January 22, 2003

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. See Rep Clock and Movie Clock, for theater information.

Opening

*Blackboards See Critic's Choice. (1:24) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

*City of God See "Bullet Time," page 39. (2:10) Embarcadero.

*Confessions of a Dangerous Mind See "King Gong," page 40. (1:54) Century 20, Grand Lake, Orinda, Shattuck, Vogue.

Darkness Falls A Freddy Krueger-Blair Witch-ish evil menaces the young residents of a small town. (1:16) Alexandria, Century Plaza, Century 20, Shattuck.

Dum A wanna-be police officer must overcome the machinations of an evil cop in this Bollywood import. (run time not available). Four Star.

Max See Movie Clock. (1:48) Lumiere.

Patlabor WXIII Tokyo Bay is beset by a series of gruesome murders and maulings that has the local police baffled. Homicide detective Kusumi and his young partner Hata pursue several leads that suggest the perpetrator may not be human; soon enough, the trail of suspicion starts winding its way through labor-robot manufacturers, military-industrial conglomerates, and even Hata's new girlfriend, a cancer researcher with a secret past. This third film in a series based on the video-only Patlabor anime ("WXIII" refers to "Waste 13," the code for a biological experiment gone awry) has only a third-act cameo of the robot-suit cops from the popular previous outings. More of a detour than a new franchise chapter, this film plays like a day-trip through fan-favorite genres. What saves Patlabor WXIII from drowning in derivativeness is director Fumihiko Takayama's mastery of dimensional space, cinematic-lighting re-creation, and thriller grammar. (1:40) Galaxy. (Fear)

Ongoing

About Schmidt We meet Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) as he counts off the final seconds of his life-insurance job in the dead atmosphere of a generic gray office; he seems as bloodless and overcooked as the steaks at the retirement party that soon follows. Cut off from imagination and compassion and almost too fatigued to be curmudgeonly, Schmidt is a distant relative of the antihero in Five Easy Pieces, and About Schmidt's Midwestern terrain – so empty, so grim – evokes that film. Of course, director Alexander Payne is also returning to the Omaha zombiescapes of Citizen Ruth and Election, trading the latter film's kinetic politicized wit (which, ironically, seems to have stemmed from its MTV money) for the slack pace of a lonely retiree's Winnebago trip to Colorado. Punctuated by letters to an orphan in Tanzania, this journey back to life is essentially a series of excruciating encounters with strangers and family, who might as well be the same. Payne mockingly pits comb-over against mullet – and meaningfully hollow formal speeches against Kathy Bates's rude rants as a purple lady – in the process of depicting one man's clumsy attempts at reviving himself. He's rewarded by a lead performance that's more generous than this film, whose final shot is inspired by Akira Kurosawa's superior Ikiru. (2:04) Century 20, Emery Bay, Grand Lake, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Huston)

*Adaptation To experience the kind of writer's block that wracks the mind and wrecks the body of Adaptation's Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage, wearing the expression of someone who's habitually beaten), one need only attempt a plot synopsis. Or worse yet, a condensed version of the film's back story. Both endeavors are doomed to failure, so let's, in the spirit of the film itself, combine them. One could say Adaptation is Kaufman's made-for-the-movies rewrite of Susan Orlean's nonfiction work The Orchid Thief, but it isn't, really – it's a movie about Kaufman adapting Orlean's book, a hallucinatory process that involves Kaufman's twin brother, Donald (Cage, in bright-shining dimwit mode), and screenplay guru Robert McKee (Brian Cox), two figures who wield considerably higher narrative power than the main characters in Orlean's book, John Laroche (Chris Cooper) and the author herself (Meryl Streep). Like Spike Jonze's debut, Being John Malkovich, his second movie expands the deliberate showiness of his TV-based ad work, all the while maintaining a coherence, thanks to Kaufman's faux-incoherent script, which takes small bites from two different story lines before vomiting up a Möbius strip and Hollywood genre hybrid. (1:52) Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Huston)

Antwone Fisher (2:00) Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, UA Berkeley.

*Bloody Sunday (1:40) Balboa, Colma.

*Bowling for Columbine (1:59) Embarcadero.

