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.

Asian Film Festival

The Four Star Theatre's seventh annual Asian Film Festival runs Aug 7-28. Venue is the Four Star Theatre, 2200 Clement, S.F. For ticket info and a full schedule, go to www.hkinsf.com. For commentary see Script Doctor. All times p.m.

Thurs/7

I Have a Date with Spring noon. I Love You 1:55. What's with Love 3:55. Sorrow of Brooke Steppe 6:05. Public Toilet 7:50. Bounce KO Gals 9:45.
Fri/8

Hubog 12:30. Between Tears and Smiles 2:45. Love for All Seasons 5:40. Somewhere over the Dreamland 7:45. Bounce KO Gals 9:45.
Sat/9

Between Tears and Smiles 12:15. Burning of the Imperial Palace 3:10. Reign Behind the Curtain 5:20. Vengeance for Sale 7:30. School Day of the Dead 9:30.
Sun/10

The Marigolds 12:30. Pretty Big Feet 2:40. What's with Love 4:45. Public Toilet 7. Devdas 9:05.
Mon/11

Devdas 12:30. School Day of the Dead 3:40. Lover's Grief over Yellow River 5:45. Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure 7:40. Pistol Opera 9:45.
Tues/12

Lover's Grief over Yellow River 12:30. I Have a Date with Spring 2:35. Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman 4:35. Somewhere over the Dreamland 6:45. Devdas 8:45.

Opening

*Buffalo Soldiers See Critic's Choice. (1:38) Presidio.

Camp See Movie Clock. (1:54) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck.

*Le Divorce Left by her trustafarian mate, pregnant poet Roxy (Naomi Watts) is visited in Paris by her hungry-for-experience sis Isabel (Kate Hudson), who soon realizes she's clearly not in Santa Barbara anymore. With the help of her sibling and an expat writer (Glenn Close), Isabel cracks the French cultural code embedded in everything from cocktails to fashion, and together the sisters take in the drawing rooms, haute cuisine, silk lingerie, and rococo social convolutions of the Old World. Self-consciously witty, briskly paced, and true to its source, Le Divorce succeeds where other modern-day Merchant Ivory productions have faltered; it captures the follies, foibles, and faux pas that occur as two worlds collide and collude, as well as the soufflé-lite pleasures of the City of Light. (1:55) Albany, Embarcadero. (Kimberly Chun)

Freaky Friday Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan star in this remake of the body-swapping Disney classic. (1:49) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Orinda, Shattuck.

*Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns See "Big and Small." (1:42) Castro.

S.W.A.T. Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell star as supercops in this action thriller "inspired by" the '70s television series. (1:56) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London.

Ongoing

Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets Twelve-year-old street urchin Ali (Abdelhak Zhayra) dreams of sailing far away from the dingy alleyways of Morocco where he struggles to survive. A chance at a brighter future for our hero ends abruptly with a single tossed stone, however, leaving a trio of his friends with the task of burying Ali while avoiding the wrath of Fagin-like father figure Dib (Said Taghmaoui), the city's criminal underworld kingpin. Imported tales of tough tykes and lost innocence are a neorealistic dime a dozen, but writer-director Nabil Ayouch's stripped-down approach to the Dickensian material emphasizes a certain flintiness in the familiar narrative. Even with the requisite shots of dew-eyed children and benign guardians on the periphery, the meat of the film rests less on selling manipulative dross or lecturing than on detailing a sordid world where kindness is a commodity and the streets seem cruelly unforgiving. (1:30) Roxie. (Fear)

American Wedding The American Pie films distinguished themselves from the teen flick pack thanks to a recipe of wistful sentimentality and gross-out gags. The third film in the franchise, in which hapless Jim (Jason Biggs) is preparing to marry his flute-playing girlfriend, Michelle (Alison Hannigan), keeps the sap and semen-joke mixture of the first two, then dilutes it to the point of sogginess. Most of the old gang – chiefly, the obnoxious Stifler (Seann William Scott), the urbane Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), and Jim's well-meaning dad (Eugene Levy) – return for another helping, but with few envelopes left to push, the series' patented comedy of humiliation feels a bit stale by now; even the scatology and cock jokes come off as half-hearted. There's little that director-famous troubadour offspring Jesse Dylan (How High) adds to distinguish this last chapter, either, content to simply reheat once-tasty leftovers ad nauseam until they burn to an inedible crisp. (1:36) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (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) Balboa, California, Galaxy. (Fear)

