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.

San Francisco Black Film Festival

The fifth San Francisco Black Film Festival takes place June 11-15. Venues are the Brava Theater Center, 2789 24th St, S.F.; the African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, S.F.; and Rasselas Jazz, 1534 Fillmore, S.F. Tickets are available at www.ticketweb.com; more information about the festival at (415) 771-9271 or www.sfbff.org. All times p.m. unless otherwise noted. For commentary, see last week's Bay Guardian.

Wed/11

Brava Everything's Jake with "The Adventures of Aaron Willows in Cyberspace" 7.

Thurs/12

Brava "Real Dads: Black Men on Fatherhood," "This is a Woman's World," "Second Date," and "The Quilt" 2. The Murder of Emmitt Till and Partners of the Heart with "Driving Fish," "Kemi," "Caroline," and "Running on Eggshells" 2. Kingscountry with "Destiny's Child" 3:30. Making Metamorphosis with "Shorty" 5:35. Day of the Gun with "This Is My Beloved" 8.

Fri/13

Brava Le Pari Delí Amour with "Stoplights" noon. "Oranges," "My Nappy Roots," "Mello's Kaleidoscope," "Lucky's," "The Trickle Down Effect," and "The Adventures of Aaron Willows in Cyberspace" 1. "His/Herstory" 1. "The Last Condom" 2:05. "The Call," "A Red Ribbon Around My House," and "Love in the Time of Sickness" 3. Big Ain't Bad and Sisters in Cinema with "Short on Sugar," "The Taste of Dirt," and "Vivian" 4:10. Get Money and Two-Fer with "Lipology" 4:15. Melvin Van Peebles Awards Ceremony, with special guest Billy Dee Williams and screenings of winning films 6:30.

African American Art and Culture Complex Then I'll Be Free to Travel Home, Pt. 2 with "After Jonestown" (work in progress) 7.

Sat/14

Brava No! with "Silence" 11a. Annie B. Real with "Dreaming in Black and White" and "Welcome to Life" 12:45. Black Picket Fences with "Gold in Our Soul" and "Big Wigs" 1. Something to Say: Beats by the Bay with "Radio Politics" and "Digitize or Die" 3. The Journey of Lesra Martin with "Tulia Texas: Scenes from the Drug War" 3:15. The Killing Zone with "Keys of Life" and "Whispers" 4:50. The Beat and Life Is...the Life and Times of Todd Shaw 5. Greedy with "Dragonfruit" 6:50. So Fresh, So Clean with "Call Me Chris" 7:30. The Naked Truth 8:45. The Epicureans with "A Single Rose" 9:45.

Sun/15

Brava Makibefo and Skin Complex 11a. Brotherly Love with "Would You Be So Kind?" 11a. Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property and The Annihilation of Fish 1:15. Wheels of Soul and Afro-Punk 1:15. Where the Spirits Dance Mambo with "A Funeral at the Samba School" 3:30. Black Beans and Rice with "Hope," "Ife," "Climbing Miss Sophie," "Sebastian's Pen," and "I Have a Dream" 3:45. Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius 'Hook' Mitchell and When Hunger Licks Your Backside with "The Life" 5:30. Road Dogs 7:15.

Rasselas TBA 7. San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

The 27th San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival takes place June 12-29. Venues are the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, S.F., and the Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, S.F. Tickets may be purchased at the Castro Theatre (Mon-Fri, 2-7 p.m.; Sat-Sun, noon-7 p.m.) or at www.frameline.org/festival or (925) 866-9559. All times p.m. unless otherwise noted.

Thurs/12

Castro Die Mommie Die! 7:30.

Fri/13

Castro Growing Pains 1. "Absolutely Activist Fabulous" (shorts program) 3:30. The Mudge Boy 6. Mango Kiss 8:15. Porn Theatre 10:15.

Sat/14

Castro "Fun in Boys' Shorts" (shorts program) 11a. "Fun in Girls' Shorts" 1:30. Hooked 4. Blue Gate Crossing 6. Yossi and Jagger 8:15. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter 10:15.

Sun/15

Castro "Do Your Thang" (shorts program) noon. Sing Out 2:15. Between Two Women 4:45. Yes Nurse! No Nurse! 7. Walking on Water 9:30.

