film

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Kimberly Chun, David Fear, Dina Gachman, Susan Gerhard, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Laurie Koh, Patrick Macias, and Chuck Stephens. The film intern is Melissa McCartney. See Rep Clock and Movie Clock for theater information.

Opening

Love Don't Cost a Thing In this remake of Can't Buy Me Love, Nick Cannon (Drumline) takes on the Patrick Dempsey role of the dork who pays a popular girl to go out with him. (1:45) Century 20.

Shelter Dogs Director Cynthia Wade goes behind the scenes at Rondout Valley Kennels in upstate New York, following the staff and owner Sue Sternberg. The resulting doc makes a very compelling argument in favor of euthanasia. While the consensus these days seems to be adamantly in favor of "no-kill" shelters, Sternberg's philosophy is that death is sometimes the most humane option for unadoptable animals – and that the pups' quality of life should be the focus of the animal-welfare debate. As the film points out, worldwide there are millions of unwanted dogs, many of whom are aggressive and unfit to ever be re-homed. In no-kill shelters, these dogs may end up tortured by a life of confinement, languishing in concrete and chain-link cells (Sternberg and the filmmakers visit such a shelter, offering grim proof of the dogs' sustained misery). Shelter Dogs focuses on both the Rondout Valley Kennels' high success rate in placing dogs as well as staffers' dedication to doomed canines, proving that even an organization that supports euthanasia can be a pet's best friend. (1:13) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (McCartney)

The Singing Forest As writer, director, producer, and actor in his inappropriately titled film, Jorge Ameer has taken an awkward tale of cheating hearts and burdened it with the tragedy of the Holocaust in the vain hope of drawing in some substance. Rather than suffusing his film with its missing depth, Ameer simply exploits this catastrophic back story as justification for his unsympathetic character's rash and selfish actions. Wading through ample doses of fate, destiny, karma, and past-life predetermination, alcoholic writer Christopher (Jon Sherrin) goes to visit his estranged daughter and her fiancé, Ben (Craig Pinkston). Convinced he and Ben are kindred spirits, lovers from their past lives in the Nazi regime of World War II, Christopher sets about seducing his future son-in-law. Their affair is as subtle as the overbearing dialogue, laden with heavy exposition and overtly New Age nonsense. The forced plot, Christopher's doormat of a daughter, and the film's improbable ending just leave you feeling cheated and mildly incensed. (1:12) Four Star. (McCartney)

Something's Gotta Give In this comedy from writer-director Nancy Meyers (What Women Want), Jack Nicholson stars as a playboy who falls for the age-appropriate mother (Diane Keaton) of his much younger girlfriend (Amanda Peet). (2:03) Century Plaza, Century 20.

*Speedo One quickly learns from Ed "Speedo" Jager – the subject of this doc by Jesse Moss – that the demolition derby is as cathartic as it is violent. With problems raging in his marriage, Speedo turns to derby racing to vent his frustrations and bond with his adoring sons. As funny as it is turbulent, the racing world is amazingly captivating, and Speedo makes for a touching hero. He rants, he raves, he fights, and he wins – all the while spewing his own hillbilly brand of self-analysis. The cheering fans in the stands and the love of a new woman, race official Liz Mallows, lead Speedo to go from underdog to champion, driving him toward a new career as a stock car driver. Taking us behind the wheel, Speedo succeeds in sifting through the layers of drama and bullshit to provide a touching picture of a man whose hobby grows into an obsession to compensate for his failures as a father and a husband. (1:18) Smith Rafael. (McCartney)

Stuck on You Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play conjoined twins in the Farrelly Brothers' latest comic opus. (2:00) Century Plaza, Century 20, Oaks.

*Yossi and Jagger See "Behind the Lines." (1:11) Act I and II, Lumiere.