Bad Boys II Recipe for Tasteless Blockbuster Casserole: Defrost and reheat congealed main ingredients of Bad Boys, that 1995 action-comedy about two trash-talkin' maverick Miami cops (Will Smith, Martin Lawrence) who refuse to "play by the rules" and have a knack for breaking into allegedly charming shtick, etc. Add creative brain trust of über-producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director-cinematic Antichrist Michael Bay to insure maximum lowest-common-denominator pandering and plague-of-frogs subtlety. Stir in enough story material for six films; be sure to include romantic interest (Gabrielle Union) in peril, lethal batches of ecstasy, stereotypical villains and over-the-top crime lord (Jordi Mollà, who should be paying Gary Oldman royalties). Spice liberally with gratuitously brutal violence and crass homophobic, racial gags to mask lack of flavor, wit, edge, or basic entertainment value. Cook for an inexplicable two and a half hours. Let simmer; serves millions (excluding critics and those who possess frontal lobes or love movies). Laugh all the way to bank, then scrape burnt mess off bottom of pan into garbage bin. (2:25) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (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) Balboa, Galaxy, Shattuck. (B. Ruby Rich)

*Bugs! A distant cousin to the fine-tuned bug ballet of Microcosmos, the IMAX Bugs! – in thrillingly unsubtle 3-D – finds a more Hollywood-style drama in the kingdom of small critters, focusing on the life span of a green mantis nicknamed by his Latin proper name, Hierodula, and the charming Great Mormon butterfly, Papilio. Their parallel lives of eating, shedding, and transforming amount to character development that pays off when adulthood makes them natural enemies (one is the predator of the other). But this children's film has climaxes of all types – even a mantis sex scene so racy the producers conclude it with a leaf screen. The film, narrated by Judi Dench and running through musical styles like an Olympic gymnast going for gold, is presented without irony by Terminix. (:40) Metreon IMAX. (Gerhard)

*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-questionable sex crimes combined – is an experience you won't soon forget. (1:47) California, Four Star, Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu return, this time involved in reclaiming missing Witness Protection Program rosters. Major impediments are Justin Theroux as Barrymore's satanic ex-boyfriend, and Demi Moore (who's not on-screen that much, despite the impression given by the ads) as a former angel gone bad. The first Angels, also directed by McG, raised the discourse level of megamall franchise flicks by more than a few notches: it was funny, spectacular, knowingly ridiculous, and ironic in all the right ways. This sequel falls into that shrug-inducing cinematic category known as Just More of the Same. Which ain't a bad thing necessarily, though the freshness is definitely edging toward day-old-doughnut here. The action sequences are now so far outside the realm of physical possibility that they're just silly – a dirt biking set piece is one iota short of simply being fully animated. There are so many cameos (Bruce Willis, Jaclyn Smith, Pink, the Olsen twins, etc.) that some more desirable talents with actual roles – notably Crispin Glover – get scarcely more screen time. Bernie Mac is a poor substitute for Bill Murray's inspirational weirdness as the new Bosley, while Moore's stony posturing is the worst piece of overhyped, overpaid celebrity supervillain casting since Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin. Despite these flaws, there's enough color, kitsch, and miscellaneous swirling motion to warrant giving Full Throttle OK marks as a fun if immediately forgettable way to spend $9.50. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

*Dirty Pretty Things Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, High Fidelity) has returned over and over to smaller British projects between Hollywood assignments, notably two Roddy Doyle adaptations (The Snapper, The Van). Dirty Pretty Things is by a newish writer, Steve Knight, and in its tonally very different way it's almost as fresh a take on polyglot London as My Beautiful Laundrette. Things revolves around Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Nigerian doctor-exile living a hand-to-mouth life in the U.K. He's illegally working as a cab driver and a night clerk at a boutique hotel run by pragmatically slimy Juan (Sergi Lopez). Likewise employed at the hotel as housekeeping staff is Muslim Turkish Senay (Audrey Tautou), a registered refugee awaiting governmental approval of her immigrant status. Before long, Okwe discovers that the hotel profits from on-site organ harvesting that preys on desperate illegal immigrants. Knight's script doesn't always smooth together its various mystery, suspense, caper, and slice-of-life elements. The dialogue is sometimes too pontificating, and the incipient romance between Okwe and Senay is perhaps the least effective aspect here. But Frears handles it all so beautifully that the end result is still near extraordinary. (1:49) Bridge, California. (Harvey)

