The Believer, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, Halloween: Resurrection, Lovely and Amazing, Me Without You, Reign of Fire, The Road to Perdition, Sunshine State

* Blue Velvet
"Heineken? Fuck that shit! PABST BLUE RIBBON!"

* Crass Commercialism Egyptian
For this program, Linda's promises "an evening full of old television commercials from the '50s, '60s, and '70s." They'll also show old film trailers and odd little promo films. In their press release they spell Commercialism as "Comersialisem" but I fixed it in the title. Maybe it's a joke I don't get though. (MEGAN SELING) Linda's

* DIY Or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist
Michael Dean's documentary examines the indie impulse in a series of interviews with the stolid likes of Ian MacKaye, Lydia Lunch, Mike Watt, Jim Rose, Ron Asheton (Stooges), Dave Brockie (GWAR), all of whom have made a point of doing their art their own way, and many of whom have prospered. Dean will present his film in the midst of a jammin' Econo-style West Coast tour. 911 Media Arts Center

Elling
The success of this comedy in its native country, Norway, offers conclusive evidence that the closer one gets to the Arctic Circle the stranger the sense of humor becomes. Nothing in the world would convince anyone who lives near the equator that this film about two madmen who are attempting to reenter regular society as roommates is in the least bit funny. To its credit, Elling does have a few remarkable shots of Oslo. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Seven Gables

* i died
This locally produced murder mystery takes place in a single location, in real time, and even in a single shot, sorta. Using digital trickery, the filmmakers were able to fake the Rope effect, while shooting stretched out over a three-week period. Cool. Seattle Art Museum

* Lagaan
Reviewed this issue. A glorious, three-plus hour Hollywood epic (Once Upon a Time in India is the subtitle) about the ravages of colonialism that culminates in a real-time cricket match. Varsity

Like Mike
The good news: Crispin Glover is in the film, playing the Fagin-like head of a "group home" for racially diverse orphans; this means the filmmakers aren't completely callous morons. The bad news: the movie, which concerns a kid who climbs up on power lines to retrieve some magic Nikes that make him a pro basketball star, is every bit as mediocre and irresponsible as the trailer suggests. It's insulting to kids, indefensible to parents, and abominable to everyone else. At one point fairly early on, I stopped taking notes on the film and just started noting the corporate logos I saw on screen. Here's the list: Nike, Krispy Kreme, Staples, Gatorade, AT&T, TNT, NBC, Jansport, Minute Maid, Coke, Sprite, Sheraton, Crystal Geyser, Mars, Spalding, ESPN, Sharp, Rite Aid, Vicks, USA Today, Washington Mutual, Phat Farm, Scrabble, Yahoo, Independence Day (the movie). I may have missed a few.... (SEAN NELSON) Metro, Grand Alderwood, Woodinville 12, Factoria

Men in Black II
Reviewed this issue. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith return to revisit their lucrative schtick (Jones' is being gravelly and severe; Smith's is ripping off everything Eddie Murphy ever did) in this multi-platform, fully cross-promotionalized sequel. Neptune, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12, Factoria, Oak Tree

Mutant Aliens
Animator Bill Plympton (The Tune) returns to the realm of feature filmmaking with this adaptation of his graphic novel. Little Theatre

* 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. (BRUCE REID) 911 Media Arts Center

* Poets Make Movies
The NWFF continues its Artists Make Movies series with this installment from local verse-smiths, including Rich Jensen (!), Sarah Polle (of Typing Explosion fame), Paul Hunter, and Roberta & John Olson, rocking the Super-8. Little Theatre

* The Powerpuff Girls
This movie sets out to explain the suspicious circumstances by which Professor X (the Puff Daddy) came to give room and board to three female preschoolers for whom he carries not so much as a birth certificate or even a receipt--somewhat unsettling in these times of high-profile kidnapped white girls. Nonetheless the opening credits of the TV show bang out this story in about 20 seconds; it takes the movie 80 minutes. Consequently, this movie's not at all as much fun as watching the show because the overall pace is far less frenetic. Still, comparisons to preposterous greatness aside, this motion picture is mightily worthy. (KUDZAI MUDEDE) Metro, Grand Alderwood, Woodinville 12, Factoria