*Catch Me If You Can Catch Me If You Can is Steven Spielberg's least self-important movie in eons. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank W. Abagnale Jr. (whose autobiographical tome gets a somewhat loose adaptation from Jeff Nathanson), an East Coast teenager who runs away from home when his fond but troubled parents (Christopher Walken, Nathalie Baye) split. He quickly realizes a talent for "paperhanging" (staying one step ahead of falsified credit card and check transactions) and for constructing the Very Important Adult personae that help him get away with it. Thus Frankie spends years living in first-class hotels, jetting to exotic vacation spots, cashing large phony checks, bedding lots of pretty girls, and posing as an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer – all before turning 21. Early on this act attracts attention from the FBI, namely humorless, semihapless agent Hanratty (Tom Hanks), but the quarry remains at large for an amazingly long, expensive run. Astutely cast, DiCaprio is very good, and Walken's low-key Willy Loman provides all the poignant underpinnings the movie needs. Too bad it must eventually resort to lines like "Sometimes it's easier living the lie," Midnight Express theatrics, and a final assurance that Abagnale is "redeemed" by becoming a federal snitch. (2:20) Alexandria, Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Harvey)

*Chicago This belated screen translation of Kander and Ebb's repeat Broadway success is a more qualified triumph once you get past the immediate glitter. For budgetary as well as disbelief-suspending reasons, first-time film director Rob Marshall stages all the musical numbers as mind's-eye fantasies, a tactic that rather disappointingly leaves them looking a helluva lot like they did in the 1975 show's still-running 1996 revival. Dumb-blonde failed chorine Roxie (Renée Zellweger) shoots her married lover, becoming the latest headline-grabbing "Death Row Doll" in sensation-addicted Roaring Twenties Chicago. That status deposes and rankles prior star murderess Velma (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who's also "represented" on various fronts by showboating lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), opportunistic prison warden Big Mama (Queen Latifah), and "sob sister" reporter Mary Sunshine (Christine Baranski). Benefitting from no doubt many hours of vocal and dance coaching, the leads are just OK where a cast of real Broadway types might have been dazzling. Still, the material is fun, the flashiness is bracing, and the sheer throwback novelty – a big musical for Christmas – was worth the effort. (1:47) Century 20, Empire, Galaxy, Jack London, Metreon, UA Berkeley. (Harvey)

El crimen del Padre Amaro (1:48) Balboa.

*Derrida (1:25) Rafael.

*Drumline (1:59) Colma, Emery Bay.*Far from Heaven Set in suburban Connecticut circa 1958, Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven primarily pays homage to Douglas Sirk's All that Heaven Allows, but Far from Heaven is more than a semiotic Hallmark card to melodrama – it's an unashamedly florid expression of movie love. Within the meticulous architecture of Haynes's movie, Frank (Dennis Quaid), who reveals he is gay, and wife Cathy (Julianne Moore), who falls in love with an African American gardener (Dennis Haysbert), pass through revolving doors to meet betrayal and take elevator rides – always going down – toward a floor marked divorce. It has been argued that Haynes shows women have the least autonomy of Far from Heaven's triad of '50s outsiders or minorities, but the film isn't interested in weighing injustices so much as revealing how societal structures work to reinforce them. Cathy's and Frank's and Raymond's individual attempts at finding happiness collide, and one character's freedom becomes another's punishing trap. (1:47) Embarcadero, Stonestown. (Huston)

Frida (1:58) Lumiere.

Gangs of New York Gangs of New York is a disaster – not even of the colorful kind that might reflect some idiosyncratic glory back on its maker, but a thwarted-epic mediocrity that suggests creative waffling and executive interference from shooting-day one. The first reel manages to overestablish every ham-fisted motif, betray Martin Scorsese's fatally desperate willingness to please, and build a lunatic air the subsequent two-and-a-half hours can never quite live down – all in one awful 20-minute prologue. A scrappy group of mostly Irish immigrants led by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson) makes its final stand against the bullying "natives" of crime boss Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the working-class Five Points district of 1846 New York City. They're horribly crushed, with Vallon's only child witnessing his father's death by the knife of the Butcher himself. A moment later Priest's now grown-up son, Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio), is sprung from 15 intervening years in juvie, determined to get revenge. Gangs wants to be so much: critique of this land-of-immigrants' xenophobia, paean to NYC's street-fighting roots, American class-struggle primer, heterosexual love story, father-son love story, buddy pic, bloody goosing of costume drama. Yet it all shows up on screen as awful composite cliché, when anything past faint intention registers at all. (2:57) Century Plaza, Century 20, Four Star, Kabuki, Metreon, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

