The Mexican, The Mystery of Picasso, See Spot Run, Suzhou River, The Tailor of Panama

3000 Miles to Graceland
Rejoice!! Praise God!! For the first time since that awful baseball movie, Kevin Costner's career has sunk so low that KURT RUSSELL is actually getting star billing over him! The end is nigh!! Rejoice!! Opens Fri. Meridian 16, Oak Tree

*Alma

See review this issue. The only movie currently playing that features explicit instructions on the art of the gunpowder douche. Opens Fri. Grand Illusion

The Art of Amalia
David Byrne introduces this documentary about Amalia Rodrigues, the world's preeminent singer of Fado, the folk music of Portugal. Wed Feb 28 only. JBL Theater at EMP

ArtSpots Kickoff Party
As part of a kick off party for this local production company devoted to making 30-second shorts for broadcast in place of commercials, ArtSpots will screen the local short works, Fish Song, Zen Scroll, The Call, and Tech Mama. Music, food, and schmoozing. For more info contact Staci at 841-2029. Sun only. Speakeasy

*Broken Blossoms

See Stranger Suggests. D. W. Griffith's 1918 melodrama, starring Lillian Gish, plays with a new, live score. Thurs Feb 22 only. Little Theatre

Communists!
Two goofy shorts from the golden age of propaganda films. Red Nightmare tells the tale of a man who wakes up in Commieland, USA; Red Menace casts the Communist Party as a predatory social octopus. Fri-Sun only. Consoli-dated Works

D.FILM Digital Film Festival
See review this issue. Yet another festival promoting the glittering--but so far elusive--future of the movies. Fri only. Moore Theatre

*Five Films by Jay Rosenblatt

See review this issue. Epic films from America's preeminent poet of the short form. Opens Fri. Varsity Calendar

The Goonies
Back in the mid-'80s, watching fantasy movies starring small boys didn't necessarily net you 10 to 20 in the slammer. Being half the world away from the hub of cultural advance at the time--not to mention living in a socialist regime--my memories of the '80s are best described as a restorative collage of legislated nostalgia and Third World realities. The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, Howard the Duck--they all had their place. But none of them beat The Goonies in terms of providing the biorhythm to mimic my childhood life. Fantasy and adventure will probably never again find the halcyon years that were the '80s, and small boys will probably never again be in the same mainstream movie as a pirate called "One-Eyed Willy," but this movie will always serve as a fine ambassador to a time when anything could wind up on film. (Kudzai Mudede) Fri-Sat only. Egyptian

Independent Exposure
In this week's Valentine's Edition of Independent Exposure, love, lust, passion, sex, and loss are brought to the boil. But the problem is that I'm lying. Really, there's not much lust after all. In fact, in this collection, passion, sex, and even love take an ignominious back seat to loss, creating a Valentine's Day experience that one has to forgive for so freely associating with the day itself. Lunawanna Kiss, a black-and-white Australasian silent movie is the most poignant of the bunch: A handsome boat-boy receives what appears to be a rather late first kiss behind an outhouse at church and guts a fish with his bare hands to impress the girl's dad. Vein is pretty lustful and sexy, but it's got vampires in it, and I, quite frankly, have had my full share up the ass of sexy vampires at this stage in life. (Kudzai Mudede) Thurs Feb 22 only. Speakeasy

The Ladykillers
Alexander MacKendrick's 1955 film was a hit in its day, assembling a rich stew of talent alongside then-star Alec Guinness, which included both Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers. The quaint plot--four hoods rent out a little old lady's backroom to perform a heist, and hilarity ensues when they have to kill her--provides an admirable frame for Katie Johnson's unrestrained performance as the spinsterly Mrs. Wilburforce. Sadly, the rest of the film wears its age poorly: Ultimately, The Ladykillers wears its mantle of British manners too thin to warm the viewer even slightly. Such humor--British drop-jaw manners humor--was rightfully and mercilessly cut down by Monty Python and the Pink Panther movies. Only a truly great film could have survived--sadly, this is not it. (Jamie Hook) Thurs Feb 22 only. Seattle Art Museum