Pumpkin
Christina Ricci stars as a cheerleader who falls in love with a retard. No, it's not the Sarah Michelle Gellar story; it's Pumpkin, a film that teaches us that even those with severe learning disabilities are in the eye of the beholder. Varsity

Smoke Signals
A road trip shared by two mismatched American Indians: nerdy Thomas Builds-the-Fire (Evan Adams) and tough-guy Victor Joseph (Adam Beach). Victor's heard word that his 10-years-absent father has died. He needs to go to Phoenix to pick up the remains but doesn't have enough money for the trip. Knowing this, Thomas offers the money, but only if he's allowed to go too. As they travel, Thomas recites a steady stream of stories--some true and some made-up, and you never really know which is which--that pull them (and the movie) into the past. Unfortunately, the two main characters don't quite make it past being character types. The reason to see the movie, however, is for its time-shifting structure (and some gorgeous Western Washington cinematography). Chock full of flashbacks, the movie seamlessly transitions from present to past, usually in unbroken shots without the aid of editing. (Andy Spletzer) Belltown Outdoor Cinema

Time of Favor
Reviewed this issue. This potentially interesting thriller, set amidst the political hotbed of Israel, blows it by leaning on Hollywood cliché. Grand Illusion

The Wizard of Oz
Every week is Pride Week! Paramount Theatre

13 Conversations About One Thing
Despite being infinitely better than like-themed yuppie redemption stories (e.g. Pay It Forward), this interweaving meditation of faith, faith, and coincidence still feels like a random series of convenient super-narrative strategies, rather than the circumstantial tapestry it means to be. The acting is both superb (Alan Arkin) and clumsily hyperintentional (Matthew McConnaughey), and the same thing goes for the writing, which finds ways to place its characters in crux moments, but cops out by forcing all these cruxes to connect. An impressive effort, with severe reservations. (SEAN NELSON)

* About a Boy
Directed by Paul and Chris Weitz (of American Pie infamy), this tale of male mid-life angst centers around Hugh Grant's Will, an idler of hilarious proportions. Will has no idea his life is meaningless until he meets a 12-year-old boy whose depressed mother (Toni Collette) forces Will to provide guidance, except that the kid is far more mature than his begrudging father figure. Will can't conceive that his life is unfulfilled, and whenever anyone tries to inform him of what's missing, he digs in his heels and fights to stay a bastard, making his inevitable transformation all the more authentic. (KATHLEEN WILSON)

Bad Company
At the end of the 20th century, meteorites obsessed our cinematic nightmares (see Deep Impact, Armageddon). At the start of the 21st century, these "extinction level" meteorites have been replaced by nuclear bombs. But the nukes that spook our age are not the organized arsenal of the Cold War (Dr. Strangelove to War Games), but small, user-friendly gadgets that can fit comfortably into a laptop case. Also, these nuclear bombs are not managed by big governments but bought and sold on the open market, like used cars. This is the interesting part of Bad Company: it magnifies the most popular nightmare of the day. Outside of that, the film offers nothing but deep boredom. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

* Bartleby
A deft, wonderfully acted transposition of Melville's famous meditation on/screed against soul-killing bureaucracy. This adaptation (shot on video) plays as a kind of existential TV drama, set in a modern office, and starring the great Crispin Glover, probably the only man alive who can credibly take the role of a cipher who says almost nothing other than "I would prefer not to" and make him a compelling figure. His mysterious mantra, coupled with the depressing cheeriness of the set design, give Bartleby an everyman heft, sidestepping the inherent problems of the story, and turning the classic tale into a timeless, absurdist allegory for despair. (SEAN NELSON)

* The Bourne Identity
All preliminary evidence tends to suggest that the film isn't worth bothering with. It's a spy thriller, which Hollywood has long since forgotten how to do right, starring Matt Damon, who, despite being a fine actor, is ineluctably associated with Ben Affleck, who is currently starring in a weak-ass spy thriller of his own. Bourne is directed by Doug Liman, who also made Swingers, which is locked in a death match with Boogie Nights for the title of Worst Movie of the Past 10 Years That Everyone But Me Seems to Love. And it's based on a novel by Robert Ludlum. 'Nuff said. But I'll be hornswaggled if The Bourne Identity isn't a tight, satisfying exponent of its genre. The intrigue is intriguing, the tension is tense, and the action is artful. But let's be frank: what really makes the movie swing is the violence. The fight scenes, in which Bourne instantaneously "remembers" his training in the art of lethally kicking your ass, are killer. They make you clench your fists and punch the air in front of your seat. It's violence with consequences--as illustrated by Clive Owen's excellent death scene--but it's violence: clean, quick, and compelling, like movie violence ought to be. (SEAN NELSON)