Ongoing

*Bad Santa At this point, can any attack on Kris Kringle's public image generate shock? That's one of the chief dilemmas faced by Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa, which casts Billy Bob Thornton as Willie T. Stokes, a self-described "eating, drinking, shitting, fucking Santa Claus." He's also a crook, robbing stores on Christmas Eve with his elfin partner in crime, Marcus (Tony Cox). Emptying the safes of U.S. consumerist palaces, Stokes is certainly a criminal, but this is a Terry Zwigoff movie: such thievery doesn't make him a villain. Whether documentary or fictive, Zwigoff's films usually sympathize with a malcontented male outcast, and it isn't a stretch to suggest that an ornery shopping-mart Santa makes an apt mouthpiece for the director while he's positioned in the heart of Hollywood. Still, Bad Santa is also a crossover bid; a hilarious shot heralding Stokes and Marcus's annual return to work also signals that Zwigoff wants to raise hell in Arizona, much like his executive producers Ethan and Joel Coen once did. It all ends with a Bing (Crosby's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas") and a bang as Santa sentimentalists bite the bullet and the whole audience gets the finger. (1:30) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Huston)

Brother Bear Word is Disney's planning to phase out hand-drawn animated films, so their latest, Brother Bear, may also be one of their last. Too bad it's not more memorable. Due to a string of circumstances that involve a family member's death, the killing of a bear, and some magical interference from the spirit world, Kenai (voiced by Joaquin Phoenix), a Native American boy on the cusp of manhood, is transformed into a grizzly. In order to return to human form, he must undergo a journey – the length of which, obviously, coincides with the time it takes for him to Grow Up, to the tune of several Phil Collins numbers. Along the way he befriends a rascally, chatty (read: grating) cub and a pair of moose (cleverly voiced by the Strange Brew brothers, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas). Though the billboards paint it as an all-out comedy, Brother Bear boasts precious few belly laughs; one could, however, play a pretty good game of "spot the ripped-off plot point," as Bear unapologetically recycles material from multiple Disney films past. (1:25) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*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) Lumiere. (Huston)

*Die Mommie Die! Charles Busch plays Angela Arden, a onetime Hit Parade song thrush long since retired to the no less up-and-down charts of late-1960s Beverly Hills domesticity. Her marriage to socially conscious but privately loutish film producer Sol Sussman (Philip Baker Hall) having long since soured, Angela channels bank-flooding eddies of theatrical emotion toward her children, her drop-dead wardrobe, her immaculate rose garden, and on occasion her libido – the latest fertilizer being no less than erstwhile Beverly Hills, 90210 hottie Jason Priestley as massively equipped tennis instructor-failed actor-all purpose gigolo Tony Parker. Sol's premature demise sets off a chain reaction of intrigue and backstabbing in which the one stable element is versatile Tony, whose talents really do get around. Adapted from Busch's stage play, director Mark Rucker's first feature does for the cheesier Ross Hunter-style big-screen soaps of the early to mid '60s what Far from Heaven did for the plush Douglas Sirk melodramas made a decade earlier – albeit with tongue planted much farther in cheek – with a star turn just as immaculately realized. (1:30) Opera Plaza. (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) Lumiere. (Harvey)

Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat When Dr. Seuss first envisioned his oversized cat in the whimsical striped hat, I'm quite positive profanity and blatant sexual innuendos were not part of the package. Mike Myers approaches the title character, and the film, as a showcase for Saturday Night Live-style sketches revamped to fit a feline player. Thankfully, the wealth of inappropriate jokes will probably fly right over the heads of younger viewers, who'll be enthralled by all of the zany antics. Sadly, though, the bright colors and gross-out humor do little to mask the film's surprising lack of magic and energy – so essential to the book's race-against-time plot. The children (Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin) are wooden, and director Bo Welch never really achieves the fevered pace that should keep the plot rolling. Instead, he has created a Seussian world that is a sexualized, MTV version of what the good Dr. had intended. (1:22) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (McCartney)

*Elephant A football jock enters the frame. The mist coming out of his mouth is a visual record of his breath as he crosses the chalk line of the athletic field where he rules and heads toward the blue door of the school where he'll soon die. When the jock greets his girlfriend with a kiss, their names appear on a black intertitle. Nathan and Carrie are 2 of 10 kids named in Gus Van Sant's Elephant – characters who mostly share the same first names of the actors playing them. A Wiseman named Frederick once made High School, a stagy documentary about an institution for teenagers. In comparison, Van Sant's execution is flawless, but his aim isn't so true; he's made a high school film about Columbine. The key word in that last sentence is about: Elephant turns cause-and-effect responses to the high school shooting phenomenon into a mug's game. Many of the rumored, spurious motives and influences behind Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's actions are present here, but not as evidence or proof – they're as disconnected as everything and everybody else in Elephant. If the film were simply an improv-based portrait of an institutional system, it wouldn't be so loaded; the nuances of Van Sant's fascination with teenagers wouldn't be semi-obscured by a mammoth issue. (1:21) Embarcadero. (Huston)

