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 Adam Wadenius. See Rep Clock and Movie Clock for theater information.

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

The 22nd annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival runs July 25-Aug 12. Venues are the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley, near Bancroft and Telegraph, Berk; Park Theatre, 1275 El Camino Real, Menlo Park; and the Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael. Tickets for films and special programs ($5-22) can be purchased at (925) 866-9559 or www.sfjff.org (check the Web site for a complete schedule). See "Blood Roots," page 31, for commentary. All times are pm unless otherwise noted.

Thurs/25

Castro God Is Great and I'm Not with "The Wax and The Wicks" 7.

Sat/27

Castro Ramleh noon. Casting with "A Bridge of Books" 2. Last Dance with "Isaiah's Rap" 4:30. Desperado Square 6:45. Esther Kahn 9.

Sun/28

Castro "god@heaven," "More Precious than Gold," and "Something from Nothing" 11a. Shalom Y'all with "Wanderings: A Journey to Connect" 12:30. In Search of Peace 3:30. The Inner Tour 6. Yellow Asphalt: A Trilogy of Desert Stories 8:30.

Mon/29

Castro Martin with "Past Perfect" 11:30a. Across Time and Space with "Tangled Roots" 2. Sobibor with "Silent Song" 5:15. Ruthie and Connie with "Naming Prairie" 7:30. Mamadrama: The Jewish Mother in Cinema with "Goulash" 9:30.

Tues/30

Castro Blue Vinyl 11a. Living in Conflict with "500 Dunam on the Moon" 1:30. Between the Lines with "Bin and Jerry's Fundamental Principles" 5. Strange Fruit with "The House I Live In" 7:30. Lifetime Guarantee: Phranc's Adventures in Plastic with "Fantasy: Another Country" 9:30.

Opening

Austin Powers in Goldmember A new villain and new costars (Beyoncé Knowles, Michael Caine, Fred Savage) join Austin, Mini-Me, Dr. Evil, and the rest of the gang for another round of spy spoofage. (1:36) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Jack London.

The Country Bears The stalwart Disneyland attraction gets a live action feature film with a Blues Brothers-ish plot: ursine rockers the Country Bears reunite for a benefit concert (complete with celebrity cameos) to save Country Bear Hall. (1:28) Jack London, Shattuck.

*Gangster No. 1 See "O Lucky Man!," page 33. (1:43) Lumiere.

Nijinsky A buzz of excitement surrounded the publication of the English translation of dancer Vaslav Nijinsky's diaries, written in a short six weeks in 1917 before he descended into final madness. For those fascinated by the great artist's short career, the book seemed likely to provide a glimpse into a genius' mind – and what it contained was a portrait of a disintegrating, tortured soul, feverishly self-aware and hallucinating at the same. Paul Cox's flawed but still intriguing Nijinsky tries to capture something of his subject's rhapsodic compulsion to come to terms with a world that kept slipping away. Forget about Derek Jacobi's coolly distancing reading of selected sections from the diaries – the heart of this film is Cox's lusciously romantic, even decadent nature and animal imagery, which evokes something of what might have gone on inside Nijinsky's febrile mind as he fought with his fountain pen trying to pin down the uncontainable. (1:32) Lumiere. (Rita Felciano)

*Read My Lips See Critic's Choice. (1:55) Galaxy.

*Sex and Lucía In this lush Spanish pic, writer-director Julio Medem (Lovers of the Arctic Circle) weaves a poetic tale about the intersection of fantasy and reality. As an emerging author (Tristán Ulloa) attempts to write his second novel, the lines begin to meld between memory and experience, desire and love, and art and obligation. His girlfriend, Lucía (Paz Vega), along with a mother, a traveler, a porn star, and her daughter, become entwined in the web of his (and their own) unfolding tales of truth and fiction. Moving from Madrid to a small secluded island, the film floats amid the currents of sex and imagination. The sweeping Mediterranean seascapes, shot with vivid overexposure, bring this tale about the dark space between consciousness and unconsciousness – which constantly challenges the viewer to decide what is "real" – dramatically to life. (2:08) Bridge, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Sabrina Crawford)

*Tadpole See Movie Clock. (1:17) Embarcadero.