*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, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Gigli Forget about the overexposure blitzkrieg of the two-headed ubiquity known as Ben 'n' Jen, or the bad buzz that's hovered like a crown of flies around their first professional pairing, and try to see this tale of a dim-witted wise guy (Ben Affleck) and a philosophy-quoting lesbian mob enforcer (Jennifer Lopez) who kidnap a federal prosecutor's mentally handicapped brother (Justin Bartha) minus any of the baggage attached to it. Then you'll see this dull romantic comedy for what it really is, which, despite some truly Bad Film Hall of Fame moments (Christopher Walken's gratuitous cameo, J.Lo referring to oral sex as "turkey time"), is less a cult-worthy awful film than your run-of-the-mill Hollywood-hyped hokum. No second coming of Showgirls here, sorry; Gigli is simply another plodding, poorly made film seesawing between unintentional hilarity and cringe-worthy celebrity voyeurism that, if nothing else, has given this generation its Liz Taylor and Dick Burton. (2:04) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Fear)

The Housekeeper A lonely sound engineer (Jean-Pierre Bacri) spies a posted ad for a house cleaner. He expects a dowdy older woman; what he gets instead is a 20-year-old girl (Emilie Dequenne) who's equal parts flirty disposition and emotional instability. She quickly moves from tidying up the apartment to dominating his life, quietly leaving psychic wreckage in her wake. May-December romances are de rigueur for French cinema, yet this odd little tale from filmmaker Claude Berri (Jean de Florette) is less about mid-life crises than a fear of male menopausal mindfucks. You're never sure whether we're meant to laugh at the hero's fall into folly or become complicit in the seduction, as the camera lingers over Dequenne's exposed flesh as if it were perusing a platter of ripened fruit. What's even more uncertain is whether the filmmaker meant to construct a gentle comedy of manners or a psychological pas de deux, a tension that alternately stimulates interest and frustrates interpretation even after the credits have rolled. (1:30) Galaxy, Oaks. (Fear)

Johnny English You loved him in Black Adder and as Mr. Bean, but when Rowan Atkinson broke out onto the silver screen, audiences found themselves torn between loyalty and discrepancy. Coming into Johnny English, I carried doubts, and although the role of a bumbling secret agent seems promising, it does not match Atkinson's comedic ability. Still, one cannot help but chuckle at the predictable pickles English struggles out of. Peppering the story line is a French supervillain who plots to steal the crown – overplayed by none other than John Malkovich. As well as one-hit wonder Natalie Imbruglia as Johnny's inevitable love interest. I'm still confused as to what Malkovich is doing here, but hey, we all gotta make a buck. More subtle than Mike Myers's hit Austin Powers trilogy, Johnny English takes a common play on the iconic Bond series and blends it with British buffoonery, more aligned with American humor, only a veteran such as Atkinson can own. The film grossed more than $100 million before its U.S. release, and although this amount eclipses the moderately positive critique I can offer, audiences could be wasting their money on a worse film. (1:24) Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Pham)

Km.0 It's a hot, stick-to-vinyl day in Madrid, and the natives get randy in ways that include online dating, incest, prostitution, and the interference of a guardian angel. The cause of all of the sex-farce trouble is Kilometer Zero, the beginning point for area road measurements and the meeting place for 14 characters who, of course, bumble their connections in ways gay, straight, illegal, and legit. Cowriters and directors Juan Luis Iborra and Yolanda Garcia Serrano keep things light and breezy as a flapping skirt – this is situation comedy in which embarrassing misunderstandings form the heavy stuff. Unfortunately, who is having sex and who is enjoying it seems divided down gender lines, but really, that kind of analysis is better reserved for a less-effervescent flick. The characters are quirky in a one-dimensional ensemble manner, and most of the film is amusing, save an annoying Pretty Woman-style subplot. (1:45) Opera Plaza. (Koh)

