Festival In Cannes, Ice Age, Pinero, Resident Evil, Showtime, What Time Is It There?

AFRICAN CINEMA NOW
This week: Yellow Card from Zimbabwe's John Riber. A soccer-playing African teenager bumps up against adulthood and sexual anxiety when he has an unprotected affair with a girl (not his girlfriend) that jeopardizes his sporting career, not to mention his life. Seattle Art Museum

All About the Benjamins
Here's what Ice Cube said about being "all about the benjamins" in 1991's "A Bird In the Hand," from the album Death Certificate: "Do I have to sell me a whole lot of crack/for decent shelter, and clothes on my back?/Or should I just wait for help from Bush/or Jessie Jackson, and Operation Push/If you ask me the whole thing needs a douche/a masengel/what the hell/the cracker sell/in the neighborhood." This entire song is a brilliant weave of comedy and socio-economic drama (even in a single gesture he can do this, with an additional pop-art spin: in one line he raps, "Welcome to MacDonald's can I take your order please?"). This film won't be quite the same, but that's okay, because Ice Cube is always fun to watch. Mike Epps co-stars. (BRIAN GOEDDE) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Redmond Town Center

* Decline of Western Civilization Part III/We Sold Our Souls for Rock & Roll
See Stranger Suggests. You've gotta hand it to Penelope Spheeris: She's been chronicling the rise and fall and rise of punk rock for 20 years now in her Decline documentaries. The third chapter examines what you might call third-wave punkers; the kids who grew up with punk as an institution of the mainstream. Like its predecessors, the film is full of unintentional revelations and is positively hypnotic, even if the music is mostly shitty (this was not the case in Part One), and the kids themselves are totally hopeless. We Sold Our Souls For Rock & Roll applies the same laser eye to the Ozzfest tour, featuring modern punks' literary doubles: the aficionados and practitioners of nü metal and rape rock. Sad and amazing on many levels. (SEAN NELSON) JBL Theater at EMP

Dracula Sucks
Bram Stoker's Dracula is an interesting psychosexual drama with delicious innuendos: Jonathan Harker is terrified of being penetrated by thirsty female vampires while in Dracula's castle, and later, London's high society (always sexually alluring) is terrified of these carnal night visitors. The sexual innuendos in Dracula Sucks are probably less subtle: It's a porno made in '79. Gross. (BRIAN GOEDDE) Grand Illusion

Happenstance
That oh-so-dazzling urban urchin, Audrey Tautou, is once again caught up in an intricate web of fateful occurrences on her way to finding true love. But don't go expecting dazzling whimsy--this is a sort of anti-Amelie, whose Paris is populated with extremely unpleasant people, each and every one sweaty, conniving, red-faced, greasy, drunk, or who have spittle bubbling in the corners of their mouths. Also, I have difficulty recommending any movie that uses pigeon poop not only for a cheap laugh, but as a crucial plot point as well. (TAMARA PARIS) Metro

IRISH REELS
Of the few movies I saw from this festival, it's hard to say what is particular to Irish cinema, besides accents and idioms. A look at the complete program (www.irishreels.org) shows that there are a few films which "celebrate the culture" in traditional ways. Considering how intensely Ireland is concerned with having its identity arrive at some kind of peace (at least it seems that way from the outside), it's surprising this film festival (which is on the outside) didn't lay the heavy hand on us "understanding their culture" and "identifying with their plight," and all that we've come to expect from cultural-specific festivals. Compliments to the curators for tendering culture with delicate hands. (BRIAN GOEDDE) 911 Media Arts Center, Seattle Art Museum

La Ciénaga
Reviewed this issue. This meandering debut by Argentinean first-time feature director Lucrecia Martel about the spiraling decay of a middle-class family (and the bourgeoisie of Argentina itself) is touching, frustrating, and fraught with believable tensions and riveting imagery. Fans of conventional narrative structure beware! (TAMARA PARIS) Grand Illusion

