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

Bruce Almighty An unhappy man (Jim Carrey) learns running the world is tougher than he'd imagined when he's given divine powers by God (Morgan Freeman). (1:41) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Presidio.

*Cremaster 3 See "Thigh-high Art," page 47. (3:02) Castro, Shattuck.

*Friday Night It would take a large essay to advance the thesis that Claire Denis is one of the most overrated directors of the past two decades. So let's just say Friday Night is surprisingly charming and crush-worthy, despite, or perhaps because of, the slight, Eurotrashy subject matter. Its story of a one-night affair is practically a parody of an American's stereotypical view of French film romance. Agnès Godard's cinematography and Dickson Hinchcliffe's score do all the talking for the film's lovers – in fact, theirs is the true love story. He answers her luminous visual beauty (nighttime Parisian skyline still lifes, streetlights reflected in raindrops, a morning-after glimpse that overtly re-creates a Nan Goldin photo) with music that moves from nervous, pizzicato flirtation to glowing, sonorous exhilaration. (1:30) Lumiere. (Huston)

The In-Laws Jerry Peyser (Albert Brooks) is a fanny pack-toting podiatrist who likes to have everything under control. Steve Tobias (Michael Douglas) is a deep-cover CIA operative with a warehouse full of guns. Brought together by their children's engagement, this odd duo end up entangled in a top-secret international arms deal with the FBI hot on their trail. In remaking Arthur Hiller's 1979 comedy of the same name, director Andrew Flemming closely adhered to Hiller's big-name-stars formula (Alan Arkin and Peter Falk played the mismatched pair in the original) but updated the screenplay to reflect contemporary society. He did so despite the fact that Andrew Bergman, the original screenwriter, is a master of making silly jokes into smart films, as he did on such classics as Fletch and Blazing Saddles. Flemming's modernized script may feature cell phones and laptops, but it's also clichéd and predictable and retains precious little of Bergman's wit. (1:35) Century Plaza, Century 20. (Cohen)

*Man on the Train A mysterious stranger (Johnny Hallyday) breezes into a small French burg and attracts the attention of a local poetry teacher (Jean Rochefort), who offers the out-of-towner room and board. It turns out that the stranger is a career criminal with his eye on the local bank and that the local is desperately looking for one last chance at excitement to set off a long life of dullness and regrets. It's the duo's gentle, tentative stabs at friendship before tragedy inevitably rears its head that make the latest meditation by director Patrice Leconte (The Hairdresser's Husband) on the melancholia of loners and losers so quietly moving. Thanks to the alchemy of legendary Gallic rocker Hallyday's steel-flint gaze and Rochefort's matronly kindness, what should be a normal iconographic noir essayed in gun-metal shades of blue gray takes the road less traveled, gracefully morphing into an elegy of missed opportunities and misaligned lives. (1:30) Embarcadero, Albany. (Fear)

*Manic See Movie Clock. (1:40) Galaxy, Shattuck.

Spellbound A frightening, often comedic look into the family lives of the nation's top young spellers, Jeff Blitz's documentary too easily balances the oddities of overachievers: if there's an obsessed speller, there's also a nonchalant one; some families are wealthy, some are poor. There's diversity, love, faith, and most predictably, a fight against the odds. Though the film builds tension as it reaches various humiliating climaxes at the microphone, it suffers the same malady as its subjects: it feels far more stage-managed than earned or lived. (1:36) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Gerhard)

The Trip Alan (Larry Sullivan) is a closeted Republican journalist and Tommy (Steve Braun) a longhaired gay rights activist when they first meet in 1973 Los Angeles. Many pages of sitcomish dialogue later, they become a couple, albeit one undone (as is the movie) by a ridiculous midpoint crisis that manages to put Alan on par with Anita Bryant as a late '70s hero for homophobes. He didn't mean it, really! Next stop, 1984, at which point AIDS provides a convenient opportunity for healing-if-tragic reconciliation between the long-since-estranged duo. As long as it isn't taking itself too seriously, this trite but harmless dramedy gets by on cute leads and a sweet romance. Once the Will and Grace-meets-That 70s Show-wannabe-ing turns into Philadelphia meets defanged The Living End, however, it's clear that ambition well outstrips ability here. A weak script and a low budget conspire to render writer-director Miles Swain's first feature the kind of all-surface "period piece" defined by retro wigs, thrift-shop costumes, a checklist of pop cultural references, familiar archival footage, and the usual compilation-tape oldies. Not helping one bit are punishingly broad comedy relief turns from supporting players Alexis Arquette, Jill St. John, and Sirena Irwin. (1:43) Lumiere. (Harvey)

