film

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Meryl Cohen, David Fear, Dina Gachman, Susan Gerhard, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Patrick Macias, and Chuck Stephens. Film intern is Summers Henderson. See Rep Clock, page 89, and Movie Clock, page 90, for theater information.

Opening

Dry Wood, Fierce Fire What would an H.K. romantic comedy be without heartthrob Louis Koo? (1:30) Four Star.

*Enigma See Critic's Choice. (1:57) Clay, Rafael, Shattuck.

Enough J-Lo! (1:45) Colma, Emery Bay, Jack London, Shattuck.

The Importance of Being Earnest A cast including Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, and Judi Dench makes for an all-star Oscar Wilde adaptation. (1:40) Embarcadero.

Inner Senses Leslie Cheung sees dead people in this H.K. thriller. (1:44) Four Star.*Insomnia See Movie Clock, page 90. (1:55) Alexandria, Century Plaza, Emery Bay, Jack London, Shattuck, Stonestown.

The Lady and The Duke French cinema stalwart and king of the Euro-gabfest Eric Rohmer has dipped his toe into historical waters before (see 1975's Marquise of O, 1978's Perceval) but neither of those genre forays could have prepared fans for this stylistic mix-and-match period piece. Grace Elliott (Lucy Russell), an Englishwoman living in revolution-era France, literally risks her neck to save innocents during Robespierre's Reign of Terror. Her former lover Philippe d'Orléans (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) sells out the aristocracy, and in turn himself, in the name of misguided ideology. Rohmer adapts the real Elliott's journal as a classic theatrical piece but shoots his film in beta digital video format with fake "green-screened" painted backdrops behind his actors. Even amid the crowded visual palette, though, the movie is still a Rohmeresque affair at heart that's fueled primarily by two people exchanging glances, philosophies, and words, words, words. (2:19) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Fear)

The Mystic Masseur The producing half of the Merchant-Ivory empire, Ismail Merchant has recently assumed the director's seat for a series of – so far – pretty dismal features. This fourth effort, adapted from an early V.S. Naipaul story, signals a considerable advance even as it shows Merchant still in erratic control of performance, pacing, and narrative arc. Aasif Mandvi plays Ganesh, an atypically bookwormish young member of Trinidad's mostly poor Indian-heritage minority in the 1930s. His academic career ended by a prissy headmaster, Ganesh tries to seek literary glory on his own, spending years fruitlessly toiling on unfinished projects (to the dismay of his long-suffering wife Leela, played by Ayesha Dharker) and failing to re-create his late father's successful vocation as a healing masseur. But finally all Ganesh's entrepreneurial and artistic aspirations come together when he becomes a kind of proto-New Age author and philosopher, one who sells earnest snake oil to the undereducated local populace. Lacking Naipaul's usual satirical sting, the movie often seems unsure how to regard its own hero: is he a visionary? a spiritual con artist? a very lucky fool? Merchant's stance changes awkwardly from scene to scene, and his bigger set pieces are often sloppily, crudely handled. Yet the story's fablelike qualities are duly realized in visual terms, with ripe-to-bursting color in the locations, costumes, production designs, and photography. Mandvi's? star turn (which sees Ganesh aging through nearly a half century) also helps ballast an ambitious movie that's uneven but ultimately pleasing as light art-house entertainment. (1:47) Act I and II, Lumiere, Rafael. (Harvey)

Some Body Not an official Dogma film, though it might as well be, director Henry Barrial and cocreator-star Stephanie Bennett's video-shot drama was developed improvisationally, with quasi-autobiographical incidents taken directly from Bennett's own experiences. You sure can't dock her points for narcissism: heroine Samantha comes off as a rather unsympathetically self-absorbed, not terribly bright L.A. teacher-aspiring actor whose serial relationships turn out just as badly as she deserves. She leaves a long-term, live-in boyfriend (Jeramy Guillory) when he starts cramping her style (i.e., getting drunk and flirty in public), then stumbles into a doomed new liaison with a neighbor hunk. Once that dead-ends, she drifts increasingly toward substance-abusive, one night stand-oriented behavior that leaves so-called friends openly discussing just how much of a "whore" she is. A more naturalistic, less melodramatic Looking for Mr. Goodbar update, Some Body is credible and well acted. But why, exactly, are we spending time with all these unremarkable urban users and losers? No true empathy, insight, or even useful satire emerges. This quasi-vérité flick simply observes, with somewhat misguided fascination, people most of us would gladly delete from our address book posthaste. (1:17) Galaxy. (Harvey)

*Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron This surprisingly subversive DreamWorks film counters the snappy, po-mo, self-reflexive tone of zany 3Ders Shrek, Monsters, Inc., and Toy Story(s) with an earnest, (mainly) traditionally animated tale that upends American frontier formulae. Spirit, the horse of the title, is the leader of a herd of wild mustangs who, for once, don't speak English but roam a majestic landscape that remains unnamed (which is good, since they appear to run from Yosemite to Bryce Canyon to the Grand Canyon in a matter of minutes). Captured by a group of scouts from the U.S. Cavalry, Spirit's brought back to their fort to be assimilated into the worker-horse life – until a Lakota Indian named Little Creek stages a daring escape. Culminating in an ending happy enough for a six-year-old and sad enough for those who understand what the words "manifest destiny" actually mean and marred only by Bryan Adams's soundtrack misfires, the film picks up street cred with American Indian Daniel Studi as Little Creek and PETA member James "Farmer Hogget" Cromwell as the Colonel. (1:22) Century Plaza, Empire, Grand Lake, Jack London, UA Berkeley. (Doug Young)

Ongoing

About a Boy Unrepentantly shallow lad Will (Hugh Grant) invents his own imaginary one-parent family to gain access to datable single mothers. Complications arise when Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), a 12 year-old social misfit with a suicidal mom (Toni Collette), barges into his stratosphere, introducing the idea that maybe there's more to life than sex, haircuts, and objects. Few actors can play callow as charmingly as Grant, and his performance in this adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel almost makes it worth sifting through the more saccharine moments in the mix. Essaying a shallow, bitter version of his usual bumbling Romeo roles, he's almost daring you to question why you liked his persona in the first place. Directors Paul and Chris Weitz (American Pie) prove they can capture the self-deprecating strain of British humor, but Grant's edgy take eventually grates against the sentimentality and "Shake Ya Ass" sing-alongs included to ensure mass palatability. (1:45) Century Plaza, Emery Bay, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Metreon, Metro, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, Shattuck. (Fear)

Amélie (1:55) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

American Chai (1:32) Galaxy.

*The Cat's Meow (1:47) Albany, Bridge, Piedmont.

Changing Lanes British director Roger Michell has a way of exceeding expectations. As he proved with 1999's Notting Hill, clever writing and innovative editing can raise even the most clichéd story to the level of something original. So imagine what he does with an edgy and compelling script, a cowritten effort by first-timer Chap Taylor and veteran Michael Tolkin (The Player) that digs unmercifully into the moral fabric of a corporate-driven America. With the help of unconventional D.P. Salvatore Totino (Any Given Sunday), Michell deftly weaves two polar stories – those of high-powered lawyer Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) and recovering alcoholic Doyle Gibson (Samuel L. Jackson) – into an unforgiving and eye-opening whole. Though the film avoids predictability, its true Hollywood nature does eventually rear its ugly head as too many loose strings tie themselves into a neat little bow just in time for the closing credits. (1:35) Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Cohen)