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life Since the Tomb Raider masterminds seem unwilling to aspire beyond the principle that people will watch lint form if it features Angelina Jolie, they might as well save money next time and make Lara Croft: Telemarketer. Wearing Indiana Jones couture, our hot Lady Croft returns to find and protect Pandora's box, an artifact containing a dark force that bad guys wish to control (you know, unlike that time in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the exact same thing happens). Jolie again emotes via eyebrow raises and looks like a petulant version of the Bionic Woman as her lack of agility is disguised by slo-mo. Low-octane action scenes are dropped into the narrative at random and are missing logic to an annoying degree; for example, when Croft wants to get to the surface of the ocean quickly, she deliberately slices her arm, waves the blood around, and then hitches a ride on Jaws after a lengthy showdown. Um, I guess that's faster than swimming. (2:00) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Koh)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's graphic novel was a wet dream for bibliophiles: gather together literary heroes from Stevenson, Stoker, Verne, and H.G. Wells, then pit them against famous Victorian-era villains. This big-screen adaptation lamentably strips the comic's intellectual properties down to its bare-bones high concept and bulldozes over viewers with bells and whistles turned up to paint-peeling volume. It'd be hard to completely catalog how director Stephen Norrington (Blade) managed to ruin such surefire material, though any partial list would have to include the gratuitous addition of characters (including everyone's favorite American secret service agent of letters ... Tom Sawyer?!?), action sequences favoring chaos over coherence, and squandering the inspired casting of Sean Connery as an autumnal Allan Quartermain. Worse, LXG commits the most venal of summer movies sins in that it lacks any sense of fun; its most "extraordinary" quality may be that it somehow succeeds in alienating bookworms, comic geeks, and Cineplex groupies in one fell swoop. (1:52) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2:59) Oaks.

Lucía Lucía An author (Cecilia Roth) is boarding a plane to Brazil with her husband when he excuses himself to heed nature's call. He never returns from the airport rest room, disappearing without a trace until a ransom note shows up at the couple's house several days later. Embarking on a private investigation with two neighbors – an septuagenarian ex-revolutionary (Carlos Álvarez-Novoa) and a smitten twentysomething (Kuno Becker) – our heroine uncovers a Mexico brimming with wealthy drug lords, corrupt government officials, secret Socialist terror societies, and conspiracy plots galore. She's also not so sure she wants her husband back. An adaptation of Rosa Montero's novel The Cannibal's Daughter, director Antonio Serrano's comedy-mystery keeps viewers guessing as to whether the events are real or some Mitty-esque midlife-crisis hallucination. Most of the film's plentiful rough edges get smoothed out by Roth, a veteran of Almodóvar's repertory company, who transforms the character's twists and turns into a small tour de force. (1:53) Shattuck. (Fear)

*Madame Satã Brazilian director Karïm Ainouz's debut feature, Madame Satã – a portrait of street legend João Francisco dos Santos – is a prickly, evasive creature; it's just as explosive as Fernando Meirelles's City of God, albeit on a smaller scale. Hustler, murderer, and queen are just three of the labels alternately modeled and discarded by dos Santos, known simply as João (Lázaro Ramos) in the film. dos Santos was swapped for a mare by his mother when he was seven, and thus began an outlaw's journey – a 76-year odyssey punctuated by 27 years of prison time – that would ultimately be celebrated during the '70s in the pages of countercultural journals such as Pasquim. Though Ainouz is convinced of dos Santos's importance, he isn't concerned with making him likable, and in denying the built-in restrictions of various storytelling forms, the director winds up providing a brief glimpse of a long, full life. Madame Satã is a unique series of snapshots in motion, but it could have been so much more. (1:45) Kabuki. (Huston)

The Magdalene Sisters The Magdalene Laundries were set up as sanctuaries for Ireland's "wayward girls," a broad term that could be applied to young women who'd given birth to a child out of wedlock, such as Rose (Dorothy Duffy), or who'd been raped, like Margaret (Anne Marie Duff). Run by an order of nuns bearing the beyond-ironic moniker Sisters of Mercy, these church-operated institutions preached spiritual penance through hard labor and corporal punishment. Credit goes to the actresses, mostly unknowns and all pitch-perfect in their roles, but it's the director, Peter Mullan, who fuels the film with a harsh, lyrical fury. The Magdalene Sisters has stirred up its share of controversy (it was denounced by the Vatican the same day it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival), but Mullan has his sights set on bigger game than just kitchen-sink melodrama or sensationalism. His refusal to pander to audience expectations ups the ante substantially; what really makes The Magdalene Sisters such an extraordinary experience is that, unlike most cine-fictional drama rooted in fact, the eventual catharsis feels genuinely earned.

