LIMITED RUN
Antlerland
A band/video art collective from Portland. Chop Suey, Mon May 8 at 8 pm.
Beyond Atlantis
An Eddie Romero movie from 1973 featuring clam shells, cat fights, and exploding grass huts. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
Black Moon
The Louis Malle retrospective continues with this narrative feature, a surreal coming-of-age story inspired by Lewis Carroll and featuring a badger, an irritable Macbeth-quoting unicorn, and a ferocious battle of the sexes. Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7, 9 pm, Sat-Sun 3, 5, 7, 9pm.
The Cat Returns
An animated Japanese film about a little girl who finds herself engaged to a cat prince. Free. Seattle Asian Art Museum, Stimson Auditorium, Sat May 6 at 1:30 pm.
Commanding Heights: The New Rules of the Game
A documentary about free trade and globalization. Bitter Lake Community Center, Wed May 10 at 7 pm.
Commune
See review this issue. Northwest Film Forum, Weekdays 7, 9 pm, Sat-Sun 5 pm.
Conscience and the Constitution
A documentary featurette about Japanese-Americans who resisted internment during World War II. With director Franke Abe in attendance. Keystone Church, Fri May 5 at 7 pm.
El Mariachi
This 1992 film by Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City), about an itinerant musician who’s mistaken for a killer, was legendarily cheap to produce. Central Cinema, Thurs-Sun 6:30, 9:15 pm. (Late show 21+.)
Eyes and Ears Supernova
Local filmmakers (Sarah Biagini, Jason Gutz, Doug Lane, Danielle Morgan) team up with Seattle and Olympia sound and noise artists to produce a rare astronomical event. Earplugs and crouched postures advised. Plus, a multi-projector performance by Eric Ostrowski. Northwest Film Forum, Sat May 6 at 11 pm.
Independent Exposure
The curated monthly series of short films and videos returns to Central Cinema. This edition isn’t really themed, but there are two experimental shorts based on math concepts, and one animated short about the Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi. Central Cinema, Wed May 10 at 7 and 9 pm.
Inlaws & Outlaws
Using the current debate over same-sex unions as a starting point, this locally produced, timely film promises a nonpartisan portrait of contemporary commitment-and features soundtrack music by local superstar Felicia V. Loud. Lake Washington High School Auditorium, Sun May 7 at 2 and 7 pm.
Kekexili: Mountain Patrol
On the desolate border of Tibet, an ethically shaky volunteer militia takes on a ruthless assortment of rare-antelope poachers, with tragic results. Based on true events, this spectacularly tough, built-for-speed survival actioner favorably recalls the single-minded glory days of Walter Hill, with one hell of a shivery quicksand setpiece. The absolute lack of any extraneous character development may throw some, but those willing to ride it out will find much to savor. (ANDREW WRIGHT) Varsity, Fri-Sun 2, 4:30, 7, 9:10 pm, Mon-Thurs 7, 9:10 pm.
The Leopard Man/The Seventh Victim
A double bill of films from B-movie producer Val Lewton. Featuring a demented killer and a Satanic cult. Movie Legends, Sun May 7 at 1 pm.
Lost Boys of Sudan
In 2001, the U.S. government permitted 4,000 of the Sudanese refugees, then in their late teens, to settle in the dismal suburbs of cities across the country. This documentary follows two of the boys, Peter and Santino, from a refugee camp in Kenya to the outer sprawl of Houston, Texas. From what we can tell from the film, the boys are introduced to individually wrapped pats of butter, the garbage disposal, and the grocery store in quick succession, and are then promptly abandoned to their night-shift factory jobs and monthly rent. It’s wrenching to watch Peter struggle to access the high school education he has been promised. As he navigates roadblocks from standardized test registration to alien courtship rituals (in one scene, he catches wild birds in an abandoned lot and presents them to a confused girl), the film’s aloof style works well. But the filmmakers’ reluctance to engage their subjects directly gives some issues—particularly the way the boys relate to the forms of Christianity they encounter in the U.S.—short shrift. (ANNIE WAGNER) Capitol Hill Library, Thurs May 4 at 6 pm.
The Princess Bride
“You mock my pain!” Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.