Herbst Dear Gabe and He's Having a Baby 2. Straight Out 4:15. Savage Roses 6:30. "Will She or Won't She" (shorts program) 9.

Mon/16

Castro Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter 2. Worldly Affairs 4:15. Laura's Paradise 6:30. Sirens of the 23rd Century 9.

Herbst The Education of Gore Vidal 6:30. The Path to Love 9.

Tues/17

Castro Laura's Paradise 2. "Class Queers" (shorts program) 4:15. The Event 6:30. Gender Bias 9.

Herbst Queer Documentary in Wartime: A New View of the Israeli Palestinian Crisis 6:30. "Sex, Sirens, and Stilettos" (shorts program) 9.

Opening

*Bad Reception: The Wireless Revolution in San Francisco If modern horrors like SARS and terrorists have inspired you to stay indoors, consider this: you're most likely still getting plenty of radiation from your friendly neighborhood rooftop cell-phone antennae. As Doug Loranger's new doc admits, exactly what will happen to you, healthwise, is controversial. So Bad Reception emphasizes the grassroots efforts to prove that San Francisco's antenna infestation is both unnecessary and excessive. The film features passionately dedicated neighborhood groups, led by folks like Chinatown activist Enid Lim, who'd had enough of city authorities approving every single new antenna permit application to come down the pike. Though there are triumphs recorded here, including an emotional victory over a proposed antenna in the upper Fillmore, Bad Reception – which features so many shots of antennae around town, there's no way you'll not notice literally dozens of them next time you're outside – ominously hints that the fight is far from over. (:55) Artists' Television Access. (Eddy)

*Capturing the Friedmans Pegged as the lurid must-see of this year's Sundance Film Festival, Andrew Jarecki's documentary is definitely a fly in the ointment of any belief that documentary cinema (let alone legal process) necessarily equals truth. This movie leaves so many unpleasant questions unanswered you'll be positively itchy with the sense of being soiled by association. Tipped by postal inspectors, police raided the home of one Arnold Friedman, a well-liked schoolteacher and father of three teenage sons. They found stores of "kiddie porn" (or at least teen porn); this led to interviews with students in Mr. Friedman's after-school computer classes, held in the family's basement. The stories that emerged described horrific, sometimes quite literally beyond-belief sexual abuse of boys by both Friedman and youngest son Jesse. Were the purported victims' testimonies influenced and inflamed by the zealousness of investigators, not to mention the wildfire outrage that ran through local parents? (Some class attendees still insist nothing happened at all, but their voices were overwhelmed during the resulting media and prosecutorial onslaught.) What's perhaps most disturbing about this one-of-a-kind document is that hysteria becomes indistinguishable from truth, even (or especially) among the Friedmans themselves, a family that recorded itself endlessly via home videos (amply excerpted here), to a remarkable and unflattering degree. Watching them tear themselves apart under pressure – with self-appointed mother of all martyrs Elaine quite possibly inflicting more damage than press, community, law, and still-uncertain sex crimes combined – is an experience you won't soon forget. (1:47) Act I and II, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd Newcomers Eric Christian Olsen and Derek Richardson portray Dumb and Dumber's idiot duo during their high school years. (1:25) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London.

The Eye This is a crowd pleaser. Twin-brother directors Danny and Oxide Pang have efficiently combined the atmosphere and symbolism of recent Japanese horror with the near mechanical heroics found in Hollywood's summer blockbusters. Specifically, The Eye duplicates the ghostly elevator rides of Ring director Hideo Nakata's Dark Water; also, the Sept. 11-like finale is an inverted version of the apocalypse in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo, trading Kurosawa's bleak philosophical prophecy for crass sentiment. A shame but not a surprise, then, that those superior titles remain obscure while The Eye is set for a U.S. remake. If you like what you see here, you should seek out the Nakata and Kurosawa movies at Le Video. (1:38) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Huston)

Hollywood Homicide Harrison Ford and Josh Harnett do the buddy-cop thing and investigate the L.A. murder of a rap star. (1:51) Century 20, Jack London, Shattuck.