(1:59) Embarcadero. (Fear)

Masked and Anonymous Having bode his time before following up the harrowing indulgence of Renaldo and Clara, Bob Dylan at least hired professionals to make Masked and Anonymous, a ponderous, narcissistic exercise in jaded-celebrity moral outrage. TV-trained director and co-scenarist Larry Charles (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) knows where to point the camera. The film's production design, with its vaguely futurist air of urban collapse that makes downtown Los Angeles look like Colombia, is intriguingly distinctive. But beyond that, abandon all hope. Dylan (whose acting still bears comparison to a cement block) plays Jack Fate, a laconic former rock superstar bailed from jail to play a televised benefit concert that will uplift the downtrodden, mythical nation. Concert sequences and eventual martyrdom ensue. Supposedly, this movie makes some sense if you've paid a lot of attention to the lyrics on recent Dylan albums; for the rest of us, it's quasi-surreal, limply metaphorical, solemnly pretentious wankage unredeemed by the gratuitous oh-my-god-I'm-acting-with-the-Voice-of-His-Generation star cameos. (1:46) Act I and II, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

*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) Galaxy. (Fear)

Northfork In the latest from Sacramento's Polish brothers, Mark and Michael (Twin Falls Idaho, Jackpot), the Montana town of Northfork is just 48 rapidly passing hours away from being flooded out of existence by a dam project. State agents (including Peter Coyote and James Woods) are dispatched to evacuate the last stubborn-holdout residents before modern technology drowns them. Meanwhile, sickly little boy Irwin (Duel Farnes) is redeposited by adoptive parents at the doorstep of Father Harlan (Nick Nolte), who views him as an "angel." Co-scenarists Michael (who also directs) and Mark (who costars) Polish's overcalculatedly mythological cinema would greatly benefit from a stronger storytelling sense, not to mention characters defined by human depth rather than conceptual fancy-dancing. Yet Northfork is a fanciful reverie made by born filmmakers, and the Polish brothers truly are doing something really, really different. Which counts for a lot. (1:34) Act I and II, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl In this seaworthy tale from Ring director Gore Verbinski and action-happy producer Jerry Bruckheimer, offbeat swashbuckler Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and blacksmith Will Turner (Lord of the Rings elf Orlando Bloom) team up to pursue the snarling buccaneers who've kidnapped Will's beloved Elizabeth (Keira Knightley from Bend It like Beckham). Seems the crew of the Black Pearl (including Geoffrey Rush as their monkey-toting leader) believe she's the key to lifting the nasty curse that plagues them. Pirates taps plenty of familiar motifs – a talking parrot ("Shiver me timbers!"), a cave filled with treasure, cannon fights, people saying, "Arrrr!" – and follows a pretty rote escape-and-capture story line. And yeah, it's based on a Disneyland ride. But thanks in no small part to Depp's oddly endearing performance, the good-natured Pirates aims for fun and largely succeeds. (2:23) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Seabiscuit In the midst of the Great Depression, a second-rate racing nag named Seabiscuit, laden with an oversized jockey (Tobey Maguire), a laconic trainer (Chris Cooper), and a zealous manager (Jeff Bridges), somehow broke track records and captured the public's fancy. Based on Laura Hillenbrand's insanely readable biography, the film adaptation by Gary Ross (Pleasantville) also gets people rooting for the under-horse while imbuing social significance to the sport of kings, though his version seems overflowing with its own sense of stateliness. The movie often seems less a retelling of the legendary equine success story than a catalog of pure Americana, owing as much to Horatio Alger's bootstrap fables or Walker Evans's photography as it does to horse racing and history. Amazing performances, gorgeous autumnal visuals, and elliptical editing provide a wonderful cadence but eventually lose by a nose to Capraesque populist pandering, complete with PBS-friendly narration that equates the martyr mare with New Deal politics quicker than you can say Triple Crown-ed metaphor. (2:21) Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Fear)