Monkey Bone
All you need to know of this film is that it stars both Brendan Fraser and a cartoon monkey, and that at about 40 minutes in, the cartoon monkey has taken over control of Brendan Fraser's body. That's it. Directed by Henry Selick, of The Nightmare Before Christmas? Based on Kaja Blackley's graphic novel, Dark Town? Unimportant. Brendan Fraser. A cartoon monkey. Focus on them, rather than set yourself up for a disappointment of a movie that could have done much better than farting monkey dolls. (Jason Pagano) Opens Fri. Pacific Place 11

No Ford Under the Fire
Alexei Solonitsyn, star of Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, here plays a petulant commissar investigating the work of a peasant girl inspired by the events of October, 1917, to make revolutionary art. Sat-Sun only. Grand Illusion

Original Sin
Originally titled Dancing in the Dark, this remake of the Lars Von Trier film stars Angela Jolie as a karaoke star slowly going tone-deaf. Opens Fri. Meridian 16

Pan-Optic
A one-day only screening of optically printed films, including award-winning local filmmaker Karry Fefer's Impermanence. Sun only. Little Theatre

*PEEP: The Stranger's First Annual Film and Video Festival

See Stranger Suggests. More short films than you can shake a stick at! Fri-Sat only. Little Theatre

Pollock
Another attempt from the film industry to mine the romantic lie of Bohemian life. This is actor Ed Harris' directorial debut (he also stars), and he seems in too big a hurry to establish the iconic events of painter Jackson Pollock's life--see Pollock urinate in Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace, see Pollock overturn the Thanksgiving table, see Pollock accidentally discover drip painting--without letting any of these moments achieve any natural resolution. It's like being hustled past works in an exhibition without being allowed to linger. One of the movie's great joys (besides Amy Madigan as a tart Guggenheim), however, is the sight of Harris painting: the pace slows, the camera lingers, and Harris comes to life, suggesting that Pollock found a fluidity in art that he never found in life. (Emily Hall) Opens Fri. Metro

A Room With a View
Merchant and Ivory's first foray into the exploding Victorian world of E. M. Forster pales in comparison to their later, more free-floating adaptation of Howard's End. Still, the film does have its admirers. I imagine most are simply enjoying Helena Bonham Carter's first truly ripe performance, and indeed they should. As always, the costumes and cinematography are handled with aplomb. But ultimately, the film contents itself too smugly with the easily critiqued surface of the world it is depicting, never quite bringing us to any sense of understanding beyond that already given us by time itself. (Jamie Hook) Sun only. Seattle Art Museum

*Screenwriters Salon

See Stranger Suggests. Chris McQuarrie, the Academy Award-winning writer of The Usual Suspects (and director of last years The Way of the Gun), stages a reading of his new script, Alexander the Great. Mon only. Richard Hugo House

*Taboo

See review this issue. Nagisa Oshima, everyone's favorite Japanese penis-portraying auteur, is back for another go! Opens Fri. Egyptian

Unconquering the Last Frontier
See Stranger Suggests. A screening of Robert Lundahl's documentary, calling for the removal of dams on the Elwha River. Fri-Sat only. Broadway Performance Hall

*Antique Smut

This wonderful, three-week Olde-Thyme Porno triptych includes treasures from the private collections of two of America's foremost film preservationists, Karl Cohen and Murray Glass. This week's collection includes burlesque and dirty cartoons! Grand Illusion

Before Night Falls
In Julian Schnabel's new film, Before Night Falls, the life story of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas manages to be utterly straightforward despite the hallucinatory, incantatory style of his writing. Furthermore, it makes Arenas sound like a hack poet. And that, my friends should be a punishable crime. (Emily Hall) Broadway Market

*Best In Show

The latest from the folks who brought you Waiting for Guffman follows several dog owners on their quest for the blue ribbon at the 2000 Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. Dogs are always funny. Broadway Market

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. (Jamie Hook) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree

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 the celestial beauty of Juliette Binoche. 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) Aurora Cinema Grill, 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. It's 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. (Bruce Reid) Grand Alderwood, Majestic Bay, Neptune, Uptown