The Matrix
Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) has been searching for the One, a cyber-Christ who will destroy the Matrix and wake people out of their preprogrammed idea of life. He thinks he has found Him in Neo (Keanu Reeves). With the knowledge that the Matrix is a computer-created dream, Morpheus and his rebels (with equally stupid names: Trinity, Cypher, Switch, Apoc, etc.) can run and jump and fight with superhuman power, but are hunted down by super-agents who want to cleanse the system. Sure, the character names are stupid, the barroom metaphysics ("Hey, what if life is just a dream?") are simplistic, and the cyber-Christ story is predictable, but the action scenes--even the ones that use that 180 degree near-freeze frame--make this otherwise boring movie worth seeing. From the directors of Bound. (ANDY SPLETZER) Egyptian

Mean Machine
I dig the whole capriciously violent, testosterone-poisoned, Tom-of-Finland thang probably more than the average bird. But even a hardcore he-man junkie such as myself will have a hard time enjoying this grim, pointless, and formulaic remake of--I kid you not--a Burt Reynolds prison flick. This time, the star convict is cinematic heavy Vinnie Jones (of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Bagels fame), who coaches the criminals in soccer instead of football as they take on the filthy screws. Jones has an authentic, menacing charisma when glowering and stomping--why squander that on acting? You'll have more fun checking out his website at www.vinniejones.co.uk, where he shares pix of his tattoos, his cars, and his greyhounds! (TAMARA PARIS) Varsity

Monsoon Wedding
Reviewed this issue. Mira Nair's latest. Harvard Exit

* Open Screening
This monthly screening series at 911 is one of the most hit-or-miss events in town: no curators here, merely willing hosts to whoever submits a film. (For only $1, however, it's also one of the best deals.) In a way, the very unevenness of the presentation reflects quite favorably on the best filmmakers, whose works truly stand out as fresh and inspiring after you've sat through three or four duds. And there are few viewing spaces as pleasant as 911, with its series of offices and studios just behind you and to your right as you watch the films. Even quiet and dark, you can tell it's a place where work, much good work, gets done. (BRUCE REID) 911 Media Arts Center

PALESTINE ON FILM: OCCUPATION, APARTHEID, RESISTANCE
A weekly series of film and discussion about Palestine, locus of the biggest moral and political dilemma facing the modern world. Presented by the Palestine Solidarity Committee. This week, in honor of International Women's Day, two films by Palestinian women: Measures of Distance and Children of Shatila by Mona Hatoum and Mai Masri, respectively. Independent Media Center

Scratch
Reviewed this issue AND See Stranger Suggests cuz it's so fresh. Varsity

* STOP MOTION: THE FIRST 50 YEARS
A program of shorts celebrating an animation innovation most moviegoers take for granted. Featuring works by Ladislas Starevicz, Willis King Kong O'Brien, George Pal, Art Clokey (yay, Gumby), and more. Little Theatre

* THE BEST OF BRITAIN
This week: Georgy Girl. Lynn Redgrave, James Mason, Alan Bates, and Charlotte (rrr)Rampling star in this famous British comedy-drama about a plain girl who can't quite make '60s London swing the way it's supposed to. A semi-classic distinguished by fine performances (Bates and Rampling especially), mitigated by lesser ones (never liked Redgrave), and ultimately forgettable despite an impossibly romantic setting (London, '66, black and white) and a heady, melodramatic combination of funny and serious. (SEAN NELSON) Seattle Art Museum

The Time Machine
Guy Pearce and his cheekbones star in this update of the H.G. Wells sci-fi landmark. Metro

WOMEN'S WORK: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA
Four short pieces of experimental cinema by female filmmakers. The works, by Midi Onodera (The Basement Girl), Tina Gharavi (Closer), Cathy Cook (Beyond Voluntary Control), and Sharon Shoemaker (Audience), are presented in conjunction with the WigglyWorld workshop "Mad Women Make Movies." Little Theatre

40 Days and 40 Nights
Josh Hartnett may be a hunk, but said hunkiness is not nearly enough to save 40 Days & 40 Nights, the latest example from director Michael Lehmann to prove that, Heathers aside, he is a complete hack. Which is too bad, because anyone who's seen Heathers knows there was a time when Lehmann was the next big thing. Then he made Hudson Hawk and, well... a fool and his talent are soon parted. If you've seen the previews for 40 Days & 40 Nights, then you know story by now, so I'll spare you grisly details, save for one: Beware the flying trip over Boobland. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