Ongoing

Anger Management The idea sounds foolproof: A bullied schlub (Adam Sandler) is mistakenly charged with "assaulting" a flight attendant and is assigned to an anger management course chaperoned by an unorthodox self-help guru (Jack "Careful with that golf-club!" Nicholson). It isn't long before the therapist has taken over the guy's life and unleashed the sap's inner rage-aholic. I mean, c'mon! Sandler! Nicholson! Together! What could go wrong? Everything, apparently, as this high-concept lowbrow comedy blows any potential from the outset; even when a moment of comic inspiration does bubble up through the tar pit of dick jokes -- i.e., the duo singing "I Feel Pretty" -- director Peter Segal insures that leaden pacing punctures any gag before the pay-off. Sandler's usual modus of male anxiety/humiliation vignettes segueing into copious yelling offers no surprises, but what's shocking is how such prodigious talent (Nicholson, John Turturro, and a host of famous-faced cameos) is so thoroughly wasted. Cinematic slumming for slapstick has never seemed so joyless. (1:41) Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

L'auberge espagnole A sheltered French youth (Romain Duris) heeds the advice to "go southwest, young man" and becomes an economics exchange student in Barcelona. He ends up in an apartment with six other twentysomething Euro-expatriates and steps into a whole new world of liberating drinking, loving, and touchy-feely dorm room epiphanies. Director Cédric Klapisch (When the Cat's Away...) peppers this Candide-lite comedy with so much postcard photography and "This was the semester that changed my life" narration that any bigger picture musings are buried underneath a cringe-worthy sense of schmaltz. There's a certain naive undergrad charm in the film's view of pan-Europeanism as nothing more than a hostel takeover, where nations of all stripes would get along if they all just chilled out, smoked a doob, and sang along to Bob Marley. After two hours of clichéd soul-searching amongst the college sophomore set, however, the movie's title (slang for "euro pudding") takes the culinary metaphor to the extreme: It goes from slightly delectable to a little too sweet, far too sticky, and hardly worthy of being considered a full meal. (1:56) Bridge. (Fear)

*Bend It like Beckham With a witty screenplay, feel-good story, and kick-ass soundtrack, Gurinder Chadha's Bend It like Beckham (named, by the way, for the soccer star who's also known as Mr. Posh Spice) has already broken box-office records in the U.K. and arrives in the United States with a worldwide $50 million gross already under its belt. Jess, Beckham's protagonist, is a reluctant challenger who's driven by her passion for soccer to deviate from the expectations of her old-world family. Beckham pointedly punctures English, Indian, and immigrant foibles despite a few jokes that are broad enough to hit the side of a barn. But its pseudo-lesbian subplot is unlikely to ruffle viewers of any lifestyle. More satisfyingly, the film's climactic wedding scene erupts into high drama with mistaken-identity mischief delicious enough to ensure it won't be mistaken for Monsoon Wedding. (1:42) Embarcadero. (B. Ruby Rich)

*Better Luck Tomorrow Ben (Parry Shen) is your archetypal Asian studyholic – but despite his academic prowess he's completely invisible. Ben's crew does its best to tweak the stereotypes: there's Virgil (Jason Tobin), the "other smart guy at school" and a goofy, squeaky spaz; Virgil's brother Han (Sung Kang), a cool would-be greaser with a muscle car; and Daric (Roger Fan), an obnoxious Max Fischer archetype who has his hand in every school club and, later, every scam. Director-cowriter-producer Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow succeeds at infusing the secret life of the Asian nerd with an unprecedented level of sexiness and humor; we can all imagine what would happen if the culture's tenacity, skills, and pressure to excel were applied to crime instead of tests and study sessions. Like its characters, though, Better Luck Tomorrow comes off like an early acceptance-style academic overachiever. It makes all the right moves and is ready for the big leagues with MTV backing, yet is still a little too eager to please. (1:38) Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)Blue Car Blue Car begins promisingly, as a narrative refreshingly focused on the creative process of a young woman who is neither insane nor suffering some other catastrophe. Too bad writer-director Karen Moncrieff lets it all hit the fan later on, in unusually large amounts. Eighteen-year-old Meg (Agnes Bruckner) expresses frustrations about a neglectful mother, absentee father, and unstable younger sister through some not terrible poetry. An English teacher (David Straitharn) steps up to play creative mentor, espousing weak nuggets like "You can go deeper" – which do serve to inspire Meg. However, what starts as an earnest teacher-student relationship is ruined by creepy betrayal; Montcrieff also places enough obstacles in young Meg's life to fuel three other movies. Bruckner's honest and believable performance is Blue Car's highlight. (1:28) Embarcadero. (Koh)