City of Lost Souls
Brazilian Mario (an ambivalent hit man) and Chinese Kei (a hairdresser) are lovers on the run from Japanese yakuza and a competitive Chinese gang, trying to make a boat to Taiwan with the help of a Russian guy whose purpose is unclear. Along a way strewn with violence and back-stabbing they become unlikely celebrities, thrown toward a fate that's inevitable and cruelly just. Souls makes much of its deliberate chaos, with displaced, dislocated characters, warring ethnic groups, and a plot that lurches and stalls, although not without a certain elegance. It's also full of violence that doesn't seem to come from anywhere, and since it's so hard to follow the different strands of who wants what from whom, the clashes of nationalities, the alignments and rifts, this violence is maddeningly free-floating, and all the scarier because of it. (EMILY HALL)

Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
Jodie Foster plays a stentorian nun (Catholic males: begin masturbating now), and Kieran Culkin plays the recipient of her stentority in this engaging tale of thwarted sexual energy in parochial school. (SEAN NELSON)

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
An insufferably Lifetime adaptation of the insufferably Oprah novel about an intergenerational cabal of insufferably quasi-Southern Gothic ladies. (TAMARA PARIS)

The Emperor's New Clothes
A quaint, curiously disappointing movie in which the great Ian Holm reprises a role he played to unstoppably brilliant comic effect in Time Bandits: Napoleon. Clothes' primary flaw lies in its conceit. Real Bonaparte died in exile on the rock island of St. Helena. Movie Bonaparte somehow enters the plot of The Man in the Iron Mask from a new angle, trading places with an identical double, and sneaking back to the motherland... where no one believes he's the real thing. It's cute, and Holm is always a total pleasure to watch, but the real story has so much more going on that the fable version just feels misguided. And P.S. Napoleon was a monster, not a lovable curmudgeon. (SEAN NELSON)

* Enigma
Despite its compelling story--Enigma was a Nazi encryption machine that enabled the Germans to create unbreakable codes during WWII; unbreakable, that is, until every math and science nerd in Great Britain got to working on it--and attractive cast--Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Jeremy Northam, Saffron Burrows--Enigma fails to generate much of the heroic suspense it aims at. (SEAN NELSON)

Enough
Jennifer Lopez has had just about enough of her abusive husband (Bill Campbell from The Rocketeer), so she takes some self-defense classes so that she can murder him! You go, girl! Movie = garbage. (KATHLEEN WILSON)

* The Fast Runner
Although the filmmakers have lovingly reconstructed every detail of prehistoric Inuit culture--this being the first feature-length film entirely in the Inuktitut language--by recording life on the infinite tundra with digital-video intimacy, they keep the characters palpably real. Inside glowing igloos and behind roiling teams of sled dogs, the viewer sees a legend sprout from the very ice. I can't wait to go to sleep so I can dream that I am there again. Do not miss this extraordinary film. (MATT FONTAINE)

Hey Arnold! the Movie
A cartoon movie about a cartoon TV show. It's about time, too! I'm guessing Arnold is a nerd who outsmarts some greedy capitalists.

The Importance of Being Earnest
Rupert Everett looks terrible--his face appears to be sliding off his skull, and he's as neckless as a football player. And he should simply stop playing straight men, because he's the most unconvincing lover this side of Passions. Southerner Reese Witherspoon is far too California-girl to play an English lass, with her "I studied with the same voice coach as Gwyneth" accent. Even these quibbles aside, this new adaptation is revolting, too arch by half and with Everett and Colin Firth (who plays Jack Worthing as a kind of stuttering Hugh Grant-type) swallowing all of Oscar Wilde's best lines. You lose everything by method-acting Wilde; his charm lies in all the stagy absurdity of drawing-room social intercourse. Thank God for Judi Dench, steamrolling her way through a terrible situation. (EMILY HALL)