*The Cockettes David Weissman and Bill Weber's The Cockettes doesn't seem like a projection so much as a flaming, sparkled gateway into a fantastic world ruled by always-bejeweled and sometimes-bearded beautiful ladies in velvet and satin. More than one eccentric testifies in Weissman and Weber's documentary: with typical quick wit, John Waters outlines the Cockettes' links to his and Divine's mayhem. Society dame Denise Hale, in fur and pearls, attests that the troupe put on the show to see in early-'70s San Francisco. But the film's most colorful talking heads are the Cockettes themselves, including Sweet Pam, glowing with health as she claims that the Cockettes practically brushed their teeth with LSD; Scrumbly, an old-fashioned gentleman with comic Chaplinesque style; and Reggie, who issues an invitation: "Just give me a torn dress and a hit of acid and let's go to the beach." The Cockettes transcends packaged nostalgia – partly because Weissman and Weber make still photos come to life through pans and dissolves, partly because, during four years of research, they've uncovered a bedazzled treasure chest of rare film footage. (1:39) Castro. (Huston)

Deuces Wild (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

*Dogtown and Z-Boys No question: the Z-Boys, a 1970s-era crew of skateboarders who adapted slashing, style-laden surfer techniques to the asphalt, were seminal. Dodging the Man, the team – Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, Jay Adams, and the rest – stole into empty backyard swimming pools, pushing off from the shallow end and flowing along the concrete curves. Setting out only to kill time in Dogtown, their entropic seaside neighborhood, the teenage Z-Boys somehow managed to find transcendence, at least for a few moments. Really, they were accidental Buddhists. So what do you do when corporate culture/the Hollywood machine announces its intent to make a feature flick about your life as a proto-skate punk? If you're Peralta, now a 44-year-old documentary film director, you shoot back. Hitting up the Vans shoe company for the David-esque sum of $400,000, Peralta stitched together Dogtown and Z-Boys, a 90-minute preemptive strike now in theaters. Narrated by Sean Penn, the film is a generally dazzling excavation of a skate history unknown to the X-Games generation. It's a narrative Darwin would like: the Z-Boys (10 guys and one girl) started in the water, surfing the breaks off Venice Beach, moved to the land, skating when the waves were flat, and eventually became skate-obsessed, flying their skateboards into the sky and accelerating the art form's evolution exponentially. (1:41) Galaxy, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (A.C. Thompson)

Hollywood Ending (1:14) Four Star, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, Vogue.

Ice Age (1:24) 1000 Van Ness.

In July Fatih Akin's likable German feature In July throws a few curves into the road-movie romance that aren't exactly new but try their damnedest to look like it. Socially semi-inept physics teacher Daniel (Moritz Bleibtreu) is targeted for heavy flirting by raver-type free spirit Juli (Christiane Paul). Chance intervenes, putting Juli in his passenger seat as a long-haul hitcher. They end up taking a circuitous route through Austria, Hungary, Romania, and so forth. In turn, Daniel is separated from his car, his companion, his sobriety, his wallet, and more. Vaguely redolent of early-'70s counterculture road flicks (Dealing, Thumb Tripping, etc.), if more superficially "alternative," In July sprinkles around glittery bits of magic realism that never quite lift the story from contrivance to fable. Nonetheless, it's almost always engaging, with a cheerfully not-quite-black sense of comedy that's underplayed to good effect. (1:40) Lumiere, Rafael. (Harvey)

*Iris (1:30) Four Star.

*Italian for Beginners (1:39) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Kissing Jessica Stein (1:47) Opera Plaza.

Life or Something Like It (1:39) 1000 Van Ness.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (3:00) Kabuki.*Maelström Denis Villeneuve's Maelström is one very odd journey from the vaguely unpleasant and baffling to the quite captivating (but still kinda baffling). Discontented heir to her mother's haute couture empire, model Bibiane Champagne (Marie-Josée Croze) is taking life mostly up the nose and in straight double shots before a drunken accident turns her slow self-destruction into a guilt-stricken plunge. When her path crosses with that of oceanographer Evian (Jean-Nicolas Verreault), love follows, bringing its own fresh load of killing bad conscience. Darkly humorous, brilliantly shot, unpredictable, and sometimes off-putting, the movie only starts to add up once it hits the conventional romantic curve – a genuine sweetness begins to pervade both story and heroine, leading to a surprisingly touching conclusion. (1:23) Four Star. (Harvey)

*Monsoon Wedding (1:54) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont.

*Monster's Ball (1:48) Lumiere.

