LIMITED RUN


* Candy Snatchers
A rare print of a '70s exploitation flick where the kidnapping of a teenage girl starts off a drug-flavored, incest-spiked rampage. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.

Changing Light, Night Shooting, Blur the Elastic
Three experimental films accompanied by live music. Rendezvous, Thurs Jan 15 at 7:30 pm.

Detour
Sexy Ann Savage offers hitchiker Tom Neal a ride in this stylish 1945 drama by Edgar G. Ulmer. Rendezvous, Wed Jan 21 at 7:30 pm.

Fans Only: Belle and Sebastian
"Fans only" is a useful caveat. If you don't like twee, it'll be hard to sit through every video the band ever made, plus live footage and interviews. But if you lap up fey like a kitten does milk, you'll relish the opportunity to savor Lance Bangs' great video for "Dirty Dream Number Two." Rendezvous, Thurs Jan 22 at 7 pm.

* Heaven and Helsinki: The Complete Aki Kaurism...ki Retrospective
All films screen at the Grand Illusion. In Shadows in Paradise--the first in Kaurism...ki's self-described "loser trilogy"--Kati Outinen plays a laid-off cashier who falls for a garbage man. Even though they seem a perfect match in the world of the movie, that doesn't stop her from having an affair with her new boss at a clothing store. Kaurism...ki never blames her for this decision, and instead looks at her through the lovesick eyes of the spurned garbage man. Fri 7:45 pm, Sat-Sun 4:30, 7:45 pm. Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana is about two women hitchikers who get a ride from a couple of men on the hunt for vodka. Fri 9:30 pm, Sat-Sun 6:15, 9:30 pm. Out of Kaurism...ki's entire oeuvre, the movies that follow the faux Siberian rock band the Leningrad Cowboys come closest to straight-up comedy: narrative film Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Tues-Thurs 7 pm; and concert film Total Balalaika Show, playing with Kaurism...ki shorts, Tues-Thurs 9 pm. (ANDY SPLETZER)

How to Create a Rumba
Part of EMP's "Jazz on Film" series, this doc focuses on the origins and evolution of Cuban music. JBL Theater at EMP, Fri Jan 16 at 7 pm.

Nazrah, A Muslim Woman's Perspective
See Blow Up. A local production filmed only a few months after 9/11, this documentary features 12 Muslim women expressing their views on just about everything. Filmmakers will be in attendance. Central Cinema, Sat 7 pm, Sun 4 pm.

A New Wonder of the World
"I feel that documentaries should not be made because they diminish their subject," says Gregg Lachow. And yet here he's made one. What is he really up to? The subject of his movie is Ron Drummond, an underemployed Seattle writer who woke up one morning with a design idea for the World Trade Center memorial. Drummond ended up teaching himself how to design and make a model of his vision in order to get his idea noticed. This leads us to the true subject of the movie, self-education. Lachow neither promotes nor derides the design. Instead, he's more interested in teaching himself how to use a camcorder. Full of bad sound, bad lighting, and little sense of forethought and structure, it seems like a sketch from a kid in a coffee shop who's just killing time. It'll be playing with two other 9/11 memorial films: the beautiful short film "October" and Richard Linklater's "Live from Shiva's Dance Floor," starring NYC tour guide/ poet Timothy Speed Levitch. (ANDY SPLETZER) Lachow and Vogt will be in attendance. Little Theatre, Fri-Sun, 7, 9 pm.

One From the Heart
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Mon 2:10, 4:30, 7, 9:20 pm, Tues-Thurs 7, 9:20 pm.

* Perfect Blue
An animated psychological thriller from Satoshi Kon about a pop music star who ends up as a soap opera actress. As though this plot weren't scary enough, her character's life then starts to resemble her own. Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.

Roadie
Meatloaf stars as the titular roadie in Alan Rudolph's 1980 rock cameo-thon. Sunset Tavern, Mon Jan 19 at 8 pm.

Shouting Silent
See Blow Up. A South African documentary about the effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, told through the perspective of an adult AIDS orphan. Central Cinema, Sat 4 pm, Sun 7 pm.

* Stage Door
SAM's Katharine Hepburn series continues with Gregory La Cava's 1937 ensemble piece about a gaggle of stage-struck girls in a boarding house for young actresses. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs Jan 22 at 7:30 pm.

Sylvia Scarlett
This 1935 film crashed and burned upon its initial release, but the prospect of Katharine Hepburn in drag keeps viewers coming back nearly 70 years later. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs Jan 15 at 7:30 pm.

* They Drive By Night
My second-favorite Humphrey Bogart film (first place: In a Lonely Place), They Drive By Night, is the story of two struggling trucking brothers and the various shenanigans they embroil themselves in. Also starring George Raft and Ida Lupino, it's a quiet classic, well written and extremely well designed. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Movie Legends, Sun Jan 18 at 1 pm.

* Tokyo Story
A poignant 1953 film by Yasujiro Ozu about the failure of several adult children living in Tokyo to welcome their visiting parents. Thomson Hall Room 125 at the University of Washington, Tues Jan 20 at 5:30 pm.

