LIMITED RUN
At the Earth’s Core
The filmmakers behind last week’s Warlords of Atlantis tackle the formidably wacky subject of the winged monsters who dwell at our planet’s molten core. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
Au Revoir, les Enfants
A gentle, semi-autobiographical film by Louis Malle that’s full of fearsome facts. Julien Quentin is the Louis Malle character, a student at a Catholic boarding school in the French countryside where the priests are openly hostile to the German occupiers. Several new students, including one Jean Bonnet (né Kippelstein) are hurriedly matriculated at the school, and soon Jean and Julien are fast friends. Julien catches onto Jean’s secret, but he can’t quite make sense of its meaning. “Are we Jewish?” he asks his mother. It’s one of the most poignant and least sentimental Holocaust movies I’ve ever seen. (ANNIE WAGNER) Museum of History and Industry, Thurs June 1 at 7:30 pm.
Community Stories
Four episodes from the Seattle Channel series, focusing on the Blue Scholars, a 91-year-old man who owns a store in the International District, international adoptees, and the interns at the Seattle Aquarium. Central Library, Sat May 27 at 3 pm.
The Hustler
Paul Newman plays a pool shark in this 1961 Robert Rossen film. Movie Legends, Sun May 28 at 1 pm.
Kontum Diary
A doc about Vietnam vets from both sides talking to one another. Bitter Lake Community Center, Wed May 31 at 7 pm.
La Visa Loca
A comedy about a Filipino guy (Jess Hudson) who wants to work in the U.S.—even if it means consorting with reality TV producers! Screens as part of a Phillipine film conference; see jsis.washington.edu/seac/calendar.shtml for details. Theatre Off Jackson, Fri May 26 at 7 pm.
Lacombe, Lucien
Lacombe, Lucien is a self-flagellating exploration of the temptations that led French citizens to collaborate with the German occupation during World War II. Of course, the temptations are a bit obvious: money, loot, wine, women. And the quality that leads one 18-year-old farm boy named Lucien (Pierre Blaise) to veer from potential Resistance fighter to full-fledged Nazi punk is a bit obvious too: natural-born thuggery. It’s hard to draw any conclusions from his story, but it’s easy to become darkly fascinated by Lucien. (ANNIE WAGNER) Museum of History and Industry, Thurs May 25 at 7:30 pm.
Metropolis
The son of a wealthy industrialist follows a beautiful young woman down to the slums of the underworld and learns about the horrific working conditions of the laborers who live there. After complaining to his impassive dad (who runs the city of Metropolis), he joins their ranks and learns of an impending revolt. What keeps this from becoming a communist fable is the fact that director Fritz Lang is more like the industrialist dad than the empathic son. The gorgeous sets dwarf the actors, the choreography of the workers at their machines is more beautiful than horrific, and the moral of the story is not that the workers and bosses are equals as much as they just need to get along. Add to this a mad scientist who gives a robot of discord the face and body of the son’s girlfriend, leading the workers to revolt and the aristocrats to sin and debauchery, and you have a vision of the future as sexy and complex as anything those Matrix guys have put out. (ANDY SPLETZER) Grand Illusion, Weekdays 6:30, 8:45 pm, Sat-Sun 4:15, 6:30, 8:45 pm.
Our Shining Prince
Hagiography, much? “By Any Means Necessary,” a recorded speech by Malcom X, will be screened. Central Cinema, Sun May 28 at 3 pm.
The Power of Community
A doc about the transformation of the Cuban agricultural economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Keystone Church, Fri May 26 at 7 pm.
Rawstock
Short films about a male strip club, suicide, a rocket ship, and the lottery. Central Cinema, Wed May 31 at 8 pm.
ReelYouth Film Festival
A free screening of short docs by African-American and American-Indian kids. Rainier Valley Cultural Center, Sat May 27 at 6 pm.
