COMING SOON

Brother, The Crimson Rivers (Les Rivières Pourpres), Jump Tomorrow, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Planet of the Apes


NEW THIS WEEK

America's Sweethearts
Julia Roberts plays glamorous movie star Catherine Zeta-Jones' assistant, with whom movie star John Cusack falls in love, in a film co-written by and co-starring Billy Crystal, a man with the world's most embarrassingly huge ego. No, not his character, him. Jesus, what a fucking asshole. Opens Fri. Guild 45th, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

* The Best of Portland's 27th Annual NW Film and Video Festival
No less great a man than Todd Haynes chose the prizewinners from the most recent Portland Film and Video fest; and no less an art museum than the Seattle Art Museum is screening them (all shorts by Northwest artists, including several members of 911 Media Arts Center), so check it out. Fri July 20. Seattle Art Museum

Bully
Highly recommended to those who love to masturbate to images of oversexed, underfed, shirtless teens, this is the latest installment in Larry (Kids) Clark's ongoing cinematic exploration of the moral vacuum which surrounds contemporary youth, and the murderous, drug-addled, emotionally bereft impulses that sprout there. Young hotties Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips, Rachel Miner, Michael Pitt (soon to be of Hedwig fame), and Kelli Garner team up to murder Nick Stahl, who plays the titular bully despite possessing not a thumbnail of menace in his entire being. This bully is a bastard (and a rapist, and a closet gay... "aren't they all?" Clark seems to ask) in addition to being the only one of these pitiless, self-hating stoners with any prospects. If the film is a metaphor for what society does to kids, and what kids do to kids as a result, it fails, mainly because it's really about what Clark wants to do to kids (the boys especially), which is light them luxuriantly and then fuck them blind. Bully operates in a hollow sphere, where the deck is so stacked against reality that all you can do is pray for the credits. (Sean Nelson) Opens Fri. Egyptian

A Clockwork Orange
Just in time for the sweeping cultural backlash at Stanley Kubrick, in which a 50-year career at the pinnacle of cinematic achievement is being pilloried by a world that didn't get Eyes Wide Shut and can't stand A.I., comes a revival of his most violent, bleak, cynical (and self-satisfied) film. Malcolm McDowell is beyond perfect, still. (Sean Nelson) Fri-Sat July 20-21. Egyptian

* Crime Wave
See Stranger Suggests. Writer-director John Paizs perfectly captures the look and feel of '50s propaganda films in this surreal 1985 movie (not to be confused with Andre de Toth's 1954 work of the same title). Paizs himself stars as Steven Penny, a mute screenwriter obsessed with "colour crime films." Assisting him in his quest is Kim, the daughter of the family from whom he rents his room above the garage. What cements this movie's late-night charm is Paizs' surreal dedication to the '50s filmmaking style (from the music to the acting, wardrobe, film stock, and especially the overblown narration) and Penny's obsession with success in every script he writes (tossed off scripts include the rise and fall of Allway representatives, tribute bands, and self-help gurus, all of which we get to see played out) makes this the most successfully funny film you've never seen. (David Manning) Fri-Sat July 20-21. Grand Illusion

Depth of Focus
If you believe, like the press release for this event claims, that Seattle is a "cultural dustbin" and/or a "yuppie coffee shop," then you might want to get saved by hightailing it down to this evening of short films by the likes of Bruce Conner, Rene Clair, Norman McLaren, and a bunch of locals, along with animation and ancient archival stuff. Presented by the Puget Sound Cinema Society, a group that claims this monthly event to be the only one "dedicated to the complete range of cinema, in a manner neither pretentious nor kitsch." Pay what it's worth. Thurs July 19. University Heights Center

The Dinosaur Hunter
The Children's Summer Film Series kicks off with this work from local filmmaker Rick Stevenson, in which a government paleontologist offers a sizable reward to anyone able to unearth a complete tyrannosaur, setting a Depression-era prairie community at odds. Thurs-Sun July 19-22. Little Theatre

FREMONT OUTDOOR MOVIES
The summer tradition of movies viewed in parking lots continues; this one is at N 35th and Phinney (across from Redhook Brewery). This week: Psycho. Sat July 21.