Truck Stop Still Lifes
See Blow Up. Three short films by Bill Brown. 911 Media Arts, Sat Jan 17 at 8 pm.

We Can Now Be Heard
We Can Now Be Heard, a doc exploring the history of the reproductive rights movement, is being screened to commemorate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. New Freeway Hall, Thurs Jan 15 at 7:30 pm. NOW PLAYING


* 21 Grams
Though fragmented and seemingly random, 21 Grams is musical; it feels, moves, and concludes like a massive musical composition. 21 Grams is not a perfect work of art--it gets to be a bit long toward the end--but as with all great music, it manages to leave, once all of its parts come together, a strong impression on the senses. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Along Came Polly
Ben Stiller as an uptight suit and Jennifer Aniston as the kooky floozy who distracts him from his curds and whey.

* Bad Santa
Thank the Lord someone has finally helped take the piss out of Christmas with a pure, spitefully cynical spirit. And that person, surprisingly, is Billy Bob Thornton. The usually despicable actor is the pants-wetting, booze-swilling Man in Red crowning the sour Christmas tree that is Bad Santa. Allowing me to review this movie was one of the best Christmas gifts I could receive this year; it's the antithesis of a feel-good film--actually, it's a feel-shitty film that, if you love brutal humor, will warm you like spiked eggnog. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

Big Fish
Tim Burton's Big Fish is an ungainly, rambling piece of work built upon a bed of lies. The liar: a man named Ed Bloom who has spent his life spinning outrageous tales about himself, including run-ins with witches and giants, Siamese twins, and massive, uncatchable fish (hence the title). Sappy and cluttered, the entirety of Big Fish doesn't quite hold together. It is a well-meaning effort, but it ends up missing its marks. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Calendar Girls
At the end of Calendar Girls I walked out of the theater knowing the film wasn't quite as good as the condition of Helen Mirren's naked breasts made me want to believe it was--for all its lovely scenery and romantically sexual botanical metaphor, the movie's pace jerks abruptly between breezy and boring. (KATHLEEN WILSON)

Chasing Liberty
Chasing Liberty depends on the appeal of Mandy Moore as the daughter of the president. It assumes we'll buy that her charm and goodwill make international relations fall into place like so many Scrabble tiles. Except that she is not in the least appealing, which causes the plot to collapse at the center, sucking the whole movie into a dark vortex and pushing it out the other side like a prolapsed intestine. (EMILY HALL)

Cheaper by the Dozen
Speaking from a former nanny's point of view, unless you're expressly accompanying a child, don't be tempted by Cheaper by the Dozen's star power (Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Ashton Kutcher), the charming 1950 original starring Myrna Loy and Clifton Webb, or, well, Ashton Kutcher--this is the kind of kid's fare that is to be savored by the parent/caretaker once it's out on video. (KATHLEEN WILSON)

* Cold Mountain
Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain is a burly, brooding romantic epic set during the Civil War and starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renée Zellweger. Minghella steers the film into a few minor rough spots (including a somewhat clumsy beginning, and an occasionally annoying performance by Zellweger as a lodger who helps Kidman on her farm), but the picture as a whole delivers a big, heartfelt epic. It is a film that is both affecting and passionate, and it makes you believe that no matter how many inane love stories Hollywood produces, romance still isn't dead. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

The Cooler
The Cooler is a small, unremarkable film that has been getting a decent amount of attention due to one simple thing: sex. In the film, director Wayne Kramer has managed to give audiences something all too rare in films these days, and that something is a sexy scene that not only causes the audience to flush, but makes sense to them as well. But the film itself feels cluttered and unfocused, especially as it limps toward a ridiculous climax that not only doesn't work, but nearly undermines the entire picture. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring is stuffy to a fault, no matter how many shots of Scarlett Johansson's pout director Peter Webber can fit in, and the final tally falls somewhere between the best of Merchant Ivory and the worst of Merchant Ivory. Which is to say this: It is a well-made but nonetheless empty and, quite often, outright dull affair. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Haunted Mansion
Disney's third film in two years to mine theme-park attractions in place of recognizable plot structure (see Pirates of the Caribbean and The Country Bears--I'm still waiting to see how they're gonna pull a narrative out of those damned spinny teacups), The Haunted Mansion is an exotic thrill ride of humor and excitement and... oh, wait, I'm sorry--I was thinking of something else altogether. (ZAC PENNINGTON)

House of Sand and Fog
House of Sand and Fog is about many things, including stature and safety, racism and compassion, history and addiction. What it is not about, sadly, is subtle directing; blessed with great performances and an interesting story, the film is nearly derailed by ham-fisted direction from first-time director Vadim Perelman. Which is too bad, since Perelman definitely has talent with actors--if only he'd let up on the thundering score. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

In America
Director Jim Sheridan always turns up the emotion in his films, but at least his earlier movies took place in faraway Ireland. When all this emotion is suddenly close to home and out of its usual cultural environment, it's rather obnoxious and exasperating. Like a truck whose brakes have been tampered with, the emotion in this movie rolls uncontrollably down a steep road, swerving from side to side, until it finally hits a big tree. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

