Akira, Audition, From Hell, Funny Girl, Last Castle, The Sixth Annual Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Riding in Cars with Boys, Under the Sun, Va Savoir

* 101 Reykjavik
Reviewed this issue. This deadpan, slacker-friendly Icelandic comedy gets under way when bespectacled, shiftless twentysomething Hlynur and his free-spirited mother, who reside at the titular address, welcome a houseguest. Mom's flamenco teacher, the lovely and very Spanish Lola Milagro (played by the lovely and very Spanish Victoria Abril), comes to stay with them for the holidays and the two ladies fall madly in love with each other. Even if Abril didn't scamper about half-naked through a good part of this flick, it would still be worth catching--the fact that she does makes it practically a must-see. (Marc Mohan) Egyptian

Bandits
Not great, but certainly no travesty. Barry Levinson's new movie about two bank robbers (Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton) and the woman they both love (Cate Blanchett) fares well, especially when placed alongside the stream of crap Hollywood has been cranking out the past few months. Fairly funny, occasionally smart (save for a somewhat unbelievable ending), the movie is a breeze of oddball character development and marginally ludicruous scenarios. In other words, it's pretty fun. One bad note, however: Levinson needs to learn how to point a camera again. Much of Bandits is poorly shot, and it sometimes switches between film and video footage for no apparent reason (other than to annoy the audience). (Bradley Steinbacher) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

The Blue Angel
The original German version of the film that launched the very fruitful (ahem) partnership between Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg. Dietrich's Lola is one of the most enduring (and male-terror-based) icons of screen history. Varsity

* Claire's Knee
The ultimate (nonporn) movie for fetishists, Moral Tale number five (of six) concerns a grown man and his mounting obsession with a young girl's patella, despite the "fact" that he has transcended lust. Like all of Rohmer's Tales, the film delights in skewering the discrepancy between what a man says and what he truly is. (Sean Nelson) Grand Illusion

Corky Romano
That one guy from SNL plays a sissy Mary who becomes a mobster. Capice? Metro

Damah Film Festival
In a month of local film festivals (Seattle Underground, Seattle Lesbian and Gay, Olympia) comes this L.A.-based two-day fest that "celebrates the spiritual dimension of life in the 21st century." Consisting largely of shorts, the Damah fest will award cash prizes based on "the power of the story being told," rather than technical or artistic merit. For more info: www.damah.com. Benaroya Hall, Seattle Art Museum

* Decision at Sundown
More of Budd Boetticher's swarthy, masculine morality here as John Carroll and Randolph Scott (RANDOLPH SCOTT!) hunker down to duel over the honor of a woman. Like all Boetticher films, there's a blurry line between the hero's righteousness and the villain's claim (and the lady's honor), but damn if it isn't great fun watching these cowboys inarticulately work shit out. (Randy Octogenarian) Grand Illusion

* Experimental Giants
SUFF presents this showcase for the pioneers of avant-garde filmmaking, such as Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Jonas Mekas, Bruce Connor, and others. Grand Illusion

Iron Monkey
Reviewed this issue. Rooftop acrobatics and martial-arts beauty dignify this feature, directed by the man who choreographed The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Varsity

* A Love Divided
Sometimes--and I'm sure I'll have my license revoked for saying this--predictable works. When we meet Sean and Sheila in 1950s Ireland, they've just married three times: once in a registrar's office, once privately in a Protestant church, and once before God and the whole town of Fethard-on-Sea. The first half-hour of the film (a solemn us-against-the-world vow, hard work on the farm, two gorgeous little girls) is so idyllic that you just know tragedy looms, and soon it crashes in. When Sheila (the heartbreakingly beautiful, in a very Vivian Leigh kind of way, Orla Brady) kidnaps her children rather than subject them to recalcitrant Catholicism, the town rancorously divides along religious lines. Can love survive? Can Ireland? I knew exactly what was going to happen a few steps before it did, but Goddamn if my heart wasn't warmed. (Emily Hall) Varsity

