Anti-Trust, Before Night Falls, Double Take, The Last Detail, Save the Last Dance, Tampopo, Thirteen Days

*Go Ask Alice
In this 1970s made-for-TV movie, Alice's desire to be accepted at school leads her to a party where, unbeknownst to her, the sodas are spiked with LSD. At first she's put off and scared by her first trip, but then she gives in to it. In her diary she writes, "Sometimes I wish every straight kid could get turned on like I was." Slowly she spirals into addiction, eventually running away and prostituting herself for drugs. What separates this movie from most drug scare films (like the inferior Requiem for a Dream) is its willingness to acknowledge the pleasurable side of drug use as well as the downside. The cast includes William Shatner (donning a mustache and heavy glasses) as her dad, and Andy Griffith as a priest in charge of a shelter for runaways. (Andy Spletzer) Fri-Sat only. Grand Illusion

Heavy Metal Parking Lot 2000
To begin with, this film has nothing at all to do with the original Heavy Metal Parking Lot, Jeff Krulik's 15-minute cult classic featuring gut-bustingly funny interviews with fans outside a 1986 Judas Priest/ Dokken show. Instead of unguarded moments with blissfully stoned metalheads, Heavy Metal Parking Lot 2000 is much more consciously manipulated, with the interviewers asking women to bare their tits and telling lame jokes. Visit www.planetkrulik.com and watch the original instead. (Melody Moss) Sat only. Sit & Spin

Letter Never Sent
A weekend series of '60s Soviet films begins with this based-on-fact, thrill-a-minute (well, for a foreign movie) story of a Siberian geologic expedition. From the director of the lovely The Cranes Are Flying. Sat-Sun only. Grand Illusion

*Oliver Twist
See Stranger Suggests. One of David Lean's best films benefits enormously from a marvelously loathsome turn by Alec Guinness as Fagin. Thurs Jan 4 only. Seattle Art Museum

*Open Screening
The 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 and to your right as you watch the films. Even quiet and dark, you can tell it's a place that work, much good work, gets done. (Bruce Reid) Wed Jan 10. 911 Media Arts

*Open Super-8 Screening
Northwest Film Forum helps keep Super-8 alive with a lovely evening of lovingly made films in that format. The Super-8 Club gives its participants a theme around which to build their films, which are all shot in the six weeks between the announcement and the screening. Many of the films have only a tangential or in some cases wholly indiscernible relationship to the topic, but then the same is true of the best episodes of Kieslowski's Dekalog. This time up it's "The Old West." Films must be submitted by Sat Jan 6; call 329-2629 for info. (Bruce Reid) Wed Jan 10. Little Theatre

*Pather Panchali
The first installment of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy remains in some ways the most affecting, its scrappy, almost amateurish direction only increasing your emotional investment in the young lead. Throughout the series, Apu learns the value and wisdom of others, as well as the folly of caring only for yourself; Pather Panchali traces the nascent steps of this evolution, as the child Apu realizes that the poverty in which he's raised affects not only him, but his poet father and much-harried mother as well. Some clumsy moments--both narratively and cinematically--but what do those matter in the face of such glowing, embracing humanism? (Bruce Reid) Sun only. Stimson Auditorium

Rebel Music: The Bob Marley Story
This documentary promises to be less hagiographic star bio than an examination of Marley's political and religious influences. Promises, promises. Wed only. JBL Theater at EMP

SILENT COMEDY CLASSICS
An evening of silent films, with musical accompaniment on the mighty Wurlitzer organ. This week: Charlie Chaplin in The Kid (1921) and A Dog's Life (1918). Fri-Sat only. Hokum Hall

This is Spinal Tap
Smell the glove once again with David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls in a new 35mm print. Fri-Sat only. Egyptian

TrafFIc
Bad enough America's hypocritical war on drugs has incarcerated millions of innocent citizens--now it's messing with poor Michael Douglas as well! Opens Fri.

