LIMITED RUN

59 Seconds International Film/Video Festival
Selections from the Tribeca festival showcasing films that are 59 seconds in length. Many also incorporate the number 59 in some way. 911 Media Arts Center, Fri Dec 2 at 8 pm.

Alien
A screening of the 1979 movie, hosted by critic Kathleen Murphy. JBL Theater at EMP, Sun Dec 4 at 4 pm.

Back to the Basics: Food and Water
A movie about scurvy! And other vitamin deficiencies. Capitol Hill Library, Wed Dec 7 at 6 pm.

Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt
See review this issue. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Wed 7, 9 pm.

The Black Pirate
An early Technicolor film starring matinee idol Douglas Fairbacks as a neophyte pirate. Northwest Film Forum, Sat-Sun 1 pm.

Brokeback Mountain
A sneak preview of the gorgeous new Ang Lee film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, and Michelle Williams. Better known as "the gay cowboy movie." For tickets, see www.seattlefilm.org. Pacific Place, Thurs Dec 8 at 7 pm.

Café Lumière
See review this issue. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Wed 7, 9 pm.

The Cockettes
A funny, well-constructed video documentary about a troupe of revolutionary, socialist, hippie, drag queen midnight-movie performers in San Francisco in the—surprise!—late '60s. They took a lot of drugs, broke a lot of rules, and sucked a lot of cocks, and everyone loved them. But once they took their show to New York, they discovered that hipster and hippie didn't match. Features interviews with survivors and witnesses (including John Waters), and opens a window into one of the most unusual cultural miscegenations in semi-recent history. Also: genitals! (SEAN NELSON) Central Cinema, Thurs-Sat 7, 9:15 pm. (Late show 21+).

Diggers Benefit Party
A fundraising party for the local short "Diggers," featuring food, wine, music, and screenings of the filmmakers' previous work. Francine Seders Gallery, Thurs Dec 1 at 7 pm.

Double Suicide
A film about lovestruck bunraku puppets. Gowan Hall #201, UW campus, Thurs Dec 8 at 7:30 pm.

Independent Exposure
A short film and video programming featuring live action and animated movies from around the globe. Central Cinema, Wed Dec 7 at 7 and 9 pm.

The Killing
Stanley Kubrick's harsh 'n' dirty crime story (1956), in which an ex-con fails miserably at masterminding a racetrack robbery. With Sterling Hayden and Timothy Carey. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs Dec 8 at 7:30 pm.

The Kodachrome Memoirs
A live film utilizing 11 field recordings and over 1,000 slides. S.S. Marie Antoinette, Fri Dec 2 at 7, 9 pm.

The Life Aquatic
Long stretches of The Life Aquatic feel malnourished, as if Wes Anderson spent so much energy creating the film's distinct reality that he forgot to provide reasons for that reality to exist. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.

Mutiny on the Bounty
A famous revolution in a very confined space inspired this Oscar-winning film by Frank Lloyd. Cinema Club, Sun Dec 4 at 1 pm.

Niagara
Marilyn Monroe is the femme fatale in this film noir set at the famous falls. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs Dec 1 at 7:30 pm.

The Overture
See review this issue. Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7, 9 pm, Sat 3, 5, 7, 9 pm, Sun 5, 7, 9 pm.

Pootie Tang
Writer/director Louis C.K. has delivered a rare treasure: a brilliant, hilarious comedy whose sole intention is to be as ridiculous and silly as possible. Pootie Tang (Lance Crouther) is a hero to all—one-third John Shaft, one-third Michael Jackson, one-third Mr. T—a holy black dude born cool, strutting around with his shirt open, dodging bullets with casual ease, and making public service announcements telling kids not to eat fast food, drink whiskey, smoke cigarettes, or drop out of school. This enrages Corporate America, which tries to destroy Pootie by stealing his magic belt. Here's the thing, though: Pootie doesn't speak English, nor any other recognizable tongue. He talks in gibberish syllables ("wa da tah," "tippi tai on my cappatown") that everyone understands. It pulls the film—which, to be fair, starts struggling around the 45-minute mark—into the realm of pure absurdism every time Pootie opens his mouth. (SEAN NELSON) Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.