Who Is Cletis Tout? Remember when Sundance and cineplexes were full of hip crime flicks populated by pop culturati droppings and postmodern hired guns, all seemingly concocted by your local video store clerk? Thankfully, the genre wore its welcome and itself out, though apparently no one bothered to tell writer-director Chris Ver Wiel; hence, one last-gasp refraction that carbon-dates to somewhere around the mid '90s. An ex-con (Christian Slater) facing a movie-obsessed hired killer named (sigh) "Critical Jim" (Tim Allen) buys himself some time by recounting the story of a jailbreak, a magician (Richard Dreyfuss) who's stashed stolen diamonds, and the attempt to retrieve the loot (now, ironically, hidden in a prison yard). It's a toss-up as to what grates most here: a cut-rate score, the cliché-ridden script, or the overall sheer unoriginality. Ver Wiel's constant back-patting over how clever he thinks he's being nails the bygone era's coffin shut, as Cletis finally takes the self-referential genre so far up its own ass it consumes itself whole. (1:35) Galaxy, Shattuck. (Fear)

Ongoing

About a Boy (1:45) Galaxy, Shattuck.

*Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner It's not just the centuries-old source material that makes Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner feel so revelatory and revolutionary. It's the fact that, even as it uses modern forms of no-frills filmmaking, it has managed to boil down cinematic storytelling to its essence. Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk pays tribute to the prodigious way the Inuit have with a classic "hero on a journey" narrative, and also to the still-vibrant culture and environment that fosters that kind of storytelling. Long, nearly silent takes are devoted to capturing the Inuit lifestyle, as they work the frostbitten land in order to survive. Shot in a digital wide-screen format, the Arctic landscapes take on an otherworldly quality custom-built for mythopoetic status, even as the film's realist visual approach and slowed-down pacing ground its context within a patient, philosophical, and ritualistic culture. (2:52) Act I and II, Opera Plaza, Rafael. (Fear)

*Baran By box-office measures, Majid Majidi became Iran's most successful filmmaker with 1997's Children of Heaven, a tale of urban poverty that garnered the country's first Oscar nomination for best foreign film. His latest venture finds the director in top form – telling a simple but compelling tale using highly accessible cinematic language. The story concerns Lateef (Hossein Abedini), a mischievous teenager who makes a startling discovery: Baran (Zahra Bahrami), a young Afghani refugee bravely providing for her desperate family. As the smitten boy unhesitatingly sacrifices all to aid and protect his beloved, his transformation evinces considerable humor and compassion. The film's love story achieves an artful relationship to its social context, and for all its stark realism, Baran plays like a parable: Baran, the agent of Lateef's development, is also the word for rain. This life-giving force also washes away all human-made things, dissolving footprints in the earth or lines in the sand; in this sense, it resembles the love that fills and overflows the vessel of the heart, dissolving the line separating the self from all life. (1:39) Galaxy. (Avila)

The Bourne Identity A man (Matt Damon) with no memory retraces his steps in search of his identity. Like most cinematic victims of amnesia, it turns out he's a trained assassin for a CIA spook organization and is targeted for termination. Once our hero reappears on the intelligence grid, he and his hapless MacGuffin-of-circumstance (Franke Potente) dodge agency cleanup men and international-espionage chess games while reconstructing his past. Based on pulp-spy literati Robert Ludlum's page-turner, Bourne's plot mechanisms are basic paranoia 101 spiced with Hitchcockian hoo-ha, but director Doug Liman (Go) has a way with chase scenes and fight choreography, blending '70s grit and '90s delirium with surprising deliciousness. Damon's grace-under-pressure performance establishes that he can embody an action hero minus much meaty posturing, even if the third act's clenched jaws and pat denouements skitter away earlier, more savvy moments. Still, for a big-budget thriller, Bourne's erotic underpinnings and eschewing of cookie-cutter turns makes for a class-act, minor-chord thrill ride. (1:53) Balboa, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

Breaking the Silence Chinese megastar Gong Li, known around these parts for her spectacular turns in costume dramas like The Emperor and the Assassin, gets gritty for the role of Sun Liying, a working-class single mom who lives only to better the life of her deaf son, Zheng Da. The little family doesn't have it easy – Zheng is menaced by neighborhood bullies and breaks his hearing aid in the fray; Liying works multiple, backbreaking jobs and spends every spare moment teaching Zheng to speak more clearly so he can be admitted to school with "normal" kids. Happiness comes in small doses, like the joyous afternoon when Zheng learns to pronounce "flower" and the kindness of Mr. Fang, a teacher who befriends the pair. For all its depressing subject matter, Breaking the Silence has the good fortune not to be a product of, or even influenced by, sappy Hollywood overcoming-adversity movies. Director Sun Zhou's style is strictly realistic, and Gong's performance, heartfelt. (1:31) Four Star. (Eddy)

