EDGE OF SEVENTEEN--Broadway Market
ENTRAPMENT--Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Northgate, Redmond Town Center
IDLE HANDS--Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11
THE KING OF THE MASKS--Harvard Exit
OPEN YOUR EYES--Broadway Market
SLC PUNK--City Center, Varsity
THE VELOCITY OF GARY--Egyptian
REPERTORY & REVIVAL
COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM SERIES--Cinerama
CRACKPOTS & OBSESSIVES--Grand Illusion
EUROPEAN CINEMA & ETHNICITY--Kane Hall
THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE--Grand Illusion
FRENCH FILM NOIR--Seattle Art Museum
LA TRAVIATA--The Little Theater
MEXICANOS AL GRITO DE GUERRA--King Cat Theater
MIGHTY PEKING MAN--Egyptian
ROBERT BRESSON FILM SERIES--Grand Illusion
THE SEATTLE POETRY FESTIVAL--911 Media Arts
SHORTS INTL. FILM FEST WINNERS--Meridian 16
SUPER 8 FILMS--Alibi Room
TALK CINEMA--Pacific Place 11
THE VIDEO SHORTS FESTIVAL--911 Media Arts
WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT?--The Little Theater
COMING SOON
MAY 7--The Mummy, Three Seasons, The Winslow Boy, Election, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Kristin Lavransdatter
MAY 12--Trippin'
MAY 13--Seattle International Film Festival
MAY 14--The Castle, Black Mask, Tea With Mussolini, Arlington Road, Randy Metzger: The Arisocrat of Erotica
MOVIES & EVENTS
10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU--High school remake of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Meridian 16, Redmond Town Center
ALASKA: SPIRIT OF THE WILD--More of a nature documentary than a ghost story. Omnidome
ANALYZE THIS--Paul Vitti (Robert DeNiro) is a New York mobster with problems: the pressure is killing him! With a big meeting of all the New York families coming up, he needs to get rid of his anxiety about [insert Italian stereotype here]. Enter Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal), a Jewish family therapist with [insert Jewish stereotype here]. Vitti wants Sobel to help him. Sobel just wants Vitti to leave him alone. What are they both to do? Analyze This is a [insert sarcastic film reviewer comment here], with a few laughs, but never anything special. Basically, it's exactly what you'd expect. (Bradley Steinbacher) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11
CENTRAL STATION--Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), who writes letters for the illiterate poor, takes in Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira) after his mother is killed. Walter Salles' affecting new film risks sentimentality in order to steer close to issues of the human heart, but it's blessed by two impeccable performances from Montenegro and de Oliveira. (Matthew Stadler) Metro
*COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM SERIES--The second week of the Columbia Pictures' 75th Anniversary Film Series includes Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Tootsie, the director's cut of Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, and Taxi Driver. Then the Cinerama becomes a first-run movie house. Cinerama
COOKIE'S FORTUNE--Robert Altman has taken a slight but enjoyable story and applied his familiar techniques of oblique angles, ragged narration, and busy ensemble casts. A suicide is covered up, and a man in imprisoned because of it. Other stories play out about the small town of Holly Springs. Plot, however, is not the main concern of the film. If you want them, there are plenty of thoughtful, even rueful, themes flamesoating around the movie: idealized, hypocritical notions of the past and of honor, and the way family secrets hurt the person keeping them even more than the person who ferrets them out. When I think of this film, though, I keep coming back not to any ideas, but to its very last shot. Altman movies end with death so often it's practically a cliché, but here, after everything gets sorted out without too much harm to anyone, there's just a long, peaceful look at a lake, with fishing lines bobbing gently. As I said before, relaxed and mellow. Add to that: masterly. (Bruce Reid) Grand Alder-wood, Guild 45th, Meridian 16
*CRACKPOTS & OBSESSIVES--Week two kicks off with John O'Brien's mockumentary, Man With a Plan (Fri April 30), about a retired dairy farmer who decides to run for Congress and earn some real money. The Ruling Class (Sat-Sun May 1-2) is an admirably over-the-top "let's try anything" satire from 1972, starring Peter O'Toole as an insane earl who believes he's Jesus Christ (albeit a very hip Jesus). Wild Wheels (Mon-Tues May 3-4) is a salute to those cars you occasionally see on the street that demand a double-take. Finally, after two weeks of movies that look at crackpots and obsessives, the series ends with a film that looks like it was made by one. Craig Baldwin's Tribulation 99 (Wed-Thurs May 6-7) is fanatically deranged, and one of the best films of the decade: a prolonged paranoid rant about cold-war conspiracies, alien abductions, and ancient Aztecs. (Bruce Reid) Grand Illusion
*THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS--Isa (Elodie Bouchez) is a 20-year-old drifter, traveling from town to town picking up odd jobs and selling postcards that she makes out of magazine pictures. At a factory job she meets Marie (Natacha Regnier), a girl living alone who's about her age. The girls are opposites--Isa disarms people with her smile, while Marie puts people off with a frown--and they end up complementing each other perfectly. Being a French film, the story has a loose, life-like, "unstructured" structure, which I have to admit is refreshing after so many canned Hollywood films. Characters take center stage here, and they are well-rounded enough to hold everything together. (Andy Spletzer) Broadway Market
EDGE OF SEVENTEEN--A coming-of-age comedy set in the '80s about a teenager who realizes he's gay. Broadway Market
*EDTV--Ed Pakurny (Matthew McConaughey) is our everyman (if "everyman" can mean a redneck living in San Francisco), and he's been chosen to star in a new show in which every minute of his life will be broadcast live on national television, unedited and uninterrupted, for an entire month. Slowly, the show begins to attract interest as viewers become intrigued by his budding romantic relationship with his brother's girlfriend, Shari (Jenna Elfman). Soon the nation is hooked on the minutiae of Ed's life, and his instant celebrity puts the kibosh on his relationship with anyone the cameras come in contact with. EDtv is a good-natured hoot, the likes of which we haven't seen from Ron Howard since his heyday of Splash (1984) and Night Shift (1982). Though it takes its shots at the television industry, the film's main target is the public's relationship with celebrity. (Wm. Steven Humprey) Pacific Place 11
ENTRAPMENT--Sean Connery is an ass man. His "character" spends the whole movie looking at the ass of Catherine Zeta-Jones (The Mask of Zorro). Not that there's anything better to do. Entrapment is a high-tech crime thriller chock full of double-crosses but short on thrills. Everybody's a master thief or a federal agent... or both! The information for every crime is flawless, the gadgets never fail, nothing ever goes wrong. Boring! Connery coasts through his role, as does Ving Rhames, but Zeta-Jones turns out to be a real disappointment. How can she be a master thief if she's so prone to temper tantrums and breakdowns? She does have a nice ass, though. (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Northgate, Redmond Town Center
THE ERUPTION OF MOUNT ST. HELENS--The mountain blew up in 1980, and has been blowing up on film ever since. Omnidome
*EUROPEAN CINEMA & ETHNICITY--This series of FREE screenings ends with The Hunters, a Swedish action movie about a cop and his criminal brother (Mon May 3 at 7), and Everything Will Be Fine, a hip Afro-German comedy about a jilted woman who tries to win her girlfriend back (Wed May 5 at 7). Call 543-7542 for more info. Kane Hall
EVEREST--The first IMAX footage ever shot on top of the world. Pacific Science Center
*EXISTENZ--Like all the best science fiction, eXistenZ seems to be taking place about five minutes from now. Cronenberg's is a world where virtual reality games have become so commonplace that most people think nothing of drilling a "bioport" directly into their spine in order to plug in. The games run off of a flameseshy, biomechanical pod, and once a game starts, the player becomes a cast member in an artificial world where everything looks and feels "real," where some actions are preprogrammed and others are not. The biggest celebrities of the day are game designers, and none is bigger or more brilliant than the reclusive Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), whose latest, greatest achievement, eXistenZ, has inspired somebody to put a death sentence on her head. David Cronenberg is working from his first original script since Videodrome, and what he's come up with is, in some ways, a revisitation to that movie's themes, and this is one of the wittiest, most perceptive movies about movies and how we think they affect us since Videodrome. (Bruce Reid) Pacific Place 11, Varsity
THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE--Czech director Karel Zeman's live action and animation combo (1958) mixes fantasy and reality. Also showing the Méliès short A Trip to the Moon. Fri-Sat April 30-May1 at 11. Grand Illusion
FOOLISH--Dang it if somebody didn't do somethin' gal-darn stupid and got a movie made outta it. Lewis & Clark