Murder by Numbers (2:01) Kabuki, Metreon.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2:01) Colma, Galaxy, Piedmont, Shattuck.

The New Guy Asinine teen movies are alive and well, as evidenced by The New Guy. Its plot sounds yawn-inspiringly familiar: nerd gets a makeover, makes friends with the cool kids, gets the girl, then realizes what a sellout he is and renounces the jocks and babes for his true, geeky friends. Spindly D.J. Qualls plays ultrageek Dizzy, a guy so low, so humiliated, he gets expelled on purpose just to get out of his high school. His mentor is a guy he meets in jail (Eddie Griffin), who teaches him how to walk, look, and think tough. The jail subplot is a failed attempt at narrative device, and it's not funny in the least. Director Ed Decter also thinks cameos by Henry Rollins, Tony Hawk, Tommy Lee, and others will add to the movie's cool quotient, which they don't. Eliza Dushku, whose hair-flipping talents rival Meryl Streep's flair for accents, plays the cheerleader babe. (1:30) Century Plaza, Kabuki, Metreon. (Gachman)

*Nine Queens (1:54) Opera Plaza.

Panic Room (1:52) 1000 Van Ness.*The Piano Teacher The brittle-boned mother (Annie Girardot) of Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) obsessively monitors her daughter, who leaves their apartment to conduct abusive piano lessons – and smell semen-stained tissues in peep-show booths. Erika falls in love with Walter Klemmer (Benoît Magimel), a vain, handsome, and aggressive young man from an arts-patron family who has campaigned to become her student, and the film's main event begins: a fight between romanticism (represented by Walter) and sadomasochism (represented by Erika). Though French in tone, director Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher is set in Vienna, home of its musical and psychoanalytical themes. Late in the movie, Erika seems to age years in a matter of seconds, suddenly resembling her mother. The process is so seamless that Huppert's method isn't apparent. What's missing, though, is any kind of hope or humanity; in place of uncovering a woman's soul, however distorted, Huppert's performance journeys deep into rotten recesses only to discover emptiness. That's the point – a misanthrope's comedy, The Piano Teacher is the feel-bad European art film of the season, perhaps to a fault. (2:10) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Huston)

The Rookie (2:09) Oaks, Orinda.

The Scorpion King (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, UA Berkeley.

See How They Run When Emily Morse started documenting the 1999 San Francisco mayor's race, there wasn't much at stake. No one liked incumbent Willie Brown much, but no one liked either of his challengers any better. Former mayor Frank Jordan was largely forgotten; political consultant Clint Reilly had little going for him but a small personal fortune and an ugly past. Tom Ammiano set that evil-of-three-lessers scenario on its ear. The plot of Morse's film, See How They Run, will be familiar to anyone who was paying even the least attention: progressive supervisor launches last-minute write-in campaign, mobilizes disaffected hipsters and lefties, wipes the floor with Reilly and Jordan, and grabs a spot in the runoff without even getting his name on the ballot. Massive soft-money spending takes on massive volunteer mobilization. Money wins handily. Morse could have told this story as the tale of a virtuous grassroots uprising that fought the good fight and got squashed, or she could have constructed a cynical satire of political venality and only-in-San-Francisco goofiness. (She could also have told it from a pro-Brown perspective, I guess, but there's not much drama in rooting for the overdog.) Morse's problem is that she doesn't commit to any of these approaches; she just hangs around with a camera, soaking it all up. (1:05) Red Vic. (Gabriel Roth)

Shanda Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi is one of Zimbabwe's most popular musicians, and this reverential documentary by Steve Riber and Louise Riber tells his story and spotlights his concert performances. Shanda means "work" and the film concentrates on that aspect of Tuku's life, though at the expense of insights into his personality and the nation he comes from. The music itself is sweetly delightful African pop, with soft guitar melodies above rollicking, lively percussion and a mixture of rhythms. Tuku sings with spirit, and his lyrics respond to the political issues of the day, going back to his first song in 1976 under British rule. Contemporary songs speak of AIDS and changes in Zimbabwean society. At the end of the film Mtukudzi offers the insight "The future of Africa is very bright," but American viewers will sorely miss the explanation of more about African history and culture to put Tuku's optimism in context. (1:20) Rafael. (Henderson)