*Cherish In Finn Taylor's San Francisco drama, Zoe (Robin Tunney) is an off-kilter animator who runs her life with clueless abandon: annoying her coworkers by listening to the greatest hits of yesteryear and meeting men and losing them at the speed of light. She quickly moves from being a prisoner of her own habits to just being a prisoner, after she's forced at gunpoint to mow down a bicycle cop. While she waits for a trial, she's put on the "bracelet" program, which allows her to remain outside a real prison as long as she wears an electronic ankle bracelet. When the bracelet-program coordinator (Tim Blake Nelson) comes by to adjust the shackles on his kooky indoor-roller skating, love song-obsessed charge, a whole new plotline ensues. Cherish's comedy goes down better than its thrills, mostly because of a cast that includes unheralded geniuses like Nelson, who carries off his nervous warden character with clammy charm. (1:52) Balboa. (Gerhard)

The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course In the world of wildlife television, there's no more distinctive character than Steve Irwin, he of the caffeinated personality, colorful array of Aussie catchphrases, and in-your-face approach to some of the world's most menacing critters. Irwin's latest venture aims to combine Steve-o's real-life outback dalliances with a fictional narrative: a cranky croc swallows a top-secret satellite beacon, bringing stuffed-shirt CIA types – whom Irwin and his constant companion, wife Terri, mistakenly believe to be poachers – to the Irwins' wild turf. Far-fetched, sure, but the tale allows for Collision Course to give audiences what they presumably want – the television show on the big screen – and to avoid sticking nonactors Steve and Terri in awkward scenes with the rest of the cast. Though its odd structure – half wildlife doc, half narrative – will work for kids and fans of the show, it remains to be seen whether the cheerfully hokey Collision Course will win over new fans. (1:30) Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (1:56) 1000 Van Ness.

*Dogtown and Z-Boys (1:41) Balboa.

*Eight Legged Freaks Even arachnophobes will have a good time with Eight-Legged Freaks, an homage to old-school creature features that's also the latest effects-driven, monster-invasion yarn spun from the maw of Independence Day team Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (though directed by first-time feature helmer Ellory Elkayem). As you might suspect, the residents of tiny desert burg Prosperity aren't aware that their sleazy mayor (Leon Rippy) has turned the town into a way station for toxic waste. An unfortunate accident leads to some very unfortunate mutations at a conveniently located exotic spider farm. Soon everyone – including Prosperity prodigal son Chris (David Arquette) and foxy sheriff Sam (Kari Wuhrer) – is on the run from giant, hairy, web slingers who sound like Gremlins and snack on humans. Despite the familiar story line, the fast-paced Eight-Legged Freaks rarely feels like a retread, thanks to a tone that perfectly melds humor hewn largely from one-liners with spectacularly creeptastic freak-outs. (1:39) Century Plaza, Century 20, Emery Bay, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, UA Berkeley. (Eddy)

*Elling This delightful little comedy traces the rehabilitation of a pair of socially timid middle-aged men living in society for the first time. Having spent his entire life sheltered away in his childhood home, Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen) is sent to live in a state house after the death of his overprotective mother. There he shares a room with Kjell Bjarne (Sven Nordin), a sex-obsessed lunkhead. The two become friends and, upon their release from the facility, are placed in a state-funded apartment, where a social worker (Jørgen Langhelle) tells them to act responsibly as normal members of the community. Director Petter Næss and his wonderful cast of characters carefully blend humorous aspects with more poignant scenes, producing a film that is heartwarming and enjoyable without stooping to "feel-good movie" tactics. (1:29) Opera Plaza, Rafael. (Wadenius)

