LIMITED RUN


6000 Degrees of Black Men Reelized
See Blow Up. Central Cinema, Sat at 6:30 pm. Sun at 4 pm.

Audrey Hepburn Miniseries
See Stranger Suggests. Grand Illusion, see Movie Times for details.

* The City of Lost Children
Hands down, one of the most visually stunning, heartbreaking, surreal films ever made. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's (Delicatessen) compelling, sympathetic tale of a little girl named Miette (and other scraggly orphans) who must face a nightmarish world of creepy adults and frightening villains who have lost the ability to dream. A must-see on the big screen, especially if you're slightly tipsy. Egyptian, Fri-Sat at midnight.

Deborah Stratman Films
See Blow Up. Little Theatre, Mon at 8 pm.

THE GOOD WAR AND THOSE WHO REFUSED TO FIGHT IT

Given all the parallels drawn by our government between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, it's a particularly good moment to see this documentary about conscientious objectors during WWII. The documentary is a little scant on their religious and philosophical reasons, but delves compellingly into the alternative paths these men took, and how many later took part in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements. (BRET FETZER) Independent Media Center, Sun at 7:30.

Grateful Dead Vault Party
The worst thing ever to happen to illicit drug use returns in big-ass video form with a big-ass screening of the soon-to-be-released DVD, originally recorded on New Year's Eve, 1978. Sky Church at EMP, Fri at 7 pm.

INVESTIGATING SEX
See Blow Up. Let's see... how many different premises can we come up with to get naked people in sexual situations? How about if we set the film in the "libertine bohemian circles" of 1920s New England, with a pair of sexy female stenographers employed to document the "frank and sexually charged discussions" of a group of young men determined to... heavens... discuss sex OPENLY. Seattle Art Museum, Tues at 7:30 pm.

M
Fritz Lang's distinguished 1931 classic captures pre-war Germany in the grasp of a child murderer--framed with unnerving patience and a surprisingly effective use of early sound. Rendezvous, Wed at 7:30 pm.

* OLYMPIA FILM FESTIVAL
Despite the number of film fests going on in town lately, this one is worth an hour's drive--not only for the movies they're showing, but for the sense of community that runs through Olywood like a plumb line. The locus is Olympia's fabulous Capitol Theater. See www.OlympiaFilmFestival.org for details.

The Omen
"Wrong? What could be wrong with our child Robert? We're beautiful people, aren't we?" Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat at 11 pm.

Party Monster
Party Monster has everything: A grisly true story--the rise and fall of murderous club kid Michael Alig (Macaulay Caulkin)--torn from the tabloids; colorful, drug-addled cartoons for characters; and a vibrant, squalid setting in the New York nightclub scene of the '90s. And it does a breathtaking job of squandering it all. Before his conviction for the 1996 killing of drug dealer Angel Melendez, promoter Alig rose from the lowest ranks of serfdom (his character is introduced cleaning a washroom) to become the leader of a tribe of nightlife loving freaks so devoid of any ambitions--save getting dressed up, fucked up, and photographed--that they made Warhol's "superstars" seem like Nobel prize contenders. But while the club kids were shallow, they were rarely dull, a distinction lost on Caulkin, who delivers his lines as flat and tentatively as an uninspired ESL student. As Alig's foil and mentor James St. James, Seth Green provides a couple laughs; he's not afraid to camp it up, and appreciates that in such a vacuous setting, it takes only the tiniest hint of sincerity, tempered with incredulity, to seem genuine. Party Monster boasts some eye-popping costumes, and a catchy, albeit anachronistic, soundtrack. That's it. It fails as a drug flick; characters OD with the regularity of geriatrics passing at naptime--and with just as little drama. The film makes Melendez's death by bludgeoning seem like a welcome release. Would that it didn't take 98 interminable minutes to finish off the job. (KURT B. REIGHLEY) Varsity

Polish Film Festival
So, you say you're in the mood for some award-winning Polish films? Well have I got a festival for you! Broadway Performance Hall, see www.polishfilms.org for details.

* Power Trip
An American company buys an ailing state-run electricity company in the Georgian Republic only to find that most of the customers have never seen a bill. More documentary than comedy, Trip also treats us to first-rate, third-world humor. 911 Media Center, Fri at 8 pm.

* Pretend
See Blow Up. Consolidated Works, Thurs-Sun at 8 pm.

Queen: Live at Wembley '86
The Sunset celebrates the newly reissued DVD release of a 17-year-old Queen concert--with a second disc committed entirely to the study of Freddie Mercury's mustache. Sunset Tavern, Mon at 8 pm.

