Four-Eyed Monsters

Arin and Susan are a couple of those horrible, adorable, Brooklyn artsy-fartsies who are good at drawing and have confusing haircuts and are magic and unattainable and you kind of hate them (but also you're kind of jealous). Since they're artists, they treat their relationship as a Very Special Art Project—a constant process of self-creation that's so consciously directed it almost doesn't exist. They make rambling, insecure video love letters. They draw funny pictures of their malaise. They spend weeks silently passing notes to avoid the pitifully mundane dating patterns of the normal masses. Then they make their perfectly quirky courtship into a movie, and market and distribute it independently using the internet and their cute fucking faces. The result, Four-Eyed Monsters, is frustratingly noncommittal. It makes smug fun of inseparable couples, pretentious artists ("create from your core!"), and self-indulgent self-absorption, while being all of those things in a humongous way. How endearing. How annoying. (LINDY WEST) Grand Illusion, Thurs Sept 7 and 14 at 8 pm. (Continues through Sept 28.)

Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

A video of Harold Pinter mouthing off about Gitmo, Iraq, etc. Keystone Church, Fri Sept 15 at 7 pm.

Head Trauma

A schlubby drifter named George Walker (Vince Mola) returns to claim his dead grandmother's condemned home. By day he toils away cleaning up the years of neglect, but by night he has strange dreams of a hooded stranger strangling coeds in the nearby woods. Are the dreams real? Is George going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Director Lance Weiler (of minor cult fave The Last Broadcast) gets a lot of creepy mileage out of the dark house, especially its flooded basement, but as things wrap up all spookiness drains away. When the big twist is visible from miles away, it's hard to get too worked up about it. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.

Ma Vie en Rose

The adorable Georges du Fresne plays Ludovic, a little French boy with long, long eyelashes and a big, big thing for girl's clothes. He also adores Pam, a benevolent plastic doll who acts as his guardian angel. And, of course, there's a boy next door, whom Ludovic longs to marry. A sweet and yet not at all cloying story about being wrongly chastised for who you are. (ANNIE WAGNER) Central Cinema, Wed-Thurs Sept 20-21 at 7 pm. (Continues through Sept 24.)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Beautiful and twisted, The Nightmare Before Christmas remains one of the greatest holiday flicks ever created. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER) Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

See Stranger Suggests, p. 29. Central Cinema, Fri-Sun 7, 9:40 pm. (Late show 21+.)

Ray of Darkness

Winner of the NWFF Local Sightings/Altoids Independent Cinema Award for best feature, Ray of Darkness is a horror film by Redmond native JK Reams about the search for a missing person. Northwest Film Forum, Sat Sept 16 at 11 pm.

Salvador Allende

Patricio Guzmán's documentary Salvador Allende is both a personal and national account of the life and legacy of Allende, the democratically elected socialist president of Chile who, in the early '70s, was violently removed from power by a CIA-sponsored coup d'état. Using actual footage and interviews with Chilean citizens, artists, politicians, and workers, the documentary explores the wound that Allende's demise has left on the country. It is a wound that's still exposed and far from healing. At one time in Chile's history, everything seemed possible; Allende represented the desires of factory workers, the poor, the base of the nation. He obtained control of the country's future by legitimate means and, once in power, kept his promises. A people's dream became too true, but counterforces in the US robbed them of this dream come true. As a work of art, Salvador Allende is not outstanding, but it does adequately express the depth and heaviness of Chile's sorrow. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Sun 7, 9 pm, Tues-Thurs 7, 9 pm.

Screaming Masterpiece

Featuring Sigur Rós, Mum, Minus, and you-know-who, Screaming Masterpieces examines the pop music of Iceland and follows the swan-dress-wearing icon Björk through all stages of her inspiring career. Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Tues 7, 9 pm.

Silent Films with Donald Sosin

Pianist Donald Sosin accompanies classic Yiddish silent films, including A Child of the Ghetto (1910), Hungry Hearts (1922), Old Isaacs the Pawnbroker (1908), and The Romance of the Jewess (1908). Kenyon Hall, Thurs Sept 14 at 7:30 pm. Discount w/ RSVP at kenyonhall@earthlink.net.