The Secret Lives of Dentists The erratic Alan Rudolph has always enjoyed, with varying success, diving into self-contained milieus – from the Me Decade mecca in Welcome to L.A. to the famous salons of The Moderns and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. But he's arguably never investigated a scene as familiar yet surprising as the one here: a suburban middle-class marriage, with children. Dentists who share a practice, David (Campbell Scott) and Dana Hurst (Hope Davis) have reached that point in their lives where activity is incessant but actual stimulation is rare; with three very young daughters, a mortgage, and god knows what other ordinary obligations stretching years ahead, their well-plotted future can be seen as either comforting or suffocating. Secret Lives' long climax is nothing more than a family of five getting the flu – and it might be the most engrossing, detailed, nail-biting set piece you'll see all year. (1:44) Metreon, UA Berkeley. (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)

Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over Pint-size spy Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara) has been called in from the cold to rescue his sister (Alexa Varga), who's trapped in an online video game run by a megalomaniacal game programmer (Sylvester Stallone). The only way to get her out is to get Juni in the game himself and past the numerous 3-D (literally!) obstacles that stand in his way. The third time is not usually a charm when it comes to movie trilogies, but Robert Rodriguez's tales of junior league espionage have always had charm to spare; even this weakest entry in the series has just enough infectious, imaginative magnetism to put most average kids flicks to shame. Pulling the 3-D rabbit out of the hat usually signals a last-gasp gimmick, but the overall campfire-story giddiness here feels more like a filmmaker delighting in sharing ancient cinematic tricks with a new generation of popcorn munchers. (1:25) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

*Swimming Pool Charlotte Rampling plays Sarah Morton, an author in the Patricia Highsmith mold – with an emphasis on mold – who ventures to a vine-laced villa in the south of France to begin work on the latest addition to her musty mystery series. Ludivine Sagnier plays Julie, the slutty daughter of Sarah's publisher, and an unwelcome surprise guest at Sarah's writer's retreat. The two don't waste any time invading each other's privacy. Whether that privacy is typed on a laptop or penned in girlie cursive, it's a key to asserting power over the other. Swimming Pool's "secrets" tease audiences; ultimately, the film is a poison-lensed love letter to director François Ozon's producer. It's time for this mildly naughty boy to make a wildly rude film that pleases no one but himself. (1:54) Albany, Clay, Orinda, Piedmont. (Huston)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines The terms "unnecessary cash-in" and "soulless retread" come to mind; even the film's catchphrases are straight from the recycling bin. With James Cameron and Linda Hamilton out of the picture, the weight of T3 rests on Schwarzenegger's meaty shoulders and director Jonathan Mostow's ability to dole out the film's mounting battles and explosions. A robotic assassin from the future (Kristanna Loken) is sent to kill John Connor (Nick Stahl), because he's the one who'll eventually lead the resistence movement after machines take over the world, blah, blah, blah. Thank gawd a Terminator turned protector (you know who) is also on the case. The superior Terminator 2: Judgement Day told the same story, with a female lead far more powerful and multidimensional than T3's milquetoast Claire Danes and Loken's steely "Terminatrix" combined. As for the FX, remember how everyone shat themselves back in 1991 when Robert Patrick's character did all that melting-morphing business? There's nothing so thrilling this go-round. (1:49) Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*28 Days Later Early in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, a patient named Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakes from a coma only to find the hospital, the streets, the surrounding buildings, and possibly – probably – the entire world, completely, nightmarishly deserted. The culprit? "Rage," a highly contagious blood virus accidentally unleashed on London by a group of well-intentioned animal rights activists. Symptoms, which manifest in 20 seconds or less, include red eyes, projectile vomiting, and the uncontrollable urge to viciously attack everyone around you. Thanks to the use of digital video, a trembling pop soundtrack, and British slang, 28 Days Later is pretty arty for a genre film. Still, horror is the main event, and like all truly scary movies, this one neatly plays off current events (SARS, for one) to increase the oh-shit-this-might-really-happen vibe. Though this heavily Romero-influenced film isn't overflowing with original ideas, the timing of its release is impeccable. Who isn't afraid of catching a horrible disease, or of waking up to find an entire city wiped out by a scary, unknown event? (1:48) Balboa, Century 20, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*The Weather Underground Sam Green and Bill Siegel's new documentary explores '60s revolutionaries the Weathermen, one of the warring factions in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that emerged from campus cocoons advocating urban guerrilla warfare. The typical Weatherman was white, 25, had done three years at Ann Arbor or Columbia, and had a passion for getting down that existed in a direct relationship to his or her parents' financial assets. It was a great story – rich kids, anguished parents, terrorism, and life on the run – and the media covered it like a rug. The Weather Underground gives those who wrote the original story a chance to look back and try it again, confined only by various versions of the original. Green and Siegel (the researcher behind Hoop Dreams) approached a number of ex-members and scored one-on-one conversations with most of the group's former leaders. Ironically, the filmmakers had nothing to do with what's most important about The Weather Underground: the timing of its release. "When I started it," Green told me, "no one was thinking about this stuff. Now, well, I wish it wasn't so, but the world has changed a lot. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have raised many issues, and a lot of the questions that people talked about back then are relevant today." (1:32) Balboa, Castro, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (J.H. Tompkins)

