October 2, 2002

CANNES HAS GLITZ and glamour, Toronto has clout, Berlin has cachet, Sundance has million-dollar deals, New York has that Gotham aesthete appeal, Venice has the scenery, Telluride has the nosebleed altitude, and San Francisco has both its legacy and the ubiquitous Willy Brown. So, a film festival junkie might rightfully inquire, what does Mill Valley have?

What the annual Mill Valley Film Festival has slowly and surely made its name by, above all else, is the movies. Yes, there are plenty of parties dotting the North Bay haven's picturesque landscape during the two-week run, and you're likely to spot a famous face milling about (last year I rounded a corner on Throckmorton Avenue and careened headfirst into a distracted woman, who began apologizing profusely. It was Barbara Hershey). And certainly, for Bay Area residents, the luxury of attending a film premiere that necessitates a mere bridge toll instead of plane fare and a passport might even be reason enough to pay notice.

But the main attraction of the MVFF, for all of its 24 prior incarnations, has been its ability to cull a well-rounded buffet of films from far and wide. Glance at the alumni name cards on the cover of the 25th anniversary festival schedule, and you'll see the MVFF has showcased everything from designated crowd-pleasers to dark, difficult gems and back again. This year's lineup features some Hollywood star-bursts (White Oleander, Frida), a smattering of Iranian dramas, and a diverse international crop of music documentaries. In other words, let the feast begin. (David Fear)

Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, Canada/USA) An award winner at Cannes this year, Michael Moore's latest doc couldn't be more perfectly timed, unfortunately: it arrives in the United States as gun-crazy paranoiac propaganda is in full militaristic effect. The title refers in part to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's trip to Littleton Lanes on the morning that they killed 13 fellow students and in part to Moore's project: striking kingpins of guns and greed. Charlton Heston represents the former and Dick Clark the latter in perhaps the two most squirm-inducing confrontations. Bowling for Columbine is flawed; Moore's on-camera "sincerity" sometimes verges on smarminess, and in presenting an impressively expansive argument, he could benefit from better organizational skills. But when this American story finally comes full circle, the result is insight that incites protest. Sat/12, 9:15 p.m., Sequoia; Sun/13, 8:45 p.m., Rafael. (Johnny Ray Huston)

City of God (Fernando Meirelles, Brazil) You'll be hearing a lot more about this movie. Proof that someone besides Quentin Tarantino has taken tips and tropes from blaxploitation, Fernando Meirelles's portrait of teen and preteen drug-trade gang wars in the slums of Rio is a two-hour dynamite blast: ceaselessly fiery and colorful, with cinematography (by César Charlone) that matches its aspiring-photographer protagonist's vision. Pubescent big personalities with names such as Li'l Dice, Li'l Zé, Carrot, Blacky, Rocket, and Knockout Ned are introduced and often dispatched, some quicker than others, as Carl Douglas's "Kung Fu Fighting" and James Brown's "Sex Machine" strut across the soundtrack. Initially, the commercial treatment of the subject matter is discomfiting, but Meirelles stays true to content and context; the complicated narrative is energized and organized. Sun/6, 8 p.m., Sequoia. (Huston)

The Crime of Father Amaro (Carlos Carrera, Mexico) Already a huge succès de scandale in Mexico, this update of a 1851 Portugese novel will tickle – and outrage – anywhere Catholicism looms large. If your casa isn't on the list, then expect no more than telenovela-style histrionics and nonstop lurid crises. The title figure (Gael García Bernal of Y tu mamá también) is an ambitious young priest sent to a semirural church in the diocese. There, he soon discovers the longtime chief cleric is not just engaged in pleasures of the flesh but also enjoys kickbacks for humoring the local drug lord. These crimes, however, are nothing compared to what the increasingly amoral Father Amaro himself soon gets up to. Sat/5, 9:30 p.m., Sequoia; Sat/12, 9:15 p.m., Rafael. (Dennis Harvey)

Deadline (Colin Nutley, Sweden) Lest you think Hollywood has the market on slick, pulse-pounding thrillers cornered, along comes this Swedish import poised to put asses on seats' edges. A daily paper's editor (Helena Bergstrom) is covering the explosion of Sweden's Olympic stadium when she notices pieces of a corpse being carted away. Further investigation reveals the victim to be the head of the Olympic committee, a front-page scoop that puts the journalist in the middle of a political conspiracy and up against her sexist superiors. Fans of British-born, Nordic-employed Nutley's MVFF entry from last year, the backstage comedy Gossip, may wonder if they've wandered into the wrong theater; apart from the unintentionally hilarious and overwrought score, Nutley's new film bypasses funny bones and goes straight for the blockbuster adrenal glands. Even as it blends '70s paranoia grit and '90s sleekness, this foreign potboiler works such Grishamite user-friendliness underneath its glacial surface that you'd swear you were already watching the inevitable Tinseltown remake. Tues/8, 9:15 p.m., Sequoia; Fri/11, 9:15 p.m., Rafael. (Fear)