Strange Days
A 1995 sci-fi flick about vicarious pleasure. Introduced by Kathleen Murphy. EMP’s JBL Theatre, Sun May 7 at 4 pm.
The Thief of Paris
Louis Malle’s 1967 film starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a burgler from the upper crust. Museum of History and Industry, Thurs May 11 at 7:30 pm.
Tough Love
This great series is an exploration of queer desire in iconic Westerns. All films will be shown on archival 35mm prints. First up: Johnny Guitar, a 1954 film starring Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden set in a saloon just beyond the reach of the vigilante law. Next week, a film in which sexy cowboys stroke and admire each other’s pistols. All films screen at Northwest Film Forum. Johnny Guitar: Thurs May 4 at 7 pm. Red River: Thurs May 11 at 7 pm.
Viva Maria!
A 1965 Louis Malle film starring Jeanne Moreau and Brigitte Bardot as early 20th-century Mexican vaudevillians. Museum of History and Industry, Thurs May 4 at 7:30 pm.
Walkout
A recent HBO documentary by Edward James Olmos about a 1968 protest over anti-Chicano discrimination in East Los Angeles high schools. Revolution Books, Fri May 5 at 7:30 pm.
Woman Is the Future of Man
A fascinating dispatch from the battle of the sexes in Korea. “Sex is all Koreans do,” a young professor explains in a cafe. “There’s no culture.” His college buddy, an aspiring filmmaker, seems ready to dissent, but he’s too busy attempting to seduce their waitress. As a character study of these two men, Woman Is the Future of Man is effective: the professor is a big bully, aping gentility only when he senses compliance; the filmmaker has internalized his awkward social standing, and he’s a bit of a masochist. The women characters are more opaque, but, as one girl giggles, “A fortune teller told me I had to obey men”; it’s not hard to see where they’re coming from. (ANNIE WAGNER) Northwest Film Forum, Daily 7, 9 pm.
NOW PLAYING
Akeelah and the Bee
Akeelah, although she is young and black and living in a bad part of Los Angeles, is (can you believe this?) quite intelligent and sweet-natured and something of a word prodigy (although sometimes she talks “ghetto”). After she wins the school spelling bee (even though her mom is too busy to care!), Akeelah starts seeing a coach (a man whose daughter would be Akeelah’s age… if she hadn’t died), and advances all the way to nationals, in spite of the protestations of her exhausted mom (who doesn’t understand her own daughter’s dreams!). Keke Palmer, who is 11 years old and plays Akeelah, is a charming, promising actress who is constantly made to do sappy things you pretty much only find in afterschool TV specials. Angela Bassett tries her damnedest to make Akeelah’s mother resemble a real human being grappling with real problems, but the characters that writer/director Doug Atchison has dreamed up are pure foam. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE)
American Dreamz
American Dreamz spoofs American Idol and the pathetic spectacle of an entire nation banding together to pick some half-talented blockhead to be the next C-list superstar. The film also spoofs real life by presenting the idea of a America being ran by a complete idiot who’s so dumb he has to wear a bug in his ear so his staff can tell him what to say. HAHA! Truth is funny. Based on the material reality gave the writers of this film to work with, it should’ve been fucking hilarious, right? Not so much. (MEGAN SELING)
AN AMERICAN HAUNTING
A horror movie about nineteenth century demons… and incest! With Donald Sutherland, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Sissy Spacek.