Run Lola Run
A young Berlin hipster named Lola has 20 minutes to find enough money to stop her boyfriend from being killed. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer tells the story three times, each with different but equally incredible twists, surprises, tangents, and endings—which is exactly what makes this movie fun to watch. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Central Cinema, Thurs-Sun 7, 9:15 pm.
now playing
The Da Vinci Code
Everything about this movie is boiled until tough. The cinematography (by Cinderella Man‘s Salvatore Totino) is without flair; Tom Hanks is charmless; Audrey Tautou looks like a dusty china doll; and the scavenger-hunt plot is stretched out over 149 draining minutes. Only Ian McKellen wrings any fun out of the movie, but then again, he gets two crutches to play with. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Down in the Valley
In a modest suburb in the San Fernando Valley, Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) is a typical motherless teen. Into her closed world comes a man who is an exception to all the known rules. Harlan (Edward Norton) materializes near an overpass with lasso in hand, like some kind of extraterrestrial shape-shifter who learned about American culture by watching Westerns. He isn’t an alien, unless aliens can bang pretty girls in their fathers’ hallways, but he’s about as odd and unpredictable. Down in the Valley fancies itself a post-Western: Norton’s performance as an anachronistic gunslinger is ragged and formidable, and the camera observes the way the exurbs encroach on the desert (and vice versa) with an impartial eye. But there’s just as much Lolita in its tale of flushed love. The filmmakers pay this strain little mind. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Drawing Restraint 9
Known for his Cremaster cycle of five films dating back to 1996, Matthew Barney is a visual artist in the museum-gallery world. Until now, nobody would have called Barney’s films “movies.” The 135-minute Drawing Restraint 9 is hardly the most tedious, indulgent, or unfocused of Barney’s films, and it makes structural concessions to the movie format. Plus, this movie has Björk, and she, as she has repeatedly proven, can subvert just about any prescribed platform she encounters as an actor or as a musician. The two stars—lovers in real life—board a Japanese whaling ship and are outfitted for a ritualistic union that include the shaving of eyebrows and the blackening of teeth. The two take Japanese tea, then kiss and lick each other (this is Barney: It’s gross, not erotic) as a storm hits the ship and their cabin fills with water. They flay each other’s lower halves with knives, and eventually become sea creatures. (JEN GRAVES)
Mission: Impossible 3
Clearly, in retrospect, what the Mission: Impossible franchise needed was a director young and hungry enough to shoot the moon, yet humble enough to work comfortably within the system. In short, a TV guy. Enter Alias/Lost creator J. J. Abrams, whose television work displays a genuine affinity for the ol’ cloak and dagger, as well as a winningly snarky knack for subverting the dustier conventions of same. Mission: Impossible 3 finds Tom Cruise’s IMF hotshot semi-retired to instructor status. Before long, however, circumstances draw him back into the field, in the person of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s sociopathic arms dealer with a grudge. Stuff goes boom. This rather A-to-B plot is fleshed out with a number of killer supporting acts. It’s with Cruise, however, that the director pulls off his biggest coup. Pesky personal matters aside, there’s always been something uncomfortable about Cruise’s screen presence—that feeling that he’s always blaringly on, giving even the quietest moments 140 percent. Abrams’s solution—steadily jacking up the emotional and physical intensity to match the star—pays huge, pleasantly exhausting dividends. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Poseidon
Poseidon, the mega-budgeted revamp of 1972’s upside-down ocean liner opus, would most likely be a pretty lousy movie in any situation, with dialogue and characterizations that often inspire the wrong sort of giggles, but the still-vivid memories of the effects of an actual, real-world tsunami—to say nothing of the possibility of United 93 playing at the same multiplex—quickly snuff out any hopes of vicarious thrills. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Water
Chuyia (Sarala) is a plump 8-year-old with a stick of sugarcane clenched tight in her fist. She barely seems to notice she’s on her way to be married. But married she’ll be, and shortly thereafter, her husband will die. In 1930s India, Chuyia the child-widow is shunted off to an ashram, condemned to spend the rest of her life shaved bald and desperately poor. Deepa Mehta’s final film in a socially engaged trilogy, Water addresses an issue that’s relatively remote from the concerns of Western audiences. The characters, however, are awfully familiar. Chuyia shakes up the pit of crones with her (of course) irrepressible spirit. One of the widows (Lisa Ray) is a beautiful, doomed prostitute with a heart—nay, an entire cardiovascular system—composed of gold. Will she run away from the ashram and marry a sexy follower of Gandhi? Your guess is as good as mine (and I’ve already seen the movie). Still, Mehta and cinematographer Giles Nuttgens illustrate their story with images that do much more than awaken the prescribed moral outrage. The trail of colors leads you through the narrative gently, and pushes the melodrama upward into a starker, purer realm. (ANNIE WAGNER)