Calle 54, The Gleaners and I, High Tide, A Knight's Tale, Once Upon a Time in China (Parts I & II), Simon Magus

Balance & Motion
Local shorts that treat the subjects of, um... balance... and there was one other thing. Oh yeah... motion. With music by the Maximum Coherence Celluloid Ensemble. Wed May 9. Little Theatre

Center of the World
The new work by Wayne Wang, an often-great director whose career more or less defines the trajectory between sublime (Smoke, Slam Dance, Eat a Bowl of Tea) and ridiculous (The Joy Luck Club). This one, shot on digital video, examines the explosive fluctuations of power and control in the crucible of modern erotic entanglement. A stripper and her most avid fan (Molly Parker and Peter Sarsgaard) embark on highly conditional sexual relationship only to find the rules changing as human feelings intrude. With a story by Paul Auster and rapidly hyphenating Portland performance artist Miranda July. We'll have a capsule for it next week. Opens Fri. Broadway Market

DIRECT ANIMATION
See Stranger Suggests. This three-day series of experiments in "cameraless filmmaking," where images are physically placed directly on celluloid--via scratching, drawing, rubbing, and bleeding--culminates with the audience participating in the making of a "group loop." Direct Animation features work by Len Lye, Richard Reeves, Sandra Gibson, Jose Antonio Sistiaga, and the legendary Stan Brakhage, among others, and is curated by Devon Damonte. Fri-Sun May 4-6. Little Theatre

Dirt
A domestic busts out the video camera to make a documentary that indicts his employers. Really, is this the kind of message you want to give the help? Irresponsible art! And it was produced locally by filmmaker Tim Coulter. Presented as part of The Warren Report's ongoing Distinguishing Features series. Tues May 8. Seattle Art Museum

Elvis '56
A documentary chronicling year zero of the worldwide phenomenon of Elvis Presley: The year he went to New York City and got him a spot on that there television program with the nice Irish fella, Sullivan. Wed May 9. JBL Theater at EMP

Eureka
The latest and final entry in this year's Shooting Gallery series is a 217-minute, black and white Japanese epic that launches with the hijacking of a city bus; follows with murder, alienation, and despair; then lands somewhere near the cinema's favorite destination: redemption. Opens Fri. Uptown

The General
See Stranger Suggests. The great Buster Keaton fights the Civil War the hard way (from the South!) in this unremittingly great silent comedy. Fri-Sat May 4-5. Hokum Hall

*George
Reviewed this issue. A fascinating documentary of an autistic child whose condition is best interpreted by a handheld video camera. Fri May 4. 911 Media Arts

High Noon for Gangsters
The latest installment in the Grand Illusion's ongoing retrospective of the films of Japanese avatar Kinji Fukasaku follows a multinational, multiracial heist attempt that--wouldn't you know it--goes awry. Made in 1961, this little-seen work was long thought lost, and is therefore a must for the Fukasaku aficionado. Sun May 6. Grand Illusion

*In a Lonely Place
See Stranger Suggests. Bogart's best performance in Nicholas Ray's best film. What do you need, a road map? Opens Fri. Grand Illusion

Le Courbeau
In a small French village, someone is trying to ruin the good name of small town doctor Pierre Fresnay by writing malicious letters. Less a "whodunit?" than a "qui les a ecrit?," this early work by the great Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, The Wages of Fear) is a tense, artful examination of social perversity in wartime France. Thurs May 3. Seattle Art Museum

The Legend of Rita
Best known for The Tin Drum, Volker Schlöndorff's recent cinematic outings (like Palmetto) have been lackluster at best. But with Rita, he's got his groove back, delivering the kind of sizzling ethical, political complexity that made The Lost Honor of Katarina Blum (1975) such a red-hot poker. He tracks a German political terrorist/heroine's flight through numerous lives and disguises--this joyously idealistic, existentially loony young woman's "legends" (the film was originally called The Legends of Rita). Every legend she inhabits comes furnished with work, relationships, good times; when she sheds a life and moves on, it shocks us right out of our comfy identification with her bourgeois normalcy. Charismatic, admirable, and ultimately, bone-deep scary, Rita's is the very human face of fanaticism, up close and personal. (Kathleen Murphy) Opens Fri. Varsity

The Long Run
Reviewed this issue. Somewhere between Personal Best and A Dry White Season lies this examination of contemporary South Africa and the middle distance runner who somehow comes to embody it. Opens Fri. Broadway Market

The Love Bug
Mix Dean Jones and one magical Volkswagen, add a little Disney magic, and you have the recipe for several generations of nauseating treacle. Sat May 6. Stimson Auditorium

The Luzhin Defence
Reviewed this issue. Less a faithful adaptation of Nabokov's novel than an utter reinvention of it, this film features John Turturro and Emily Watson as a couple of Russians. Opens Fri. Seven Gables