FORCES OF NATURE--Ben (Ben Affleck) is trying to get to Georgia for his wedding. On the plane he meets Sarah (Sandra Bullock), a wild, bewitching woman with heavy eye-liner and streaks in her hair. The plane crashes and the two of them are forced to go by land, trapped together as one "hilarious" mishap after another thwarts their journey. Along the way, they sorta fall in love, but not really. Forces of Nature is every pathetic man's fantasy, not a female empowerment vehicle, which is surprising since it was directed by a woman. With the stable, pretty fiancé waiting for him at home (Maura Tierney), Ben struggles with his feelings for the irresponsible, sexy woman he stumbles across. In the end, love (not lust) conquers all, which is pure bullshit. (Bradley Steinbacher) Grand Alderwood, Pacific Place 11
FRENCH FILM NOIR--Seattle Art Museum's tribute to the French masters of ironic fatalism and atmospheric, poetic realism. The series continues with Rene Clement's Purple Noon on Thurs April 29 at 7:30, and Georges Franju's surreal and suspenseful Judex on Thurs May 6 at 7:30. Call 625-8900 for more info. Seattle Art Museum
GO--I don't know why movies that intertwine a number of disparate stories (Mystery Train, Pulp Fiction) so often pick three as the magic number, but here we go again. Three successive tales: a teen grocery clerk takes a stab at dealing ecstasy; a fellow clerk and his rowdy buddies head out on a road trip; and two actors agree to take part in a drug bust to clear their record. There's some funny scenes, though none of them manage to avoid either cliché, or a hip, ironic take on a cliché. Zero points for originality, then, but don't write the movie off entirely. There's a clutch of good performances (especially Sarah Polley as the would-be dealer, and William Fichtner as a cop), and a few moments do an excellent job capturing the madcap rush of adrenaline when you're young and stupid enough to think you can get away with anything. (Bruce Reid) Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center
*GODS AND MONSTERS--Excellent film about the death (and life) of James Whale, one of Hollywood's first "out" gay directors, and famous for Frankenstein and his bride. Broadway Market
GOODBYE LOVER--Patricia Arquette, Don Johnson, Dermot Mulroney, and Ellen DeGeneres, along with a slew of other has-beens, star in this dark comedy about love, revenge, and murder. Pacific Place 11
HIDEOUS KINKY--Set in the early 1970s, Julia (Kate Winslet) is a Londoner living out the hippie dream of "getting your head together" by leaving her faithless boyfriend in London and dragging her kiddies to Marrakech, Morocco. She searches for spiritual enlightenment, but that doesn't pan out too well (she does have recurring paranoid dreams, however). What she does find is a life of near-poverty and an on-again/off-again affair with a hunky street performer (Said Taghmaoui), while her relationship with her children nearly disintigrates. The main theme seems to be that you can't necessarily expect to find yourself in another culture just because it seems exotic to you--but that ain't much of a message, is it? This is the type of film where you say, "Well, at least it was beautifully photographed." (Gillian G. Gaar) Seven Gables
IDLE HANDS--An odd, anti-masturbation thriller about a teenager whose hand suddenly develops a mind of its own and goes on a killing spree. Reviewed this issue. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11
INTO THE DEEP--An IMAX film in 3-D, putting you right into the aquarium. Pacific Science Center
THE KING OF THE MASKS--This is one of those subtitled films that's perfect for people who hate subtitles: it's simple, melodramatic, filled (but not overflowing) with local color, and aims straight for the heartstrings. Zhu Xu stars as the title character, a street performer whose act involves rapidly removing a series of brightly colored masks. Old and childless, he's desperate to pass on the secrets of his art, and thinks he's made quite a wonderful match when he adopts a young boy. But the boy turns out to be a girl, one whose brutal guardian made her lie about her sex (boys being much more highly desirable in China than girls). The third act--which trots out some irrelevant child kidnappers and the police--goes on way too long, and is never suspenseful because you know from the start this is one of those films that ends happily. Story flaws aside, the acting of the two leads is perfect, and the side streets and mighty rivers of China are as lovely as always. (Bruce Reid) Harvard Exit