Viva Pedro

Pedro Almodóvar's crazy excesses are a font of pleasure. He has created a baroque universe of recurring characters, high drama, ridiculous slapstick, and stories that repeat themselves both within one film and throughout his career. His is a fantastic, exaggerated, and always darkly comical fairyland of coincidences and cosmic justice. (BRENDAN KILEY) All films screen Harvard Exit. This week's films: Live Flesh, Law of Desire, Bad Education.

We Go Way Back

See Stranger Suggests, p. 29. Winner of multiple awards at Slamdance, We Go Way Back (by Stranger One-to-Watch Lynn Shelton) is the tender story of a fringe-theater actress in Ballard who is knocked off her twentysomething rails by simple little letters she wrote to her older self at the age of 13. Amber Hubert is properly vague in the lead role, R. Hamilton Wright scores bountiful zingers as a capricious theater director, and Basil Harris is perfect in the small role of an empathetic friend. A must if you've ever attended Seattle theater, and a sweet, subtle choice for everyone else. (ANNIE WAGNER)Varsity, see Movie Times for details.

NOW PLAYING

Accepted

Accepted is about a bunch of horrible, entitled, middle-class teens who don't get into college for perfectly legitimate reasons. Well, boo fucking hoo. You're such a smarty-pants that you only applied to Yale? Your bad! Busted rotator cuff busted your sports scholarship? How about some studying, champ? Oh, you just didn't try that hard? Wow! Fuck you! I wish it were possible to punch a movie in the face (can we get to work on that, science?). (LINDY WEST)

Barnyard

Humanized cows do NOT make good cartoon characters. You can't stand a cow up on its hind legs and make it talk and dance around with its bright pink phallic udder swinging everywhere! That's not cute and goofy! These cartoon cows don't even have buttholes drawn onto them, yet we get to watch their perverse udders just flap around in the wind the whole fucking movie? Uh, ew! (MEGAN SELING)

Beerfest

There are wiener schnitzel jokes, a Das Boot satire, and gallons and gallons of beer—it's about as funny as a barroom belch. (BRENDAN KILEY)

Boynton Beach Club

A jaunty geriatric comedy that just happens to be the ickiest smut-pile ever made. Listen. I'm all for the old folks doin' it. Especially when "it" is foxtrotting, eating Werther's Originals, talking about the Depression, or giving me $50 for my birthday. And okay, I'm even for old people having sex. But is it really necessary—REALLY?—for Sally Kellerman's dead naked titties to be all dingle-danglin' in my face? (LINDY WEST)

Conversations with Other Women

Conversations with Other Women is one of those movies built entirely on ponderous chitchat. It unfolds entirely in split screen: an annoying, disorienting gimmick that I totally liked. An overly literal he-said she-said, the two sides inform and enhance and contradict each other in an organic and charming way. (LINDY WEST)

The Covenant

A horror movie about, you know, evil and woods.

Crank

Jason Statham plays a hit man injected with an experimental poison. In order to stay alive long enough to get revenge, he has to find ways to keep his adrenaline pumping. Said regimen includes snorting coke off a filthy bathroom floor, nailing his girlfriend in public places, and kicking incredible amounts of ass. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Crossover

An "urban drama" set in the world of underground streetball. Preston A. Whitmore II directs.

The Descent

Hyperbole be danged: This is the best, purest horror film in years. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

The Devil Wears Prada

Is Meryl Streep afraid of Anna Wintour? There's something weirdly soft in her portrayal of "dragon lady" that completely contradicts the spirit of the movie. But to be fair, it's not her fault: Streep can't help but play a human being, and the characters in The Devil Wears Prada are not human beings. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Factotum

This adaptation of the semiautobiographical novel by boozer-sage Charles Bukowski refuses to sugarcoat the nature of the inwardly torpedoing protagonist (here a bearded, growly Matt Dillon), but permits a few hazy rays of light to shine through. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Half Nelson