Manito There's been a recent trend of startling, cinéma vérité films about young men navigating tough neighborhoods – the gossipy pressures of an intimate community in Raising Victor Vargas, and out-and-out violence in City of God – and with Manito, writer-director Eric Eason achieves a story bursting with violence while showing very little. A Washington Heights community celebrates 17-year-old Manny's graduation and bright future, a full scholarship to Syracuse University. Meanwhile, his older brother, ex-con Junior, struggles to put his own life together and rescue Manny from later-horrible circumstances. Eason makes the violence in Manito personal, avoiding an in-your-face examination of the brothers' lives in favor of riding on ambience. The camera is glued to Junior's back as he races to scam enough money for Manny's graduation party. We are also forced along, but not too close, during a terrifying scene in which Manny and his girlfriend get chased by thugs. Cinéma vérité forgives random choices but not always abrupt timing. Manito's climax feels rushed, and Eason misses the chance to delve deeper into his energetic portrait of the brothers. (1:15) Roxie. (Koh)

The Nazi Officer's Wife The latest from documentarian Liz Garbus (The Farm: Angola, USA) profiles the extraordinary life of Edith Hahn Beer, a Vienna-born Jew who masqueraded as a Christian in World War II Germany – a daring feat further complicated by her marriage to a Nazi officer. That unlikely event ends up being just part of the journey (filled out with old photographs and letters, as well as contemporary interviews) of a woman who went from being a vivacious law student deeply in love with her first boyfriend, to a labor camp detainee, to a fugitive living outside Munich with her true identity well concealed. Though Beer's tale is truly stranger than fiction, The Nazi Officer's Wife manages most strikingly to illustrate the complexities of human nature: the Nazi who didn't care if his wife was Jewish, as long as she dutifully cooked and cleaned for him; the once worshipful boyfriend who eventually chose his own safety over Beer's but remained her lifelong friend; and the subject herself, who recounts her amazing story with a certain amount of I-just-did-what-I-had-to-do calmness. (1:36) Balboa. (Eddy)

'Oscar Nominated Shorts 2003' Every year during the 19-hour marathon we call the Academy Awards ceremony, there's the inevitable moment when the year's live-action and animated shorts are honored amid polite, televised clapping and stifled yawns. Home viewers usually view this brief interlude with finger-tapping impatience, but thanks to Apollo Cinema, the chance to see what often stops the Oscars dead in their tracks makes a brief appearance at a theater near you. Gathering together most of the 2003 nominees from both categories, this anthology highlights a grab-bag of short features ranging from cutesy Claymation overtures (Germany's Rocks) to high-concept Hollywood calling cards (Poland's aria of dystopia The Cathedral); most important, it finally answers the burning question, "What the hell is a Chubbchubb?!?" Ironically, the two best of the bunch aren't even the voter-sanctioned winners: Pixar's Mike's New Car brings back the lovable Monsters, Inc. duo for a quick spin, while Australia's Inja (Dog) packs more exquisite drama into its 17-minute boy-and-his-dog tale than most bloated full-length films do in two hours. Galaxy. (Fear)

The Pastry Girl In this Iranian comedy, a couple who wish to marry resort to desperate measures when their parents disapprove. (1:45) Oaks.

Respiro See Movie Clock. (1:35) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

Rugrats Go Wild Nickelodeon's rabble-rousing tykes meet the characters from The Wild Thornberrys when their cruise ship crashes on a deserted island. (1:21) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Shattuck.

Ongoing

L'auberge espagnole (1:56) Act I and II, Embarcadero.

*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) Lumiere, Piedmont, Shattuck. (B. Ruby Rich)

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) Balboa. (Koh)

*Bowling for Columbine (1:59) Balboa.