*Elf Anyone who has appreciated Will Ferrell's manic male cheerleader has long known he resides in the land of lost toys, which may be why this film was literally built around him. With custom-made minisets that call up the magical sarcasm of Being John Malkovich's floor seven and a half, Ferrell, as six-foot-plus Buddy the Elf, stumbles and trips his way into the knowledge that he doesn't belong in the North Pole. He travels to New York City to find his human father (James Caan) and help make naughty into nice. The film shoehorns in the expected plays on Christmas specials past, with the sashaying snowman, the ice-block boat, and a Rudolph climax, but director Jon Favreau freshens the Chex Party Mix with better-than-usual comic touches. (1:37) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (Gerhard)

*Gloomy Sunday Though steeped in melodrama, Nick Barkow's novel of overlapping love affairs amid war-torn 1930s Budapest translates stunningly to the big screen. Director Rolf Schübel recaptures all the magic of an old-school drama as his charismatic actors bring the romantic script to life. Very much in love, Laszlo (Joachim Krol) and Ilona (Erika Maroszán) run a restaurant and hire Andras (Stefano Dionisi) to play piano. Andras is quickly pulled in by Ilona's charms, and the three develop an understanding relationship, rather than suffering one man to live without her affection. The film takes its name from the stirring yet depressing song Andras writes for Ilona (in real life, the so-called suicide song, made popular by Billie Holliday, was written in 1935 by Hungarians Rezsö Seress and Laszlo Javor). A return to real movie making, where all the elements blend in a harmony seldom seen in Hollywood these days, Gloomy Sunday cleverly deals with threats to perfect love: the "other man," manipulation, war, and even death. (1:54) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (McCartney)

Gothika That sucking sound you hear might be coming from Gothika's plot holes – or it might just be the movie itself. For all its dark-and-stormy-night atmospherics, this tale of a psychiatrist (Halle Berry) who's locked up with her former patients after apparently killing her hubby (Charles S. Dutton) is most chilling when you consider how unoriginal it is. The biggest mystery at hand is which plot element is more clichéd: the creepy girl-ghost seeking vengeance or the creepy serial killer seeking victims. The better-than-B cast (which also includes Robert Downey Jr. and Penélope Cruz) and director Mathieu Kassovitz (as an actor, you know him as the crush-worthy Nino in Amélie) goes through the right rock 'em, shock 'em paces, but Gothika's lasting impact will probably be as fodder for Scary Movie 4, and little else. (1:35) Century Plaza, Century 20, Galaxy, Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Haunted Mansion The ominous tones of the theme song to Disney's Haunted Mansion set the mood, which hints at spooky nostalgia for adult fans and pint-size thrills for kids. Unfortunately for everyone, the promise is left unfulfilled. Based on the legendary Disney theme park ride, this incarnation of the Haunted Mansion, directed by Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little), follows the Evers family, whose short detour turns into a night of horror when they get stuck in the house due to an unusual storm. Dad Jim (Eddie Murphy) sets about to expose the secret that has held the house cursed for so long, while mom Sara (Marsha Thomason) is believed by the mansion's master's ghost to be the reincarnation of his long-dead love, and his soul cannot rest until she is his again. While Murphy is amusing in a cheesy real estate guy kind of way, the whole story feels disconnected. A heady cameo by Jennifer Tilly nearly steals the show, but even she can't make this one worth the price of admission. (1:38) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Cindy Emch)