* Ghost World
Reviewed this issue, repeatedly. Fans of Daniel Clowes' epochal comic novel about the listless inner teen life have been awaiting this adaptation by Crumb director Terry Zwigoff for years now, and the film delivers, though not in the direct way you might have anticipated. Clowes' super-detached geek queens Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) have graduated from high school, and, bored, they answer a personals ad placed by ĂĽber-dork vinyl junkie Seymour (an R. Crumb surrogate played brilliantly by Steve Buscemi) responds. As an experiment, Enid decides to educate Seymour in the ways of love, and her world begins to crumble. (Sean Nelson) Opens Fri. Neptune

His Girl Friday
More screwball boilerplate from Howard Hawks and Cary Grant, who plays a newspaper editor whose ex-wife and star reporter (Rosalind Russell) is threatening to marry a straightlaced insurance salesman. But Cary ain't having it, so he proceeds to destroy the couple's lives in order to prove that he still loves his ex. In the '40s, they called it love. Today they call it stalking. Thurs July 19. Seattle Art Museum

LINDA'S SUMMER MOVIES
Back again for a seventh season, Linda's Summer Movies is the original outdoor drinking/film-watching extravaganza, presented, as always, FOR FREE!! By the time the plot falls apart, you'll be too drunk to care!! This week: More Classroom Classics. Wed July 25. Linda's

Lost and Delirious
A tender-hearted adaptation of Susan Swan's novel, The Wives of Bath, this film plumbs the pride and pitfalls of love in an all-girl's prep school, where two nubile ladies dare to sip from the teacup of forbidden love. Opens Fri. Broadway Market

Made
Walking out of Made, I tried to conjure the perfect phonetic sound to properly describe it. The winner: "nyeh," as in "whatever." Here is a film that exists for no other reason than to revisit the "magic" between Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, and your admiration for Made may depend on just how brilliant you found Swingers, their first project. If you thought it was great, then by all means go. But, if like me, you found it vastly overrated, only marginally entertaining, and more than occasionally annoying (especially that Vaughn fucker), you'd be better served elsewhere. That said, it's a comedy about the Mob, and there are some good moments. (Bradley Steinbacher) Opens Fri. Broadway Market

Movie Magic
As part of its Children's Summer Film Series, the Little Theatre presents a look at the origin of movie special effects. This bit of edutainment for the whippersnappers features clips of international films from 1905-1960, back when you had to use a series of trick dissolves to turn a woman into a butterfly, 'cause we didn't have all your fancy morphing in our day... Little Theatre

* SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS
This week: It, starring the original "It" girl (um, yes, this is the movie that generated that old-ass expression), Miss Clara Bow. Mon July 23. Paramount Theatre

* Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine
A deeply self-referential death cry from Bahman Farmanara, a filmmaker who hasn't worked in 24 years, about a filmmaker named Bahman Farjami who hasn't worked for 24 years preparing to shoot a deeply self-referential death cry about his own funeral. This Iranian dirge, which owes a LOT to Fellini and some to Bergman, too (Wild Strawberries, especially), is beautiful and mordantly comedic, and has that whole Iranian metaphysical thing about life and nature. But it suffers from our lack of familiarity with the director/star. When Woody Allen rips off the Euro masters (not that Farmanara is a rip-off artist, mind you, he's got more going on, and the film is better than that), it works only because of our Woody Allen associations. Camphor you take on faith, and indulgent as it is (another reliable Iranian movie trope), it's also full of grim and delightful humanity. (Sean Nelson) Opens Fri. Varsity


CONTINUING RUNS

* A.I.
Steven Spielberg wrote and directed this cautionary futurist fable about a robot boy programmed with the capacity to love, following 20 years of development by the late Stanley Kubrick. It's the best work in years by both filmmakers, the weaknesses of each overmatched by the magnanimous strengths of the other. The film is a visual wonder (wait till you see what New York looks like!) featuring a stunning central performance by Haley Joel Osment (and only slightly lesser ones by Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Brendan Gleeson, and William Hurt), and speaks to the profound sadness that rests at the literal and figurative heart of technological advance. A word of warning: the film is LONG, and features multiple endings. (Sean Nelson) Cinerama, Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Majestic Bay, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Once upon a time there was a great and mighty kingdom where enlightenment reigned and the citizenry was blessed with wisdom and alacrity of spirit that surpassed those of even the most evolved of modern nations. Then, for reasons no one has ever understood, the great and mighty kingdom fell, its very existence relegated to the annals of apocrypha. But enough about Disney. This movie is about some island or whatnot. It's a cartoon. (Sean Nelson) Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro

Baby Boy
Like all of John Singleton's work, this film is very pleased with its good intentions. Unfortunately, it's also a rambling, basically structureless melange of moist moralism and phony struggle. The main character, Jody, spends the whole film in a quandary about how best to be a man, spouting philosophical breakthroughs and pledging to change, even though he lives with his mama and has two kids by two different women, both of whom he manages to cheat on. Revelations hit Jody (and his friends) when no one, least of all the camera, is looking--they have unmotivated life altering-epiphanies in between scenes, then spend their time on screen verbalizing them. When his mom brings home a new boyfriend (Ving Rhames, without whom the film would be worthless), who's lived ten times the life that Jody could even dream of, the baby boy finds his hollow up against an immovable force. It's almost enough to make Baby Boy work. Almost. (Sean Nelson) Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16

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) Pacific Place 11

Cats and Dogs
For once, a film centered around cats waging holy war against dogs breaks the mold, and makes the cats dumb and the dogs smart. Aspects of popular espionage films (most notably Mission: Impossible and The Matrix) are woven into this computer-enhanced, live-action film, and for the most part, it's pretty funny--much more so than one would expect from a cats-against-dogs story line for kids and dog lovers. (Kathleen Wilson) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro

The Closet
An accountant at a condom factory realizes he's about to be fired. Divorced, alienated from his 17-year-old son, he contemplates suicide, but is instead given some rather odd advice from his neighbor, a retired psychiatrist: Announce at work that you are gay, and the powers that be will be too frightened to fire you, lest they get slapped with a nasty lawsuit. The accountant takes his neighbor's advice, and, well, hilarity ensues. Or, if not hilarity, at least a few laughs here and there. (Bradley Steinbacher) Guild 45th

Crazy/Beautiful
Of all the reliable teen film tropes, none is more rugged than the star-, race-, and class-crossed high-school love affair. Crazy/Beautiful comes swaddled in the skintight half-shirts and thin-wale cords of teenage lust. Kirsten Dunst plays Nicole, the emotionally unstable daughter of a congressman (Bruce Davison); she cavorts through her privileged life, oozing aggressive California sexuality and ribald naughtiness. She meets Carlos (Jay Hernandez), a poor, industrious Latino football player who rides the bus two hours just to get to the posh high school Nicole takes for granted. It's not long before Nicole's overt carnality is revealed as the symptom of deep wounds that prevent her from loving or trusting anyone... except Carlos, whose moral sturdiness and ambition are put to the test by his hot white girlfriend's devil-may-care behavior. The film is better than it probably sounds. (Sean Nelson) Meridian 16, Metro, Redmond Town Center

Dr. Dolittle 2
In his second outing as the only man on Earth who can communicate with animals, Eddie Murphy finds himself a reluctant spokesman for a forestful of fuzzy creatures (including a mafia of beavers and raccoons) about to face the bulldozers of an evil logging company. The scenario is the standard American comedy insult, but the jokes are really good. (Sean Nelson) Meridian 16

* Enlightenment Guaranteed
This super-engaging story of two German brothers waylaid in Tokyo on their way to a Japanese Zen monastery is a study in unclassifiability: elements of farce (their travel fiasco lands them in lederhosen before long) mingle with serious human drama and an abiding desire for spiritual credence, though the hapless brothers are basically foolish, a Teutonic Laurel and Hardy. The video photography gives the film a guileless quality, not unlike a demo recording, that lends immediacy to the proceedings which, hands less skilled than those of director Doris Dörrie, might have grown tendentious. A completely top-flight movie. (Sean Nelson) Broadway Market

* Everybody's Famous
An out-of-work factory laborer kidnaps a pop star and demands as ransom that a song he's written be performed on national television. You know where this is going, but you'll enjoy getting there. Remember Zero Mostel in The Producers? Werner De Smedt is in the same class as the sleazy but oh-so-brilliant promoter. (Barley Blair) Harvard Exit