*Enigma It's 1943, and English intelligence agents must break a new Nazi code days before an imminent attack at sea. The only man who can do it is ace brainiac Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott), a neurotic code-cracker who cracked himself into a breakdown over a fellow agent (Saffron Burrows) now gone missing. Her disappearance, however, may be the key to the puzzle, if only Tom and his objet d'amour's housemate (Kate Winslet) can solve the mystery in time. Scripted hyperintelligently by playwright Tom Stoppard, a writer fluent in the expert coding and deciphering of language, the emphasis on words occasionally clashes with The World Is Not Enough director Michael Apted's need for giving modern audiences kinetic "speed." Still, Enigma's ability to turn cerebral talk into action currency very nearly render the film's faults completely forgivable. (1:57) Opera Plaza. (Fear)

*Green Dragon In the days and weeks that followed the fall of Saigon in 1975, the United States took on the role of big brother, housing the mass exodus of immigrants in desert refugee camps across America. This often unseen aspect of the Vietnam War is explored in Timothy Linh Bui's beautifully crafted directorial debut, a careful examination of the struggle of a people leaving behind families and country in search of hope in an unknown land. Through the eyes of young Minh Pham (Trung Nguyen), we are introduced to a host of characters, including his guilt-ridden uncle, Tai Tran (Don Duong), camp sergeant Jim Lance (Patrick Swayze), and a melancholy volunteer cook named Addie (Forest Whitaker). Kramer Morgenthau's hazy cinematography drapes the film in a distinct sense of loss, emphasizing the unknown future of the people depicted. (1:53) Galaxy. (Wadenius)

Halloween: Resurrection With this eighth installment, Shatner-masked Michael Myers has now surpassed Freddy Krueger in the great sequel race (though neither maniac has anything on Jason Voorhees, who reached double digits with this year's Jason X). By now, all that's left of the original Halloween is John Carpenter's score and a quick cameo by Jamie Lee Curtis – and, natch, the ever bloodthirsty Mr. Myers. A group of kids at Haddonfield University are recruited to spend Halloween night in Michael's childhood home, while Internet entrepreneur Freddie (Busta Rhymes) oversees a live broadcast as part of his "Dangertainment" network. And gee, who do you think shows up with an axe to grind? Though it's nice to see Halloween embracing the 21st century, it's a negative that half of the film – and many of the scares, as we see what the Internet audience sees – are rendered in fuzzy Webcam-vision. Still, for fans of the series, there are some nice moments, not the least of which is seeing Busta Rhymes challenge Michael Myers with the battle cry "Trick or treat, muthafucka!" (1:15) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Hey Arnold! The Movie (1:16) Century 20.

The Importance of Being Earnest Two young gadflies (Rupert Everett, Colin Firth) both invent fictional alter egos named Earnest as a means to ease the social pressure to get married – but they end up opening a Pandora's box of Farce 101 tropes in the process. Oscar Wilde's arsenic-laced scone of a play is full of enough deliciously nasty epigrams and barbed wit that it would seem hard to screw up a relatively faithful film adaptation. But there are ways to dull the playwright's sharpened prose: throw in gratuitously anachronistic touches (fantasy sequences, tattoo parlors) that add nothing to the text, couch it in a flat visual palette, and tame the tongue-lashing needed under the characters' stiff upper lips. Director Oliver Parker is no stranger to the Wilde style (he adapted An Ideal Husband for the screen), but his curious fumbling of the material's potential and the period-film stalwart cast here seems more in tune with modern sitcom barking and less with the play's patented bite. (1:40) Balboa. (Fear)

*Insomnia When a high school girl turns up dead in rustic Nightmute, Alaska, the local brass bring LAPD-detective-under-fire Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and his partner, Hap (Martin Donovan), up from the lower 48 to help with the case. Dormer digs into the search for the killer with the kind of smarts that have made him a legend to cops everywhere, including fresh-faced go-getter Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank). But even before Insomnia – a remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name – starts feeling too Silence of the Lambs-ish, a twist makes Dormer and his top suspect, detective novelist Walter Finch (a very low-key Robin Williams), unlikely allies. Mind games ensue, and what's worse, it's summer in Nightmute, and 24 hours of daylight have dragged Dormer's biological clock to the point of no return. Director Christopher Nolan does fine work here – though Insomnia is nowhere near as stylistically inventive as his Memento, scenes like a guns-drawn chase through a foggy forest show he's no one-trick pony – but it's Pacino, as a beleaguered soul who reaches a point where he'd just as soon catch 40 winks as catch a killer, who makes Insomnia worth watching. (1:55) Balboa, Shattuck. (Eddy)