Bruce Almighty When the endless why-me whining of frustrated TV fluff-news reporter Bruce Nolan ("I'll never be an anchorman! I have no credibility!") becomes more than even God wants to hear, the deity Himself (Morgan Freeman) decides to shut the crybaby yuppie up by letting him "play God" for a while, to see how he likes it. At first, Bruce really, really does – and this hit-and-miss take on a good fantasy-comedy idea scores at least a few great set pieces as Bruce (Jim Carrey) exults in his newly unlimited power. But eventually he must be taught that individual self-interest is bad for society as a whole (unpleasantly, the movie suggests it directly leads to looting and rioting scenes featuring the lion's-share of the cast's minority actors) and that only God can do God's job. (Needless to say, this not a film inclined to question whether S/He/It is doing a good job.) At that cynical, then mawkish third-act juncture, Bruce Almighty stops being a decent-enough excuse for displays of Carrey's unmanageable genius. Instead, it becomes very recognizable as the latest force-feeding of bogus sentimental slop by the director who gave us Patch Adams. For which God still has some 'splaining to do. (1:41) Balboa, California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Harvey)

Charlotte Sometimes (1:28) Balboa.

*City of God City of God is a Rio de Janeiro housing project, but rather than simply present it as a setting, director Fernando Meirelles views it as a character – perhaps the dominant one – in the film. In one vivid segment a single fixed point of view witnesses the deterioration of an apartment as it's passed down from one drug dealer to another. The stronger and younger the kingpin, the trashier his kingdom. But static points of view aren't Meirelles's specialty. Working with codirector Kátia Lund, he's stylistically giddy in the face of much adolescent and preadolescent violence, running circles around the surface linearity of the plot's chapter structure and uncorking an array of techniques: God's-eye aerial shots that suggest the almighty has a finger on the fast-forward button, freeze-frame character intros that revive blaxploitation swank, and camera movements that follow the paths of ricocheting bullets or circle around the violence with the speed of a meth-addled figure skater. (2:10) Four Star. (Huston)

*'The Cremaster Cycle' A shoe fetish that dreamed it was an opera, Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle is one of the grandest – well, costliest anyway – acts of artistic folly ever committed to celluloid: a five-part, multihour, phantasmically overdesigned and fabulously well-financed extrapolation on themes variously related to the musculature that controls – based on data from internal emotions and external temperatures – the rising and the falling of the testicles. Who says modern art is afraid to put its balls to the wall? Perversion with a pedigree, the Cremaster films gussy up all of the black-and-white demonology and hunk lusting of Kenneth Anger and Gregory Markopoulos's 1950s psychodramas in pink plaids, fuzzy scrotal headgear, and healthy latherings of petroleum jelly – retro avant-gardistry for the age of Agnes B., if you know what I mean. And if you don't, that's probably even better. A gallery installation that dreamed it was a Hollywood blockbuster, The Cremaster Cycle works, despite its plethora of indecipherables, in multiplex terms as well. (3:02) Smith Rafael. (Stephens)

The Dancer Upstairs (2:09) Four Star.

*A Decade under the Influence You might think you've already read and heard all you want to about how the 1970s were the last great years for truly maverick filmmaking. But A Decade under the Influence, a new documentary by Richard LaGravanese and the late Ted Demme, pulls together such a felicitous array of interviews, clips, and errata that those already familiar with the period will be fascinated all over again, while those who weren't around to see these movies the first time will want to rent everything they missed. While noting the rise of "imperfect" (by prior glamour standards) stars and the unequal distribution of funded artistic freedom (conspicuously, no female directors are interviewed here), the film stops to regard various seminal titles. There are some conspicuous absences (especially emblematic stars Jane Fonda and Jack Nicholson), but you can't complain much about a film that does include input from Polly Platt, Pam Grier, Jon Voight, and Jerry Schatzberg as well as the more de rigueur Scorsese, Coppola, Robert Altman, and Robert Towne. (1:48) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Down with Love (1:42) Balboa, Kabuki, Metreon, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda.

*Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary To call the cinematic microworld of Guy Maddin – the Winnipeg wunderkind behind Careful and the most celebrated six-minute film of the 21st century, "The Heart of the World" – a hermetic one exaggerates the point. As fantastically ornate an oeuvre as his certainly is, all of Maddin's films together seem as if they might somehow fit inside a crystal ball – or some alternate-existence Citizen Kane's snowstorm paperweight. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary continues Maddin's titanically tinyist tradition, using an opportunity from Canadian television to capture the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's production of Bram Stoker's well-drained classic for the tiny screen as a kind of giant erector set – a box of toys he twists, bends, cuts into snips, and lights harshly from behind. The Tinkertoy re-creation of Murnau's Vampyr that results is funny, dizzy, and filled with copious gropings and leapings and peepings and garlic: a voyage to the center of a gothic diorama, Transylvania in a shoe box. (1:15) Castro, Smith Rafael. (Stephens)