* Mulholland Drive
Reviewed this issue. The new work from David Lynch is confounding and bizarre (for a change). Originally conceived as a network TV pilot, Drive takes a long time establishing its characters--an aspiring actress, a glamorous amnesiac, a luckless Hollywood producer, and a mysterious gang of Mafiosi who are dead set on making sure a certain woman gets a certain part. Like all of Lynch's post-Wild at Heart work, Drive is more concerned with atmosphere and suggestion than linear meaning. But like all Lynch, period, it's beautifully constructed, bizarre, and funny. It's just impossible to say definitively whether it's good or not. (Sean Nelson) Guild 45th

* Music + Film at EMP
This week: Radiation, which follows Ms. Thalia Zedek (of Come) on tour in Spain with a shady promoter. Don't miss this. Also: Wild Style, with the director Charlie Ahearn present. You know my steez. JBL Theater at EMP

My First Mister
A teenage goth drama queen (Leelee Sobieski) finds an unlikely soul mate in Randall, a be-mustached men's-store manager nearly three times her age (Albert Brooks). Though the movie's stylistic and thematic trajectory points to the curious middle distance between the MTV and Lifetime networks, and the script relies rather heavily on a shopping-mall understanding of youth culture (which might actually be prescient, come to think of it, since American youth culture is more or less defined by shopping malls). A great many good, tender, and true moments peek up out of what could have been a rankly sentimental sinkhole. One might attribute this to the stellar performances of Sobieski (who crafts a credibly in-progress teenager, sidestepping archetypes with stealth and humor) and the inestimably great Brooks. (Sean Nelson) Metro

* My Night at Maud's
Eric Rohmer's Moral Tales achieved glory with this chapter about the way a man can rationalize anything in the guise of morality. Jean-Louis Trintignant (hooray forever!) plays a pious Catholic who "accidentally" fools around on his devout gal with an apostate swinger, who eventually screws his head on right. (Sean Nelson) Grand Illusion

* OLYMPIA FILM FESTIVAL
See Stranger Suggests. Despite the number of film fests going on in town right now, this one is worth an hour's drive, not only for the movies they're showing, but for the sense of community that runs through Olywood like a plumb line. The locus is the fabulous Capitol Theater. INFO: www.olywa.net/ofs. Online ticket purchase: www.buyolympia.com. (Sean Nelson) Capitol Theater

PHILIP ON FILM
See Stranger Suggests. Four films with Philip Glass and his ensemble providing a live score. See Movie Times for complete schedule. Paramount Theatre

* SEATTLE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
A festival like this is not without risk, but nothing worth doing ever is. See Movie Times for showtimes this week; go to www.seattleundergroundfilm.com for complete schedule. Grand Illusion, Little Theatre

SHINING MOMENT SCREENING
See Stranger Suggests. Shining Moment Productions celebrates ten years of arcane cinema and hard liquor. Tonight Sub Masa and members of the Black Cat Orchestra provide music. Rendezvous

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. Egyptian

* 2001: A Space Odyssey
Kubrick's classic meditation about time, space, and evolution returns, all tricked out with remastered sound and restored picture. Pauline Kael must be spinning in her grave. Cinerama

American Pie II
The first American Pie was all about male humiliation, with each male character enduring some sort of horrific trauma--accidentally drinking someone's come, explosive diarrhea, premature ejaculation broadcast over the Internet, etc.--before the film was through. But what kept the film from sinking completely into the toilet was the fact that the filmmakers actually had something to say about sex and adolescence, even if it was fairly simplistic. American Pie II, unfortunately, has very little to say, which doesn't make it all bad, just not as surprising as the original. (Bradley Steinbacher) Meridian 16