The Mummy Returns
Sequel to a film which managed to top the insanely low expectations that preceded it, digital scarabs and all. No telling if this one will pull the trick off a second time, but a couple of pulchritudinous Brits in the cast (Rachel Weisz and John Hannah) might compensate for the presence of Brendan Fraser and The Rock. Opens Fri. Neptune

Sixteen Decisions
At last, a documentary about the effects of microcredit on the lives of women in rural Bangladesh! The title refers to a kind of charter drawn up by the Grameen Bank, which has loaned more than $2 billion (in increments as small as $60) to impoverished women, in the interest of improving the health and social conditions of a culture where women are treated as property. Wed May 9. Seattle Art Museum

Wildcat Women in 3-D
The Egyptian continues its series of midnight softcore that spurts right off the screen. This 1974 treasure (also released as Black Lolita) concerns a singer who's "foxier than Foxy Brown and deadlier than Cleopatra Jones." Fri-Sat May 4-5. Egyptian

The Adventures of Joe Dirt
A mullet stars as David Spade's hairstyle in the story of a down-and-out redneck in search of his parents. This film was co-produced by Happy Madison, and features everything (an affable loser, a nostalgic butt-rock soundtrack) that made Adam Sandler so successful that he now has his own production company. Everything, that is, except for Adam Sandler. You'd be amazed at what a difference that makes. (Jason Pagano) Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

Along Came a Spider
Along Came a Spider is a prequel to Kiss the Girls. Again, Morgan Freeman plays Dr. Alex Cross, a detective who deals with the most psychotic white men in America. Though Kiss the Girls is the better of the two thrillers, I still enjoyed Along Came a Spider because Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman. (Charles Mudede) Factoria, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

*Amores Perros
Amores Perros begins at a screaming dead run and maintains one kind of intensity or another over the next two-and-a-half hours. Pungently translated as Love's a Bitch, Amores Perros comprises three stories of life, love, and aggressively twisted fate in the most polluted metropolis on the planet. Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga have enrolled in the Tarantino school of storytelling, but González Iñárritu's own style and vision is so distinctive and assured in this directorial debut that no one should dwell on that point. This is a breakthrough work for Mexican cinema, and for a bold and powerful new talent. (Richard T. Jameson) Harvard Exit

*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. (Jason Pagano) Broadway Market

Blow
Blow is Hollywood all the way to the bank. But despite all its predictability--young man (Johnny Depp) rises to the top of the international drug trade and then falls to the bottom of the prison system--its portrayal of Mexicans, Central Americans, and middle America is unexpectedly sympathetic. (Charles Mudede) Factoria, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center, Varsity

Bridget Jones's Diary
Bridget Jones's Diary features a successful career woman (Renée Zellweger) with a personal life that leaves one wondering how she attained any success at all. She desires a boyfriend, sets her sights on the office cad (Hugh Grant), and moans when he dumps her. The film banks on "the eye-rolling sisterhood of solidarity," the notion that girls love to grumble over a lying, dog-ass guy. (Kathleen Wilson) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Majestic Bay, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

Chocolat
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!"). (Charles Mudede) Metro, Redmond Town Center, Uptown

The Claim
Michael Winterbottom adapts Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (guy "sells" wife and child, the evil deed haunts him). I haven't liked Winterbottom's previous work, including his version of Hardy's Jude the Obscure, but I loved The Claim. Winterbottom sets the story in the Gold Rush, with the gigantic Canadian Rockies overplaying the part of the merely big-shouldered Sierra Nevada. Wes Bentley is beautiful, Milla Jovovich is strong, Michael Nyman's score saws away dramatically in the background, Joanne Hansen's costume design makes everyone look better than real, and the hush in which Winterbottom requires almost all the lines to be delivered for me served as a useful equivalent to Hardy's literary airs. High-toned hooey, extremely enjoyable. (Barley Blair) Metro

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
The film is a likable old dog. It will neither surprise nor excite you, but it won't irritate you either. Crocodile Dundee winds up in L.A., gets in a couple of pickles, gets out, and goes home. Nobody gets hurt, nobody dies. (Riz Rollins) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Southcenter

*Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The film 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. 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) Metro, Uptown

*The Day I Became a Woman
A tripartite parable, Marzieh Meshkini's directorial debut commemorates Iranian maiden, wife, and crone in unique, cumulatively mythic styles. The most viscerally affecting chapter in Meshkini's film begins in exhilarating motion: the brilliantly choreographed bicycle-ride and horse-chase scene takes your breath away and breaks your heart. The Day I Became a Woman exemplifies the subversive visual poetry that flows through the best Iranian cinema. (Kathleen Murphy) Uptown