*Finding Nemo When his beloved son Nemo is whisked from the ocean by a scuba diver, neurotic clown fish Marlin (Albert Brooks) launches a Great Barrier Reef-sized quest to track him down, running into a huge assortment of oceanic perils (sharks, shipwrecks, weird-looking deep-sea fish, seagulls) and pals (notably a forgetful fish named Dory, who, as voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, gets the film's biggest laughs) along the way. Meanwhile, Nemo hatches elaborate escape plans with the creatures dwelling in his new home – a dentist's office aquarium. Though the search-and-rescue plot of this latest computer-animated adventure from Disney-Pixar (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc.) will play pretty routine to the grown-ups, pint-sized audiences will be in suspense to the end; adult audiences can enjoy the film's more subtle, clever touches (the dental-office scenes are particularly ingenious). (1:41) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Identity (1:35) 1000 Van Ness.

The In-Laws (1:35) Kabuki.

The Italian Job Audiences who went into 1969's The Italian Job got a silly little caper film breezing past inanity, thanks to its post-mod '60s panache, the novelty of those British Minis racing around Turin, and Michael Caine's cucumberlike coolness. This title-borrowing retread, however, simply reheats a stock revenge plot with Angeleno aesthetic slickness, plenty of advertising for this year's Cooper model, and a Mark Wahlberg who's now officially one lousy remake over the line of good will; suffice to say, today's Cineplex hounds get a much rawer deal. The supporting cast supersizes the usual heist suspects – the computer nerd, the demolition expert, the getaway driver – for maximum background noise while pretty boy Wahlberg and prodigal son Edward Norton mouth a screenwriter's idea of tough-guy-speak over millions worth of gold, car-chase shenanigans, Charlize Theron, etc. Director F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator) does exactly what he's paid to do, tying all the pretty bows tight on a film that's a Hollywood nocturnal emission – efficiently sleek and essentially soulless. (1:43) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Fear)

*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) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Fear)

*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. (Huston)

*Marooned in Iraq Kurdish Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi's rousing follow-up to A Time for Drunken Horses revisits the Kurdish lives straddling the border region between Iran and Iraq. The story follows renowned Kurdish singer Mirza (real-life crooner Shahab Ebrahimi) as he goes in search of ex-wife Hanareh (Iran Ghobadi) after receiving a plea for help. Mirza must use a ruse to roust his two reluctant musician sons, Barat (Faegh Mohammadi) and Audeh (Allah-Morad Rashtian), into taking the perilous journey with him: he tells them he never really divorced Hanareh. Loading onto Barat's motorcycle and sidecar, they thus set off on a journey across the border from Iran to Iraq (the opposite direction of the multitudes fleeing Hussein) in the hope of tracking her down. Across a colorful landscape, the film's scrappy characters weave through adventures big and small. Unlike Ghobadi's beautiful yet somber debut film, Marooned in Iraq frequently crackles with humor and an almost madcap energy. (1:37) Oaks. (Avila)

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. (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) California, Embarcadero, Empire. (Fear)

Nowhere in Africa (2:18) Four Star, Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

*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) Balboa, Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

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, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Gerhard)

*Sweet Sixteen When we first meet 15-year-old Liam (Martin Compston), he's peering heavenward at the stars through a telescope, dreaming of a better life beyond the confines of the Glasgow tenements. And what's the best way to make some quick cash in lower-income neighborhoods? How about selling drugs and striking a Faustian bargain with the local crime czar? Long the cinematic voice of the British left, filmmaker-muckraker Ken Loach (Kes) forgoes the Marxist-mouthpiece caricatures of recent efforts in favor of the familiar ground of working-class melodrama marinated in realism. Don't think the activist director lost interest in underground politics or underdog struggles, however; by setting this tale of a gangster in training in an environment in which even a stroller-pushing mother knows where the local drug den is, Loach speaks his social commentary loud and clear even without the polemic speeches. (1:45) Opera Plaza. (Fear)