A Guy Thing At his bachelor party, Seattle yuppie Paul (Jason Lee) has too much to drink, wakes up the next morning with "tiki girl" Becky (Julia Stiles), then has to keep this info from his prim fiancée Karen (Selma Blair) – especially after finding out that the two women are cousins. (Don't worry – Paul and Becky are both so nice they didn't actually have sex!) Adding to the subsequent wacky funfest is Becky's jealous ex-boyfriend, 'roid-raging rogue cop Ray (Lochlyn Munro). OK, you're not expecting much, so how bad can it be? Well, not bad. Which is part of the problem: Badness would actually distinguish this utterly vanilla-without-sprinkles romantic comedy. It's the whitest shade of bland currently occupying multiplex space, however briefly. Please, please, do not tell me you have nothing better to do with your time. That would just be soooooooo sad. (1:41) Century Plaza, Century 20, Emery Bay, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, UA Berkeley. (Harvey)

*Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2:41) Emery Bay, Metreon.

The Hours Like fellow leading British theater director Sam Mendes's American Beauty follow-up, The Road to Perdition, Stephen Daldry's sophomore screen effort (after Billy Elliot) arrives so convinced of its masterly import that each pearly moment seems to hand itself an individual Oscar. Which is not to say this adaptation – by David Hare, no less – of Michael Cunningham's ingenious novel is nearly as ponderous or hollow as Perdition. Rather, its genuinely prestigious material is intelligently handled, but top-heavy with more conspicuous "talent" than any self-supporting story should have to bear. Three narrative strands are interwoven, tracing vaguely similar arcs amongst women ill-at-ease with their particular era's definitions of gender, social status, and creative usefulness: nose-blunted Nicole Kidman plays the real-life British novelist Virginia Woolf, battling madness and overprotected domesticity two decades before her 1941 suicide. Julianne Moore is Laura Brown, a less stable version of her "perfect" post-World War II suburban wife and mother in Far from Heaven. Meryl Streep is Clarissa Vaughan, a contemporary, lesbian-partnered Mrs. Dalloway whose privileged New York life provides little satisfaction, especially as her longtime best friend (Ed Harris) lies dying of AIDS. The book's graceful, gently echoing swings between one strand and another are replaced – somewhat necessarily, but still – by overemphatic crosscuts that hammer home each one-size-fits-all motif. (1:54) Century 20, Jack London, Metreon, Metro, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

Just Married (1:35) Century Plaza, Century 20, Emery Bay, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, UA Berkeley.

Kangaroo Jack Director David McNally, who unleashed Coyote Ugly on the world, returns with Kangaroo Jack, an '80s-style buddy-film redux: white guy (Jerry O'Connell) baits white chick (Estella Warren) while black guy (Anthony Anderson) entertains with slapstick humor. After about 20 minutes you can't help but want to kick the white guy's teeth in, and the jokes become so stale it's hard to muster a chuckle. Jack also features the requisite male bonding, plus a mobster stepfather played by Christopher Walken, who manages to keep a straight face in most of his scenes. As characters experience desert hallucinations of Starbucks frappucinos and 7-Eleven slurpees, it becomes obvious that Kangaroo Jack is just a milking cow for the capitalist tycoons who helped put it together. (1:24) Alexandria, Century Plaza, Century 20, Emery Bay, Jack London, Kabuki, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (Rachel Swan)

The Lion King IMAX (1:29) Metreon IMAX.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2:59) Century Plaza, Century 20, Coronet, Grand Lake, Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, UA Berkeley

Maid in Manhattan (1:43) Century Plaza, Century 20, Emery Bay, Metreon.

*Morvern Callar Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton), a young Scottish woman, responds to her boyfriend's suicide by chopping up and burying his body, attaching her name to his writing, and using his funeral money to go on a vacation in Spain. These actions don't make for a sympathetic character, yet Morton's performance creates one; her Morvern is escaping a bad situation in a nowhere town, by any means necessary. Visually, Morvern Callar is like a photo monograph that attains motion through slow or rapid turning of pages. What saves this film from being a mere exercise in style-as-substance is Ramsay's take on Morvern's story. She's replaced the not entirely convincing motormouth narrator of Alan Warner's book – praised in the U.K. as a standout modern novel along the lines of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting – with a woman whose thoughts are partially accessible through music. This is the closest any director's come to capturing a modern experience: navigating the world with speakers plugged into one's ears. (1:49) Lumiere. (Harvey)

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

Naked (1:38) Rafael.