* Insomnia
Every once in a great while, a film comes along that breaks the "remakes-are-always-shitty" rule. Christopher Noland's Insomnia is one of those films. Not only does it match its Danish original, but in many ways it tops it--no minor feat when you take into account the fact that it stars Robin Williams as the villain. Also starring Al Pacino, Hilary Swank, and the great Martin Donovan, Noland's thriller takes its time to unfold, giving each performer ample scenery to gnaw on before arriving at a tight finale. Go see it. (Sidenote: And it's really fucking weird watching Mork fire off a shotgun.) (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* 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)

Juwanna Mann
I dunno. Juwanna punchinthenose? But seriously folks.... This is a movie about a black man who gets thrown out of the NBA for his bad attitude and whose humbling comeuppance is playing with girls.

* Late Marriage
What's best about director Dover's impressive debut chronicling the collision of sex, love, and family duty in modern-day Israel is how unsentimentally he portrays committed love, in all its forms. Whether recording a passionately ambivalent fuck between love-hungry singles or the perpetual resentment between married pairs, Late Marriage refuses to romanticize the struggles--or triumphs--of finding Love Everlasting. Plus, it's got the best sex scene I've seen in years. (DAVID SCHMADER)

Lilo & Stitch
Most people will be going to see this film because (a) it's Disney, (b) it's faux-vintage Disney, replete with hand-painted watercolor backgrounds, or (c) because he or she is five years old. You, however, will go to see this film because the protagonist, a little orphan child named Lilo, sits around her bedroom listening to rock and roll and commanding her big sister to "Leave me alone to die!" The plot is ripped from Frankenstein, and then tweaked to make the mutant adorable and intent on reform. Not too shabby, for a Disney flick--Lilo is the studio's best since Aladdin, and it's a tad less racist, too. (ANNIE WAGNER)

* Minority Report
Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise team up for this well-made futuristic thriller, based on a story by Phillip K. Dick, and featuring several special effects that are identical to ones used in Attack of the Clones. Report works best when Tom Cruise is actually running--he's a future-crimes cop being set up to commit murder--and when the maddeningly glorious Samantha Morton is actually freaking out. Complex in good ways, simple in others, the film marks Spielberg's second attempt at allegorical Kubrick paean (check the allusions to Clockwork Orange) that ends with a cop-out. Still, a worthy effort, and much more intriguing than most sci-fi. (SEAN NELSON)

Monsoon Wedding
At first, it seems like Mira Nair is just doing family drama. The film is stylish, brisk, witty, and beautifully filmed. But within the patchwork of marriage melodrama, Monsoon Wedding presents a subversive argument about the insidiousness of progress and its fluid relationship with tradition. (SEAN NELSON)

Mr. Deeds
The fundamental structure that this production preserves from Capra's original--and perhaps the only plausible grounds for that film's selection in the first place--is a roller coaster of sentimentality. Sandler's take on the sentimental is a world apart from Gary Cooper's; more sly than earnest, the requisite sappy ending functions to reassure rather than stir the viewer. (ANNIE WAGNER)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding
This romantic comedy is based on the one-woman show of Second City alumna Nia Vardalos, who also directs. It tells the story of 30-year-old Toula who searches for love and self-realization.

The New Guy
Why is the obnoxious-dweeb-turned-obnoxious-chick-magnet plot still selling? Why do people pay money for this shit? Why? Why? No. Tell me. Why? (MEG VAN HUYGEN)

* The Piano Teacher
Handjobs. Blowjobs. Rape. Porn. Peeing. Peeping. Bondage. Beatings. Vaginal mutilation. And incest--all set against the insufferably stilted world of Viennese classical music. Maverick director Michael Haneke's latest creation (abomination?) follows a lonely, repressed middle-aged virtuoso pianist (Huppert) and her sadomasochistic relationship with a lovestruck young student (Benoit Magimel). The film broke the bank at Cannes, winning Best Actress, Best Actor and the Grand Jury Prize. While not nearly as brutal as Haneke's Funny Games (1997), Teacher renders an unflinching autopsy of a dream deferred. (FRED MEDICK)

The Revenge of the Creature
Were it not for the presence of the great John Agar, this sequel to The Creature From the Black Lagoon might have been completely unwatchable. Fortunately, there'll be an improv troupe on hand to add funny dialogue. What will they think of next? (SEAN NELSON)