Pulse
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun 2, 4:30, 7:10, 9:40 pm, Mon-Thurs 7:10, 9:40 pm.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun 1:30, 3:30, 5:30, 7:30 pm, 9:30, Mon-Thurs 7:10, 9:40 pm.

SIFF Poster Auction and Screening
The poster auction is out of the regular Seattle International Film Festival and it has conveniently landed smack dab in the middle of holiday gift-buying season. You can also stay for a rare screening of the Robert Siodmak film noir Christmas Holiday. Central Cinema, Sun Dec 4 at 4 pm.

Singin' in the Rain
The best movie musical, and maybe the most completely satisfying, purely pleasing movie period. If you've seen it, you needn't be reminded that the film offers Gene Kelly at his nattiest and Donald O'Connor at his sidekickiest, in addition to great tunes by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, and cinematic self-awareness at its most delightful. (SEAN NELSON) Central Cinema, Sat noon, 2, 4:15 pm, Sun noon, 2 pm.

Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and Crisis in Masculinity
An educational video about the relationship between pop culture and conceptions (and crises) of masculinity. Keystone Church, Fri Dec 2 at 7 pm.

Vibrator
This suggestively titled film is a road movie from Japan. Gowan Hall #201, UW campus, Thurs Dec 1 at 7:30 pm.

NOW PLAYING

The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Surprisingly smart and unashamed of a little jolt to the heartstrings, it's a sly movie, happy to shock occasionally, but happier still to bless its characters with the intelligence sorely lacking from most comedies. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Aeon Flux
Four hundred years in the future, a nasty totalitarian government and a ruthless group of rebels are about to go to war. Charlize Theron is caught between the two sides as the inscrutable rogue agent, Aeon Flux.

Ballets Russes
This excellent documentary may indulge in a bit of nostalgia for the days when the middle class couldn't get enough high culture, but the story it has to tell is fiery and engrossing. In 1929 Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russe collapsed and two years later, Colonel Wassily de Basil and René Blum revived the company, making stars of choreographers such as George Balanchine and Léonide Massine, stocking the corps with the children of aristocratic Russian émigrés, and ultimately splitting into two rival camps. Through blurry but evocative archival footage, hysterical newspaper headlines, and aging ballet dancers who clearly relish their new roles as raconteurs, Ballets Russes spins a glamorous, multivalent, and deeply political tale. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Bee Season
In a battle of the spelling-bee movies, would you rather see a thrilling documentary about the crazy orthographic passions that bring kids together and the heartbreaking class disparities that pull them apart, or an overbaked narrative feature about a troubled upper-middle-class family (aren't they all?) and their needy spiritual journeys? If the former, you're sane: Rent Spellbound. If the latter, then Bee Season is your movie. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Capote
Despite its limited scope—it addresses only the years that Truman Capote was writing his groundbreaking In Cold Blood, about a Kansas robbery turned quadruple murder—you want to call the film, after the fashion of ambitious biographies, "A Life." Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Truman Capote, and his is an enveloping performance, in which every flighty affectation seems an invention of the man rather than the impersonator. His pursed lips and bons mots and the ravishing twirls of his overcoat become more and more infrequent until all that's left is alcohol and a horrible will to power. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Chicken Little
Really this movie is about the cutest chicken ever and an effing hilarious goldfish who doesn't even talk but does some of the funniest shit. (MEGAN SELING)

Derailed
Derailed shows a gratifying fidelity to the B&W filmmakers of yore, with an ideal lead performance by Clive Owen as a poor schlub all too aware of the source of his personal quicksand. Man and woman (Jennifer Aniston, showing some surprising brass) meet on a train, am-scray to a cheap hotel in order to violate their respective wedding vows, and get caught mid-thrust by an armed baddie (Irreversible's Vincent Cassel, laying on the sleaze with a trowel), who proceeds to use his knowledge of the infidelity to drain Owen of his life savings. Desperate plans, triple-crosses, and severe bodily trauma quickly ensue. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

First Descent
Five snowboarders head to Alaska to totally shred the nature.

Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Get Rich tells the story of cash-hungry Marcus (50 Cent), who as a kid is unwilling to relinquish materialistic urges even after his drug-dealing mother is murdered. He shuns life with his poor grandparents for the street, falling into a crew of crack slingers. From there ensues a life of bloodshed—drive-by shootings, turf tortures, and, of, course, 50 taking nine bullets and coming back from the dead to rap about the experience. The movie isn't flawless—the female roles are especially stereotypical—but Get Rich works as a suspenseful tale of street-entrepreneur-turned-marketing-goldmine. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

Good Night, and Good Luck.
Documenting the Red Scare clash between Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Joseph McCarthy, George Clooney's second trip behind the lens is a largely terrific picture: a scathing social document submerged within a deeply pleasurable entertainment. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The fourth Harry Potter: In which Harry takes off his shirt, learns the value of altruism, and discovers that Lord Voldemort has no nose. Mike Newell's take on the J. K. Rowling franchise is less appealing than the last installment, by Alfonso Cuarón, but then again, who ever said puberty was enchanting? Compared to the initial volumes, the fourth novel gets slightly darker, and Newell takes this development literally. From the unsettling dream that kicks off the action to the kids' dawn return to the newly menacing Hogwarts, the camera rarely pokes above a foreboding blue murk. Harry battles dragons, rescues drowning friends, and faces down a waxy, noseless Ralph Fiennes and his troupe of Death Eaters in Klan hoods. It's exciting enough; but lacking both the wonder of the first movies and the poignant subtext Harry's adolescence was supposed to herald, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire isn't much more than a kiddie action movie. (ANNIE WAGNER)

The Ice Harvest
Set within the relative hell of a Kansas Christmas Eve, the film is joltingly, brazenly nasty, with a pair of beautifully hangdog performances by John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. Save for a last-minute stumble, it delivers the sinister goods. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

In the Mix
Usher gets mixed up in the mob.

Jarhead
William Broyles Jr.'s script follows third-generation marine (Jake Gyllenhaal) on his downward slide toward would-be killing machine, from boot camp humiliations (via tough-ass lifer Jamie Foxx) and the further depersonalization of sniper training to eagerly awaiting his chance to go kick Saddam's ass. Once he arrives in the desert, however, boredom quickly sets in, as he and his fellow roughnecks find themselves fruitlessly wandering around looking for something to shoot at. While this period of downtime is Jarhead's strongest segment (especially when focusing on the overly gung-ho antics of Peter Sarsgaard's lizardy sniper), it also accentuates the film's basic problem with character. Despite the occasional voiceover, Gyllenhaal's character largely remains a cipher, with a near-to-total lack of backstory. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Just Friends
Chris Brander loved his high school best friend, Jamie Palamino, a lot—but not as much as he loved pancakes! You see, back in high school, Chris was a big, dumb, retainer-clad, jiggly fatty, and Jamie was a popular, jock-datin', fat-male-best-friend-havin' babe. After high school, Chris moves to L.A., where he learns how to eat a salad, loses the fat suit, and becomes wealthy. Then, one Christmas, he finds himself back in his hometown (I won't tell you how, but wackiness is involved) and things unfold exactly as you'd expect. I can't recommend that you go see this movie. But if Just Friends came on TBS on a wintry Sunday afternoon, I wouldn't turn it off. I'm just saying. (LINDY WEST)