*Narc Writer-director Joe Carnahan (Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane) has taken the oldest story in the book and made it old again. And I mean that as a compliment. Jason Patric's Nick Tellis is the "good" cop, and Ray Liotta's Henry Oak is the "other" cop (let's not give too much away here). Tellis, pulled out of his uncomfortable life off-duty (he was suspended for a botched assignment), partners with Oak to find a cop killer. Oak is ready to bust heads – and he gets to, when he meets up with suspect Beery (Busta Rhymes). Look for the minority report all you want, but the plot isn't really what matters most here; it's Carnahan's stylish shot choices, evocative palette, and sense of timing that bring this genre story to creepy just-off-the-cryogenics-shelf life. (1:47) Century 20, Emery Bay, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, UA Berkeley. (Gerhard)

National Security Et tu, Steve Zahn? It's bad enough to see Owen Wilson slip into questionable roles, but to witness fellow Deadpan Alley hall-of-famer Zahn in such a witless sidekick part is enough to crush an already wary spirit. Zahn is a Los Angeles police officer who sees his partner murdered and, through a series of "comic" misunderstandings, ends up employed as a lowly security guard. Teamed with a fellow guard (Martin "He So Crazy" Lawrence), he sets out to discover who killed his pal. Naturally, crooked cops and a valuable titanium alloy (?) are involved; anyone thinking there isn't slo-mo airborne cop car shenanigans or street-smart sass-talk on the horizon must have slept through Interracial Buddy Cop Movie 101. The unfunny shtick can't hold a candle to the hilarity that is rent-a-villain Eric Roberts as a platinum blond, but the real pain lies in watching Zahn's timing and talent get pissed away one exasperated reaction shot at a time. (1:30) Colma, Emery Bay, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, UA Berkeley. (Fear)

*Nicholas Nickleby The strongest example of Masterpiece Theatre-style cinema in some time, Doug McGrath's new version of the Dickens tale has the good sense to emphasize comedy, let pathos take care of itself, make production handsomeness a plus without becoming the point, and give a great cast plenty of maneuvering room (but not a license to chew its scenery). The slightly simpersome Charlie Hunnam plays titular Nicholas, who along with his sister and mother are left at the mercy of less upright personalities when their beloved patriarch's death leaves them penniless. Purists may object to the drastic pruning of Dickens's typically epic, intricate tale – but there's also something to be said for putting him through the "less is more" process, since god knows the themes and archetypes are blunt enough to endure paring-down. And there's no question that this confident, wide-screen interpretation is generous with its humor, intrigue, thespian flamboyance, and kidney-pie entertainment heartiness. (2:15) Bridge, Colma. (Harvey)

P.S. Your Cat Is Dead Erstwhile actor Steve Guttenberg (Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby, Short Circuit, the Police Academy movies) returns to the public eye as a quadruple threat with P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, a film he stars in, cowrote, coproduced, and yes, took the directorial leap with. Struggling actor Jimmy Zoole (Guttenberg) has just hit rock bottom, and to top things off, he discovers Eddie (Lombardo Boyar), a thief who has regularly been looting his flat, hiding under his bed. After Jimmy knocks Eddie out, he hog-ties the crook to his sink and intends to keep him hostage throughout his nervous breakdown. Before the night is over, of course, the two will engage in introspective soul-searching, life-changing confrontations, and noxious faux-philosophical dialogues. An experienced filmmaker with a strong, steady hand might have been able to make the jagged parts cohere into a whole. But under the neophyte hyphenate's touch, a solid middle tone is never struck and many elements that date the play are left intact, agitating what's already dodgy material. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Fear)

*Personal Velocity (1:26) Opera Plaza.

*The Pianist Roman Polanski's The Pianist is a stunning look at one man's journey through the maze of fascism – a detailed map partly drawn from the filmmaker's own memories of his childhood in Nazi-occupied Poland. Pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is separated from his family as they are sent to Dachau, and he takes refuge in apartments that become solitary-confinement cells. When Szpilman finally wanders into the world once again, he finds a seemingly endless street of wreckage. The world has become a landfill, and only now is there a possibility of freedom within it. The same blunt paradoxes that define The Pianist's visual landscape color the film's view of human nature. In particular, the movie emphasizes that Szpilman's talent and reputation as a pianist save him from death. There's a wry incredulity to Polanski's documentation of Szpilman's survival, a quality furthered by the Brody's performance: his face is operatically sorrowful on the surface, yet it's the subtle shifts in his expressions that are truly revealing. (2:28) Clay. (Huston)