* Sex, Guns and Batman
See Blow Up. Little Theatre, see Movie Times for details.

SNEAK
After six years of success in the Bay Area as the Camera Cinema Club, this film preview series returns as SNEAK in Seattle. For more information check out the website www.sneakfilms.com. Pacific Place, Sun at 10 pm.

NOW PLAYING


Alien
"The answer is negative."

Beyond Borders
Beyond Borders opens and closes in London, with jaunts to such cheery locales as Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Chechnya along the way. It stars the great Clive Owen and the rapidly deteriorating Angelina Jolie. It aims to be an important, life-affirming romance. It is, in a word, a disaster. This should come as no real surprise, for the film's premise--love among relief workers--shoots up a number of warning flares. A bloom of romance among starvation and genocide? The heart surely melts--after all, nothing spells sexy like the Khmer Rouge. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Brother Bear
The Disney movie you have to take your kids to between Pixar movies.

* Bubba Ho-Tep
In an East Texas convalescent home, a penis-cancer-ridden Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) are awaiting death. The two geezers are revitalized when they band together to fight a mummy who's been sucking the souls out of old people's asses. Surprise number one is that the film, while being a complete piece of trash, is actually pretty great. Aside from its crackpot intelligence, fine acting, deadpan absurdity, and startling sweetness, however, Bubba Ho-Tep is exactly what you'd expect. (SEAN NELSON)

Die Mommie Die!
Die Mommie Die! is packed with witty banter and drop-dead set pieces that simultaneously pay homage to and send up B movies, Douglas Sirk's melodramas, and '50s boilerplate women's pictures. And Charles Busch (Psycho Beach Party) is the perfect leading lady for it. (NATE LIPPENS)

* Elephant
There are many faults in Gus Van Sant's Elephant, including subpar acting, a pretentious eye, and an over-saturation of time-lapse photography (by now one of the stalest tools in Van Sant's arsenal). But there is also something mysterious and engaging about it, something that follows you home after you've left the theater. It's a haunting piece of work, one that refuses to take a stand on a weighty social concern, and instead uses light and film stock to bring not the meaning of a tragic event, but the feeling of it, to an audience. It is, in short, pure cinema. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Elf
No matter how tanked you get before you hit the theater, nothing will change the fact that Elf is a kids' movie. Written and directed by a softened John Favreau (Swingers), Elf is the vehicle that finally puts Will Ferrell on the Jim Carrey path from adult comedian to sensitive family-movie guy. Not that there's anything really wrong with that, but for my comedic dollar, I'd stick with Ferrell's Old School way of doing things. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

The Human Stain
Director Robert Benton spends most of the film focusing on the relationship between a professor (Sir Anthony Hopkins, a Welshman playing a Jew who is actually an African American) and the last love of his life, a janitor played by a terribly thin Nicole Kidman. The janitor is attracted to the professor's prestige; the professor is attracted to the janitor's youth. They have hot sex and eventually fall in love, and it is the quality of this fall into love, its problems, its complexities, the scandal it generates, that the film revolves around. The conclusion of the affair is the substance of The Human Stain. Nevertheless, the film manages to be lyrical, and the love affair ends, as all love affairs end, tragically. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

In The Cut
Much ink has already been spilled over Jane Campion's In the Cut, specifically in regard to its star, Meg Ryan, whose performance critics and other scribblers have labeled a "departure." But unless by "departure" they mean "from her clothes," I find the hullabaloo a little perplexing. Yes, yes, "America's Sweetheart" engages in pseudo-explicit coitus with her co-star, Mark Ruffalo, but outside of all the slap 'n' tickle, Ryan's performance offers very little to surprise. Still, this doesn't mean that Ryan is bad in the film, for she's not--she's merely adequate, if a little bland, in a bad picture. And In the Cut is indeed a bad picture; surprisingly bad, really, given the pedigree involved. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Intolerable Cruelty
To malign Intolerable Cruelty as the worst Coen Brothers film to date is really only a testament to their decades of consistency--a legacy of quirk and pop vision that seems to only improve with age. And despite its relative visual artlessness, Cruelty boasts quality (if not altogether brilliant) performances, a decent amount of humor, and some of the Coen's lyrical delivery. Even the worst Coen Brother's movie is still a Coen Brother's movie. But with its slapdash directions--and their names deeply buried amongst the screen credits--the whole debacle comes off with the sense that they owed somebody a favor. (ZAC PENNINGTON)

* Kill Bill Vol. 1
The first half of Quentin Tarantino's opus has very little character development, only the thinnest of stories, and more severed limbs than you can count. It is brilliant. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Looney Tunes Back In Action
See review this issue. Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