* Apocalypse Now Redux
Seeing Redux is akin to hearing the Beatles' Anthology: You have to, if only out of curiosity. And with the refurbishment and digital remastering of Walter Murch's inestimably powerful sound design, you really have to see it--in a great theater, right now, today. Among the new bits are a few minutes more of vintage Marlon Brando as the vainglorious Kurtz, some nice moments of masculine camaraderie on the boat, and a long, gorgeous sequence set in a ghostly French plantation. While none of these new scenes are at all necessary, all but one are interesting extensions of thematic concerns running through the original. (Sean Nelson) Guild 45th

Bread and Tulips
Saddled with a loud, bombastic, plumbing-fixture-selling husband with a hair-trigger temper and two disaffected teenage boys, Rosalba (the utterly lovely Licia Maglietta) seems all but eclipsed by her family. When, on a summer vacation in the south of Italy, her tour bus leaves a rest stop without her, she seizes the opportunity to head home to Pescara for some quality time alone. Instead, she ends up in Venice: prime romantic real estate, yes, but also a superior place to lose yourself. (Emily Hall) Seven Gables

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) Uptown, Varsity

Come Undone
While on a seaside family vacation, teenager Mathieu falls for Cédric, a free-spirited boy who is his emotional opposite. Mathieu begins a journey of self-discovery that leads him to painful choices about his family and his future. Broadway Market

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Woody Allen and Helen Hunt play bitter rivals at a 1940s insurance agency who, under post-hypnotic suggestion, turn into thieves, liars, and lovers. The supernatural contrivance is one Allen has used before, to better effect, in his very funny chapter "Oedipus Wrecks" from the underrated trilogy New York Stories. In that film, the device makes a schzlubby guy come to his senses, ditch his shiksa goddess, and take up with a nice, albeit crazy, Jewish girl. In Scorpion, it makes a busty, powerful blonde fall head over heels for a man twice her age. In that difference lies the sad truth about Woody Allen's movies. (Sean Nelson) Aurora Cinema Grill, Uptown

Don't Say a Word
Don't say a word about how fucking lame this movie is? How lurid, ludicrous, and exploitative (hmm, let's see... how can we get Famke Janssen to spend an hour in her underwear?) it is? How mannered and profligate (how you gonna waste Oliver Platt AGAIN, Hollywood?) and preposterous, verging on the obscene? Okay, I won't. It's about head shrinker Michael Douglas, his crazy girl patient (Brittany Murphy, who must be just tiny), his laid-up wife (Janssen), their daughter, and the bank robber terrorists who kidnap her. One thing though: the end, when the bad guys get buried alive in a collapsing grave, is kind of neat. Oh, wait... spoiler alert? (Sean Nelson) Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

The Glass House
Leelee Sobieski, the gossamer young beauty who now looks less and less like a young Helen Hunt and more and more like human beauty given form, stars with Diane Lane and Stellan Skarsgard in this weak ass waste of time and talent. Leelee plays a troubled young hottie whose parents die in a horrible car crash. Fortunately, they had made arrangements for a couple of friends to take care of the kids in such an unlikely event. Unfortunately, the foster folks are murderous embezzling junkies! Films that squander Stellan Skarsgard should be brought up on charges. (Sean Nelson) Meridian 16

Go Tigers!
This slick documentary follows the 1999 season of a high-school football team in a town whose sole reason for existing appears to be high-school football. Crisp, high-definition video plus expert editing and sound can't quite compensate for the forced sense of drama, although the glimpses of small-town boosterism are sometimes fun. Includes the best beer bong scene of 2001. (Scott McGeath) Varsity

Hardball
Keanu Reeves plays the sleaziest man on the planet who winds up coaching a kids' baseball team in the projects so he can pay off a gambling debt. He soon becomes a decent man. At one point in the early stages of this picture's production, someone must have pointed out that this script was a bloody mess, and that it provided totally unconvincing evidence that such a foul creature (Reeves' character) could be worthy of vindication. Thus, America's best-loved idiot (Reeves proper) was brought on board to give this character an intrinsic innocuousness. Therefore the wounds of the script were left to gush untended; the anguish of the viewer is simply interminable; and the banality of poor Keanu Reeves has been raped. (Kudzai Mudede) Factoria, Meridian 16, Metro, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center