*Rabbit-Proof Fence As part of Australian policy in 1931, all half-white, half-Aborigine children were removed from their families by the government and sent to a teaching facility where they were trained as domestic servants. Rabbit-Proof Fence follows three Aboriginal girls as they escape from their school and walk 1,500 miles home by following the "rabbit-proof fence" that cuts through the Gibson Desert. While it deals with political themes, the film is not just a political movie – it's also an exceptionally crafted human drama, with moments of genuine elation, chilling tension, and heart-wrenching sadness. Director Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games) and his cinematographer Chris Doyle let the camera soak in the gorgeous Australian landscapes, capturing the vast desert stretches in both their unflinching beauty and devastating treachery, as the young girls trudge their way through a remarkable journey. (1:34) Rafael. (Adam Wadenius)

*Real Women Have Curves (1:25) Balboa.

*Rivers and Tides (1:30) Rafael.

Sordid Lives (1:51) Balboa.

Spirited Away (2:04) California.*Standing in the Shadows of Motown They played on more number-one hits than Elvis and the Beatles combined, providing the instrumentation for such milestones as "My Girl," "What's Going On," and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" – the soul music soundtrack for untold numbers of sweat-drenched backseat conceptions. Yet the names of the house musicians that graced Motown's legendary Studio A have been relegated to footnotes in rock history, obscured by the well-known artists and groups they backed. That's about to change with filmmaker Paul Justman's tributary documentary of the Funk Brothers, Studio A's collective of skin beaters, brass blowers, and ivory ticklers, which puts names and faces to the sounds. The film mixes oral histories of the aging musicians (call them the Motor City Social Club), and of the social climate they provided the score for, with reunion concert footage and event "re-creations." Standing falls just shy of rote as a documentary, but as a musical homage to forgotten heroes, it may be the most infectious, joyous restoration job to grace a Dolby system. (1:48) Four Star, Rafael. (Fear)

*Talk to Her A more accurate, lively title for this film would be Girlfriend in a Coma, but Douglas Coupland has already stolen from Morrissey with diminished returns. Like the classic Smiths song, Pedro Almodóvar's new film literalizes metaphor in order to ponder communication's role within a relationship. It twins the conceit, though: comatose girls Alicia (Leonor Watling) and Lydia (Rosario Flores) are cared for by spurned lovers Marco (Darío Grandinetti) and Benigno (Javier Cámara), respectively, with radically different results. The restraint of Almodóvar's recent work is magnified here by its male lead characters and relatively muted color schemes. The flourishes come from two Pina Bausch dances (so-so), one Caetano Veloso song (excellent), and a short silent film sequence (brilliant) that speaks the truth. Once again, rape is a dramatic turning point, but in this case its occurrence is offscreen and ambiguous – an approach that won't attract the attacks that Almodóvar's underrated and misunderstood Kika was subjected to, though it's just as mischievous. (1:52) Embarcadero. (Huston)

25th Hour (2:26) Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Two Weeks Notice (1:40) Century 20, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Rep picks

Chain Camera Fans of American High might want to check out Chain Camera, a similarly in-the-trenches look at contemporary high schoolers by director Kirby Dick (Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Super Masochist). Ten students at an L.A. high school were given video cameras to record their lives for seven days; when the week was over, the cameras were passed on to ten more students, and so on. Chain Camera comprises 16 portraits both funny (two friends use a banana as a prop to joke about blow jobs) and poignant (a 17-year-old girl discusses her troubled past as a runaway and a bulimic). It's clear the subjects who made the cut were carefully chosen for their diversity – gay, straight, Ethiopian, Armenian, nerdy, sex-crazed, music-obsessed, football-obsessed, etc. Though the students are different on the surface, several common threads emerge, including the fact that almost all come from single-parent homes. There is also a surprising amount of casual racism and homophobia expressed by many of the kids, a testament to the film's unedited honesty, if nothing else. (1:30) Red Vic. (Eddy)

'Close-Up: Visionaries of Modern Cinema: Tilda Swinton' See 8 Days a Week Castro.

House The dwelling at the center of Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai's 1980 doc was later the subject of his 1998 film, A House in Jerusalem. The house – built by Arabs, torn down by Jews, rebuilt for a Jewish family by Arab workers – is an obvious metaphor for the region's religious strife. If you can get past the film's technical issues (censored by Israeli television, the only circulating copies are taken from a video, hence the black-and-white film's grainy, low-resolution quality), House offers an interesting, and historical, perspective on Israel's current troubles, boiling everything down to the goings-on at one address. (:51) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Eddy)