Together Why is it that the violin is most often the musical melodrama's weapon of choice? The shapely four-stringed starlet racks up another screen credit in Together, playing second fiddle to a father-son story – 13-year-old wunderkind Xiaochun (Tang Yun) and his pop (Liu Peiqi), a working-class cook – that's as old as the proverbial hills. Dad's a bit dim-witted but kindhearted enough to know that his boy deserves better than a life in the sticks. So he and the prodigy leave the provinces for Beijing, where the boy quickly aces the musical academy's competition yet only places fifth. It's not the last time the two-man family will face an obstacle that tests their resolve or references their past. Director Chen Kaige mutes his jabs at contemporary society within a simple, sappy story of musical aspirations and family pathos. But it's not that Together's lack of discernible political critique, critique that's prevalent in much of the director's other work, is the cause of disappointment so much as the film's rote treatment of its subject. (1:46) Albany, Bridge, Empire, Piedmont. (Fear)

*2 Fast 2 Furious If your moviegoing pleasure is dictated by well-written characters, a complex plot, and/or the presence of Vin Diesel, you can probably skip John Singleton's sequel to The Fast and the Furious. If, on the other hand, you can keep pace with neon-embellished vehicles, excessive male bonding held in check by scantily clad women, and endless "Dukes of Hazzard shit," 2 Fast 2 Furious is a must-see. Furious' defrocked blonde cop, Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), has since relocated to Miami, where he spends his nights street racin' against local speed demons. Soon, however, he's coerced into helping bring down a drug lord (Cole Hauser) with the help of a foxy undercover agent (Eva Mendes) and an old pal (Tyrese, assuming the muscle-bound slot left vacant by Diesel with a sense of humor and a wardrobe consisting entirely of sleeveless shirts). Conveniently, the sting requires multiple car chases, crashes, and acrobatic stunts, not to mention one-liners, chicks in bikinis, an outraged rat, and much antiauthority posturing. The result is unapologetic, flashy summer fluff at its finest. (2:08) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*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) Albany, Clay, Empire, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Amir Baghdachi)

Wisegirls (1:36) Roxie.

Wrong Turn (1:21) Century 20, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

*X2: X-Men United (2:15) Century 20, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Rep picks

*'Midnites for Maniacs' The Four Star's annual series of movies so insane they can be screened only at the stroke of midnight continues with Stephen King's 1986 Maximum Overdrive. Four Star.

*Trilogy of Terror and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark Thank you, o godlike Werepad, for offering up both all-time creepy-critter classix from the golden age of TV movies – on one bill, yet. Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis and fantasy writer Richard Matheson's 1975 Trilogy is the pretty-famous one, a Night Gallery-style compendium of three macabre stories with Karen Black in four roles. In the first she's a wallflower teacher whose sexual exploitation by a strong-willed student turns out to less one-sided than he thinks. In the second, she plays twins – one "good," one "evil," naturally. But the reason this movie found a permanent place on the Horror Hit Parade is the climactic "Prey," in which lonely single girl Black brings home a demonically possessed Zuni fetish doll, whose bloodlust is portrayed in incredibly vivid pre-Steadicam tracking shots. (It was a banner year for Black: her other '75 credits included country-music climber Connie in Nashville and 1930s Hollywood tease Faye in The Day of the Locust.) But Trilogy is no rarity; it's long been available on video. Not so 1973's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, a slow-burning supernatural freak-out that starts with corporate climber Jim Hutton and spouse Kim Darby moving into her grandparents' rambling old manse. A bricked-up fireplace in a long-locked study is opened, and the little missus soon experiences whispering voices, scuttling noises, and poltergeisty disturbances. They're dismissed as neurotic imaginings from the "neglected wife of an overly ambitious husband" – but there are gremlin-like creatures now free to claim a fresh spirit. Potentially ridiculous, this scenario is rendered very unnerving by the restrained direction (John Newland) and performances – particularly Darby's as a woman half-convinced she's going insane until it's (surprise!) too late. Both of these "ABC Movie of the Week" entries kept kids and baby-sitters fretfully awake in the '70s. The cool thing is, they're still pretty damn scary and exciting. Werepad. (Harvey)