The Benchwarmers
Now that these nerds are all growed up, kids in town still flip ’em shit for their questionable hygienic habits and weird hobbies. Good thing they’re friends with Deuce Bigalow, though, because with his bitchin’ baseball skills, they’re able to shut down the shit-talking by beating every Little League team in town. If you thought Napoleon Dynamite was heeee-larious (like me), you’re probably gonna love Benchwarmers‘ endearing geekiness. But if you’re a jerk without a sense of humor, you’ll quickly get bored with the innocent PG-13 rating and onslaught of hilariously lame third-grade jokes. (MEGAN SELING)
Brick
Brick is a hardboiled detective narrative retrofitted to high school, where homeroom lockers fill in for smoky offices, assistant principals (Richard Roundtree!) apply police-commissioner levels of heat, and everyone talks in a knowingly archaic, Miller’s Crossing-ish rapid-fire patter. As a premise, it sounds cutesy-horrible, but the conviction and earnest wit involved carries it well past the conceptual experiment stage into a genuinely effective reinterpretation of classic noir. His film might still sputter out, were it not for the astounding central performance of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as a bespectacled, shaggy-haired loner whose quest to find a tardy ex-girlfriend drives the plot. Whatever the genesis, his dogged, world-weary demeanor does the old-time gumshoes proud. So does this weird, glorious freak of a movie. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Celestine Prophecy
An adaptation of the 1990s New Age novel about the search for an ancient Peruvian scroll, this movie was rushed to production in 2004, presumably so it could ride the Da Vinci Code buzz. Hey, it worked for the Gospel of Judas…
Eight Below
The great thing about an action movie set in Antarctica is that very little happens there, and it’s pointless to try to pretend otherwise. The residents of the National Science Foundation research station deal hands of solitaire, collect rocks, play chess, and sleep. Then there’s a storm and everyone has to evacuate. Head musher Gerry must leave his beloved huskies behind. The rest of the film is a slow, weirdly enjoyable story of the dogs’ feral existence, interspersed with Gerry’s tormented efforts to hitch a ride back and save them. The dogs hunt some birds. The dogs settle in for the night. A dog dies. The dogs scavenge some orca blubber and have a nasty run-in with an animatronic leopard seal. Ice shards sparkle, and the sky is wide, and it’s impossible not to get caught up in the camaraderie of the pack. It’s Survivor, doggie-style. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Failure to Launch
Oodles of nonsense, a horribly unfunny series of slapstick animal attacks, and several full minutes of Terry Bradshaw’s gleaming, bare buttocks. (LINDY WEST)
Friends with Money
The premise is a snooze: Rich people have problems too? You can’t buy your way out of a midlife crisis? Lonely Pot-Smoking Maid is an unfulfilling career choice? Yeah, that “no shit” is visible from space. But Friends with Money, Jennifer Aniston’s much-touted return to the indie scene, atones for its shortcomings in the plot department by kicking unprecedented ass in the great-actress-triumvirate-of-delight department. The magical gals who save this movie, the three best actresses ever—just to get it out of the way, Aniston is not one of them, though she’s okay—are Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, and Catherine Keener, who, along with Aniston, portray a quartet of Los Angeles best pals. The three tut condescendingly over Olivia (Aniston), who has achieved neither marital bliss nor financial stability, floating through her 30s in a pathetic haze—scrubbing strangers’ toilets, scamming free samples at the Lancôme counter, and occasionally having sex with a detached meathead. The dialogue is sharp and the performances are flawless. But it’s still a movie about the emotional pain of building an addition to one’s house. (LINDY WEST)
Hard Candy
A 32-year-old fashion photographer (Patrick Wilson) and a 14-year-old girl (Ellen Page) who are virtually acquainted online decide to meet IRL (in real life). The tryst occurs in a Los Angeles coffee shop. The girl is the game; the man is the hunter. She unwisely suggests going to his place, and once at his place, she unwisely suggests drinking vodka. She is alone, she is getting drunk, she is incredibly stupid. But then things turn upside down and we see that the girl, rather than the man, is in control of the situation. The girl brutalizes the photographer in ways I can’t say because it would constitute that thing Americans loathe: a spoiler. Page’s performance as the girl is the centerpiece of the film. Without her energy, Hard Candy would be stone cold. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Ice Age: The Meltdown
You know what rules!? Ice Age: The Meltdown rules! A bunch of famous people did the voices (Denis Leary, Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Jay Leno…), and the animation is infinitely better than the first installment, with vivid colors and far more detail. Plus, that little acorn-loving squirrel guy is back. He’s funny. (MEGAN SELING)
Inside Man