K-19: The Widowmaker Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days, Point Break) is back in full blockbuster marquee action with K-19: The Widowmaker. The story is based on the true events of the Russian submarine K-19: four months after the Bay of Pigs invasion, the sub's nuclear reactor began leaking, and – if they wanted to avoid WWIII and the nuclear holocaust that might have spun off from a "first strike"-looking radioactive explosion off the coast of Europe – the crew needed to enter the reactor and fix the leak with nothing more than raincoats to protect them. That's exactly what they did, heroically, and exactly what they received no credit for from the "motherland." But Bigelow's movie can't quite convey the true horror of radiation's invisible threat. Instead it's all about the adventure of submarining: Liam Neeson squeezing through doors a few feet smaller than his own frame, repetitive drills, and ego wars between the dueling authorities of Neeson and Harrison Ford, the latter showing some beefed-up summer-movie-muscle arms whenever he gets the opportunity. (2:18) Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Gerhard)

Like Mike (1:40) Jack London, 1000 Van Ness.

*Lilo and Stitch Rascally alien Stitch descends on Hawaii armed with supersmarts and a hardwired desire to wreak havoc on everything in his path. When this anti-E.T. crosses paths with lonely little girl Lilo – who heads a "human" cast that's more realistic and modern than is seen in most Disney flicks – mayhem, and life lessons, ensues. Using an original story rather than tapping a well-worn classic allows directors Chris Sanders (also the voice of Stitch) and Dean DeBlois considerable creative freedom, and Lilo and Stitch combines elements as diverse as hula and fire dancing, spaceship chases, surfing, intergalactic bounty hunters, and plenty of Elvis hits. At the film's core is a simple message about the importance of family, and while Lilo and Stitch may lack the Broadway-style grandeur of other recent Disney efforts, it's nevertheless a charming tale that boasts winning, memorable characters. (1:25) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Metreon, Orinda, Shattuck. (Eddy)

*Lovely and Amazing Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich) is at the top of her game in the latest from writer-director Nicole Holofcener (whose first film, Walking and Talking, also starred Keener). Keener plays Michelle, a would-be artist and onetime homecoming queen who's the eldest daughter in a family that also includes Brenda Blethyn as the about-to-be-lipo'd mom, Jane; Emily Mortimer as Michelle's self-conscious actor sister, Elizabeth; and the wonderfully sullen eight-year-old Ravin Goodwin as Jane's adopted daughter, Annie. All of the women have major issues – in one memorable scene, Elizabeth's obsession with her appearance inspires her to ask a movie star (Dermot Mulroney) she's just slept with to evaluate her naked body, part by part. But it's Keener who steals the show, playing a character who's real-life complex enough to be fully unlikable at times, pathetically endearing at others. Unlike a certain Ellen Burstyn-Sandra Bullock movie that came out earlier this year, the razor-sharp Lovely and Amazing takes a gloves-off approach to the relationships between mothers, daughters, sisters, and female friends, with the fearless Keener leading the charge. (1:31) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Eddy)

*Master of the Flying Guillotine: Ultimate Edition (1:33) Balboa.

Men in Black II Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, and director Barry Sonnenfeld try awfully hard to please, cramming jokes and special effects into every split second of this 88-minute sequel. But something doesn't quite click – maybe because the first Men in Black was infused with a goofy, inspired quality that's virtually missing here. This time around the turf is a little too familiar, Lara Flynn Boyle a little too uninteresting as the big-boobed villain, and even Smith's movie tie-in hip-hop track is decidedly less catchy. Still, there's something to be said for Men in Black II's quick pacing, and Smith and Jones haven't lost their prickly chemistry. Plus, it's hard to slam any movie that features an extended cameo by Mr. Show comedian David Cross. (1:28) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Minority Report It's hard to believe that Minority Report marks the first time Steven Spielberg has directed Tom Cruise – but it's not hard to believe that the pairing of two such überstars, both coming off so-so projects (A.I., Vanilla Sky), makes for such entertaining results. As troubled Chief John Anderton – head of D.C.'s elite "Pre-Crime" division, which uses a trio of clairvoyants to suss out murderers before they strike – Cruise is in his element; the role involves not only muscular ass-kicking, but a meaty back story that concerns Anderton's murdered son, plus a twisty mystery that sends the tightly-wound cop all over the city trying to clear his name when he's pegged as a future killer. Spielberg comes through with his most enjoyable film in years, mixing futuristic, but still strangely logical visuals (vertical highways, interactive advertisements, animated cereal boxes) with quick pacing and several tense, disturbing scenes. Though the king of sentimentality still can't resist a tidy, no-stone-left-unturned ending, by the time the wave of exposition hits you, Minority Report has already carried you, breathlessly, almost to the end. (2:25) Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, Presidio, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Eddy)