Honey Perky Bronx gal Honey (Jessica Alba, who's easy on the eyes but miscast as a streetwise homegirl) makes ends meet by working at a record store, bartending, and teaching hip-hop dancing at the local community center. After she's discovered by a sleazy music video director, she finds success as a choreographer – which, naturally, jeopardizes her relationships with her best friend (Joy Bryant), budding boyfriend (Mekhi Phifer), the neighborhood kid (Lil' Romeo) she's trying to save from a life of crime, etc. Will Honey maintain her integrity in the world of showbiz? Will she be able to turn that abandoned storefront into the dance studio of her dreams? Duh. Director Bille Woodruff, a video vet, ladles on the celeb cameos (Tweet, Missy Elliott, Ginuwine, Jadakiss) and uses plenty of flashy camera tricks. Unfortunately, the feature-length Honey has no more depth than a three-minute MTV clip; an average episode of Making the Video boasts more unpredictability and emotional range, with considerably less cheesy dialogue. (1:34) Century Plaza, Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Human Stain Right off the bat I'm going to tell you the "secret" of The Human Stain. Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins), the film's tragic hero, is black. But he's also white. It's one of those plot devices that could be part of an Eddie Murphy comedy from the mid 1980s, but in fact it's an interesting, and sometimes genuinely powerful, portrait of what it meant to assimilate into white culture in the post-World War II United States. Silk, a distinguished professor of classics, is accused of racism for using the word "spook" in class, and he resigns in a rage. Shattered by his career's abrupt end and his wife's death, he befriends antisocial writer Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who becomes Silk's confidant when the septuagenarian begins having an intense erotic affair with local white hottie Faunia (Nicole Kidman). The most arresting parts of the movie come when we journey into Silk's past (the young Coleman is played with gorgeous ambiguity by Wentworth Miller) and witness the moment when he decides to abandon his family and pretend to be Jewish. Based quite faithfully on a novel by Philip Roth, who is known for his wrathful love-hate relationship with his Jewish heritage, The Human Stain is as much about being Jewish as it is about being African American.(1:46) Galaxy. (Annalee Newitz)

In America It's tough to put a magical sheen on living in a drug-addled tenement, but writer and director Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father) gives it a shot with In America, a modern Irish immigration story based on his own experience. Attempting to escape the memory of their lost son, Johnny (Paddy Considine) and Sarah (Samantha Morton) move to New York City with their two young girls. Dirt poor but determined, wanna-be actor Johnny struggles almost inhumanely to make his family's life bearable, but he can't connect to them given his refusal to grieve. Sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger give amazingly natural performances as the daughters who take the ghetto in stride, expressing genuine delight at the flock of pigeons hogging their new digs. Still, Sheridan's gritty New York is too tangible for the ethereal touch to work beyond the eyes of the sisters, and the film's reliance on cosmic intervention at key moments actually injects predictability into an otherwise engaging story. (1:43) Albany, Embarcadero. (Koh)

In the Cut Wearing the sweat of a New York summer as if it were a chic perfume, Jane Campion's adaptation of Susanna Moore's novel is a strange throwback: a white feminist answer to Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Cell phone accoutrements aside, it's not an update: Campion's sexual politics seem '70s-era, and her racist condescension is as grating as it was in The Piano. Surgery or something brings viewers a Meg Ryan who scarcely resembles the romantic-comedy doll of years yore; her sullen performance as an imperiled Pauline counterbalances Mark Ruffalo, who uses the role of potential boyfriend-slash-murder to impersonate young Brando and Cosmopolitan-centerfold era Burt Reynolds. In the Cut aims to upend the misogyny of the suspense genre's serial killer category, but Campion's approach is joyless. Though the compressed story line wants to create a sense of claustrophobia, Ryan's character just comes across as woefully self-involved. Weighed down by charm-bracelet symbolism, this experiment is a failure. (1:58) Four Star. (Huston)