Venus Beauty Institute
Nathalie Baye stars as a woman closing out her 30s with a dirge to the impossibility of true love. Of course, this being a French film, the impossibility of true love is itself an impossibility, and so we watch the slackly beautiful Ms. Baye navigate the turgid waters of the lovelorn skeptic like a science class at the microscope. The titular Venus Beauty Institute serves as the petri dish for this experiment, as men are introduced into the controlled world of a beauty salon, where Ms. Baye plies her trade alongside two younger, less jaded girls under the tutelage of Nadine, an aging warrior in the battle for glorious, shallow, skin-deep beauty. Obsessed thirtysomethings, vainglorious lovers, and lonely widowers all stop in at one point or another, for manicures or pedicures or just to see the girls. Unfortunately, even Ms. Baye's springfed charm cannot save the film from the age-old, dogged curse of the French: too much whimsy in too small a package. (Jamie Hook) Opens Fri. Metro

Wings of Desire
Wim Wenders has always been good at collecting poetic and beautiful images, but he runs into trouble when he tries to add poetic and symbolically appropriate words. The conceit here is that angels hang out in Berlin, listening to human thoughts. Sometimes they desire to become human. Wenders says everything he needs to with Henri Alekan's cinematography and Bruno Ganz's stoic stare, but he must not have trusted the pictures because he clutters the soundtrack with the inane and repetitive thoughts of the humans. Only Peter Falk, as a fallen angel turned movie actor, manages to capture a balance between passing thoughts and quiet observation. If you are one of many who have given up on this film since its initial release, go see it again and watch it without reading the subtitles. It's much better that way. (Andy Spletzer) Thurs-Sun only. Little Theatre

All the Pretty Horses
Not to give anything away, but the moral of the story is: Don't be too tough on yourself, Matt Damon, because everybody has something they feel guilty about. Directed by Billy Bob Thornton from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, Damon plays an out-of-work cowboy in 1949 who travels to Mexico with Henry Thomas to find work on one of the big ranches down there. Two things go wrong: an annoying kid with a violent past (Lucas Black) tags along; and once they do find work, Damon falls in love with the boss' daughter (the luminous Penélope Cruz). Needless to say, they end up in prison and one of 'em ends up dead. Though it's trying to be a Western, and really wants to be a love story, All the Pretty Horses ends up being just a standard coming-of-age film. What a pity. (Andy Spletzer) Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree, PaciÞc Place 11, Varsity

Cast Away
Cast Away takes lurid delight in cataloging the various losses that accrue upon once-wealthy FedEx international systems supervisor Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) after a freak Christmas Eve plane crash strands him somewhere in the South Pacific. The stupid simplicity with which Hanks is shown crafting his world so utterly subverts any but the most priapic observations that one comes away from the film feeling a trifle molested, or just bored. As an allegory for the perils of the new American capitalist of the sort that our system is loath to lose, however, Cast Away is quite fascinating. (Jamie Hook) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Majestic Bay, Meridian 16, Metro, Northgate

*Charlie's Angels
Completely brainless, God bless its heart. Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu kick, chop, giggle, and dance their way through some sort of story involving technical thievery or... something. Hot chicks kick ass and fly, and either you accept it and have fun, or you don't. (Bradley Steinbacher) City Centre

Chocolat
The film critic in me has control over my emotions; it can and will repress my wolflike desire to fill this page with hungry words that praise (in greater and greater detail) the celestial beauty of Juliette Binoche. I will not describe her rippling lips, her cat-dark eyes, or the black mole that languishes on the left side of her neck. My straightforward review will open with a detailed plot summary ("The movie is about a French village whose serenity is shattered by a mysterious woman who moves into town with her illegitimate daughter and opens a sexy chocolate store."), and then state the truth ("The movie is unremarkable!"). Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is the job of a film critic. (Charles Mudede) Guild 45th, Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center

*Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Legendary warrior Chow Yun Fat can never declare his love for fellow martial-arts expert Michelle Yeoh. Instead, he entrusts her with Green Destiny, his nearly magical sword. But in the dark of night a hooded thief steals it, which leads to a fight held mostly in midair. This is an attempt to wed emotionally reticent drama with the exhilarating freedom of Hong Kong-genre filmmaking, but director Ang Lee can't quite pull off the combination; for too long a time, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's shifting gears only jam. The film finds its rhythm and earns the accolades it has received once it leaves the stars behind and gives its heart over to the young and engaging Zhang Ziyi, as the aristocratic daughter of privilege who opts instead for the dangerous yet thrilling occupation of thief. (Bruce Reid) Neptune, Uptown

Dracula 2000
From the high-tech theft of Dracula's body out of Van Helsing's antiques shop (buried beneath so much security, they understandably thought it was treasure) to an explanation of Dracula's origins that brilliantly flashes back to Biblical times in order to explain his aversion to silver and crosses, there are some great ideas floating around Dracula 2000. The execution of these ideas is where it all falls apart. Christopher Plummer, Jonny Lee Miller, Omar Epps, Jeri Ryan, and the rest of the cast give it a go, but under the inept direction of Patrick Lussier, they don't inspire suspense or fear as much as pity for being used so poorly. Never scary, this is a vampire movie for the mind, not the heart. (Andy Spletzer) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Varsity

Dude, Where's My Car?
Of the two leads, Ashton Kutcher has more lanky, dope-fuzzy appeal than the frankly simian Seann William Scott, but the actors aren't the point here. All that matters is that our heroes wander obliviously through extraordinary circumstances; that enough jokes are made about sex, dope, and hauling out garbage; and that the special-effects for the alien morphing scene (don't ask) are tacky enough to chuckle at. The only fresh idea is actually a charming one: This may well be the first buddy movie where the two pals willingly share a wet, sloppy kiss and feel none the worse afterward. (Bruce Reid) PaciÞc Place 11, Redmond Town Center

Dungeons & Dragons
Straight world: Please, please just turn away. Geeks like me: If you know the difference between a drow and an orc, it's too late for you anyway. It doesn't matter that this movie is wretchedly incomprehensible, or that it was made at least 15 years too late; the promise of seeing mages and Beholders and the Thieves' Guild and a deadly labyrinth is just too tempting, if only so we can go and harrumph our way through the whole thing. And let's finally face the facts, shall we? We're geeks by nature, we belong to this stuff; Dungeons & Dragons is really only as embarrassing and unbearable and uncool as we are. (Evan Sult) City Centre, Lewis & Clark

The Emperor's New Groove
The movie is bad, so I'm not going to judge or compare it to other bad Disney animation films. The Emperor's New Groove attempts to identify with black cool. But sadly enough, outside of the twisted slave/master relationship that exists between the emperor and the loyal peasant who saves his life, and Eartha Kitt's role as the empire's wicked witch, there is nothing really black about this film, which is shrouded in a mist of black themes, slang, styles. Imagine walking into a funk disco only to discover, once inside, that it's packed with knee-slapping square dancers. (Charles Mudede) Factoria, Majestic Bay, Metro, PaciÞc Place 11, Redmond Town Center

*An Everlasting Piece
Like too many films (and political commentaries, for that matter) about the Irish Troubles, An Everlasting Piece falls into the trap of trying to have it both ways: it's a rambling comedy about a toupee salesman and a drama about living in a war zone; the jokes are meant to be giddy, but the threat of murder is supposed to be real; and the IRA are both foils for gags about folks with guns deciding to buy wigs and dangerous terrorists, just as the British Army are brutal policemen and fresh-faced young kids. But I'm recommending it anyway, because due to several miscommunications I went to the wrong theater for the screening, and the press representative was nice enough to give me a ride to catch it. So what the hell, for once I'm wrong and the audience that lapped up every stupid gag was right. (Bruce Reid) PaciÞc Place 11