Man, you guys! Ryan Gosling (or "the Goz," as I like to call him) is fucking attractive! Even when perched on a feces-encrusted toilet smoking crack and crying. I crown him King of Babes. And I guess the movie—about an idealistic, drug-addled 8th-grade history teacher—is pretty good, too. (LINDY WEST)

Hollywoodland

Banish all fantasies of Chinatown, part the second, now. Hollywoodland, like the stories it's clearly trying to emulate, presents a revisionist take on a footnote in Golden State history. In this case: Was George Reeves, erstwhile television Superman, truly a suicide? While Chinatown's footnote really was a footnote—water rights—and one awash in clear, blue possibility, all Hollywoodland has to offer is just another hopped-up celebrity conspiracy theory. (ANNIE WAGNER)

How to Eat Fried Worms

If you're not familiar with the story (the movie is based on a popular kids' book), let's recap. As a way to make some friends in a new school, this kid, Billy, accepts a dare to eat 10 worms in one day without puking. Ewww!! Worms! SOOO GRODY! Anyway, the whole "10-year-olds running amok in the neighborhood" montage ensues and it's pretty funny. (MEGAN SELING)

Idlewild

Idlewild stars OutKast, so the musical numbers are, of course, enjoyable, but there's also no denying that it's simply this generation's Moonwalker jazzed up with a little bit of Baz Luhrmann-circa-Moulin-Rouge! attitude. Through the entire film (which tells the story of a fast-paced love affair that blooms in a Georgia speakeasy in the 1930s) it's apparent that the actors aren't actors at all. They're musicians, well-choreographed dancers, and models—all flexing a new and slightly awkward muscle. (MEGAN SELING)

The Illusionist

The Illusionist is, according to usually staid critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, "a lush piece of romanticism" (read: a sepia-stained triumph of ahistoricism); or, if you prefer to have it from Stephen Holden, The Illusionist "rouses your slumbering belief in the miraculous" (read: Jessica Biel is so boring you'll nod off in your cushioned megaplex seat). I saw The Illusionist (twice) at the Seattle International Film Festival, back before beer bongs and airborne snakes ruled the screens, and I can assure you, with all confidence, that the movie is dumb. Really, really, dumb. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Invincible

The new biopic about the late-'70s Philadelphia Eagles walk-on sensation Vince Papale has a fairly healthy awareness about its hardwired limitations. Led by Mark Wahlberg at his most underdoggedly appealing, it's about as soft sell as the prefab sports genre gets. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

Lady in the Water

Holy shit. Everything is wrong with this picture. Everything! The photography is exceptionally dull. The story has nothing new to reveal. Lastly, the lady from the water is a pure-white, Pre-Raphaelite woman (played by Bryce Dallas Howard); whereas the evil being is simply a black mass. This binary construction leads us, by way of King Kong, back to The Birth of a Nation. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Lassie

Homeward Bound with an accent! Lassie is a dog and a little boy loves the shit out of her. But the little boy is poor, so poor that his family has to sell Lassie to a rich old man. Lassie doesn't want to stay with the rich old man, though, because his butler guy mistreats her and whips her with a belt while his pants hang around his ankles. So Lassie wants to go home. Trouble is, home is hundreds of miles away. It's got happy ending written all over it. (MEGAN SELING)

Little Miss Sunshine

A dysfunctional family road trip comedy built upon a mountain of character quirks. Call it Indie Filmmaking 101. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Miami Vice

Miami Vice—a decidedly non-winking update of the '80s television series—is in many ways the ultimate Michael Mann film. All the touchstones are there. Oceans are on hand for lingering gazes; women are on hand for conflicted grazing—swap out the title card and this could easily be a description of Heat. But while that film has become a certifiable classic worthy of repeat viewings, Miami Vice is an outright mess, underfed and seemingly filmed on the fly—a surprise from a director vaunted for his painful perfectionism. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