Hearts in Atlantis
Anthony Hopkins plays a magical old geezer with the power to see the future or some shit in this new Stephen King adaptation from Scott Hicks, the guy who directed Shine. Will Hopkins (who's undeniably great... when he's not in crappy films) and the redoubtable Hope Davis be enough to redeem this heaving torrent of moist schmaltz? Factoria, Majestic Bay, Metro

Innocence
Andreas and Claire were once young lovers in post-WWII Belgium. Now, half a century later, they find themselves neighbors in Melbourne, where Andreas has been a widower for 30 years and Claire is in an agreeable though passionless marriage. Unable to resist the tug of nostalgia, they resume their tempestuous affair, much to the chagrin of their loved ones. A big hit at Cannes and SIFF alike. Harvard Exit

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is intended to be Kevin Smith's swan song to the characters (and universe) he created starting with Clerks. But as it turns out, it's more of an off-key jingle than a song. Ridiculously juvenile and often painfully unfunny, it shows Kevin Smith's true talent as a filmmaker: entertaining himself, his friends, and 13-year-old Internet geeks who think he's a god. Despite whatever protests those folks may loft to the contrary, the fact still remains that this film is a piece of shit. (Bradley Steinbacher) Meridian 16

* Joyride
A taut, smart thriller directed by John Dahl, the potboiler-switcheroo auteur responsible for such gems as Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, and the very underrated Unforgettable. Steve Zahn (yay) and Paul Walker (zzz) star as two brothers on a road trip who mess around with a CB radio and unintentionally arouse the murderous ire of a psycho truck driver. By the time they pick up Leelee Sobieski (rrr), there's a cross-country chase afoot. Thanks to the gut-churning suspense factor that is Dahl's specialty, the picture seems to be building up to some barely plausible twist. But just when you're trying to figure out who's duping who, the pure modernistic thrill of seeing a big old semi bearing down on some unsuspecting youngsters kicks into high gear. Pure pulpy pleasure. (Sean Nelson) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Metro

* L.I.E.
Some movies implicate their audience by making them cheer on a dastardly act. This painfully beautiful drama does the reverse: It makes us dread an event which never comes, and when it doesn't, forces us to reevaluate our feelings not just about the film and its characters, but about the moral universe they inhabit. The story concerns a young boy in Long Island whose sheltered life turns rocky, much to the delight of a neighborhood chicken hawk. But despite the potentially lurid trappings, the film is an unsettlingly sensitive dramatization of the process of growing up out of the shadow of parental protection. (Sean Nelson) Neptune

Liam
Stephen Frears' period piece about a working-class Liverpool family in the '30s struggling to keep house and home together against a tumultuous socioeconomic backdrop. Catholicism, Communism, fascism, and alcoholism take turns dueling for the attention of the title character, a scrawny, stuttering little guy who feels the weight of all the historical and personal gravitas asserting itself all over his world. The film is heavy, but well acted (by Ian Hart, especially), and worth a look. (Sean Nelson) Broadway Market

Max Keeble's Big Move
When Max learns that his family is moving in a week, he takes the opportunity to wreak havoc on all the bullies that make his junior high a living hell. Then he finds out his family isn't moving after all, goes Zen, and prepares to die. Though it's a Disney movie aimed at kids, the subject matter strikes a deep chord in the hearts of all bully victims, past and future. (Sean Nelson) Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

* O
This intelligent, effective film transposes the plot and characters from Shakespeare's Othello to an American high school. This time, Othello (Odin--a very convincing Mekhi Phifer) and Iago (Hugo--Josh Hartnett, very good) are not soldiers embroiled in a war with the Turks, but the star and utility players, respectively, of a prep-school basketball team bound for the state championship. When the coach (Martin Sheen in full coronary mode), who's also Hugo's dad, favors Odin over his son, the tragic course of events is set in motion. All the big Othello themes--jealousy, love, manipulation, hearsay, and betrayal--are in the paint. (Sean Nelson) Pacific Place 11