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shane Black's directorial debut, is a riotously meta piss-take on Hollywood excess. Shifting his sights to the detective story, Black creates a vulgar wonderland chock-full of body parts and snappy patter. If, as some have speculated, Satan is involved in Black's career, Satan deserves a raise. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

The Legend of Zorro
The story is pure retread (of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, specifically), involving an evil Frenchman (of course), a crackpot scheme (of course), and a dangerous soap (huh?). Swords clang, the music swells, and things go boom—with pulse-deadening results. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Paradise Now
Filmed in the volatile West Bank, Paradise Now follows Palestinian mechanic Said (superb newcomer Kaid Nashef) and his amiably goofy friend as they are chosen to carry out a terrorist act in Tel Aviv. As zero hour approaches, Said makes his peace with his unknowing family, resists the distractions of a beautiful pacifist, and prepares to meet his destiny. With meticulous detail and moments of black humor, the film makes the actions of its protagonists seem, if not sympathetic, at least disturbingly plausible. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

The Passenger
A 1975 collaboration between director Michelangelo Antonioni and star Jack Nicholson about a beyond-burned-out photojournalist languishing in a seedy hotel in the North African desert. After discovering a corpse next door, he promptly switches passports, oversees his own burial, and leaves his old life in the dust. Hooking up with a gorgeous student (Last Tango in Paris's Maria Schneider, smokin'), he begins a shady journey across Europe, with interlopers both old and new in hot pursuit. In other hands, this premise could be a crackerjack thriller, but Antonioni and Nicholson seem more interested in exploring why their central chameleon does what he does—ditching wife, kid, and successful job in the blink of an eye. The results prove hard to explain, or shake. And then there's that simply magnificent ending shot: an unbroken seven-minute gaze through a window that finally locates this determinedly enigmatic film as a profound, mordant comedy. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Pride & Prejudice
In her early novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen makes it clear that Elizabeth Bennet has little respect for her friend Charlotte's pragmatic view of marriage. And though Elizabeth loves her older sister, Jane, she can't exactly endorse her lovesick moping either. With practicality and sentiment out of the picture, what can possibly make Elizabeth fall for the proud Mr. Darcy? Austen is decorously evasive on this question, and so the filmmakers responsible for this grimy and immensely enjoyable new adaptation have some wiggle room. According to director Joe Wright and screenwriter Deborah Moggach, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) and Mr. Darcy aren't so much in love as they are erotically enthralled. Their famous clash of wits isn't the cause of their affection; it's sublimation at its most sublime. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Prime
As far as the main girl-boy-mom love triangle goes, Prime has a surprisingly light touch. The film isn't guilt-free entertainment, but with some nice Manhattan locations and a "Palestinians Do It Better" T-shirt to sweeten the deal, it isn't unpleasant either. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Proof
Though it's not as grossly heavy-handed as A Beautiful Mind, this film suffers from a similar failure of specificity. Of course Jake Gyllenhaal isn't convincing as a math graduate student—but it's not because he's sexy. It's because his character never talks directly about math. Proof resonates emotionally, but the real achievement would have been sneaking some real math into a math movie. And no, name-dropping Sophie Germain doesn't count. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Rent
Rent: It's winter, half the characters are dying of AIDS, many are black, most of them are artists, all of them except the bad guy are poor, and in the stage version, the East Village was rendered in stripped-down visual shorthand; you needed the lyrics to understand what was happening. In this movie version, everything is painfully over-explained, no one except Rosario Dawson is sexy (a huge problem), no one looks poor or cold, and the scene where Mimi almost dies looks like a commercial for Urban Outfitters. It feels like a movie about American artists dying at the end of the millennium as imagined and shot by the director of Home Alone, which is exactly what it is. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE)

Saw II
Saw II thinks it has something to say—some hack philosophy about yelling at your kids and being a junkie and taking life for granted—but don't be fooled. It's really just about all the worst things you can do to an eyeball. (LINDY WEST)