Down to Earth
I could write a million words on this stupid film. And not words filled with bile but sheer delight! Directed by the men who gave us American Pie, and starring comedian Chris Rock, Down to Earth, which is based on Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait, which in turn was based on some old film I've never seen, is the most original race comedy ever! The story? A black bike messenger is suddenly killed by a truck and goes up to heaven. The angels, who look like mafia hit men, realize that his death was premature, and so return the brother back to earth in a body once owned by a white billionaire (who is a second-rate Bill Gates). With this white, bloated body he must win the heart of a beautiful soul sister from the hood. Need I say more? Simply amazing. (Charles Mudede) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree

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. (Barley Blair) Majestic Bay, Meridian 16, Metro, Redmond Town Center

The Gift
Set passively in a Georgia swamp--the very landscape of horror--The Gift is about a woman, Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett), who has a special and unusual gift: She's psychic. She uses this gift to help the community. Then! She starts seeing bad stuff. A murder occurs. She uses her gift to solve the murder. (Paula Gilovich) Pacific Place 11

Hannibal
Hannibal is a mess; an overblown, audacious, painstakingly long, gratuitous mess. Hannibal Lecter in his second outing is an annoying little old man, the sort you'd just love to push down a flight of stairs. Worse still he's a limey, a fish-and-chip-worshiping limey! That the man has killed over 15 Americans isn't a case for the fucking FBI; it's a case for immigration! Stick the I.N.S on him and by lunch he'll be deported, disenfranchised, and the concern of only Miss Moneypenny and about fifty thousand tea ladies. (Kudzai Mudede) Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Northgate, Redmond Town Center

Head Over Heels
This movie should only be seen under the following circumstances: None. Okay, maybe one: as a revenge prank. Even then, there are only a few wretched people in America on whom I would wish it. Watching it is like sitting through a 90-minute monologue by a kid whose dream is to make manager at Taco Bell. (Evan Sult) Pacific Place 11

The House of Mirth
British director Terence Davies' The House of Mirth, starring Gillian Anderson and Dan Aykroyd, adapts Edith Wharton's 1905 novel about New York high society--the tragic story of a beautiful young woman looking to marry a rich husband and finding herself torn between her need for financial security and her desire for personal integrity. (Caveh Zahedi) Seven Gables

Miss Congeniality
Sandra Bullock plays Gracie, a tomboyish FBI agent who goes undercover--beauty pageant-style--in order to capture a terrorist preying on contestants. Pacific Place 11

*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. (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Harvard Exit, Redmond Town Center

The Pledge
An aging, chain-smoking, and lonesome Jack Nicholson plays a retired Reno police detective who, during his last investigation, promises the parents of a brutally raped and murdered 8-year-old girl that he will, upon his eternal salvation, apprehend the culprit. Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11, Varsity

Recess: School's Out
I loved the movie Recess: School's Out. It is full of exciting and hilarious scenes. It takes place when T.J. and his friends just get out of school for the summer. T.J. is excited until all his friends go to different camps; he is so bored until he sees strange things happening at his school. So he gets his friends from their camps together to uncover the mystery. It's funny because in the movie (and in the TV show), everybody does the same thing at recess. For example, there is a King of Recess, there are kids that dig holes, and the kindergartners always run around doing pesky stuff. I advise people to go to this movie. (Sam Lachow, age 10) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Majestic Bay, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

Save the Last Dance
A hip-hoppin' drama about a rhythmically challenged white girl from the Midwest who sets out to endear herself to the young brothers and sisters of a black, inner-city Chicago high school. And how responsibly does this movie handle the potential conflagration of bad racial stereotypes it presents? I ask you all to picture matches, dynamite, and a very drunk monkey. (Kudzai Mudede) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16

Saving Silverman
Jason Biggs is about to marry "the wrong girl," and his two rowdy buddies (Jack Black and Steve Zahn) will stop at nothzzzzzzzzzzzz. Judging by Silverman's sizable kitsch insurance policy, the accountant who approved this one knew it would take an omnipresent Neil Diamond to ensure the assload of money this film will undoubtedly make. (Jason Pagano) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro

*Shadow of the Vampire
E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire revisits the set of film director F. W. Murnau's 1922 horror classic Nosferatu to tell an imagined story of Murnau (John Malkovich) and his obscure star Max Schreck (played brilliantly by Willem Dafoe). Murnau casts an actual vampire, offering--in exchange for Schreck's willingness to "play himself"--to sacrifice his unsuspecting leading lady in the final scene of the film. The unavoidable need to please the producers has created a work that must, out of necessity, clothe its more radical ideas in the less threatening guise of allegory. Even so, it is a wholly entertaining and engaging film, full of charm and whimsy; one that walks a subtle tightrope between creepiness and hilarity. (Caveh Zahedi) Aurora Cinema Grill, Guild 45th, Meridian 16

Snatch
I remember reading that after he saw a screening of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels in London, Tom Cruise leapt to his feet and screamed, "This movie rocks!" I'm sure he'll probably scream the same thing about Snatch. So, there you go. If you liked Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, you're gonna like Snatch. (Bradley Steinbacher) Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree

*State and Main

A Hollywood film crew descends on a small Vermont town to make a movie, bringing their sophisticated mores with them. 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) Metro, Pacific Place 11

Sweet November
I'm sure you've all seen the lengthy television advertisements for Sweet November, and so everyone is abreast of what kind of heart strings are pulled with the new super Hollywood acting combo, Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. Now sometimes the soiling of a film comes with one stroke, one inconsequential scene that because it was left unedited, the whole film is denied. I argue that Sweet November should be denied by all of you on this basis: Keanu Reeves, the workaholic ad exec, is trying to perform his American duty of reinventing the hot dog. In this scene, Keanu is running on his treadmill, sweating bullets in his modern apartment and thinking, like he always is, of hot dogs. He pops off his mill jerkily and bounds toward the microwave. Keanu pops it open and then hunts and spears the microwaved hot dog with a fork. And then, sweaty Keanu puts the sweaty hot dog in his mouth. That's when it was over for me. (Paula Gilovich) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Southcenter

Thirteen Days
Taking its title from Robert Kennedy's book but its worldview from hagiography, Thirteen Days portrays the Cuban missile crisis as an episode in the life of St. Jack Kennedy. You may enjoy this movie, and that's okay, but I want you to hate it too. You should hate anything--any work of art, any literature, any fiction, any history--that pretends there is an obvious answer to any serious question. (Barley Blair) Aurora Cinema Grill, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Redmond Town Center

Traffic
The big message in Traffic is 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, Majestic Bay, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Varsity

Valentine
In our younger years, some people seemed to think their Debbie Gibson tour jacket made them hot shit. And as they grew up into the snotty, spoiled little hoochies they were, their lesson still hadn't been learned. And now, well, the only plausible solution Hollywood can seem to conjure up is that they must die. By iron, by electrocution, by their heads being slammed into jagged glass... it's good for laughs, if nothing more. (Megan Seling) Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center

The Wedding Planner
A harmless, sweethearted example of what I call the "Sandra Bullockization" of the romantic comedy. Every leading lady, from Julia Roberts in the upcoming The Mexican to Jennifer Lopez here, seems to be playing the character of Sandra Bullock--down to the squinchy cute face and the whiny comedic asides. Lopez, playing Maria, the titular Planner, manages to be successful, self-deprecating, beautiful, and devoid of love. She is rescued from death by dumpster by Matthew McConaughey, hunky blond pediatrician and Perfect Catch, but discovers that he is engaged to one of her customers. Predictable hilarity ensues. (Traci Vogel) Factoria, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

*Yi Yi

Yi Yi opens at a wedding and closes at a funeral, and in between lies a remarkably observant summation of the ups and downs of a middle-class family in Taipei. A computer engineer and his wife, Min-Min are pulled away from his brother-in-law's wedding when Min-Min's mother suffers a stroke and goes into a coma. They eventually bring her home and are encouraged to talk to her in a game attempt to bring her back to consciousness; these one-sided conversations allow the family members a forum to work out their individual concerns. Do not miss this opportunity to see this wonderful film that will draw you in and make you forget about time and space. (Andy Spletzer) Metro

*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's as though being an adult, and a member of a grownup American family, is the path of loneliness and sadness. (Paula Gilovich) Broadway Market