The Dish
Here at last is a film that is about a radar dish and it really is about a radar dish! The huge dish overwhelms even the stars (Sam Neill, Patrick Warburton) and the plot, which is about Australia's participation in the Apollo 11 moon mission of 1969. (Charles Mudede) Guild 45th, Meridian 16

Driven
Reviewed this issue. A race car movie guilty of tantalizing, but not satisfying the prurient interest. With Sylvester Stallone AND Burt Reynolds. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

Enemy at the Gates
Enemy at the Gates is the story of a Russian World War II sniper (Jude Law) and the German sniper (Ed Harris) who is sent to eliminate him. When the dueling snipers embark on a cat-and-mouse chase to assassinate each other, the movie becomes genuinely exciting. And if the film is at times rather silly... well, it's from Britain and its a minor miracle that they even have running water out there let alone significant movies. (Kudzai Mudede) Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center

The Forsaken
You know you're in for a really smart, clever film when the first 30 seconds are spent lingering on a disoriented topless girl in the shower rinsing blood off her breasts. And when she's helplessly dragged around in her panties for an hour before she speaks a single word? One word: cinema. Did the characters even have names? I don't remember, because I was too busy wondering how scene after gratuitous scene of graphic violence perpetrated against half-naked women was resonating with the two-year-old a few rows ahead. That really gave me hope. P.S.: The movie is about a guy driving from California to Miami who runs into some hipster vampires along a particularly evil stretch of Southwest highway; 90 minutes later, the vampires are dead. (Jason Pagano) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11

Freddy Got Fingered
The scene where Tom Green's paralyzed-from-the-waist-down girlfriend started to orgasm from being whacked in the shins with a bamboo cane made me realize Freddy Got Fingered, Tom Green's directorial debut, was so offensive on every level that it is either dangerous or important. Freddy Got Fingered isn't all-the-way great; still, it works far more often than it doesn't. (Sean Nelson) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

Gladiator
War hero General Maximus (Russell Crowe) is stripped of his position by a scheming new Caesar (Joaquin Phoenix). Escaping too late to save his family, Maximus falls into the hands of a slaver, and with the help of a former love, seeks his revenge by finding glory within the Coliseum. (Tom Spurgeon) Cinerama

Heartbreakers
Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt play a mother-and-daughter con team with a fervent understanding that men will screw them over, and that they must beat those suckers at their own petty game. But as every cool-headed dealer knows, the revenge con never works. Heartbreakers is certainly amusing, but its unimaginative approach will disappoint viewers who want to feel the wicked cinch of the complex con. (Traci Vogel) Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16

Himalaya
Himalaya is a groundbreaking, genuine portrait of the Dolpo region of Nepal. The story revolves around Tinle, an old chief who loses his eldest son. What follows is a mesmerizing adventure that evokes the forces of ancestral strife and nature at its most treacherous. Says director Eric Valli: "This film is a love story, a love story between this place, these people, and me. It's very simple." (Kudzai Mudede) Egyptian

Josie & The Pussycats
A grotesquely cynical live-action update of the flimsy 1970s cartoon, Josie and the Pussycats is set in a manic present-day fantasia of corporate space, a parallel world in which no space, be it in two or three dimensions, lacks for corporate sponsorship. Logos proliferate madly: sidewalks pulse with Target targets; storefronts beam forth golden arches; skyscrapers scream Starbucks; and carpets read "Revlon." It is as if the youth-market-driven multinationals had tattooed the entire body of the city, leaving no part of its flesh unadorned. (Jamie Hook) Grand Alderwood, Pacific Place 11

Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come should have been a television sitcom. A movie about an African American family (played by a superb ensemble cast, LL Cool J, Jada Pinkett, Whoopi Goldberg) from the South coming together to mourn the death of a despised relative should have been a surer bet. Unfortunately, it just wasn't nearly developed thoroughly enough. (Kudzai Mudede) Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place 11

The Low Down
With a name like The Low Down you'd think this movie actually goes somewhere, but it doesn't. It is at heart a plain and unremarkable British movie about plain and unremarkable British twenty-somethings drinking, falling in love, and essentially going about their rather plain and unremarkable lives. In order to escape these trappings, the movie blends a lively soundtrack with interesting camera angles and well-rehearsed, snappy British banter. (Kudzai Mudede) Uptown

*Memento
Telling the backwards tale of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a vengeful investigator suffering from short-term memory loss trying to hunt down his wife's murderer, Memento effectively mines the rich soil of the film noir mystery with universally corrupt characters and a watertight, intricate plot. (Jamie Hook) Aurora Cinema Grill, Guild 45th, Meridian 16

*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) Aurora Cinema Grill, Broadway Market