The Rookie
In The Rookie, Dennis Quaid and Disney bring to the screen the real-life story of a baseball player--turned Texas high-school science teacher--turned baseball player. (SONIA RUIZ)

Scooby-Doo
The story is that the Mystery Inc. gang has been reunited and recruited to investigate Spooky Island, a Halloween/Mardi-Gras theme park that's inhabited by demons who steal people's souls. They're commissioned by Rowan Atkinson, who poses as a concerned proprietor but is actually evil instead. He and his demons need a completely pure soul to sacrifice for some voodoo thing, so they lured the kids there to abduct Scooby. There's a midget and a Mexican lucha libre wrestler who go around assaulting the gang. Then everybody's at a beach party, and Fred and Daphne have this sexual undercurrent, Shaggy and Scooby have a fart contest, and Velma gets drunk with some dude. It's not even non sequitur in a funny way. It's cheap and desperate. There's no place for demonic repossession and Busta Rhymes in a Hanna-Barbera production. It's a goddamned shame is what it is. (MEG VAN HUYGEN)

Spider-Man
As filmed by Sam Raimi, Spider-Man trots out a predictable (and cloyingly Victorian) boy-girl story that wastes Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) as a screaming damsel in distress, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) as a cackling villain, and Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) spouting a bunch of pre-fab platitudes. (JOSH FEIT)

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
A cartoon about magic horses. If you like magic horses, you'll LOVE this cartoon.

* Star Wars: Episode II, Attack of the Clones
Attack of the Clones delivers exactly what you should expect from a Star Wars movie. It is big. It is fun. It is an event. From the opening surge of John Williams' familiar score, to the final optical zooming out to the words "Directed by George Lucas," Episode II lives up to the Star Wars myth--a myth that has always meant "stupid fun." Don't agree? Go back and watch the first three. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* The Sum of All Fears
Despite all appearances, there are two good things about the new Tom Clancy movie with Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan. One is a bold plot twist that comes so suddenly that it reconfigures the whole experience in an instant, and almost tricks you into thinking the film is better than it is. The other good thing, almost a great thing, is the casting of Liev Scrheiber in the role of John Clark, CIA spook, and all-around spy genius. The rest is d-u-m dum. (SEAN NELSON)

* Undercover Brother
At first glance, Undercover Brother just looks like a Blaxploitation Austin Powers. Which it is. Fortunately, it happens to be funnier that Austin Powers. No, seriously. I mean it. Littered with gags, some of which fire, many of which don't, it is perfect summer fare--a grand opportunity to get baked and spend an afternoon at the movies (if you're want to do that--and I'm not condoning such behavior, mind you). The story? Does it matter? (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Windtalkers
Nicolas Cage plays Sergeant Joe Enders, assigned to keep Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach), a "Windtalker", (Navajo code breaker) out of harm's way. This involves killing many, many Japanese soldiers, along with single-handedly causing more explosions than were seen in the entire Pacific Theater during the war. Such pyrotechnics are John Woo's specialty, and they are suitably impressive. The only problem is, they don't belong in this movie. Windtalkers is so cheesy, so clunky and hokey, that it nearly offends. The violence is top-notch, but during quiet moments and simple transitions, the film is almost laughably bad. The story of the WWII Windtalkers is fascinating, maybe even important. Unfortunately, here it has been squandered. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* Y Tu Mamá También
As two Mexican teenagers frantically fuck, the boy, Tenoch (Diego Luna), pleads/demands that the girl not screw any Italians on her impending European trip with her best friend. Meanwhile, that best friend is having rushed pre-departure sex with her boyfriend, Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal), who is also Tenoch's best friend. When the girls have left, we settle down to watch these two boys spend an aimless summer. Everything gets thrown sideways when they meet a sexy older woman (that is to say, in her 20s) named Luisa. Y Tu Mamá También is a brilliant, incisive core sampling of life in Mexico. It's both slender and profound; the movie's greatest pleasures are often its smallest ones--even the title comes from a tossed-off bit of banter. Any individual moment could be trivial, silly, pointless, even embarrassing--but the accumulation of moments has a devastating scope. (BRET FETZER)