Denzel Washington plays Keith Frazier, a New York Police detective, and when a bank holdup turns into a complex hostage situation, he’s called to put his silk ‘n’ granite conversation skills to the test. The film is a long 129 minutes, but that’s fine by me. Not only does it allow Spike Lee (working from a silly/smart script by Russell Gewirtz) to take lightweight detours into racial profiling, violent video games, and the exceedingly unfortunate names lovers give to each other’s genitalia, but it gives you plenty of time to hypothesize about the hostage-takers’ motives. (Is that anti-capitalist speech in Albanian a clue?) The plot has spongy spots, like the amorphous Aryan evil that both the good and bad guys ultimately have to contend with, but it’s never less than fun. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Kinky Boots
Charlie (Joel Edgerton), a square, inherits his father’s factory, where squares make boots all day. Industrial England has been in decline for ages, so Charlie isn’t too shocked when he finds out the business is failing. Still, something must be done! Charlie tries firing people, but that doesn’t suit his charming facial features. Then, thanks to the prodding of a sweetie named Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts), Charlie goes cool-hunting in London and stumbles across Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a damsel in distress who just happens to be a man. Not just any boots will satisfy Lola: You know, they have to be strong enough for a man, but stilettoed for a woman. Over the mild protestations of the factory workers (conveyed primarily through Nick Frost’s boyish facial contortions), some satisfactory boots are fashioned. What a climax, eh? That’s why there’s an obligatory Milan fashion show at the end. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Lonesome Jim
Casey Affleck’s character, Jim, is afflicted with chronic despair and, life-wise, he’s run out of options. So he runs home to rural Indiana where he meets Anika (Liv Tyler) in a bar. She’s wearing her nurse’s uniform. He’s wearing his Brooklyn haircut. He’s sheepish about failing in Manhattan; embarrassed, he mentions he worked at an Applebee’s. Without irony, she says, “I love Applebee’s.” They both identify as writers. The first time they have sex, it’s in the hospital where Anika works. The second time, it’s in Jim’s bedroom, his walls covered with portraits of Hemingway, Parker, Richard Yates, Woolf, Plath—a who’s who of suicidal literati. There’s a side story about a drug mix-up, there’s a fat guy on a motorcycle, there’s a moment when Affleck starts singing along to “If You Leave Me Now,” but there’s nothing very daring in this movie. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE)
Lucky Number Slevin
This frenetic pastiche of a movie is about a pudgy-cute dude named Slevin (Josh Hartnett) who inadvertently wades into an all-out race war—excuse me, noble blood feud—between The Boss (Morgan Freeman) and The Rabbi (Sir Ben Kingsley). But most of the time Lucky Number Slevin looks like a feature-length advertisement for Target home décor. It’s a good thing there’s so much to look at—even if the style choices are baldly budget-chic—because it’s hard to care much about the convoluted tease of writer Jason Smilovic’s plot. There are lots of murders and double-crossings and mistaken identities and novel terms for bloody sleights-of-hand, plus one reference each to North by Northwest and James Bond. But if you get bored, you can always imagine the grisly proceedings are actually taking place in some heretofore-uncharted corner of IKEA. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Mission: Impossible 3
See our review.
Night Watch
There’s vampire-fighting, an attempt to forestall a world-ending prophecy, and a guy who likes to use his own spine as a broadsword. I’m not sure what the hell I saw, but I wouldn’t mind watching more of it. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
The Notorious Bettie Page
For all you rockabilly dolls dying to see the origin of your aesthetic in all her cinematic glory, go ahead and queue up now—you’ll love this movie. With a smooth mix of documentary footage, saturated color, and periodic interludes of soft black and white, writer-director Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) creates the ideal backdrop for the much-romanticized legend of Page’s life and career. Unfortunately, Harron and co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner limit themselves to cursory observations about the conservative mores of the ’50s and perfunctory stops along the timeline of Bettie’s rise to “notoriety.” (HANNAH LEVIN)
RV
Sissyman Bob Munro (Robin Williams) is a big dumb jerk who can’t say no to his germaphobic asshole boss, so instead of taking his selfish family on vacation to Hawaii, he rents a giant RV and drags them to Colorado where he’ll secretly attend a business meeting. Catch is, Dude doesn’t know how to drive the RV or work the poop-emptying machine. You can imagine the hilarity that ensures. (MEGAN SELING)
Scary Movie 4
Last year was full of movies and moments that practically spoof themselves, and the writers of Scary Movie 4 take care to touch on every single one. Jokes about homosexuals, thanks to Brokeback Mountain? Check. War of the Worlds and a lot of “Tom Cruise is crazy” jokes? Check. Self-mutilation gags thanks to Saw? Carmen Electra in a tight and busty little corset that makes boys in the audience go “Woo! Boobies!”? Amy Farina being hilarious? Check, check, and mate! Hooray! (MEGAN SELING)
The Sentinel
A disgraced former Secret Service agent (Michael Douglas) tries to save the President.