*Monsoon Wedding Director Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!) returns to contemporary India but shifts her focus to the tribulations of upper-middle-class Punjabis. At the center of Monsoon Wedding is a multiday, traditional Indian marriage ceremony that gathers family and friends for feasting, celebration, and rituals. The film's sprawling, multicharacter story adroitly weaves together numerous intersecting lives: the bride, who is really in love with an already married man; the father, who is terrified his son is gay; the cousin, who must confront the childhood trauma of sexual abuse by her uncle; and the wedding planner, who is falling in love with the family maid. By compressing so much drama and conflict into three days, Nair treads dangerously close to soap opera, but she's saved by some intense, honest performances and a style that captures the poetry and lyricism of real life. (1:54) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Summers Henderson)

Mr. Deeds Meet Deeds (Adam Sandler): pizza shop owner, aspiring greeting-card writer, serial hugger, and Mandrake Falls, N.H.'s most beloved resident. He also happens to be the sole heir to his long-lost uncle's zillion-dollar media company, a fact that puts the mild-mannered (though he packs a mean punch when provoked) Deeds in the crosshairs of his uncle's greedy underbosses. After Little Nicky, Sandler could use a hit, and Mr. Deeds errs on the side of being too cuddly cute – imagine all the earnest scenes in The Wedding Singer and Big Daddy smushed into one movie, with none of the gut-busting, off-color humor of Happy Gilmore or The Waterboy. Still, Mr. Deeds has some fun moments, with an enthusiastic (if one-note) supporting turn by John Turturro as Deeds's foot-obsessed valet. As Deeds's love interest, Winona Ryder is far less memorable than the headlines she's currently making in the tabloids. (1:31) Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding A shrinking wallflower raised amid over-the-top extroverts, Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos) awakens from her 30-year funk after one look at lanky hunk Ian (John Corbett). She gives herself a makeover and a new career and duly snares Mr. Right. Trouble is, his family is as WASPy as they come, while hers – well, suffice it to say that parents Gus (Michael Constantine) and Maria (Lainie Kazan) are so ethnocentric that their suburban house is outfitted to look like the Parthenon. Wacky culture-clashing ensues. Adapting Vardalos's autobiographical stage monologue for the screen, director Joel Zwick (a TV veteran all the way back to Laverne and Shirley) doesn't do much to elevate the material above elongated-sitcom status – though if the howling response from a largely Greek American audience at a preview screening is any indication, this agreeable, predictable comedy has at least one demographic in its pocket. (2:01) Galaxy, Shattuck. (Harvey)

My Wife Is an Actress A sports writer named Yvan (writer-director Yvan Attal) becomes beset with jealousy when his wife, Charlotte, France's "it" actress of the moment (Charlotte Gainsbourg, Attal's wife and France's "it" actress of the moment), is slated to act opposite an aging British hunk (Terence Stamp) known for his on-set Lothario tendencies. Like many a film brimming with "autobiographical" elements, this romantic comedy about where the performing stops and an artist's true life starts keeps the line between real and "reel" purposefully blurry. The temptation to pluck nuggets of Attal and Gainsbourg's off-screen life out of the more salacious episodes all but overwhelms the screwball elements and sacred treatment of Gainsbourg's beauty, however. Even with a deft directorial hand and the Von Sternburg valentine treatment Attal gives his spouse (she's never looked more sumptuous on-screen), Wife's prime currency is less the comedy of fiction and fidelity than the chance to indulge in Gallic-flavored celebrity voyeurism. (1:33) Act I and II, Clay, Rafael. (Fear)

Mysteries of Egypt (:39) Metreon Imax.