*A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake English musician Nick Drake pretty much constitutes the prototype for died-young, acquired-taste, didn't-sell-shit-when-alive makers of beautiful/sad art who are now considered a personal totem by every person who falls under their posthumous spell. He's a cult figure not just in the usual underground-following sense but also in that his music is quasi religious in effect, prompting contemplation and a sort of worship. Dutch filmmaker Jeroen Berkvens's 50-minute A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake (playing at the Roxie Cinema in its U.S. theatrical premiere) is the perfect tribute – part biography, part impressionistic grappling at residual ether. Arguably, no one could have done better. Both Drake's surviving sister, Gabrielle, and producer Joe Boyd are on tap in Skin, along with two studio engineers, photographer Keith Morris, and erstwhile Jam and Style Council leader Paul Weller (the only "fan" here). Each brings limited insights to the table, but Drake seems to have been one of those people no one really "knew." A Skin Too Few assumes – rather like Drake's music – that given its subject, less is more. (:50) Roxie. (Harvey)

Space Station 3D (:47) Metreon Imax.

Spider-Man The fact that Spider-Man is one of the least openly brain-rotting blockbusters, as well as one of the most faithful comic book adaptations, in recent memory is something to be genuinely thankful for. Sure, Spidey could have used a few more wisecracks, fussed more neurotically over his superhero-caliber "super-problems," and looked less like an escapee from a PlayStation game, but the final product is solid enough to dodge serious disaster even if it also lacks true greatness. After a fantastically engaging first half, wherein Tobey Maguire discovers he can do "whatever a spider can," things take a downturn as Willem Dafoe's less interesting Green Goblin takes center stage. You can feel the studio pressure on director Sam Raimi, who (while hitting all the right notes) sadly holds back on the kind of mad visual invention that made his previous superhero outing, Darkman, such a blast. (1:51) Alexandria, Colma, Emery Bay, Empire, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, Presidio, UA Berkeley. (Macias)

*Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Cons: some unfortunate dialogue made even worse by some unfortunately stiff acting; a detectable lack of that goofy magic that made episodes IV-VI sacred texts for the masses. Pros: some of the most spectacular action sequences ever committed to film; the death sticks-Jedi mind trick exchange; and minimal sightings of a certain Mr. Binks. Worth seeing at least once to mend any festering Phantom Menace wounds; worth seeing twice for the battle between Christopher "Dracula" Lee and the meanest, greenest fighting machine in the galaxy. (2:22) Century Plaza, Coronet, Emery Bay, Grand Lake, Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Stonestown, UA Berkeley. (Eddy)

*Time Out What one does for a living is such a cornerstone of identity that, once it's removed, it's easy for existential dread to creep in and lead to extremes. For the hero of the psychodrama Time Out, it's even easier to bask in denial. Vincent (Aurélien Recoing) was a consultant at a business firm before getting the axe. He doesn't have the heart to tell his family or friends the truth, so he spends his days cruising around and crashing real places of work. It's just a matter of time before the lie he's living catches up to him. French filmmaker Laurent Cantet (Human Resources) probes how people will go to absurd, deceitful ends to maintain a semblance of self once their sense of security is threatened, showing how it's impossible to escape the fact that, job or no, it's only a matter of time before a greater social disintegration starts ticking away. (2:12) Four Star. (Fear)