Silent Hill
Until a late appeal to logic interrupts the fun, the new goth-friendly splatter flick Silent Hill delivers a freshly rancid freakout of the sort that’s intelligible only to some dank level of your subconscious. The scenario here finds an increasingly freaked woman searching for her daughter in the titular mining town, a mostly deserted place that occasionally slips into a dimension chock full of acid-puking hulks, mobs of charcoal-briquette children, and, an 8-foot-tall dude with a pyramid for a head and a sword that rivals that of Johnny Wadd Holmes. Director Christophe Gans goes for broke during these nightmare sequences, delivering a succession of genuinely disturbing setpieces. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Slither
Written and directed by James Gunn (who wrote the screenplay for 2004’s Dawn of the Dead along with a few of the Troma movies), Slither lives up to all expectations: It boasts an onslaught of blatant gore, a tentacle rape scene, and the understanding that it’s a total joke. (MEGAN SELING)
Stick It
A defiant teen with a taste for extreme sports, Haley (Missy Peregrym) is, like her predecessor in Bring It On, much more hardcore than the pantywaist sport she’s forced to take up. The rationale in Stick It is a little hazy—something involving a spectacular dirt-bike crash, an easily influenced judge, and a hefty cash prize in an amateur sport—but it does the trick. Haley has to train at Vickerman Gymnastics Academy with a coach from hell. Then Stick It veers off the sports-movie formula. The run-up to the big meet deemphasizes sweat and competition, opting instead for a delirious Busby Berkeley-style stretching circle against a bright red background. And the climax isn’t so much about perfect execution as it is about one ex-gymnast (Bendinger, natch) and her contradictory feelings about the alien psychology of the sport. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Take the Lead
Based loosely on the life of ballroom-dancing revivalist Pierre Dulaine, Take the Lead is the familiar tale of teenage redemption via fox trot. Latin dandy Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) shows up at a New York City public school, inexplicably yearning to teach merengue to the snarling masses. The beleaguered, no-nonsense principal (Alfre Woodard), after laughing in his ignorant face (“Life for these kids is like a fight to stay alive and a hustle to make ends meet, not ballroom dancing”), wearily agrees, and Dulaine’s delinquents montage, montage, montage their way right into the Big Competition. Take the Lead is neither as charming nor as satisfying as its documentary predecessor, 2005’s Mad Hot Ballroom. The scripted progression of professional actors and dancers can’t touch the exhilaration of watching spazzy preteens master it for real, but TTL’s dancing is polished and entertaining nonetheless. It’s the rest of the movie—vaguely racist, enthusiastically sexist, and weirdly anticlimactic—that stinks. (LINDY WEST)
Thank You For Smoking
As a work of satire, Thank You for Smoking is safely and securely dated. The book it’s adapted from (by conservative novelist Christopher Buckley) was published in the mid-’90s, when tobacco lawsuits were flying fast and loose and the word “probe” was rampant in headlines in the Washington Post. But what the movie loses in relevance, it gains in absurd comedy. (ANNIE WAGNER)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a masterpiece, flat out. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
United 93
There are some difficulties when it comes to telling the story of United Flight 93, the fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, whose passengers somehow overcame the terrorists and brought the plane to the ground before it could hurt anyone besides themselves. There’s no suspense; we already know what’s going to happen. The dialogue drips with dramatic irony—passengers telling family members, business associates, and one another about their plans for tomorrow and the next week—which is ironic, since 9/11 was supposed to have killed irony. But there are very good reasons to sit through United 93. On the emotional register, the film hits a perfectly chosen note, neither aggressive enough to seem callous nor excessively deferential, which would have felt mawkish. (ANNIE WAGNER)
V for Vendetta
As a work of cinema, V for Vendetta is no Batman or Matrix. But its timing (it opened the day before the third anniversary of the second Iraq war) is impeccable. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
The Wild
A Disney movie about escaped zoo animals.