*Bowling for Columbine In Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore attempts to find out why, exactly, America is so very homicidal. What's so powerful about the film, a truly intelligent departure from the somber stranglehold of the Sept. 11 era on the topic of What's Wrong with America, is what's so powerful about all of Moore's films: his use of location, the comic mise-en-scène that one couldn't dream up in a studio setting, the "reality" of our reality that is truly too strange for words. I mean, after all this time, Who lets this guy in? The camera rolls as Moore makes pit stops that turn into filmmaking coups; by the time the interviews are over, those catch-phrase historic events that had been reduced to very singular meanings – "Columbine," "Oklahoma City," "9/11" – are reinvented as the truly terrible, complex situations they were. Ours is a population easily herded, a fact Moore enjoys as he revisits some of the old ghosts of media frenzy: those "Africanized killer bees" that never arrived, the razored apples poised to kill children on Halloween. Should a country this hyped up on fear be armed? That question is easy. The bigger one – Why are we so afraid? – is largely unanswerable. What's new for Moore is taking on a question so sticky in a time so angry in a country so thought-controlled. (1:59) Opera Plaza. (Gerhard)

Charlotte Sometimes (1:28) Oaks.

*City of Ghosts Matt Dillon's directorial debut is as surprising an announcement of an actual artistic sensibility as George Clooney's was with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Dillon also stars as Jimmy, a U.S. insurance executive pursuing an agent who's disappeared into southeast Asia after pocketing funds that should have gone to hurricane-devastated claimants. The trail to elusive Marvin (James Caan) leads Jimmy to Bangkok, then to Phnom Penh, where a bar-hotel run by a hilariously tantrum-prone Gerard Depardieu magnetizes all tourists, expatriate strays, drunks, and shady dealers. Multimillion-dollar investment scams, quicksilver violence, the military's heavy hand, and ghosts of the dread Khmer Rouge layer Dillon and East Bay author Barry Gifford's somewhat messy screenplay. But if it doesn't fully satisfy as an old-fashioned tale of exotic intrigue, Ghosts more than compensates with innumerable surprise observances, sweet ironies, and dense textural pleasures. (1:57) Lumiere. (Harvey)

Confidence James Foley's Confidence is a heist movie that feels like many a predecessor. All the ingredients are there: good and bad crooks, Tarantino dialogue, an exotic bombshell, and a twisty scheme with a payoff finale. Despite these echoes, the film is fun and mostly clever, and it moves at a brisk pace. Edward Burns plays Jake Vig, a grifter whose specialty is constructing elaborate setups to fleece wealthy targets. Remember The Sting? This is a pared-down, new-millennium version. Jake and his team mistakenly con the accountant of "the King," an eccentric mobster (Dustin Hoffman), and must put things right by pulling off a monster job for him. Burns is OK if occasionally annoying as one of those smooth-talking, balls-of-steel criminals who use the word "fuck" as punctuation; other notable cast members include Andy Garcia as a pissed-off FBI agent and Rachel Weisz as the token lady swindler. (1:38) Century 20, Four Star, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Koh)

Daddy Day Care A Mr. Mom for the 21st Century, Eddie Murphy's Daddy Day Care blends slapstick comedy with modern gender role reversal. Two advertising tycoons (Murphy and Jeff Garlin) get laid off and have to come up with new careers to keep their upper-middle-class lifestyles afloat. The solution: day care for their kids (who, since they're home all day, they're stuck with anyway) and their friends. With a formula reminiscent of '80s sitcoms like My Two Dads and Full House, the duo start without a clue but gradually become champions of child care. Together, they tackle the whip-wielding headmistress (Anjelica Huston) of a high-pressure preschool nearby. The cast of kids is adorable, and overall, this is Murphy's funniest film since he switched from R-rated stand-ups to family-style features. It almost makes you remember Beverly Hills Cop and forget flops like Pluto Nash – almost. (1:30) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Sabrina Crawford)