LIFE--Life is not as bad as most critics say it is. In fact, Life happens to be a great Martin Lawrence film. Lawrence plays a young and stuck-up bank teller with a promising future until, on one fateful night, he crosses paths with a petty criminal (Eddie Murphy), and both end up in prison for life. This is Lawrence's best work since Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. Who in a thousand years could have guessed that he could play an anal snob to such perfection? Lawrence is so extraordinary that Murphy seems to step back and give him all the room he needs to expand and explode. Life really falls apart late in the movie. One gets the sense that the director, Ted Demme, shot a much longer film, one which had to be cut down so as to keep under the two hour limit. One also has the impression that he didn't get "final cut," because of the huge holes in the plot. No doubt, a longer director's cut would confront some of the complex existential questions Life begs to answer. (Charles Mudede) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL--Like any good comedian, Roberto Benigni (and his co-writer Vincenzo Cerami) knows how to plant the seed for a gag early on, let it sit, then return to it much later for the payoff. The opening, which seems so frivolous, is all groundwork for what Benigni knows will be the toughest sell of his life: comedy in the Nazi camps. Employing the understatement and flamesair for timing that comedy requires, Benigni captures detail after detail in a far more devastating way than more earnest films on the subject could manage. (Bruce Reid) Harvard Exit, Oak Tree
THE LIVING SEA--It's alive! See fish and waves and whales and jellyfish, all in that big-screen IMAX format. Omnidome
*LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS--The coolest fucking British film you will see this year. Period. Set in the East End of London, it's a fast, frantic, and frequently flamesippant ride through the social strata of gangland as four wide boys send one of their number, cardsharp Eddie (heartthrob Nick Moran), to take on local crime boss Hatchet Harry (P. H. Moriarty) at poker. They soon find themselves in debt to the sum of half a million nicker, and they're not helped by the fact that Harry has put his debt collector Big Chris (soccer hardman Vinnie Jones) on their tails. It's a tidy movie--all the dead bodies are shot and accounted for--and it's also got a wicked, very English sense of humor. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels makes Tarantino look like the art school, panty-waisted wuss he undoubtedly is. (Everett True) Uptown, Varsity
LOST AND FOUND--David Spade strikes out on his own in this new comedy about a geek who tries to woo his neighbor by stealing her dog (HAW!). Oh, and there's some new fat guy who's supposed to be the "new Chris Farley." Lewis & Clark, Metro, Uptown
*THE MATRIX--Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn) has been searching for the One, a cyber-Christ who will destroy the Matrix and wake people out of their preprogrammed idea of life. He thinks he has found Him in Neo (Keanu Reeves). With the knowledge that the Matrix is a computer-created dream, Morpheus and his rebels (with equally stupid names: Trinity, Cypher, Switch, Apoc, etc.) can run and jump and fight with superhuman power, but are hunted down by super-agents who want to cleanse the system. Sure, the character names are stupid, the barroom metaphysics ("Hey, what if life is just a dream?") are simplistic, and the cyber-Christ story is predictable, but the action scenes--even the ones that use that 180 degree near-freeze frame--make this otherwise boring movie worth seeing. From the directors of Bound. (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Meridian 16, Neptune, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center, Southcenter
MEXICANOS AL GRITO DE GUERRA--Kick off Cinco de Mayo with Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra, a historic film about the events surrounding the famous Mexican-French battle on May 5, back in 1862. Make the holiday into more than just a drinking fest. Sun May 2 at 4. For more details, call 448-8435, ext. 13. King Cat Theater
*MIGHTY PEKING MAN--Made in 1977 by Hong Kong's prolific Shaw Brothers, Mighty Peking Man was inspired by Dino de Laurentis' massive remake of King Kong, and is also the touching story of a giant ape and his human girlfriend. The movie has all the low-budget charm of Roger Corman's drive-in horror cheapies from the '50s: the tanks look like toys, the giant ape looks like nothing more than a man in an ape suit, and the effects combining the actors with the destructive events taking place could not look less convincing. It's great. What makes this movie a true camp classic is the fact that, even though the filmmakers obviously knew how cheap the movie was going to look, they never acknowledge it. Everybody is sincere. These days movies that try to imitate that aesthetic can't help but wink at the audience or fall into self-parody; even if someone were to get the look right, it wouldn't work because the tone would be all wrong. There's nothing like the original! Fri-Sat at midnight. (Andy Spletzer) Egyptian