* The Others
A well-executed gothic horror film in a Jamesian vein, starring Nicole Kidman as a postwar mom on a tiny British isle desperate not to let her new servants (including the great Fionnula Flanagan) expose her "photosensitive" children to daylight. The claustrophobic tension of the incredible house (the film's only set, and its true star) mounts through the eerie film as the truth, and like the characters' lives, unfurls methodically in this truly frightening endeavor from Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar. As an added bonus, the always-gripping Christopher Eccleston (Jude, Elizabeth) has a supporting role. (Sean Nelson) Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

Rat Race
Rat Race should not be considered an actual chase comedy, but a clone of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Cannonball Run I and II, and Million Dollar Mystery, brought to you by a movie industry so short on ideas it's now peddling third-generation photocopies of itself to an audience raised on replicas (apologies to D.C. Berman). (Jason Pagano) Meridian 16

Rock Star
Mark Wahlberg returns to his Marky Mark roots as a cover-band singer who lives the ultimate cover-band singer's dream: The real band calls and asks him to join. Based loosely on the true story of that one dude who replaced Rob Halford when his Judas Priest bandmates discovered Halford was gay. Um, duh.... Aurora Cinema Grill, Meridian 16

Rush Hour 2
Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan reteam as a black cop and a Chinese cop in this sequel which, being exactly as funny and entertaining as its predecessor, transcends all critical inquiry. Zhang Ziyi, from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is in it, though. (Bradley Steinbacher) Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Northgate

Serendipity
John Cusack stars as John Cusack with a bad haircut, opposite the unremarkably beautiful Kate Beckinsale, in the very worst movie I've ever seen. Premise: They meet over Christmas shopping in Bloomingdales, sort of fall in love but not really, part ways, get betrothed to other people, and spend the rest of the movie trying to find each other again. Fine. The injury comes from the script relentlessly stabbing you in the gut with its transparent plot twists, maddening dialogue, and desperate "fateful coincidences." The fact that this film was ever made defies reason. If you like John Cusack, it will hurt your feelings. If you don't, it will make you want to die. (Meg van Huygen) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Majestic Bay, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11

* Together
Q: What do you get when you combine a '70s commune full of Swedish hippies, a soundtrack that features hits by ABBA and Nazareth, and a VW bus painted with flowers? A: This strangely sitcommish but thoroughly engaging little movie. Just when you think it's going to Cute Hell, the filmmakers add a wrinkle of probing intellectualism or kinky human frailty to keep things interesting. Throw in a middle-class domestic-abuse refugee and her kids, a pre-op transsexual, some hilariously passive-aggressive dialogue about the importance of nonaggressiveness, a nymphomaniac, and a central character who suffers like a sweet-natured Job trying to keep the whole thing together (as it were); stir; cock your head in wonder; and enjoy. (Sean Nelson) Guild 45th

Tortilla Soup
A remake of Ang Lee's 1994 Eat Drink Man Woman. This time the focus is upon a Latino community in Los Angeles, where a retired Mexican American chef prepares lavish meals for his emotionally distraught daughters. Harvard Exit

Training Day
Denzel Washington stars as a dirty NYC copper who guides new recruit Ethan Hawke through a day in the life of a Machiavellian urban warrior. Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Pacific Place 11, Redmond Town Center

* Zoolander
This movie is a complete delight, fueled by the dual brilliance of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, who play rival supermodels who become embroiled in a global assassination plot. Not every joke succeeds, but the gut laugh success rate is pretty astounding, and the moments of total comic transcendence (such as the male supermodel gasoline fight) are many. It's such a pleasure to watch an American farce that doesn't make you feel like a moron for enjoying the funny parts. In Zoolander, even the between-gag bits are good. A-fucking-men. (Sean Nelson) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11