Family Man
The first half of this movie is funny. Nicolas Cage, a fastidious, fabulously wealthy arbitrageur, is magicked into a lower-middle-class schlumph. I shall not soon forget his reaction when he opens his schlumph closet, and his schlumph mother-in-law and father-in-law are priceless. Don Cheadle is good. Josef Sommer is good. There's no law that says you can't walk out after the first half. (Barley Blair) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Oak Tree, PaciÞc Place 11

Finding Forrester
A kid from the Bronx excels at both basketball and composition, befriends a hermit writer, undergoes a crisis from which the writer must extract him, thereby helping the writer overcome his own reclusive blah blah blah. Sean Connery wrote the Great American Novel and he never goes out now, except he will go out to watch a baseball game--well, he always used to watch baseball. Well yes, he watches basketball out the window now, but then he and his brother--oh, did I forget to say he had a brother? Well, he had one, and anyway, F. Murray Abraham tried to publish a critical book--no, F. Murray Abraham isn't the brother, he's a teacher. Yes, he's teaching at the school where the kid--well, okay, I guess I should have said that the kid gets into this snobby day school.... It goes on like that. (Barley Blair) Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center

*A Hard Day's Night
Of course you're going to go see A Hard Day's Night, the wonderful movie about the Beatles made by Richard Lester in 1964 and rereleased in a glorious new print, as crisp and tasty as fresh lettuce--you'd be daft not to. (Barley Blair) Broadway Market

Malena
Director Giuseppe Tornatore spun childhood nostalgia into international box-office gold with Cinema Paradiso (1988). With Malena, he tries to repeat that success by making an art-house Porky's set in Sicily during World War II. Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro), not even a teenager but wanting to grow up quickly, starts hanging out with the older kids who ogle Malena (Monica Bellucci), a beautiful woman whose husband is off at war. Pretty cinematography and a pretty girl do not make up for the ugly, voyeuristic core of this film. (Andy Spletzer) Harvard Exit

The May Lady
The May Lady is a film by the distinguished (female) Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad about a (female) filmmaker who is assigned to find "the exemplary mother" and make a documentary about her. If this were an American film, I would cuff the filmmaker--the one making the outer film--on the ear. I'd like to believe no contemporary American movie would dare feature a search for "the exemplary mother." That plot device wore out its welcome early in the 1950s, especially with the denouement that every mother is, oh please, in her own way, exemplary--from which Bani-Etemad does not shrink. It matters not in the least that Bani-Etemad is herself a woman; but because she is Iranian I feel compelled to stay my wrath. (Barley Blair) Grand Illusion

Miss Congeniality
Some movies never aspire to be anything more than a decent diversion to boredom that provides a few soft chuckles, some squishy romance, and little else. Miss Congeniality is one of those faultless movies, and its star, Sandra Bullock has made a career of these perfectly harmless films (The Net, Speed, 28 Days) that place her in the role of "the self-effacing, funny heroine" who always gets the guy in the end. Here Bullock plays Gracie, a tomboyish FBI agent who goes undercover--beauty pageant-style--in order to capture a terrorist preying on contestants. Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, and William Shatner all figure prominently in this none-too-subtle romantic comedy that will leave no one guessing who the terrorist is and whom Gracie will end up with. Yeah it's simple, but who expects complication when Sandra Bullock is the star? (Kathleen Wilson) Factoria, Metro, Oak Tree, PaciÞc Place 11, Redmond Town Center

*O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Set in Depression-era Mississippi, George Clooney stars as Everett Ulysses McGill, a suave and well-groomed petty criminal doing hard time on a chain gang. Shackled to Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), he convinces them to join him in escaping by promising to split a fortune in buried treasure with them. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a road movie, and in acknowledgment of that, the Coen brothers claim it was based on the granddaddy of all road adventures, The Odyssey, by Homer. But the true inspiration for the movie is the music. T-Bone Burnett has collected all sorts of music from the era and from the region, and it's a joy to hear so much bluegrass in a major motion picture. The buoyant music and ham-handed performances are enough to lift anyone's spirits. (Andy Spletzer) Egyptian