The Dancer Upstairs John Malkovich finally gives directing a whirl with The Dancer Upstairs. Nicholas Shakespeare's screenplay (based on his novel) was inspired by the 1991 arrest of philosophy professor and Maoist Abimal Guzman, leader of Peru's Shining Path revolt – but Shakespeare removes context and dogma from the real life events, placing the story in an unnamed Latin American country. Violent acts are committed in devotion to a mysterious leader called Ezequiel, but where's the revolution? Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls) turns in a solid performance as the weary yet determined Detective Rejas obsessed with finding Ezequiel. Toward the end Malkovich shifts the narrative focus from Rejas's relentless hunt to a far less substantial subplot involving the detective's romance with his daughter's dance instructor. The move deflates an otherwise thoughtful directorial debut. (2:09) Empire. (Koh)

Down with Love New York, 1962: Sinatra and Esquivel are spinning on the hi-fi, the suits are pure gray flannel, martinis are considered lunch, and all of the Big Apple is bustling over Down with Love, the new book from "It Girl" author Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) that tells women how to "liberate" themselves from love through sexual empowerment and massive chocolate consumption. She's the protofeminist bookend to cad supreme Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor), the star journalist of Know magazine who decides to beat Barbara at her own game. Director Peyton Reed (Bring It On) and his cast play the pastiche shell game to the hilt, paying homage to those smutty yet wholesome Hudson-Day sex comedies of yesteryear by replicating their candy-coated color schemes, period-fashion parades, and double entendres. The result is a pretty piece of metafluff that aims to wink knowingly and be as laughably lame as the mediocre originals it adores, a near perfect forgery of a cinematic Big Mac. (1:42) Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Fear)

Holes Stanley Yelnats IV (Shia LaBeouf), a.k.a. "Caveman," is a Texas kid whose family curse plagues him with rotten luck. So when Stanley gets sent to a surreal juvenile detention center for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he and his eccentric family just blame the curse. The film's title comes from the endless holes that Stanley and the other kids are forced to dig every day by Warden Walker (Sigourney Weaver), who has some dark family secrets of her own. The warden's associates keep the boys in line, with the sheriff-father hen Mr. Sir (a beautifully campy and creepy Jon Voight) and the slimy therapist Mr. Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson) doling out punishments at will. Holes scriptwriter Louis Sachar (adapting his award-winning children's book) weaves in stories of Eastern European gypsies and Old West ghost stories that add a touch of mystery and make Stanley's story more Goonies than, say, Toy Story 2. (1:51) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Gachman)

House of Fools Inspired by an actual incident in which asylum inmates were briefly abandoned by staff, Andrei Konchalovsky's movie is much less a realistic drama than an antiwar whimsy à la The King of Hearts. It's at its least when hewing closest to that '60s-grounded belief in the superior wisdom of crazy people in a world gone mad, with speech-defected but otherwise waif-perfect Janna (Julia Vysotsky), the accordion-playing sweetest little lunatic in the whole wacky bunch. Her big delusion is that aging MOR hunk Bryan Adams is her fiancé – as visualized in several music video-like sequences where the somewhat ravaged-looking Adams himself croons to her. Konchalovsky (mis-)spent several years abroad directing English-language films (Tango and Cash, Shy People, Runaway Train), so you'd think he would know that Adams isn't a gently retro-amusing choice but a merely shlocky one. Once the skittish doctors and nurses flee their psychiatric hospital, leaving the residents to greet successive Chechen, then Russian occupying forces, House of Fools does frequently transcend its more banal ideas to provide striking, poignant scenes that crystallize the absurdity of institutionalized warfare – not to mention the mordant, never-ending human disaster zone that is Mother Russia herself. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Identity The rain-machine operator makes the most significant contribution to this not-boring but ultimately disappointing quasi-horror thriller. On a very stormy Nevada desert night, flooded roads and a series of highway mishaps bring several strangers together at a forlorn little hotel, least welcome among them a murderer (Jake Busey) being transported from one institution to another. But he's not the only character meriting suspicion as others start being offed, more or less in order of descending obnoxiousness. Those ten-little-Indians are chauffeur John Cusack, cop Ray Liotta, prostitute Amanda Peet, movie star Rebecca De Mornay, a badly injured woman, her son, her husband, a creepy clerk, and discordant young newlyweds. James Mangold's movie starts out promisingly, looking to provide a clean, tight 95 minutes of escalating panic. But Michael Cooney's script soon makes the common current mistake of assuming a teetersome pileup of narrative left turns will seem ingenious rather than simply gimmicky. An hour in, that hope is toast. By then you'll probably have guessed the killer's big "identity" secret, anyway. (1:35) Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Lizzie McGuire Movie Romance + adventure = Roman holiday in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. Preteen girls will giggle with delight at the popular TV heroine's adventures abroad. Just one gripe: while Hollywood's notorious for turning 30-year-olds into teen starlets -- (ahem, Beverly Hills, 90210) -- this movie features an eighth grader with roots, hips, and a C-cup. But then again, star Hilary Duff (apparently 16 and thus at least a teenager in real life) plays Lizzie on TV, and her core audience of 11-13 year-olds don't seem to mind. They seem to have no trouble imaging themselves hopping on a red Vespa and whizzing past the Coliseum clinging to a dreamy-eyed Italian teen idol. Throw in an awkward, but cute buddy with a big crush, a mean popular girl, and the chance to pose as an Italian pop diva and voila! It might sound corny, but with its "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" vibe, Lizzie is more sweet than saccharine. (1:40) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (Crawford)