* Lost In Translation
Lost in Translation is a tiny movie, as light as helium and draped upon the thinnest of plots. There is very little conflict, and even fewer twists and turns. It is as close to a miracle as you're likely to get this year. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Love Actually
"Trite" doesn't begin to describe Love Actually, a movie that America will probably gobble up like grease in a bucket of gravy because it's about love and Christmas, and who doesn't like love at Christmas? And really, who doesn't love Hugh Grant? (JENNIFER MAERZ)

* Luther
In Luther, which is directed by Eric Till and stars Shakespeare in Love's Joseph Fiennes as Martin Luther, the German theologian is portrayed as a radical liberal, as a man who spoke for the people and openly opposed the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church--its politics, its reading of the Bible, its shameless profiteering from the suffering and ignorance of the poor. Luther is successful because it's not really about Martin Luther at all, but about the general mood of an important period in Western history. The way the film is edited, written, photographed, and directed captures, as if from a mountaintop, a wider, larger arena of events, so that what is seen is not an individual but a whole society under great transformation. Not the will of Luther but the will of the abused German masses fuels the motor of this movie's epic narrative. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Master and Commander: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD See review this issue. Cinerama, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Majestic Bay, Neptune, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Woodinville 12

* Matchstick Men
Ridley Scott has never been known for a feather touch; when given the choice during his lengthy career between beauty of image and subtlety of character, image has almost always trounced. But surprisingly, subtlety is in abundance in his new picture Matchstick Men, and the result is his best film since Thelma & Louise. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Matrix Revolutions
And so the bloated series ends, bringing about a resolution to the toil and tomfoolery of Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, et al. What is the Matrix? Who is the Oracle? Are the Machines defeated? For those who still care, each of these questions is answered, in a way, by the conclusion of the trilogy, which means that geeks obsessed with the Wachowski brothers' tangled vision will surely depart the multiplex happy--or, if not happy, at least fully armed with plenty to argue about. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* Mystic River
For all the "inexorability" and "meditation" of its violence, Mystic River feels desperately contrived. Whether director Clint Eastwood has some deep understanding of the nature of violence remains unclear. What is certain is that he knows how to make a movie, even a dumb one, well worth watching. I only wish someone would send him some better books. (SEAN NELSON)

Pieces Of April
Starring Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, and Oliver Platt, Pieces of April has a look and feel that I hesitate to label "documentary-like." Gritty due to its transfer of digital to celluloid and mainly handheld, there is a certain spontaneity in the film, almost an improvised feel, that is enhanced by the sharp cast. Clarkson is particularly good, becoming the heart of the film that the rest of the group rotates around. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* Returner
Returner is a popcorn movie, plain and simple--where ultimately story takes a backseat to the kick-ass action, and the whole thing comes together to form an entertaining jumble. (ANDY SPLETZER)

Runaway Jury
Runaway Jury is completely solid and completely unsurprising--a John Grisham adaptation in the A Time to Kill vein, which is to say this: It is watchable Hollywood tripe.

Scary Movie 3
Be warned: 4's already in the fucking can. No, seriously.

* School Of Rock
Like Kindergarten Cop, the concept behind Rock is one of those near-hokey ones where "kids teach us more than we teach them," and where, in the end, everybody wins in some way because everybody loosens up a bit. What makes this movie different, though is that it tackles the parts of rock culture where people take themselves way too seriously, a subject that could use a little unwinding of its panties. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

Seabiscuit
Maybe I'm too cynical for Triumphant Lessons like this, but I like a little more grit under the nails of my Hollywood movies, and the manicured emotions in Seabiscuit are a bit too Hallmark for me, even if they are based on a true story. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

Shattered Glass
See review this issue. Woodinville 12, Uptown

* The Station Agent
Peter Dinklage plays Finbar McBride, a train aficionado who inherits an abandoned depot. The remote location suits him fine because he's not the most social of people. That doesn't stop the nearby Cuban hot dog vendor Joe (Bobby Cannavale) from talking to him, nor does it stop the woman who almost runs him over (Patricia Clarkson) from stopping by for an apologetic drink or several. They befriend him despite his better efforts to brush them off. Dinklage is positively magnetic here: what director Tom McCarthy has captured in his debut feature is a sense of happy loneliness--those times when it feels right to go for a walk and just look around and not talk to anyone. (ANDY SPLETZER)

Sylvia
The problem with this story is that Plath's poetry is still more interesting than her life, no matter how cinematically you portray it, no matter how attractive the actors. (EMILY HALL)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Tobe Hooper's classic gets raped by Michael Bay and Marcus Nispel.

Tupac: Resurrection
See review this issue. Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12