Igor Stravinsky, Composer (János Darvas, Germany) His symphonies brought modernist sensibilities into classical music and caused riots at their premieres. Igor Stravinsky was one of the most significant figures of the 20-century artistic landscape, and his larger-than-life stature is both confirmed and rebuked in János Darvas's intimate portrait. Stringing together black-and-white archival footage like arias in a movement, Darvas captures Stravinsky laughing with his wife and hanging out with Nabokov, Giacometti, and George Ballanchine; returning to his native Russia some 50 years after he left the motherland; and, at 83, still yelling at musicians. By turns poignant and buoyant, it's a rare and fascinating look at the puckish man behind the legend and his discordant legacy. Sun/6, 7 p.m., Rafael; Thurs/10, 7:15 p.m., Rafael. (Fear)

Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew (Matthew Buzzell, USA) If we only knew, indeed – Matthew Buzzell's superb doc, the best visual portrait of Jimmy Scott to date, intuitively captures the grace of one of the greatest voices in torch-song history, realizing that Scott's own personal-musical narrative is defined by absences and silences. When Scott is responsible for those absences and silences, the result is artistry. When fate is responsible, the result is a cruelty specific to racist America. The performance footage here is frequently stunning. The casual footage possesses a sunlit glow that fits Scott's melancholy beauty – not to mention his elevated being – like a comfortable tux. Scott's story isn't merely stranger than fiction – it's mythic. But Buzzell never forgets that it's a human one. Mon/7, 9:30 p.m., Sequoia; Sun/13, 9:30 p.m., Sequoia. (Huston)

Lost in La Mancha (Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, U.K.) Two years ago, Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits, Brazil) was on the brink of realizing a long-cherished dream: filming Don Quixote, or rather, his particular semi-modernized take on the Cervantes tale. Extensively (but still under-) funded by European investors, and with Jean Rochefort as Don Q. and Johnny Depp as Sancho Panza heading an international cast, the sprawling production commenced a tight shooting schedule, with no margin for error or misfortune. At which point god, or fate, or whatever, laughed. Torrential rains, flash floods, serious star illness, and other disasters quickly brought the project to its knees, leading to forced abandonment after just a few days of filming. That fiasco is traced in this painful you-are-there documentary, which holds the fascination of watching a large-scale creative endeavor go splat – even if the few scenes actually shot do not suggest that Gilliam necessarily had a great or even good film in the works. Sun/5, 9:45 p.m., Rafael; Wed/9, 9 p.m., Sequoia. (Harvey)

Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, U.K.) Your enjoyment of Lynne Ramsay's follow-up to Ratcatcher hinges on your reaction to Samantha Morton. Fundamentally, Morvern Callar is a vehicle – a impulse-motored travelogue – built for its star. As the title character, Morton claims authorship of a novel written by her dead boyfriend, using her incipient publishing-world stardom to escape Scotland for Spain. All of Morton's trademark tics (the wide-eyed, unblinking concentration, the sudden bursts of physicality) are abundantly present. Her rootlessness is accompanied by Ramsay's photographer-inspired direction, and a hipster's choice (V.U., Can, Boards of Canada) soundtrack. Fri/11, 9:15 p.m., Sequoia; Sun/13, 4:30 p.m., Rafael. (Huston)

Personal Velocity (Rebecca Miller, USA) Writer-director Rebecca Miller's first movie since her sorely underseen 1995 debut, Angela, is a triptych of stories about women at pivotal, fate-altering points in their lives. Kyra Sedgwick plays a Catskills trailer mom who has let her looks do the talking in one bad relationship too many. Parker Posey is an insecure New Yorker whose sudden career success makes everything she'd previously settled for seem questionable – including the boyfriend who is so ideal that he's borderline dull. Fairuza Balk is a young woman driving upstate in a panic; her impulsive picking up of a teenage boy in much worse straits puts things in perspective. At once startlingly brisk and fully detailed, these restless, astute miniatures have an urgency and unpredictability to them that is completely fascinating. Sun/13, 6:45 p.m., Sequoia. (Harvey)

Standing in the Shadows of Motown (Paul Justman, USA) Motown's house band, the Funk Brothers played on more hits than Elvis, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones combined. This is their story, and it's partly defined by Berry Gordy's control, even if – for once – Gordy can't control how the story is told. The man who supplied the Funk Brothers' initial heartbeat, innovative bassist James Jamerson, is no longer alive. But the remaining combo bring astonishing precision and a touch of the divine to the slick concert sequences in Paul Justman's doc. It's a shame Motown greats such as Martha Reeves aren't the one's singing. Instead we get Gerald Levert, Ben Harper, Joan Osborne, Meshell Nedegeocello, and Chaka Khan. Shockingly, it's Osborne who stands out, though she's helped by an earthshaking arrangement of "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted." Thurs/10, 7 p.m., Sequoia; Sun/13, 4 p.m., Sequoia. (Huston)

Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly (Beth Harrington, USA) Treated as novelties at best and disgraceful female hoodlums at worst, female stars of rockabilly's first wave all experienced stalled or otherwise frustrated careers (until nostalgia caught up with them, of course). As this hourlong documentary makes clear, that was a shame – Wanda Jackson, Janis Martin, Brenda Lee, and Lorrie Collins (of the Collins Kids) were just as charismatic and ball-of-fire as their male counterparts. Most of 'em have still got it, too; the delightful archival footage is abetted by spirited interviews and latter-day performance clips. Wed/9, 7 p.m., Sequoia. (Harvey) Mill Valley Film Festival