings
There are no surprises in Happy Endings. It is neither great nor bad, and as such satisfies an expectation that is neither high nor low. Don Roos’s third feature (like his first feature, The Opposite of Sex) is simply a pleasant sex comedy. The photography is seductive, and the score drifts over the movie’s storylines—four in all—like a dreamy vapor. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Heights
Based on a play, set among the idle rich, produced by Merchant/Ivory in unfamiliar modern-day mode: the early indicators of a tendon-stretching yawn are bodacious. Still, that old chestnut about initial impressions can occasionally be true. Heights, the fiercely entertaining, hugely precocious feature debut for 28-year-old director Chris Terrio, treads on some very familiar turf, but with enough style and unusual empathy to make the trip feel, if not quite new, well worth taking. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Herbie: Fully Loaded
While not quite on a Freaky Friday level of surprise quality, the return of the beloved possessed Volkswagen should be a more-than-acceptable timewaster for both the jungle-gym set and their captive chaperones. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The film suffers from the same problem as planet Earth: too many Americans. Still, whenever there are at least two British actors on-screen—especially Martin Freeman, AKA Tim from The Office, or the film-stealing Bill Nighy—the movie version mines big, warm, absurd laughs alongside its hyper-imaginative graphics, and quasi-mystical pop metaphysicality. SEAN NELSON
Howl’s Moving Castle
When it comes to animation gods, there’s Hayao Miyazaki, and then there’s everybody else. For the first time, though, the Master’s wondrous imagination feels slightly…familiar. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Interpreter
The Interpreter turns what could have been a smart and twisty political thriller—with heavy emphasis on political—into a bogged-down and bland mulling over of wounded souls and suppressed sexual attraction. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Ladies in Lavender
In this assemblage of implausible vignettes , Maggie Smith is the proper sister Janet, concerned with privacy and appearances. Judi Dench plays Ursula, a fragile little biddy stuck in a permanent state of childish desperation because—this is actually in the script—she’s never been properly fucked. A hot teen boy washes up on the shore. The kid doesn’t speak a word of English, and there’s a brief moment when someone suspects he might be a German spy, but then that tangent trails off, and he’s actually a Polish violin prodigy. Luckily, the sexy Franco-Russian girl next door has a famous maestro for a brother, and the movie ends with a rousing concert, which (like everything else in this film) is flimsy and unintentionally sad. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Land of the Dead
In the two decades since director George Romero last ventured into the realm of the undead, his original vision has been overtaken by a horde of fleet-footed, gut-munching pretenders. Now Big Daddy is back, and he’s still got his teeth. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Layer Cake
Former Guy Ritchie producer Matthew Vaughn (currently directing the next X-Men installment) makes a strong debut with this formulaic, yet smartly self-aware throwback to classic Brit crime cinema. Despite rumors to the contrary, the thug-life genre still has some juice. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Longest Yard
Adam Sandler is never funny, Chris Rock (as another convict) is sometimes funny, Nelly (the rapper) is very funny (not intentionally, however), and Burt Reynolds is always sad. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Mad Hot Ballroom
In terms of scope, the first-time director and writer may have bitten off a bit more than they can comfortably chew, as the scenes of the kids’ ballroom dancing contest come off as alternately long-winded and confusing. The ability to fashion anything even remotely comprehensible out of hundreds of hours of footage is admirable, but a slightly heavier hand in the editing bay could have worked wonders. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
March of the Penguins
March of the Penguins has one great moment: when it shows a group of female penguins going into the sea and swimming through the water in the way their featured relatives fly through the air. But when they’re back on the land, back on their ugly feet, all of the grace is gone and once again the penguin is a dull and clumsy creature. The only animal worth making a documentary about is the human. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Miranda July’s feature-film debut is delicate and tense, a movie with a visual language so powerful that it seems to expand out of the movie theater and onto the sidewalk. July’s is a fantastical world where the most important contours are human shapes, where intense sexual longing collides with the paradoxical wish to escape your own skin, where those who have power try to abdicate it, and those who are powerless act out in agonizing, self-deceiving ways. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
All Mr. & Mrs. Smith does is build to a fiery conclusion it never even attempts to earn, with both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie reduced to mere prop status along the way. Pretty people making pretty explosions does not a good movie make. Just ask that ultimate hack Michael Bay. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
My Summer of Love
My Summer of Love achieves a nervy, wonderfully het up fervor of its very own. Inspired largely by the director’s time spent researching small town religious zealotry for an aborted documentary, Paddy Considine’s wild card of a character serves to wonderfully up the illogical attraction ante. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Rebound
After a quick jaunt with animal cruelty, superstar college basketball coach Roy (Martin Lawrence) is assigned to coach his junior high alma mater. Coach Roy’s convinced he can turn the team winners—sadly, though, he’s really not all that funny while doing it. Unless you’re 12. Then he’s fucking hilarious. (MEGAN SELING)
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
The epic many of us grew up with has reached its end; a moment of silence, please, for both what was and what could have been. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
War of the Worlds
Though I usually take his side, if only for sport, the first hour of War of the Worlds had me convinced that Steven Spielberg had finally proven his detractors right. Before the bad things start happening, the stage is set for the kind of soulless, CGI-driven family redemption saga that could only happen in a grillion dollar movie. But then something happens. The supreme achievement of the effects seems to galvanize Spielberg into earning them. The drama enters some very dark territory, always motorized by the unimaginable terror of the invincible invaders—it’s like the material is daring the director to show us what he’s got. (SEAN NELSON)
Wedding Crashers
Seemingly conceived, shot, and edited during a four-day weekend, Wedding Crashers, while occasionally amusing, is lazy enough to make ’80s ass-gas-or-grass comedies like H.O.T.S. or Hamburger: The Motion Picture look like models of precision timing. In a nutshell: Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are lawyers who get their kicks by boozily infiltrating the nuptials of strangers, eventually meeting their match with a pair of Kennedyesque sisters. Christopher Walken drops by to do his thing. This is all likely to go over like gangbusters at the box office, but the overall sloppiness and genial contempt for the viewer is tough to ignore. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
On paper, this documentary about the five-year relationship between a gentle, sporadically homeless hippie with no visible means of support and an unruly flock of birds sounds like a recipe for instant tooth decay. Darned if it doesn’t work, though. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Yes
Feeling stymied by her philandering politician husband (Sam Neill), an Irish-American scientist known only as “She” begins an affair with a Lebanese surgeon (“He,” AKA actor Simon Abkarian), who has been exiled to London and forced to work as a line chef after the War on Terror. Meanwhile, a nosy housekeeper (Shirley Henderson) ruminates endlessly on the everlasting presence of dirt. Oh, and the entire thing is rendered in rhyming, hiphoppy iambic slang, somewhere between Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss. Make no mistake: director Sally Potter’s high-minded, demanding, hermetically sealed style will likely infuriate as many as it entrances. Still, the filmmaker’s boundless ambition and refusal to tone down her passions one iota comes off as genuinely admirable, especially in this day and age. (ANDREW WRIGHT)