*The Man Without a Past In the dark and in the park, a solitary, silent man – the title character – is viciously beaten by strangers. He seems dead, but no, he's just deadpan, and thus at home in the Finland of Aki Kaurismäki, where comedy and poverty are married whether they like it or not, yet are still capable of a fine romance. The Grand Prize winner at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, this film is dramatically expansive and stylistically extroverted by Kaurismäki standards – invoking melodrama in particular – but a Salvation Army-style DIY sensibility is still in effect. Along with cosmic twin Jim Jarmusch, Kaurismäki has a silent-film sensibility: he's fond of sight gags (the anti-antics of an allegedly vicious dog are this movie's comic highlight), and his camera has never met a droll face it didn't want to have a love-laced staring war with. (1:37) Four Star, Smith Rafael. (Huston)

The Matrix Reloaded The gang in black are back for more bullet time, kung fu, and supposedly deep philosophical musings. Only this time, the adventure is shapeless, overlong, and dangerously incoherent. Now fully strapped with the "superman thing," Neo, a.k.a. "the One" (Keanu Reeves), races through both real and unreal worlds in order to find the Oracle, the Keymaker, and the Architect (presumably, the Butcher and the Baker will pop up in November's Matrix Revolutions), all of whom must be confronted in order to save the last remnant of humanity. Unfortunately, what they've got to say doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, nor does the relentless exposition qualify as a fun time at the movies. Happily, some of these problems are mitigated by the requisite jaw-on-the-floor action scenes, at least one of which (Neo versus an army of Agent Smiths), has to rank as one of the finest ever filmed. (2:18) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Macias)

*A Mighty Wind The latest from Christopher Guest (Best in Show) and his ensemble of comics and character actors is another high-concept parody: when the legendary folk music impresario Irving Steinbloom passes away, his son organizes a tribute show featuring the crème de la crème of the 1960s Bleecker Street scene. The event heralds the return of such seminal acts as the Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer) and the reunited Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara). Wind features the genius comic turns (Levy's shell-shocked Brian Wilson impersonation vies with Fred Willard's unctuous band manager for the show-stealing throne) and deadpan shtick that's become synonymous with the all-star collective. But although Wind is still far funnier and more inventive than most of what passes for yukfests these days, this experiment in without-a-net creative comedy never quite gels; one senses that not even the editing room could turn what's essentially a number of disparate, fragmented laugh-riot ideas into the cohesive tour de force their legacy demands. (1:27) Century 20, Embarcadero, Empire, Orinda. (Fear)

Nowhere in Africa (2:18) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael.