*Y tu mamá también Alfonso Cuarón, the latest director to owe a stylistic debt to Godard, is less concerned with praising love per se than its physical manifestation, be it in onanistic, coupled, or ménage à trois variations. Handheld camera work shakes and snakes around corners à la Raoul Coutard. Sound drops out occasionally so a narrator can digress into characters' past, present, and future. People sprout manifestos full of dogmatic statements like "Truth is cool but unattainable" and "Pop beats poetry." Of course, one of those statements is "Whacking off rules!," which I can't remember ever hearing in any of Godard's films. Welcome to someone else's glorious masterpiece. Tenoch (Diego Luna) and his best friend, Julio (Amores perros's Gael García Bernal) have the bond of being raging hormone collections trapped in the form of teenage boys on the hunt. Spotting a beautiful Spanish woman named Luisa (Maribel Verdú) at a lavish wedding reception, the two would-be Lotharios invite her on a road trip to the beach. The trio hits the road in search of paradise. What they get instead is a series of sexual rocket blasts, some painful doses of maturity, and Mexico in all its permutations. (1:45) Act I and II, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Fear)

Ultimate X For someone who used to think the X Games were testosterone fests that showed monosyllabic dudes doing dumb stunts, saying that Imax's Ultimate X rocks is a big step. My brimming cynicism didn't last long. As soon as Black Sabbath started in and the moto-X riders started flying in the air, that was it. Directed by Bruce Hendricks and featuring interviews and, yes, kick-ass stunts by Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, Brian Deegan, and Bucky Lasek, to name a few (plus a token female, who's barely shown), the movie shows luge racing, BMX biking, skating, and moto-X through such intense camera work (and the Imax screen doesn't hurt) that it makes the games as seen on TV look like a tea party. Hendricks throws in a good amount of interview footage with the athletes (most have broken at least 20 bones, and one guy "flat-lined twice"), the crowd, journalists, and promoters. The only problem is that, at 39 minutes, it's, like, way too short. (:39) Metreon Imax. (Gachman)

Unfaithful When a suburban housewife (Diane Lane) meets a sleazy Gallic seducer (Olivier Martinez), coy flirtations quickly reach the illicit-tryst boiling point. Throw in a cuckolded husband (Richard Gere) who begins to suspect something, and acts of discovery and violence are right around the corner. Another slab of populist pulp from Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction), Unfaithful's tale of domestic bliss-banality shattered by transgression serves up vintage overlighting and choreographed passion like the '90s never happened. Like most of Lyne's work, it's little more than arty eroticism disguised as cineplex social melodrama, acting as if it cares more about the cracks of a marriage than about how to film rain sloshing against a windshield with panache. Even when the movie's posttraumatic final third opts for chic funereal tones rather than the expected histrionics, you can't help feeling that an overextended Red Shoe Diaries episode by any other name still smells just as cheap. (1:21) Alexandria, Colma, Emery Bay, Empire, Galaxy, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, Oaks. (Fear)

Rep picks

'Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage' As seen by satellite, the largest manmade object on earth, Fresh Kills Landfill in New York, looks like a not so frightening piece of art, a lesser Diebenkorn. Close-up, it is, of course, a contemporary horror, a representation of the sinister success of capitalism, as its throwaways creep into the water and air. Heather Rogers's documentary about the discarded crap that occupies that massive amount of space rolls through the history of waste culture (e.g., planned obsolescence and all its aftereffects) and demonstrates how standard recycling practices aren't exactly the answer. Precedes the feature-length black-and-white documentary Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks Its Back. (:19) Artists' Television Access. (Gerhard)

*In the Bathtub of the World Unusual as usual in the Caveh Zahedi oeuvre, In the Bathtub of the World pieces together the cranky brilliance, anger, and drama of the everyday world of a filmmaker into something much larger, and much stranger, than life. Beautiful visual moments mirroring the poetry alluded to in the title alternate with incredible personal ones (pigeons roosting inside his home, his father's heart attack, arguments with his patient girlfriend, a film proposal for Waking Life from his friend Richard Linklater) in a brave and meditative personal document that pushes the boundaries of privacy. (1:20) Artists' Television Access. (Gerhard)

*'Kung Fu Kult Classics and Saturday Midnites for Maniacs' This week's Kult Klassics double feature is Jaime Luk's Robocop remake Robotrix (this film is also the "Midnites for Maniacs" feature) and the great Deaf and Mute Heroine, starring Helen Ma. Four Star.