NEVER BEEN KISSED--After about 20 minutes, I was getting to thinking about how much I hate Drew Barrymore: her smug, cloying superciliousness, the way she always plays the same saccharine, flaw-free character. After an hour, I was in love with her again. There's something about her smile, her rosy cheeks, the way she bites her lip when pushed, her... DAMN IT ALL! Never Been Kissed's basic premise is this: Drew is 25, she's never been kissed (yeah, right), and she works at the Chicago Sun-Times. She needs a break, so she's sent as an undercover reporter to her old high school where... no, you must have peeked! She gets kissed! Can you believe it? Or how 'bout this? Executive producer Drew Barrymore decides to do a movie for all the ugly people out there, to show just how sympathetic she is to our plight. Gee, thanks Drew. (Everett True) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11
OPEN YOUR EYES--A wacky psychological thriller from Spain. Broadway Market
THE OUT OF TOWNERS--Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn together again in this remake of the Neil Simon film. Expect not to laugh. City Center, Grand Alderwood
A PLACE CALLED CHIAPAS--Nettie Wild documents eight months of uprising by the Zapatista National Liberation Army. Thurs April 29 at 5, 7:10, 9:20. Egyptian, Metro
PUSHING TIN--This is a therapy film for guys in the same way that Good Will Hunting was. John Cusack plays an air traffic controller with the emphasis on "control." He's the best there is, at least until Billy Bob Thornton shows up. The movie has a perfect opportunity to branch into comedy, but it decides to do drama. Not a terrible choice, necessarily. Billy Bob's character has a pretty, young, unstable wife (Angelina Jolie), and is a reformed alcoholic (which, mercifully, never really comes into play). Thornton also brings crack comic timing to every scene that calls for it. Cusack is the main character, however, and it is his wandering eye and overblown expectations of self-control that ultimately lead to trouble with his wife and a breakdown. You see, men need to give up control in order to find themselves. I'm not sure at all how women will take to this film, but men who are cheating on their significant others should not see it with them... (Andy Spletzer) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center
RELAX... IT'S JUST SEX--The trials and tribulations of a dozen friends, including couples (straight and gay) and the obligatory lonely playwright. The film's got a fair share of better-than-average sitcom zingers, a bright look, and a mostly winning cast, but in its effort to cover all the bases, the film comes up with a group of people not likely to hang out together all the time. This lack of believability doesn't hurt the lighter moments; but when things get serious, it's fatal. (Bruce Reid) Broadway Market
*ROBERT BRESSON FILM SERIES--Bresson explores the fury of a scorned woman in Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, his 1945 follow-up to Les Anges. The film's dialogue was written by Jean Cocteau, so expect plenty of poetic drama. Sun May 2 at 1, 3. Grand Illusion
RUSHMORE--Wes Anderson (of Bottle Rocket fame) directs this a bouncy, yet strangely unemotional confection. Max (Jason Schwartzman), a teen prep school dreamer, befriends a much older steel tycoon (Bill Murray). Max's scholastic life hits the fan when his plans to impress a teacher he's fallen for (Olivia Williams) gets him expelled. To make matters worse, Murray falls in love with the very same woman. In the end you're left with solid performances all the way around, a few good laughs, and not a lot to write home about. Walk, don't run. (Wm. Steven Humprey) Metro, Pacific Place 11
THE SEATTLE POETRY FESTIVAL--Two sublime days of poetry, performance, film, video, and poetic media art. Short films of the late Steven Jesse Bernstein, and a performance of poetry, percussion, and dance, will be featured on Saturday. Sunday's festivities include short works from the Northwest Asian American Theater, readings by the Jack Straw Writers Program, and a screening of a film featuring Adrienne Rich's "Listening for Something." Call 682-6552 for more details. Sat-Sun May1-2 at 2, $5. 911 Media Arts
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE--Certainly the idea is appealing: one of history's immortals, shown in his still-struggling youth, with eye-catching period details and a cast uniformly professional enough to carry it off with whimsy. But the film strains too much to flatter and please the audience, setting up predictable conflicts and getting out of them through the easiest ways possible. It's clever in a very simple way, content to show its hero as a great-man-in-waiting and its heroine as so improbably perfect she could only be a muse. (Bruce Reid) Guild 45th, Uptown