*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) Four Star, Opera Plaza. (Huston)

Pokemon Heroes (1:15) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Quiet American Whether or not you think the world needs one, The Quiet American is the boldest cinematic antiwar statement of the year. Both Graham Greene's novel and Phillip Noyce's film open with an ending, and an intrigue: a dead American, who used to be a "quiet American," an apparent oxymoron in a landscape of U.S. operatives bragging and drinking their way through a Vietnamese landscape corrupted by colonialism. Pre-Vietnam War, America is just beginning to meddle in "regime change" in the area, and one of its key schemers is American "aid" worker Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), who dangerously falls for Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), the girlfriend of British journalist Fowler (Michael Caine). Pyle plans to create a "third force" in Vietnam to give people something besides colonialism and communism to choose from – using explosives that kill civilians to do it. The jaded Fowler, who doesn't want to take sides, has to migrate to one corner of the triangle by the film's end. But what Greene and the filmmakers give us is not an ideological treatise on which side is right, but a view of the terrible journey a person of conscience makes when taking sides. (1:52) Four Star. (Gerhard)

*Raising Victor Vargas Set in the Latino blocks of New York City's Lower East Side one hot summer, Peter Sollett's film at first blush looks like a classic tale of teenage stud-male hubris taken down a few pegs by innate female superiority – the usual lesson in humility ending with the usual conciliatory kiss. Which indeed is part of the agenda here, but only part. Victor (Victor Rasuk) is a 16-or-so-year-old with a smile like melting butter and a body whose muscles he's wont to flex, even if they're not much more than a figment of his overconfident imagination. Caught about to boink "Fat Donna" (Donna Maldonado) upstairs, he seizes on the conquest of model-looking, wildly uninterested Judy (Judy Marte) as the ticket to salvage his temporarily tainted reputation as a high-end ladies' man. Toeing a line between high comedy and near tragedy that's utterly natural throughout, Raising Victor Vargas is a tiny yet well-crafted story. With its warm photography, exceptional nonpro actors, and frequent hilarity, this very small movie is an almost perfectly realized joy. (1:40) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Waiting for Happiness While Mauretanian director Abderrahmane Sissako's Waiting for Happiness is not a comedy, it does offer up some serious punch lines on the meaning of life. In a sleepy port town, an old man makes his living by hooking up the power; accompanied by the orphaned boy who's his apprentice, he travels by foot from house to house with the magical wire that brings light. And if the light is material, it's also certainly symbolic: of knowledge, progress, illusion, and life itself. Waiting for Happiness is a film bound to take your breath away and deposit you back on the 16th Street sidewalk changed irrevocably or at least – hey, I'm a realist – for a few hours. A heart-stopping chronicle of life and death in a small town at the end of the road and the start of the sea, it's a lyrical ode by a natural poet whose every cadence is a cinematic one. (1:35) Roxie. (Rich)

*Winged Migration Its unassuming title and topic (migratory birds) notwithstanding, Jacques Perrin's documentary Winged Migration is of a feather with the greatest of action movies: the only time the screen is not occupied with ambushes, crash landings, gunshots, daring escapes, murderous crustaceans, and crumbling icebergs, is when it follows the birds in pure, sensational flight. Five crews of more than 450 people, with 17 pilots and 14 cinematographers, were involved in filming these birds in flight, and still the resulting sequences are so close, so immediate, so lacking in artifice, that you would swear they were filmed by another bird. And it's a running theme that while the humans are so ingenious as to bring the film off – traveling across 40 countries in all seven continents, from the Eiffel Tower to Monument Valley, the Arctic to the Amazon – the indefatigable birds themselves are even more astounding. (1:29) Clay, Empire, Smith Rafael. (Amir Baghdachi)

*X2: X-Men United Everyone's favorite mutants are back, with the same director (Bryan Singer), cast (Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellan, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen), and thankfully, a sequel that's far more satisfying and action-packed than the first X-Men installment. Brian Cox joins the fray as the sinister Stryker, an antimutant crusader hellbent on using Professor X (Stewart) as a pawn in his scheme to make Earth a humans-only environment; as the title suggests, X-Men (and women) good and bad must join forces to protect their kind. This go-round, we get plenty of scenes where individuals get to display their awesome powers (including new face Alan Cumming, as the teleporting Nightcrawler) and more attention to character development than you'd expect from a comic book-based movie with a huge ensemble cast – not to mention a meatier plot that's pretty much nonstop action. Good stuff, and an auspicious start to the summer movie season. (2:15) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Rep picks

'Medical Madness' See 8 Days a Week, page 52. Artists Television Access.

'San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Video Festival' See Critic's Choice. Roxie.

*'Unspeakable Intimacies: Tony Wu and José Rodriguez' See "The Exorcist," page 48. San Francisco Cinematheque.