A Beautiful Mind
Stories about the insane are an inherent paradox. Because for a story to be compelling, it has to have rules, and an inner logic, whereas mental illness doesn't have rules, and treats logic as just another way of seeing. In the case of John Nash (Russell Crowe), the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician who suffered from schizophrenia, there is the added irony that a man of quantitative genius could lose all control of quantitative reality. With a deft directorial touch, the paradox of Nash's world could really come to life. But that would take more of a talent than Ron Howard. (MICHAEL SHILLING) Factoria, Majestic Bay, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

* Beijing Bicycle
Soft-spoken Guei has landed a job in the city as a bike courier, a plum position that comes with a tricked-out bicycle. The deal is that once he earns 600 yuan, the bike's his. Just before the payment is complete, though, the bike gets lifted; Guei is crestfallen and vows to find it. Jian, meanwhile, is a schoolboy who longs for a bike to prove his suaveness, so he buys Guei's bike at a flea market and suddenly, the ladies love cool Jian. But while ritually combing the city, Guei happens across Jian and the bike, and the two boys spend the next hour violently stealing it back and forth. Although there are a couple questionable components (a strange little soundtrack, the plot errs on the side of tedium), this is an earnest, hardworking film that's overall recommended. And if nothing else, it's always funny to watch Chinese kids beating the Christ out of each other. (MEG VAN HUYGEN) Broadway Market

Big Fat Liar
Kid writes essay. Big fat movie exec steals it for a movie. Kid takes revenge. Even the presence of the great Paul Giammati (in the title role) can't excuse this pile of poo. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Woodinville 12

Black Hawk Down
As a filmmaker, Ridley Scott is an ad man forever in search of a product to sell. In Black Hawk Down, there are several competing products, including Military Hypocrisy, Uncommon Valor, and African Savagery, but in the end the bill of goods boils down to the hoariest chestnut of all: War is Hell. (Thanks for clearing that up, old man.) To test this chancy proposition, Scott enlists the true story of a botched U.S. military incursion in Mogadishu, Somalia, 1993, during which a battalion of elite forces was stranded in the "entirely hostile district" of Bakara, and forced to hold its impossible position for 15 hours without supplies or support. To underscore the message, Scott drops us right in the thick of the battle zone, where we see the soldiers get systematically butchered by marauding hordes of faceless African militia, while their comrades in arms struggle against furious resistance and bureaucratic incompetence to bust through and rescue them. Though the real story is fraught with brutal moral complexity, in Scott's hands, it's a slaughterhouse from beginning to end. Like any good shill, this director can't be bothered to let messy details like politics, reason, or history overcomplicate his pitch. (SEAN NELSON) Metro, Northgate, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

Collateral Damage
The press has focused on how weird it is to release a movie about terrorism so soon after September 11, and there are some moments that have an uncanny overlap with reality. But what makes Collateral Damage truly weird is watching Arnold Schwarzenneger grow completely sick of the bloodlust which used to make him whole. For that spectacle, and all its attendant metaphor, this is a film worth seeing. (MICHAEL SHILLING) Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

Crossroads
This bubblegum pseudo-drama is a cross between Thelma & Louise and To Sir With Love. Unfortunately, the "girl power" early-'90s politics of the former gets short-circuited by Britney Spears' weird Donna Reed-in-lowriders shtick. The latter comparison is harder to explain, but suffice it to say Britney stands in as both Sidney Poitier's moral compass and Lulu's coming-of-age songstress. Not quite as hard-hitting as the tough and topical Afterschool Specials from the '70s this film is modeled after, Crossroads tackles absentee parents, rape, and teenage runaways with a cautious and meaningless hand. There's a palpable nod-and-wink quality to the movie (Britney reads poetry over a campfire!), but the film's irony--fully appreciated by the teen audience on hand at the sneak preview I attended--seemed altogether lost on Britney Spears. (JOSH FEIT) Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

Dragonfly
A "supernatural thriller" that recedes from memory faster than Kevin Costner's hairline. The story (such as it is): After Costner's wife is killed, she begins to haunt him through various "creepy" (and often unintentionally hilarious) means. Why is she trying to contact him him? What secret does he need to unravel? The answer is: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Directed by Tom Shadyac (of Patch Adams fame), Dragonfly commits the biggest sin of all as a major motion picture: It forces you not to care. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