Proof of Life
Meg Ryan's husband, in South America overseeing a dam-building project for oil conglomerate QUAD Carbon, has been kidnapped by the bickering, incompetent Marxists of the Liberation Army of Tecala, and only Russell Crowe's rugged good looks and subdued masculinity can bring him back alive. In the awkward and entirely unromantic subplot, Ryan finds herself enveloped by the intoxicating Aussie sex appeal of the seasoned professional in charge of negotiating her husband's rescue. (Jason Pagano) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro

Quills
Shortly after the French Revolution, the Marquis de Sade resides locked away in the Charenton mental hospital where he is allowed, briefly, to continue writing his pornographic prose. Its popularity on the streets of France causes outraged apoplexy among the powers that be. Unfortunately, the film seeks to rehabilitate de Sade's image into that of Brave Soldier in the Noble Battle against Hypocrisy. Which not only flattens and dulls the film's subject, it also makes for one hell of a hypocritical movie in its own right. (Bruce Reid) Grand Alderwood, Harvard Exit

Requiem For a Dream
Based on the Hubert Selby Jr. novel of the same name, about the downward spiral of a trio of Brooklyn junkies, Requiem for a Dream comes off as so much high-school posturing: puerile; craven; and, in hindsight, embarrassingly tacky. (Jamie Hook) Broadway Market

*State and Main
Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and David Paymer descend on a small Vermont town to make a movie, bringing their sophisticated mores with them. The town end is held down by Charles Durning, Clark Gregg, Ricky Jay, Patti LuPone, Matt Malloy, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Julia Stiles... do you begin to see a problem here? The cast is as fixedly big-city as a traffic jam. Though to tell you the truth, I was laughing too hard to worry about small inaccuracies. David Mamet has said that he was thinking of Preston Sturges when he put this film together, and it's a worthy successor to the Master. (Barley Blair) Guild 45th, PaciÞc Place 11

Unbreakable
Bruce Willis sleepily stars as a mild-mannered security guard, who walks away without a scratch as the sole survivor of a two-train pileup. Soon after, he is approached by Samuel L. Jackson, a comic-book collector who's become convinced that Willis is a charmed person, immune to harm, perhaps gifted with psychic powers. Thus introducing a whole new genre: the glum, glacially slow, risibly pretentious superhero flick. (Bruce Reid) Aurora Cinema Grill, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro

*Vertical Limit
Three survivors are trapped after a disastrous attempt to climb K2, the most challenging mountain in the world. Fueled by a "reward" of a measly half-million dollars apiece, three teams of two climbers each risk their lives and set out to save those who are now stranded and left to die. Just as your subconscious craves, the body count grows higher, the scandals become sexier, and the obstacles hit one right after another in unbelievable proportion. It's a no-holds-barred world. (Megan Seling) Cinerama, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Oak Tree, PaciÞc Place 11, Southcenter

What Women Want
Mel Gibson, playing high-level advertising exec Nick Marshall, gets tripped up in his slick 'n' chauvinistic act when, instead of being handed the promotion he expects, a woman (Helen Hunt as Darcy McGuire) is hired in his place. Rolling his eyes, Nick heads woefully home, gets drunk, tries on pantyhose, mousses his hair, and while blow-drying falls in the tub and electrocutes himself. Suddenly Nick is in the best position to know what women want--he can hear their very thoughts! We're living in a culture that offers women fake power--the power to determine what products are created and consumed--and one can hardly blame director Nancy Meyers for taking the low road and producing a flat, stale, and probably extremely profitable Hollywood film. (Traci Vogel) Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

*You Can Count on Me
In Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count on Me, "adult" and "sadness" and "American" become a knot of synonyms as the story focuses on the pure inability a brother and sister have with one another now that they're adults. It is as though being an adult, and a member of a grownup American family, is the path of loneliness and sadness. Without any trendy embitterment, the sad path of the story is inspired, beautiful, and desirable. And the case is made for loneliness as the Great American Pursuit. (Paula Gilovich) Broadway Market, Seven Gables