*Notorious C.H.O. "Do you know how hard I have to work to put pussy on the table?" Margaret Cho asks at one point during her new concert film. The hard work has paid off: Notorious C.H.O. reaches its comic peak when Cho reveals her own very specific turn-ons and turnoffs, free-associating herself in and out of absurd bedroom scenarios, some imaginary, some hilariously real. Cho doesn't meet doctrinaire definitions of a gay man (though she's one in sensibility) or a lesbian (while attracted to dykes who resemble John Goodman, she admits pussy isn't her first choice). Despite an opening interview that contains words such as "inclusion" and "validated," Cho's new movie trims down the empowerment mantras of her first, I'm the One That I Want. The emphasis is on raunch. Cho is equipped with one-liners, expert turns of phrase, and an arsenal of silly voices, but her secret weapon is physical comedy, a talent ideally suited to sexual stand-up. Lorene Machado's mostly artless direction intuitively hooks up with Cho's pantomimes only once: a crotch-level view as she imitates an ex-boyfriend bellowing, "Why can't you cuuuuum when I fuck you?" (1:35) Lumiere, Piedmont. (Huston)

Reign of Fire Directed by X-Files alum Rob Bowman, the bravely non-ironic and pleasingly plot-holed Reign of Fire hinges on the same seductive blend of pseudo-science, scatterbrained politics, and mythology that brought viewers back every week for the continuing adventures of Mulder and Scully. After a London subway construction project unearths an ancient dragon, civilization is brought to its knees: the dragons breed so fast and their napalm-breath weapons prove so formidable that all the major cities of the world are wiped out. The dragons "live to feed," our helpful narrator-hero Quinn (Christian Bale) tells us, and they eat ash – hence their desire to burn everything to a cinder. The eating-ash thing is just one of many marvelously ridiculous details that mark Reign of Fire as a true B-grade classic, rather than just a run-of-the-mill C.G.-sploitation flick. Audiences will love guffawing at nice boy Matthew McConaughey's testosterone turn as the American dragon slayer Van Zan, who swaggers around shirtless, crotch thrust forward, and makes speeches about how there's "no middle ground" in dragon battles. (1:48) Century Plaza, Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Annalee Newitz)

*Rivers and Tides Building elaborate installation pieces out of Mother Nature's flotsam and jetsam in its own "natural" habitat (open fields, seashores, riverbanks), artist Andy Goldsworthy spends hours altering the landscape or working his elemental materials into man-made paths and patterns of harmonious grace. A finished work can last for as long as a few days or as short as a minute before a light breeze or an eddying tide picks it apart like carrion; in Goldsworthy's art, deconstruction is as much a part of his vision as construction. German documentarian Thomas Riedelshiemer's affectionate, awestruck look at the man and his mission to tap into a frequency of symmetrical order in terra firma's chaos is as hypnotically dazzling as his subject's abstract expressionist products. Fluently gliding around Goldsworthy's struggle to complete a fragile twig leitmotiv before it collapses under its own weight or pulling far back to reveal a sidewinder pattern snaking around a forest glen, Riedelshiemer's camera becomes the subject's partner, capturing the artist's attempts to channel the ebb and flow of organic life for posterity in a gorgeous, wide-screen, 35mm time capsule. (1:30) Rafael, Roxie, Shattuck. (Fear)

Road to Perdition A depression-era gangland psychodrama may not seem like the most natural follow-up to Sam Mendes's debut, American Beauty, but odds are that the handsomely crafted Road to Perdition, which contains some of the most achingly beautiful cinematography in recent memory, will wind up being just as decorated at next year's Oscars. Betrayed hitman Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) and his sullen 12-year-old son (Tyler Hoechlin) are on the run from a shutterbug assassin with bad teeth played by Jude Law, not to mention other stooges sired in the camp of paternal big boss John Rooney (Paul Newman). The pulpy story is done up with much poetry and enormous late-era Leone-size brush strokes, yet the subtleties of the performances manage to shine through. Adapted from a graphic novel, itself inspired by the classic samurai manga Lone Wolf and Cub, this entry in the usually silent mythology of fathers and sons is writ very large indeed. The film loses points for chickening out on some of the comic's harder edges (where "the kid was a killer," so to speak) and for the generic DreamWorks SKG sappy ending. Still, those involved probably have their acceptance speeches already written. (1:59) Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Macias)

Scooby-Doo (1:27) Century 20.