* Gosford Park
Set in 1932, Gosford Park is an exhausted murder mystery. It takes a toxic narrative, the sort that was exploited to death by Agatha Christie, and emphasizes things Christie wouldn't emphasize (like class antagonisms, power structures within sexual relationships), and de-emphasizes things she would emphasize (like the murder, the mystery, and its solution). In a word, Gosford Park is a meta-mystery, meaning the setting, figures, and tropes of a murder mystery form the frame for the real concern (or concerns): class and gender rivalries; the rise of mass entertainment; and the dark history of the industrial revolution and British imperialism. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Aurora Cinema Grill, Majestic Bay, Pacific Place 11, Seven Gables

Hart's War
It wasn't until the court martial scene that I realized how stupid this otherwise attractive, thoroughly modernist WWII flick is. When a black officer is accused of killing a white soldier (they're both in a POW camp) to avenge the death of the only other Tuskeegee airman in the camp, a lying witness is asked if he'd ever made an idle threat before. The response is "Yeah... but I'm not colored. I can control myself." Objection overruled. Elsewhere, this visually energetic picture is encumbered mostly by a lack of focus. Bruce Willis phones in a stiff performance as the complicated colonel, and everyone else is just okay. The whole thing, while not terrible, is a bit more Hogan's Heroes than Stalag 17, I'm afraid. (SEAN NELSON) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Woodinville 12

I Am Sam
This Sean Penn-Michelle Pfeiffer bathos fest takes up a premise that only the most steadfastly nice person could fail to smile at: A retarded father fights for custody of his seven-year-old daughter. (SEAN NELSON) Meridian 16

* In the Bedroom
This langorous, beautifully acted film about erotic and familial entanglements in a small Maine fishing town one summer builds up to three moments of utter emotional brutality so severe that the long moments in between them thrum like high tension wires. (SEAN NELSON) Metro, Uptown

Iris
The brilliant British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench, Kate Winslet), a woman who lives most decidedly in the world of ideas, succumbs to the dementia of Alzheimer's, "sailing into darkness" as she so rightly puts it. The story, as constructed by director Richard Eyre (who wrote the screenplay with Charles Wood, based on two memoirs by Murdoch's husband, John Bayley, played by Jim Broadbent), flips back and forth between past and present, evidently mimicking the erratic thread that memory becomes in the hands of the disease. Watching it is not without its comforts; it's exactly the kind of thing I love to stumble across on Sunday nights on public television, a guilty pleasure somewhat elevated by the British accents and quaint diction. What turns this film into something more suited to the small screen is relentless sentimentalization and lack of ambition, in a story about an ambitious woman without a sentimental bone in her body. (EMILY HALL) Broadway Market, Guild 45th

* Italian for Beginners
The characters of Italian for Beginners begin in a state of despair. This being a romantic comedy, their lives begin to intersect through a series of coincidences--coincidences that could feel contrived, but due to the rough integrity of the script, performances, and direction (shaped in part by the monastic rigors of the Dogme 95 ethic), they feel like the organic waywardness of life. (BRET FETZER) Harvard Exit

John Q
John Q is a problem film. Not in the race-conflict sense, but in the class-warfare sense. The movie represents Hollywood's first attempt to address the failure of our country's health care system. Denzel Washington plays the American worker, and Anne Heche plays Enron. Enron, in this instance, takes the form of a health care corporation, with its expensive drugs and operations, and its affluent doctors and administrators. The film, of course, is timely. The layoffs and deepening recession in the real world are expressed by the part-time factory worker's frustration with the system. Though I agree with John Q's politics, it is dull and tendentious. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

Lantana
A lantana is a pretty pink flower. Lantana the film is a bud that never blooms. The long, slow film opens with a dead body and ends with a couple dancing, and in between are 120 minutes of middle-aged people living miserably. There is a story, sure--something about infidelity and a possible murder--but the bulk of the film is made up of pure misery, both for the characters and the audience. Then again, Australia is a former penal colony, so perhaps such punishment should be expected. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Broadway Market

Last Orders
The talents of six of the finest British actors alive (Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, David Hemmings, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, and Ray Winstone) are squandered by this moist little movie about a journey to deliver a dead man's ashes to the seaside. (SEAN NELSON) Guild 45th