One Night at McCool's
I'm a professional stereotype sniper, but the new release One Night at McCool's disarms me. Instead of looking exhausted from overuse, the clichés in this movie have six packs; they even boast fully-formed frontal lobes. The jokes launch from the screen like gunpowder from Roman candles. In the pursuit of material possessions, Liv Tyler, playing an irresistible woman (duh), exploits her curvaceous anatomy in order to lasso the men she meets (Andrew Dice Clay, Matt Dillon, Michael Douglas, etc.) into becoming the accomplices in her illegal schemes. This movie soon escalates into a riot of contrivances that unexpectedly sparkles and undulates like an overweight Tuesday in New Orleans. (Suzy Lafferty) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center, Varsity

Pollock
Pollock is actor Ed Harris' directorial debut (he also stars), and 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. (Emily Hall) Metro

Shafted
Seattle needs to watch more race films. Here is a great place to start: Shafted, a movie about a white man who thinks he is Shaft. His concerns are ordered by Shaft's concerns: he hates cops, is pro-black power, sports sharp threads, maintains a serious afro, and is a bad mother--shut your mouth! The movie, however, doesn't end with the white man's madness; the world itself turns out to be completely race mad. No one is actually who he says he is, but instead believes he's either a pimp, drug dealer, kung-fu master, and so on. Under the weight of all these bulky B-movie characters, the movie collapses into perfect nonsense. (Charles Mudede) Grand Illusion

Someone Like You
In the lead role, Ashley Judd chews, licks, and snacks her way through nearly every scene, all the while remaining trim and fit despite no apparent exercise regime. So much for empowerment. As for the rest of Someone Like You's message, don't expect anything more than feisty Judd getting a bee in her bonnet after getting dumped. (Kathleen Wilson) Meridian 16

Spy Kids
Fellow earthlings, I regret to inform you that even now as we speak, it is too late. Spy Kids is headed towards us like a juggernaut and only the childless have means of escaping. (Suzy Lafferty) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Majestic Bay, Meridian 16, Metro, Northgate

The Tailor of Panama
Brit superspy Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan) has been banished to Panama for overindulging his appetites. He sizes up the tense, complicated international scene at the Canal and finds himself a hapless expat British tailor (Geoffrey Rush) to squeeze for information. Boorman's film is far too awkward and self-conscious to allow the audience to sink into spy fantasia; as a result, Brosnan's absurdly dashing spy becomes utterly grotesque, even sickening. (Evan Sult) Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro

Town and Country
Somewhere in this indecisive jumble lies what might have been a really sharp, sweet film. What you actually see, however, is a morass of class smugness, emotional smarminess, and a sense of humor as thick as an old man's prostate. Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Garry Shandling, and Goldie Hawn play two upper middle-age couples who, 20 years into friendship and marriage, start to fumble around with infidelity and mid-life crisis. Shandling gets busted, which sends Beatty into a spiral of compulsive philandering that leads, naturally, to La Ronde-lite set pieces, pseudo-self-abasement, and a tearful happy ending. Despite the fact that every punchline falls flat (a golf ball hits a fat man in the butt, ho ho), and that Andie (comedy poison) MacDowell and Charlton Heston both figure prominently in the film's second half, the film isn't wholly without merit. The problem is, aside from Diane Keaton's immutable greatness, a couple of golden Shandling moments, and one or two scenes that seem almost inadvertently well-done, what's good about Town and Country is the stuff that must've gotten cut--the scenes you have to imagine. (Sean Nelson) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11

Traffic
The big message in Traffic is perfectly laid-out by its tagline: "Nobody gets away clean." 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) Metro, Pacific Place 11, Varsity

Voyages
At first, you wonder if Voyages has any plot at all. What's with these half-heard snatches of conversation among tourists, representatives of the great post-war Jewish Diaspora? But let yourself go into this film's idiosyncratic itinerary, as it circles around to embrace half a century of transports, "disappeared" families and memories, exiles. There's mystery afoot everywhere in these journeys; a trick of the eye, and time seems to slip backwards in memory trips that measure the Holocaust's ongoing aftershocks. Allow this haunted journey time to unreel, for it brings home both terrible and wonderful truths about humanity in the aftermath of the unthinkable. (Kathleen Murphy) Grand Illusion

*With a Friend Like Harry
This Hitchcockian thriller took France by storm last year, winning several Cesar awards (France's version of the Oscar). The blackest hue of comedy tints the tale of Harry (Sergi Lopez), a wealthy bon vivant with an unshakable affinity for Michel (Laurent Lucas). Harry, firm in his belief that Michel's child-strewn, moneyless life could be made more easy, begins to use his influence--and cash--to remove various obstacles to Michel's happiness. A new car here and a case of champagne there escalate to a predictably absurd degree. The film is plain in comparison to its obvious inspiration, Hitchcock's oeuvre. But a deft French wit, and that oh-so-well-done trick of Euro-allegory (this film is about the difficulty of making art) rise like cream to the top of this film: The first taste is awfully sweet, even if it doesn't linger long. (Jamie Hook) Harvard Exit