*Whale Rider Director Niki Caro's adaptation of New Zealand author Witi Ihimaera's 1986 novel combines familiar coming-of-age elements with Maori mysticism to exceptionally engaging effect. Pubescent Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes) has been raised by her strict but loving grandfather Koro (Rawiri Paratene) and more easygoing grandma (Vicky Haughton) since her artist dad left to travel the world. The latter (Cliff Curtis) was and is too grief-stricken to stay in the community – his wife died giving birth to Pai, and tribal chief Koro still pressures him to deliver a male grandchild who might one day "lead our people out of the darkness" that modern, Westernized life has imposed. But that ain't happening, so granddad opens a "sacred school" to educate local boys in "the old ways – the qualities of a chief." These involve everything from religious ritual to martial arts instruction. Koro is so rigidly tradition-minded that he insists girls are "worthless" in these capacities – though it's increasingly clear to everyone else that Pai possesses talent and discipline far beyond any male peers. The resulting, painful rift between child and grandparent reaches a climactic point of catastrophe and supernatural redemption that would be ludicrous in any less psychologically level-headed, stylistically astute context. A rare movie that should play just as well for eight-year-olds as it does for art-house grownups. (1:55) California, Four Star, Opera Plaza, Piedmont. (Harvey)

*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) Act I and II, Albany, Opera Plaza, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Amir Baghdachi)

Rep picks

*'Czech Horror and Fantasy on Film' The second bill in the PFA Theater series offers a double dose of swooning pictorial invention and hyperreal melodrama. The much better known title is Valerie, Jaromil Jires's Gothic daymare labyrinth in which the 13-year-old heroine is menaced by her own awakening sexuality amid fairy-tale references and glimpses of perverse adult behavior. Suffocatingly beautiful in a billowing-lace-curtain, flower-petal-shower mode, this sugared yet morbid Lolita fantasia would surely have been Lewis Carroll's favorite movie. Made just after the Russian invasion and considered by some to be Czech new wave's last hurrah, Juraj Herz's 1971 Morgiana is less Carroll-gone-softcore than it is Edward Gorey as filmed by Ken Russell – a sardonic chunk of Victorian penny-dreadful melodrama tweaked to new levels of aesthetic and emotional hysteria. Jealous of her vapidly "good" sister's popularity, poisonous Viktoria doses pretty Klara's tea with a slow-acting fatal substance. As the latter grows hysterically weak, the former finds success increasingly compromised by guilt, blackmail, and the pesky need to kill others lest she be exposed. The women here are painted as elaborately as psychedelic-drag-queen Cockettes, and the purple extremity of their predicament is drawn in equally bizarre/extravagant terms. It's like a dress-up, younger-generation version of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, set in an ornamental snow globe. PFA Theater. (Harvey)

*Rosemary's Baby See 8 Days a Week. (2:16) PFA Theater.