The Fast & the Furious
Photographed lavishly, edited epileptically, and acted with virile abandon (Vin Diesel is obviously action star material), this movie about street racers who have a tidy little sideline of jacking Mack trucks full of electronic equipment, is breakneck garbage. Watching this film at the Meridian late on a Saturday night was exactly what I imagine hell must be like. (Sean Nelson) Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Fantastic worlds, crackpot mysticism, and spectacular animation--Final Fantasy may, at first glance, seem like just another animated blockbuster (see also: Shrek), but upon further inspection the film's true colors come to life: The end of acting is near. Call me an alarmist, but the animated characters in Final Fantasy are such a leap forward that the future may actually be visible. Here's how I think it will play out: 1) Directors will embrace realistic animuns (which is a word I just made up) in order to flesh out large crowd scenes cheaply; 2) Dangerous stunts will no longer be performed by stunt professionals, but rather, these same animuns; and 3) Tom Cruise (and his ilk) will eventually grow to be superfluous, as producers and directors will find it much, much easier just to conjure their leads rather than cast them. Still, despite the damage Final Fantasy may someday cause, it's definitely worth seeing if for no other reason than the fact that its main character, "Aki," gives a far more convincing performance than the entire cast of Pearl Harbor combined. (Bradley Steinbacher) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree

Jurassic Park III
Though the 20 minutes it spends in expository build-up--Sam Neill is back as the skeptic hero paleontologist, lured into going to the dinosaur island by some "rich adventurers" (who are actually middle-class Ohioans looking for their son)--are nigh on interminable, once the dinosaurs show up and start screaming and chomping and smashing people and each other, this movie makes its worth known. I don't know if part three, directed by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer), is genuinely better than parts one and two (mainly because I still can't tell if those movies were good, I just know they had big-ass dinosaurs in them, and that's enough), but it clearly raises the dino stakes, delivering the ferocious predatory business of the monsters themselves more convincingly than Spielberg ever could. (Sean Nelson) Majestic Bay

Kiss of the Dragon
An incomprehensibly plotted, ultraviolent bloodstorm nearly redeemed by the elegance and inexplicably potent moral gravity of Hong Kong superstar Jet Li, who seems to be playing a frustrated acupuncturist turned government agent. Bridget Fonda is a whore with an imperiled child who weeps mascara tears and teeters around on high-heeled boots. Crooked Parisian cop Tcheky Karyo screams at his thuggish minions while all the blood vessels in his face threaten to burst. The only fun to be found here lies in the details--a pair of severed legs falling onto the linoleum with a wet thwack, Karyo lovingly stroking his turtle, and the luminescence of Li who manages to remain lovable even as he's driving a pair of chopsticks deep into another human being's trachea. (Tamara Paris) Factoria, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center, Varsity

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
The Tomb Raider series of loosely cinematic action games has gotten lots of attention for its busty main character, Lara Croft. Some people have even tried to interpret Croft's popularity as having a kind of Charlie's Angels postfeminist import--she is supposed to be a polylingual and kickass (if voluptuous) adventurer--but one look at the video game leaves little doubt that her primary appeal is in the "if voluptuous" department. Tomb Raider isn't even kind of good. (Traci Vogel) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

Legally Blonde
In Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon plays a Southern California Barbie doll named Elle Woods. Elle possesses charming, asexual, lobotomized good cheer and an encyclopedic knowledge of shoes and hemlines. When her boyfriend dumps her (she's "not serious enough"), she decides to win him back by attending Harvard Law School, getting in even though her brain operates, with the savantish exception of matters of fashion, at the level of a 10-year-old. (Michael Shilling) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

* 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, Metro, Uptown

* Moulin Rouge
It's hard to deny that Moulin Rouge is a flawed gem. What's harder to deny, however, is the heart that beats at the center of the elephantine spectacle--the rapturous love for the possibilities of movies and romance that once made musicals matter. (Sean Nelson) Meridian 16, Metro, Southcenter

Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is everything the preview led you to believe: overlong, overlit, overwrought, and overpaid. It's nationalism porn, delivering all the basest flag-waving heroism with none of the meat and mettle of actual history or conflict. (Sean Nelson) Aurora Cinema Grill, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

* Pootie Tang
Like an answer to a prayer, writer/director Louis C.K. has delivered a rare treasure: a brilliant, hilarious comedy whose sole intention is to be as ridiculous and silly as possible. Pootie Tang (Lance Crouther) is a hero to all--one-third John Shaft, one-third Michael Jackson, one-third Mr. T--a holy black dude born cool, strutting around with his shirt open, dodging bullets with casual ease, and making public service announcements telling kids not to eat fast food, drink whiskey, smoke cigarettes, or drop out of school. This enrages Corporate America, which tries to destroy Pootie by stealing his magic belt. Here's the thing, though: Pootie doesn't speak English, nor any other recognizable tongue. He talks in gibberish syllables ("wa da tah," "tippi tai on my cappatown") that everyone understands. It pulls the film--which, to be fair, starts struggling around the 45-minute mark--into the realm of pure absurdism every time Pootie opens his mouth. And pure absurdism, with one eye trained on bitch slapping the racist, misogynist, and just plain dumb conventions of Hollywood, is right where I want to be. (Sean Nelson) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark

* The Princess and the Warrior
Somewhere between dream and reality is Wuppertal, Germany, whose buildings, streets, and stairs form the stage for the story of Sissi and Bodo--the shy princess and the sad warrior. Sissi works in a mental institution, the home for those who cannot "bear too much reality." Bodo (Benno Furmann) is an unstable and unemployed ex-soldier who lives with his brother Walter (Joachim KrĂłl). Walter and Bodo are planning to rob a bank and flee to Australia (the land of the dream time, according to native Australians). Fate brings the princess and the warrior together; they're a match made in heaven. But there are numerous knots and plots to sort out before the pure beings (air, the princess; water, the warrior) can fuse into a perfect and complete whole. (Charles Mudede) Varsity

* The Road Home
Yusheng's mother Di has called him home with an ancient request: He must gather a party of villagers to walk the body of his dead father home. Over the snowy mountains and all the way to their remote village, the bearers must tell the dead Mr. Luo, "This is the road home," so that he will always know. Some love stories could have happened anywhere. Others, like The Road Home, belong to their settings like the view from a particular hillside. The story of Di and Luo is communal territory, like the schoolhouse, and as necessary to the life of the village. Where director Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern was sweeping, The Road Home is tiny--and it's still completely overwhelming, especially when staring into Zhang Ziyi's doe eyes. (Evan Sult) Metro

Scary Movie 2
As a champion of the uneven but undeniable comic brilliance of Scary Movie--a film I stumbled into stoned and staggered out of sore from shock and laughter--it pains me to tell you that Scary Movie 2 sucks. Scary Movie was a whore for laughs: shameless, sick, and stupid--but never desperate. The chaos was contained by the script's mocking adherence to high-school and horror-movie clichés, and punctuated by some truly inspired performances. But in Scary Movie 2, chaos reigns. This sounds more fun than it is. Without a unifying target for its humor, this "over-the-top horror spoof!" almost immediately devolves into the same compulsive desperation for laughs that's tainted the life's work of that unbearable freak Robin Williams. (David Schmader) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Northgate

* The Score
This is a fully functional heist film that benefits greatly from its attention to the procedure of cracking safes and breaking and entering, to say nothing of the utterly relaxed brilliance of its three lead actors, Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton, and best of all, Marlon Brando. It feels like these three pros took one look at the script and threw it away, realizing it was derivative trash (DeNiro plays a master thief who agrees to "one last job" again--it's kind of like Ronin lite--in cahoots with fence Brando and young buck Norton), but then realizing they could pull it off with the improvisational ease of a master acting class exercise. Though it's legitimately sad to see Brando (who now makes Sydney Greenstreet look like Kate Moss) as enormous as he is, the comic grace with which he glides through this otherwise inferior work--and again, it's totally watchable and entertaining--makes you remember that he really is the best of all time. (Sean Nelson) Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

* Sexy Beast
Gal Dove (Ray Winstone) is a retired gangster, living high on a hill in the Costa del Sol, enjoying a lethargic existence. But he is as out of place here as the heart-shaped ceramic tiles on the floor of his pool. Bad news arrives in the shape of Don Logan (Ben Kingsley, so great), there to coax Gal back to England for a job. Gal resists, but Don won't take no for an answer, setting in motion a verbal boxing match so artful and intense it turns the sprawling Spanish vista into a pressure cooker in which Gal is forced to reckon for his ill-had comforts. A voice buried deep within Gal tells him and us that this can't last. Don is that voice, given brutal, relentless human form. In the fallout of their confrontation lies one of the finest films in recent memory. (Sean Nelson) Seven Gables, Uptown

* Shrek
Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) is the name of an ogre who lives by himself in a swamp; he takes great pride in his job, which mainly consists of being nasty at all times to all things. After he sends one particular batch of terrified knights packing, his swamp is overrun by the entire cast of traditional Western fairy tales, from Pinocchio to Aesop's talking donkey (Eddie Murphy). He finds the local lord, one Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow), and demands his swamp back, but gets hoodwinked into rescuing a princess (Cameron Diaz) instead. The film is both terrible and great. (Evan Sult) Aurora Cinema Grill, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Majestic Bay, Metro, Pacific Place 11