Before Night Falls, Boys Life 3, Get Over It, The Gift, House of Mirth, The Pledge, Snatch, Soul Survivors, Yi Yi

Anti-Trust
Bill Gates is an evil genius trying to take over the world? Oh my, do tell, how very unexpected. Opens Fri. Metro

*Aparajito
Beatles fans may want to check this movie out because the music is done by Ravi Shankar, but the real reason is to see, projected from film, the work of one of the masters of world cinema, Satyajit Ray. The second in his famous "Apu trilogy" (don't worry about seeing them out of order), Aparajito follows young Apu as a 10-year-old boy up to the time when he's of college age and is offered a scholarship to a school in Calcutta. Apu is always being forced to decide whether to devote himself to his family or indulge in what he wants to do and where he wants to go, and the struggle is as relevant today as it was in India in 1958. A compassionate filmmaker, Ray gives an observant, documentary feel to his film in a time long before that meant shaky, intrusive cameras and a TV aesthetic. (Andy Spletzer) Sun only. Stimson Auditorium

Double Take
The 7-Up guy and that fellow from the UPN show with Theo run off to Mexico. Opens Fri. Pacific Place 11

*High Fidelity
A romantic comedy for guys. John Cusack plays the cynically introspective Rob Gordon, the owner of a small record store who, for various reasons, has shit luck with women. He's a jerk, basically, but he's not altogether clueless about his jerkiness. He struggles and obsesses and makes lists that he thinks define his life, but he's no closer to understanding women than he was in the fifth grade. Fri-Sat only. (Kathleen Wilson) Egyptian

*Kind Hearts and Coronets
It is only the vagaries of stardom that gave the lead credit in Kind Hearts and Coronets to the stolid if handsome Dennis Price; there's never been any doubt that the whole show is Alec Guinness. The story is clever enough--almost a light-comedy Hitchcock in the way it elicits your support for a serial murderer--but it's Guinness' tour de force whirligig incarnation of all eight victims that elevates the film from dry English farce to an uproarious classic. Not the only film Guinness single-handedly dragged into greatness with his inventiveness and crack sense of timing. (Bruce Reid) Thurs Jan 11 only. Seattle Art Museum

*The Last Detail
Picking Jack Nicholson's best performance is like selecting your favorite ice cream; the best are all so rich it seems ridiculous to choose. Still, when you consider the rough-and-tumble brutality of The Last Detail's Billy Budduskey, his perpetual chip on the shoulder countered by a glum awareness that he's just another Navy lifer following orders, it certainly stands out as not just a brave move on a leading man's part, but reckless--a tough guy exterior for a man so defeated and withered inside he can only dimly realize how far from tender he is. After all, what do you remember: details of the plot, or Badass concealing his own desperation by shouting out, "I am the motherfucking shore patrol, motherfucker! I am the motherfucking shore patrol! Give this man a beer!"? (Bruce Reid) Opens Fri. Grand Illusion

*Mind Control in the Classroom
Ah, for the good old days when blatant propaganda was allowed into America's schools. Laugh along at five shorts, ranging from an endorsement of philately to a warning about the physical risks involved when consorting with "loose" women, that would have no place today in our PepsiCo-endorsed, Channel One-saturated halls of learning. Fri-Sat only. Grand Illusion

Nightclubbing
Video footage shot from 1975 'til 1982 by Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers. If that doesn't sound enticing, maybe you'd like to know that the two were passionate music fans, and used the equipment to capture performances by the likes of Talking Heads, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Blondie, and the Dead Kennedys. More installments play next week at the Little Theatre. Wed Jan 17 only. JBL Theater at EMP

Nine Days of One Year
See Stranger Suggests. Sixties anomie and alienation among the intellectual jet set, Soviet Union style. Sat-Sun only. Grand Illusion