Shopgirl
Adapted by Steve Martin from his novella of the same name, Shopgirl is a film with strangely divided loyalties. The old-fashioned values the film espouses (gallantry, attention to a woman's needs) feel like a cover for historical sins (sexism, annoyingness) that I'd rather time would forget. (ANNIE WAGNER)

The Squid and the Whale
Writer/director Noah Baumbach's semi-autobiographical tale of a disintegrating Park Slope family unit in the '80s is one of those rare films in which everything feels right, from period detail, to sympathetic yet unsentimental characterizations, to the way that family conversations can shift from funny to sad to terrifying. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Ushpizin
Ushpizin, I think I can say with confidence, is the only film I've ever seen in which every emotional climax is the result of an answered prayer. Part fable and part broad Yiddish comedy, this delightful Israeli movie is like nothing else. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Vikings: Journey to New Worlds
The kid-friendly film only skims the surface of the Viking influence on world culture, and the few scenes that justify the large film format are sweeping panoramas of Icelandic geysers and the sea ice off Greenland. But those frigid green vistas are amazing, and if March of the Penguins didn't chill your ardor for polar cinematography, you'll find plenty to satisfy you here. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Walk the Line
Joaquin Phoenix is a damn fine Man in Black, burning with rage from a young age due to an oppressive father who unfairly blamed Johnny for the death of his brother. Walk the Line explores how Cash taught himself to play guitar, working with the famed Sun Records and hanging with Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis (minor characters here who are entertaining even in their supporting roles), through his infamous Folsom Prison performance. But Cash's strongest emotional elements are developed through his courtship of June Carter, played with sharp Southern charm by Reese Witherspoon. Carter moves from being a boyhood idol of Cash's to touring with him, helping him fight a serious drug addiction, and finally becoming his wife. Theirs is a fiery interplay, and watching their tenderness grow through time and tribulation makes for a powerful story, even if its main subject feels larger than any one film could ever encapsulate. (JENNIFER MAERZ)

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Wallace and Gromit have invented the Bunny Vac 6000, a large vacuum that humanely sucks up the cutest frickin' bunnies in the whole wide world, and safely releases them to another location. Hooray! But you know how bunnies like to, ahem, breed, so of course the rabbit population keeps rising and rising despite Wallace's efforts. The humor is just as funny as the classic Looney Tunes (which were funny!) but even smarter because it's not actually American-made. (MEGAN SELING)

Yours, Mine & Ours
For want of a Trojan, a genre was born: From The Brady Bunch to Just the Ten of Us, excessively multi-child families have long been a mainstream staple. Adapting a 1968 Lucille Ball/Henry Fonda vehicle (which at least had the diverting element of a clench-jawed Lucy being forced to interact with hippies), director Raja Gosnell (Scooby-Doo) and his writers have done little to update the original: Tight-assed military widower (Dennis Quaid) finds wedded bliss with a loosey-goosey artist widow (Rene Russo), forcing their legion of adorable spawn to intermingle. The leads try their best: Quaid retains some of his old roguish charm, and the wondrous Russo continues to defy the myth of middle-age unemployability. Even with their mighty efforts, the surrounding film remains so utterly, triumphantly white-bread that it fades out even before the lights come up. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Zathura
It all started because my big brother was being a dick and locked me in the basement. While I was down there I found this awesome game about rocket ships and so I took it upstairs to play it. I mean, I'm 8 years old, I like that sorta shit. Anyway, all of a sudden—BOOM! POW! These meteors started shooting everywhere! They were falling outta the sky and totally fucking up our house, going through furniture and the TV! They didn't stop for, like, ever. But when they did stop my brother and I looked out the window and we were totally FLOATING IN SPACE! We ran upstairs to find our stupid big sister, and of course the little bitch didn't give a shit about the fact that our entire house was FLOATING IN SPACE! So my brother and I went back downstairs and played the game some more to see what would happen next. (MEGAN SELING)