Monster House

Old Man Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi), like all neighborhood coots, really, really wants you to stay off his lawn. He screams and howls, threatens bodily harm ("You want to be a dead person?"), and he will not give you your ball back. But it's for your own good, really, considering the giant carnivorous child-gobbling monster (Kathleen Turner—no, seriously) masquerading as Nebbercracker's house. Across the street, neighbor kid DJ peers through his telescope, suspecting foul play, determined to get to the bottom of things. Leafless trees flank the house like sad, dead fingers. Grasping tendrils of lawn drag unsuspecting trespassers to their doom. Long story short, I now have nightmares from a movie meant for babies. (LINDY WEST)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

It's the expected romp: swords are clashed, cannons are fired, and many a quip is unsheathed. But what's missing this go-around is the genuine surprise of the first film. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)

A Prairie Home Companion

It's sad to see Garrison Keillor making miscalculations about the nature and appeal of his own creations. (ANNIE WAGNER)

The Protector

Tony Jaa serves up more Muay Thai beatdowns in this sort-of sequel to Ong-bak.

The Quiet

I'm not sure why the folie-à-deux revenge drama became such a feminist staple. When it happened, however—1994, Heavenly Creatures—is no great mystery. The Quiet gets off to a ragged start. Deaf orphan Dot (Camilla Belle) moves in with bitchy cheerleader Nina (Elisha Cuthbert), only to find out that her new home is incest ridden and painkiller blurred. The incest comes care of Daddy (Martin Donovan, who deploys his floppy gray forelock like a pervert flag). The painkillers come care of Mom (a glazed-looking Edie Falco). Dot and Nina don't realize they're on the same team until very late in the game, and by that point, you're so exhausted by psychodrama that catharsis never comes. There is, however, a school dance during which records by Le Tigre and Cat Power are spun. If that notion really cranks your scooter, you might find The Quiet fitfully amusing. Creepy or wicked? Not so very much. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Quinceañera

When Magdalena (15 years old and pregnant) moves into the back unit of a duplex with her Tío Tomas—the most adorable old man in the history of adorable old men—she finds another cousin, the rough Carlos, hiding out after being caught perusing gay porn on his parents' computer. Soon they form a fierce friendship, sketched with a supremely light hand. Their situation is the stuff of after-school specials, but the casual way they recognize themselves in each other's plight is anything but shrill. (ANNIE WAGNER)

A Scanner Darkly

What is the core truth of this film based on a Philip K. Dick short story of the same name? That capitalism is not progressive; it does not move from a lower condition to a higher and better one, but is circular. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

Scoop

Match Point was slick, a film that politely looked the other way as you began to sympathize with the lead character's alternating lust for and horror of women (an ambivalence that ends in homicidal panic). Scoop is a screwball murder mystery—frequently funny, but somehow less fun. (ANNIE WAGNER)

Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a Plane is not good, per se. It could be a double feature with Mansquito on the Sci-Fi channel. Samuel L. Jackson is in the FBI. He wants a dude to testify against a hot Asian mobster named Eddie Kim. They have to fly to L.A. for the trial. On a plane. With snaaaaaakes!!! So are you happy, America? Your movie is here. Now shut the fuck up already. (LINDY WEST)

Step Up

This movie debuted at number 2! Julia Stiles must be fuming.

Trust the Man

Two fracturing couples, one (Julianne Moore and David Duchovny) severely undersexed, the other (Billy Crudup and Maggie Gyllenhaal) terminally afraid of commitment. Round and round they go, with a series of foibles intended to amuse, but building instead to an overall flatline. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

The Wicker Man

On the matriarchal commune of Summersisle ("a tiny place in Puget Sound"), a brave cop named Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) searches for a missing child. Obscene anti-feminist propaganda that it is, The Wicker Man is almost too retarded to be offensive. (LINDY WEST)

Wordplay

Compared to the several Scrabble documentaries that came out a few years ago, Wordplay is conspicuously lacking in crazy characters. But the interviews with Will Shortz are dorky-adorable. (ANNIE WAGNER)

World Trade Center

Oliver Stone's movie (written by Andrea Berloff) is exactly what everyone was terrified United 93 was going to be. It's crass, lazy—and worse—it represents a distinctly evangelical form of pro-American fervor. (ANNIE WAGNER)