SHORTS INTL. FILM FEST WINNERS--Too many filmmakers look at short films as a part of their resumé, a film they make just to get noticed, but the best short films come from filmmakers who actually want to explore the short form, and not just because of budget limitations. The Shorts International Film Festival takes a handful of the better shorts from 1998 and places them in a neat little package for public consumption. The best of the bunch, Human Remains, ranks with some of the best shorts I have ever seen. Using archival footage of five famous dictators (Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Franco, Mussolini), the director creates biographies for them as if they were being interviewed, telling us about their lives in intimate detail, but never trying to justify their actions. The result is incredibly unnerving, and shows how 90-minute film is sometimes way too long. Tues May 4 at 7:30, $7.50. (Bradley Steinbacher) Meridian 16
SLC PUNK--Life as a punk in the '80s, starring teen flick superstar Matthew Lillard! Reviewed this issue. City Center, Varsity
SUPER 8 FILMS--Emerald Reels' Super 8 lounge returns with a batch of new films! Also included is a midnight listening party for the Icelandic band Gus Gus. Mon May 3 at 9, FREE. Alibi Room
TALK CINEMA--A Sunday morning series of "secret" film previews of upcoming independent, art house, and foreign films. Post-film discussions are moderated by guest speakers. Sun May 2 at 10 am, $18; for more information call 1-800-551-9221 or visit www.talkcinema.com. Pacific Place 11
TWIN DRAGONS--This 1992 feature, freshly dubbed into English, stars Jackie Chan in a dual role as twins separated at birth. Only the first and last fight scenes have any energy. The finale, set in an auto warehouse, almost makes up for the rest of this listless movie. Try sneaking in for the last 20 minutes; otherwise skip it. (Bruce Reid) Grand Alderwood, Meridian 16
THE VELOCITY OF GARY--Dan Ireland's The Velocity of Gary has a great opening (really), but soon after, it starts its long plunge to the "lower depths." The film's fall seems endless mainly because it's one of those movies that believes its "interesting" and "unique" characters will absorb our interest. They do not. Consequently, the story is weak. It goes like this: The beautiful Salma Hayek and a gorgeous Thomas Jane are in love and obsessed with one man--a mop-headed, grunge-looking Vincent D'Onofrio--who in turn loves both of them with equal affection (some guys have all the luck). Suddenly, Vincent begins to die from a mysterious disease that looks mysteriously like AIDS. The three lovers try to cope, to get along, to confront and resolve the real big issues of life (sex, birth, love, and death). Their struggles do not raise the film to becoming more than merely sentimental trash. (Charles Mudede) Egyptian
THE VIDEO SHORTS FESTIVAL--The premiere screenings of the winning selections from the 18th Annual Video Shorts Competition. Entries include films from all over the U.S. and Europe. Thurs April 29 at 8, $4. 911 Media Arts
A WALK ON THE MOON--A lot of things happened in the summer of 1969. If you doubt it, just see this movie, which dutifully drags out all of them. The story of a housewife (Diane Lane) vacationing in the Catskills, who tires of her square husband (Liev Schreiber) and has a fling with the free-spirited traveling salesman (Viggo Mortensen) who visits weekly (no, really), A Walk on the Moon tries desperately to draw parallels between its everyday characters and the seemingly momentous changes going on in the nation. It doesn't work, mostly because neither the characters we're watching nor the times they live in ever feel anything more than a superficial rehash of everything you've heard and seen before. As with most actors-turned-novice directors, Tony Goldwyn does a nice job with his cast, but lets the narrative meander, even stall out at times. There's a kindness towards people that bodes well for any future projects Goldwyn attempts, but this one is just dumb and dull. (Bruce Reid) Pacific Place 11
WHALES--An up close and personal look at the largest mammals on earth. Omnidome
WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT?--This has all the right ingredients for a kitschy and giggly film-watching experience. Woody Allen's first attempt as both writer and actor, but featuring Peter O'Toole as a psychiatrist who tries to be a faithful husband despite constantly being pursued by beautiful women. With Tom Jones singing Burt Bacharach's title song. Thurs-Sun April 29-May 2 at 5, 7:15, 9:30. The Little Theater