Siddhartha Those familiar with the intricacies of Hinduism are more likely to enjoy this skillful yet unbearably slow-paced adaptation of Hermann Hesse's 1921 novel. Anxious to get away from his wealthy Brahmin upbringing, Siddhartha (Shahsi Kapoor) leaves his village to become a sadhu, a wandering holy man who lives on the charity of others. He hopes to find religious enlightenment, yet such simplistic tidbits of knowledge as "Everything comes back" and "Learn to give love" come off as dull and wholly unoriginal. However flat the story line, the visual look of the film is certainly to be marveled at. Director Conrad Rooks and legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist fill the screen with beautiful panoramas of the Indian landscape: the calmness of a river, shimmering as the sun breaks in the distance, and the vast desert plains swept over by the evening breeze. These visuals alone, however, are not able to rescue the film from its overall lethargic tone. (1:25) Castro, Rafael, Shattuck. (Wadenius)

*Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2:22) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Stuart Little 2 In this sequel, based on the original storybook characters created by E.B. White, everyone's favorite mouse (brought to life by animatronics and the voice of Michael J. Fox) cruises the streets of Manhattan, soars over Central Park in a model airplane, and scales a skyscraper to rescue his new-found feathered friend, the doe-eyed bird Margalo (Melanie Griffith). Splashes of vibrant reds, yellows, and orange cover the screen, resulting in a '50s deco artscape that makes New York City look like TV-land gone brilliantly haywire. Even the family Little, headed by a June Cleaverish Geena Davis, appear almost cartoonlike in glorious Technicolor. Fresh from finishing his run in Broadway hit The Producers, Nathan Lane steals the show, popping out zingers as the voice of scaredy-cat Snowbell. Directed by Rob Minkoff, the movie also features the unique voices of James Woods and Steve Zahn. (1:18) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Sabrina Crawford)

*Sunshine State Florida's past and present play a key role in the topography of John Sayles's latest opus. Marly (Edie Falco) runs the dilapidated motel and restaurant her now-senile dad built up, which sits on primo waterfront property in Delrona Beach. A young architect (Timothy Hutton) hired by developers sparks a feeling in Marly that a way out may lie in selling out. In nearby Lincoln Beach, elders Dr. Lloyd (Bill Cobbs) and Eunice Stokes (Mary Alice) attempt to bring together their fragmented town to keep Lincoln's proud African American past alive. Into the mix walks Eunice's daughter Desiree (Angela Bassett), who has returned to prove to everyone that she turned out OK. Juggling close to a dozen characters and weaving several narrative strands together, Sunshine State's saving grace lies squarely in its maker's affinity for capturing the rhythms of real life. Few directors write dialogue for actors or understand the pace of living as well as Sayles, and even when social agendas threaten to detrimentally breach his films' surfaces, the power of performance always redeems his rhetorical leanings. (2:21) Albany, Opera Plaza. (Fear)

*13 Conversations about One Thing Making a big leap from her OK but modest office-comedy debut, Clockwatchers, director Jill Sprecher has crafted an unusually depthed ensemble piece about disparate lives intersecting – or not – in contemporary NYC. Matthew McConaughey plays a smug prosecutor whose involvement in a hit-and-run accident destroys his assurance of purpose. Alan Arkin is a divorced insurance-company manager pained by the good fortune he sees inevitably going to other, less deserving people. John Turturro is a mathematics professor who leaves his wife (Amy Irving) for a tenuous new life involved with a married woman (Barbara Sukowa). Clea DuVall's timid young housecleaner finds her faith in life's ultimate just rewards badly shaken by cruel happenstance. Sprecher's script (cowritten with sibling Karen Sprecher) is platitudinous at times, and "chapter"-separating intertitles that repeat those platitudes don't help. (Nor does the rather pretentious title.) Still, this is a rare American feature with genuine ambition, credible real-world narrative detail, philosophical weight, and a complex structure that never seems overschematic. (1:42) Embarcadero, California. (Harvey)

*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) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Fear)

Ultimate X (:39) Metreon Imax.

Rep picks

Ashes of Time Tony Leung, Brigitte Lin, Leslie Cheung, and Maggie Cheung star in Wong Kar-Wai's epic 1994 swordplay fantasy. (1:40) Four Star.*Destroy All Monsters See Tiger on Beat. (1:28) Red Vic.