Metropolis
Metropolis is a beautiful and stylish hybrid--one of those future worlds imagined from the distant past, where above ground looks like an Ayn Rand dream, below ground is pure Blade Runner, and the characters are retro in the style of Hergé's Tintin. What makes Metropolis--which has a production pedigree that includes much of anime's royalty--feel like something truly new is the animation (combining the most up-to-date CGI with old-fashioned cels and the occasional live-action background), the mood (speakeasy 1920s, complete with Dixieland Jazz and gumshoe detectives), and its refusal to divide the world into absolute good and evil. Mostly, yes, it's eye candy, but everyone's eyes should be so lucky. (EMILY HALL) Broadway Market

Monster's Ball
Monstrous Balls is more like it. Hank is a racist prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton, perfect), son of a retired racist prison guard (Peter Boyle, who doesn't even try an accent), and father of a young, non-racist prison guard (Heath Ledger, who tries his hardest) in a Georgia State Penitentiary death row. Hank falls into a desperate affair with Leticia (Halle Berry, semi-plausible), a black woman, after both of their sons die. Also, Hank executed her husband (Sean Combs, puffy). Hank's dad says "nigger" and "porch monkey," and Hank fires a shotgun at some black kids, so we know that the film is about breaking the cycle of bigotry. A few nice notes are struck, but too many coincidences motorize this melodrama; its morality is tinny and safe. Via their affair, Hank is cured of racism, and Leticia is cured of grief. She even gets a truck! "I thank we're gone be all right," Hank says at the end. I thank I'm gone puke. (SEAN NELSON) Meridian 16, Neptune

Queen of the Damned
Judging by the wardrobe provided for its late co-star Aaliyah, this turgid sequel to the turgid Interview With the Vampire, also starring Stuart Townsend as a vampiric rock star, should've been called Queen of the DAMN!. (SEAN NELSON) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Woodinville 12

Return to Neverland
After a dynamic sequence in which a flying pirate ship sails through the bomb-torn skies of WWII London, Return to Neverland settles into bland formula. The filmmakers apparently wanted to subvert the girl = mother dynamic of the original Peter Pan, but they were too chicken-hearted to make Jane, the prepubescent heroine, as assertive and feral as most of the 10-year-old girls I know. The result is compromised and not a little creepy, as never-gonna-grow-up baby-boomer-idol Peter gazes erotically into the eyes of the daughter of his former love-interest, Wendy. (BRET FETZER) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Majestic Bay, Meridian 16, Woodinville 12

* Scotland, PA
This movie is going to sound really stupid: Scotland, PA sets Shakespeare's Macbeth in 1975. When Joe "Mac" McBeth (James LeGros) gets passed over as manager of Duncan's Diner, his wife Pat (Maura Tierney) convinces him to kill Duncan and put in a drive-through window. A trio of hippies give Mac advice with a Magic 8-Ball. The investigating officer is Ernie McDuff (Christopher Walken), a vegetarian who dreams of opening a restaurant of his own. Despite all this, I really enjoyed Scotland, PA. My only quibble is: Why, when doing this kind of adaptation, do filmmakers make obvious and distracting references to source material? Why don't they learn from the smartest literary adaptation of our time, Clueless? (BRET FETZER) Metro

Super Troopers
Do you hear that? It's the sound of a thousand frat boys laughing. But for the rest of us--for we who wear shorts only when it's warm--Super Troopers: A Film About Zany Cops will only inspire the occasional chuckle. Which is fine. Frat boys need comedy too, and now that Adam Sandler is off his game (see Little Nicky), the fine folks at Black Lizard (which, evidently, is some kind of comedy troupe--yikes!) are more than happy to step up to bat. Too bad their film swings and misses at a pitch well out of the strike zone. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Grand Alderwood, Pacific Place 11, Woodinville 12

We Were Soldiers
Scrawny little bastard Mel Gibson stars in this jingoistic turd of a Vietnam War film. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Varsity, Woodinville 12

Wendigo
One dysfunctional family's serene weekend in the snowy country is derailed when Dad runs over a deer--thus pissing off a gaggle of mouthbreathing hunters who were on its trail--and Junior goes and wakes the vengeful spirit of a long-dead Native American. It's not really as exciting as it sounds. Uptown