Save the Last Dance
See provocative analysis this issue. I arrived at the Meridian a full hour before the screening started and it was sold out. Nor was I the only one robbed of the opportunity of watching this bad film; many 14-year-olds casually walked into the theater and were hit by the wall of truth: "sold out show." The big difference between me and them, however, was I didn't throw a fit. All around me, little teens dressed up like sexy adults or serious gangsters encountered existential implosions in the face of two hours of pure nothingness. How were they going to fill in that time? Two girls absolutely loathed their moms for failing to figure out a way to get them into the screening. One teen bully who looked like Fat Albert threatened to beat up his buddies for making him miss the movie. I was so amazed by the multiple eruptions of mini-fits, that I sat on an iron bench and watched for an hour what can only be described as "the wonder years." (Charles Mudede) Opens Fri. Meridian 16, Oaktree

*SILENT COMEDY CLASSICS
An evening of silent films, with musical accompaniment on the mighty Wurlitzer organ. This week: Buster Keaton gives his twist on one of the iconographic images of silent cinema, chased down the street by dozens of police in the short Cops; then saves the day in College, a film that's only second-rate by Keaton's own high standards. Fri-Sat only. Hokum Hall

Snow and Skate Flicks
It's the Northwest vs. Los Angeles--the last great clash of Titans--in this pairing of films celebrating different ways of attaining dangerously high speed on a board. Survival of the Tightest showcases snowboarders from Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, while skateboarders shred it up in sun-spangled L.A. County. Fri only. 911 Media Arts

*Tampopo
When a trucker in a cowboy hat ambles into Tampopo's noodle shop, he dispenses some sagely advice on noodle preparation before getting into a fight with some thugs in the joint. When he wakes up the next morning, Tampopo asks him to train her to be a master noodle chef. Reluctantly, he agrees. That's the main storyline in a movie that goes down many divergent and often extremely funny paths. Even more than his obvious love of movies and filmmaking, director Juzo Itami infuses Tampopo with a love of food, from its noble preparation to its sensual consumption. Pushing that to its extreme, the movie also has an erotic scene with two lovers and some food which puts the eager wannabe 9 1/2 Weeks to shame. (Andy Spletzer) Thurs-Sun only. Little Theatre

Thirteen Days
Reviewed this issue. Toe-to-toe with the Russkies and all we've got to count on is some Canadian actor playing JFK? We're doomed. Opens Fri. Metro

*Whiteface
This locally produced short has been accepted to Slamdance; but as we all know, people who produce shorts locally don't have the cash to throw around on such luxuries as plane tickets to Utah and hotel rooms. So root around in your pockets for $10, come down for some beer, snacks, and a screening of this "serious comedy about racism." If it sucks, at least you'll be helping to send its makers out of town. Sat only. 911 Media Arts

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. 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, Pacific 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
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, Johnny 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, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro

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) Pacific 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. (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, 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, Pacific 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 toupee salesmen 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) Pacific 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, Majestic Bay, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific 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, Metro, 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

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 whom the terrorist is and who 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, Pacific 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, Factoria, Redmond Town Center

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. Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Varsity

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. 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) Harvard Exit

*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, Pacific Place 11

Traffic
Traffic begins by tossing a handful of random characters into the air, then sits back for the remainder of its 147 minutes to watch how they land. Some gently glide back to Earth, others crash violently, but in the end they all have one thing in common: They've all had to pick themselves up off the ground. That is the big message in Traffic, perfectly laid-out by its tagline: "Nobody gets away clean." Read the poster and you've saved $8.50. Drugs lead to bad things, that is the moral, and I believe I learned it in ninth-grade health class. All the flashy directorial touches and sterling performances in the world can't cover the fact that Traffic is just another example of Hollywood tackling a complex problem with the simplest and most conservative of solutions. (Bradley Steinbacher) Grand Alderwood, Pacific Place 11, Varsity

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 of 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) 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 in the mind of a seven-year-old. (Megan Seling) Cinerama, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree, Pacific 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. And 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 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