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. (ZAC PENNINGTON)

Last Samurai
We have all seen The Last Samurai before when it was called Gladiator, or Lawrence of Arabia, or Dances with Wolves, and because of this, all the film can offer is the sight of Tom Cruise wielding a lengthy sword--a thought sure to excite fans of childish metaphor, but they may be the only ones. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

* Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
After greeting the first two films with slack-jawed reverence, I found myself viewing the third with a kind of grumpy anticipation. What I soon discovered, however, was that the begrudging-ness of my affection for the film was no match for Peter Jackson's swashbuckling craft. If this is just a fantasy, Jackson seems to say, it's going to deliver on every level available. And it does. Unburdened from the need to be relevant, the director reveals a far deeper mission: to make these absurd surroundings not only cinematically credible, but emotionally resonant. (SEAN NELSON)

* 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)

* Master and Commander
If Master and Commander sounds soundly square, that's because square is exactly what the film is; massive and solidly made, Peter Weir's picture is a throwback, of sorts, to the works of David Lean, delivering the sort of rousing, smart, and earnest adventure rarely delivered nowadays. It has been far too long since I'd felt the joy and excitement such spectacular entertainment as Master and Commander provides. This is not to say the film is equal to Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, but that it reminds one of that film's greatness. Big and loud, thrilling and expensive, it is the type of film that only major Hollywood studios can produce. It is also, perhaps, the best work a major Hollywood studio will produce all year. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Mona Lisa Smile
There is an extraordinary scene in Mike Newell's Mona Lisa Smile, an emotionally brutal few moments in which the perilously cracked veneer blocking the anger within Kirsten Dunst's privileged and viperous Wellesley girl splinters away, releasing a storm of cruel, outward criticism in footage that aches with the character's underlying self-hatred. Rather than strike back, however, the girl's classmate (Maggie Gyllenhaal) wordlessly wraps her arms around the shaking, still screaming student, and by sheer force of empathy directs the torrent to cease. This scene is in the tradition of Newell's Enchanted April, and it helps demonstrate the director's canny awareness of the secret language spoken silently among women. (KATHLEEN WILSON)

* Monster
There are many things that work in Monster, beginning with the much-praised performance by its lead, Charlize Theron. Saddled with 20 extra pounds, buried beneath grime and makeup, Theron is outright amazing in the film, and her performance as killer Aileen Wuornos will surely rank high on lists this year. However, on the whole, the picture is so bleak and depressing that it is nearly intolerable. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

My Baby's Daddy
I wish I could tell you this movie was a biopic about the Virgin Mary, but alas, it's about a bunch of guys whose girlfriends get pregnant at the same time.

* 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)

Paycheck
John Woo takes on the classic cinematic themes of amnesia and bags of money.

Peter Pan
P. J. Hogan's Peter Pan is big and colorful and only occasionally scary. It is also aimed directly at the tykes; sugary and sappy, it is a triumph of special effects and completely harmless as entertainment. Which may be its biggest problem. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER

* 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)

Something's Gotta Give
Here is a movie so filled with unappealing, uninteresting people, inane, pandering dialogue, and contemptuous pop psychologizing that it is humiliating to watch. I spent most of the film doodling on my notebook, in the dark. Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton spoof their on-screen personas--his cad, her compulsive nervous wreck--so thoroughly that they may very well erase years of good work in the process (and never mind that in this token bone tossed to the elderly among us who are apparently longing for a romantic comedy of their own, the lady is still a good 10 years younger than the gent). And do you really want to see Nicholson's bare ass? (EMILY HALL)

* 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 (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)

Teacher's Pet
A boy and his mother go to Florida for a vacation and a teacher's conference. The mother is single, and the boy has a close relationship with his dog, which talks, is brighter than his master, and wants to be a human. While left under the supervision of an old, purblind woman during his master's vacation, the depressed dog learns from TV of a mad scientist who can convert animals into humans. The mad scientist lives in the swamps of Florida; deciding that this is now or never, the dog follows his master and his master's mother to the swamps of Florida. The cartoon has several funny moments, and is short. My son Ebenezer, who is seven, thought it was a great film and highly recommends it. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Torque
A shit-eating redux of that golden cinematic nugget known as The Fast & the Furious, Biker Boyz puts our urban heroes atop whining Hondas... wait, this isn't Biker Boyz? Could've fooled me.

* The Triplets of Belleville
Writer-director-animator Sylvain Chomet invokes the same absurdly entertaining and overwhelmingly brown nostalgia that Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro tapped into for Delicatessen and City of Lost Children (all three filmmakers are indebted to Terry Gilliam's Brazil). The world Chomet has created contains the same deadpan sadness that lies at the base of those films, not to mention Buster Keaton's comedy--the world may be a cold and lonely place, but with a little inventiveness you can not only survive, but prosper. (ANDY SPLETZER)

The Young Black Stallion
Are you an 11-year-old girl who loves horses? No? Then, I'm afraid to say, this might not be the movie for you. Sorry. (AMY JENNIGES)