Intolerable Cruelty The big, splashy, populist star vehicle Hollywood has been waiting for the Coen Brothers to make isn't so much like the updated Preston Sturges comedy they're aiming for as it is like the pretty good cynical farce Danny DeVito has been trying and failing to make since The War of the Roses. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a serial-marriage murderess whose latest attempt to abscond with a millionaire husband's wealth is thwarted by George Clooney's unbeatable divorce attorney. Needless to say, revenge of a sexual and fiscal nature follows. The script makes decent fun of the grotesque A-list L.A. industry lifestyles the Coens themselves have kept well enough away from, though in terms of narrative complications, the second half doesn't make good on the first half's promises. Clooney may be more '60s Tony Curtis than '40s Cary Grant here, but that's nothing to be ashamed of. Zeta-Jones, on the other hand, brings nothing to the table but her own bottomless, waxy conviction that the hype is true – if everyone says so, she must be that hawt, yes? Mrs. Prenuptial Douglas would be easier to like (even in this garden-variety Venus fly-trap role) if she at least had the sense to look fingered when her leading man says "Obscene wealth becomes you." No such luck. The handpicked supporting players pick up some of the charisma slack, especially Billy Bob Thornton in a turn worthy of comparison to Rudy Vallee's in The Palm Beach Story – though sadly, he gets far less screen time. (1:40) Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Last Samurai After James Clavell's Shogun and Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves, noble savage clichés just aren't what they used to be. Yet here's Tom Cruise as Captain Nathan Algren, a Civil War veteran who travels to Meiji-era Japan to become a player in the samurai rebellion, a conflict that pits the ancient ways against a rapidly modernizing world. Falling under the influence of his captor, outlaw Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), Algren discovers an "intriguing people" whose devotion to "honor" and "loyalty" inspires him to strap on armor that makes him look about as dramatic as an ice hockey player. To be fair, there's some decent action scenes, but they're not enough to compensate for the film's deadly dramatic failings. The big problem with The Last Samurai is director and co-screenwriter Edward Zwick (Glory) and producer Cruise have constructed a warped Akira Kurosawa fantasy without a single plot twist or surprise that isn't glaringly obvious from frame one. (2:24) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Macias)

*Lost Boys of Sudan War in Sudan has so far left an estimated two million dead and four million displaced. Dinka tribes of the south have been particularly hard hit. This documentary's protagonists are among some 20,000 cattle-tending "lost boys" who escaped village massacres in which their fathers were killed and their mothers and sisters taken as slaves. Those who survived the trek (including frequent lion attacks) ended up in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps. Filmmakers Megan Mylan and John Shenk follow seven of these teens who are finally cleared for U.S. emigration, sponsored by various church and social service organizations. Their rough landing encompasses everything from the sheer initial joy of having plentiful food to dismay at limited educational opportunities and dead-end factory jobs. "Now it's clear, there is no heaven on earth," one refugee sighs after several months. The outsider's perspective on our "land of opportunity" is quite fascinating, with community-minded Sudanese exhibiting practical values considerably loftier than those around them. The all-American notion that anyone can "get ahead" here by dint of "hard work" proves wobbly: as industrious and eager to learn as the boys are, they nonetheless soon discover cold cash ultimately determines most life paths hereabouts. High on narrative human interest, sobering yet ultimately inspirational, this is a great nonfiction film that you'll end up loving, no matter how tediously worthy it might sound. (1:30) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Lost in Translation Halfway through Lost in Translation, it's clear director Sofia Coppola misplaced something other than language somewhere in the air between LAX and Narita. She obviously lost the plot (what glassine, paper-thin bits of it existed, by all accounts) and decided instead to just leave the camera running on her assembled beautiful or amusing characters-slash-objets – a preppily lush Scarlett Johansson, the sleek playground of Tokyo's Park Hyatt, and a resigned Bill Murray – hoping they'd provide the in-flight impromptu entertainment. Maybe in a perfectly art-directed world, they would suffice to fill the pretty vacant spaces of this barely outlined tale. But that's assuming we're as easily amused by Lost in Translation's 105 minutes of good-looking images and vacuous chitchat as we are by sound bites about celebrity cribs. That's assuming we've never glimpsed the sci-fi Tokyo skyline, tried our hand at karaoke, or followed Murray as he navigated a real, meaty part. Instead, Coppola succumbs to the same mistake made by pop stars who get lazy, believe their own hype, and decide everyone can relate to songs about their distorted experiences. (1:45) Empire, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Chun)

Love Actually Screenwriter Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary) is the man who practically invented the modern-day "Britsy-cutesy" template: attractive losers display near toxic amounts of dry wit, tell themselves to shut up whenever they've said something idiotic, and generally court humiliation in quixotic quests for true love (think Hugh Grant's entire career). Curtis's directorial debut tells not one but nine stories involving various degrees of smitten-ness, swollen with an all-star cast (Grant, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, etc.) and a patented brand of English rose-thorn humor – even the title seeps self-deprecating whimsy. Love Actually purports to be paying tribute to the idea of Cupidian bliss, but its real objet d'amour is the notion of movie love, where strings swell and goo-goo eyes meet – so much so that it's stacked its deck with nothing but those cinematic moments and is minus the dramatic build that gives those scenes emotional heft. (2:12) Century Plaza, Century 20, Four Star, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

*Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World Peter Weir's first film since The Truman Show bears little resemblance to any other action behemoth in recent memory. For the most part, that is a very good thing. Welding together chunks from the lengthy historical fiction series by Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World isn't so much episodic in the usual brief-pauses-between-escalating-climaxes sense as it is picaresque in, well, a 19th-century sense. Like O'Brian, Weir is more interested in the workings and the character of HMS Surprise and its crew (led by Russell Crowe's authoritatively low-key Captain Jack Aubrey) than in battles per se. Which is not to say the face-offs against "old Boney's" (Napoleon Bonaparte's) frigates aren't highly visceral, nor are the surgeries performed by resident doctor-naturalist Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) lacking in gruesome impact. But the movie bears Weir's trademark spectral qualities: the images are spectacular yet fallible, obscured by darkness and the elements; an offhand, lyric humanism makes this probably the least macho film of its type ever made. (2:08) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Harvey)

*Matrix Revolutions The Wachowski brothers seem to have learned something from critical responses to Matrix Reloaded. Matrix Revolutions, the final entry in the celebrated cyber-primitive trilogy, contains no long monologues about the nature of free will nor excruciating scenes of dancing and love making. Instead, we get rip-roaring action, cool CGI of the insectile, deadly machines, and lots of scenes with a muscle-bound Jada Pinkett Smith proving that she can drive warships better than you can. Although the Matrix franchise seemed as headed for disaster as the free human city Zion, Revolutions makes good on the promise of the first film. We learn more about the lives of programs in the simulated world of the Matrix and finally see Machine City. Although there are a few regrettable moments of pseudo-Christian mysticism here and there, for the most part this is a rollicking good war flick that in its best moments brings to mind epic us-versus-them movies like Aliens and even (gasp) Lord of the Rings. (2:09) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Newitz)

The Missing One can't help thinking of the many ghosts of Westerns past that haunt The Missing's dusty trail – The Searchers' retrieval plot and rocky racial disharmony, the many revisionist noble-savage tales of the '60s, even the blood-soaked Bosch tableau of Cormac McCarthy's totemic Western novel Blood Meridian – and how this film's pale riders can't help paling in comparison. Its dark fable of a frontier woman (Cate Blanchett) and her quest to retrieve her kidnapped daughter from bloodthirsty Indians, with the help of her danced-with-wolves deadbeat dad (Tommy Lee Jones) has the general ingredients for an intriguing Electra-complex take on how the West was wrung, but don't be fooled. Strip away the six-guns and it's little more than your basic thriller in sheepskin clothing. Director Ron Howard knows how to marinate a Fordian landscape in bleakness, but his flirtation with genre conventions/archetypes feels half-digested, and his storytelling here merely serves to demonstrate the vast gap between being an artistic filmmaker and a functional one. (2:10) Balboa, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Fear)

*My Flesh and Blood One's sense of typical family dysfunction melts away when faced with the Tom clan. Fifteen-year-old Joe is threatening to kill his sisters, 19-year-old Anthony is battling cancer, and eight-year-old Faith beats up other kids at school. On top of all this, each child is disabled, with ailments ranging from skin diseases to missing limbs. For one year, director Jonathan Karsh filmed the family of divorced mother Susan Tom and her 11 "special needs" adoptive children. The resulting My Flesh and Blood is a dramatic cinéma vérité doc that examines the tumultuous lives of these unlikely siblings and their patient yet worn-down mother. As moving, hard-edged, and at times upsetting as the film is, the children are never portrayed as victims. Good cheer and perseverance abound in a sincere and inspiring way as the kids battle to create the veneer of normal lives. Focusing on six of the family members, Karsh easily helps us look past their disabilities and examines the ways in which they cope with a range of issues, from dating to death. Karsh finds more beauty and touching drama among the Toms than can be found in any Hollywood picture. (1:23) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (McCartney)

*My Life Without Me Sarah Polley has been, and will be, cast in more challenging roles than My Life Without Me's wife, mother, and graveyard-shift janitor Ann, but the fact that it's an easy kinda "difficult" part – noble-sacrifice making, medically doomed, 100 percent sympathetic – doesn't make her pulling it off any less enjoyable. The daily, half-asleep getting along of Ann's life acquires a sudden, wide-awake urgency when she learns has she ovarian cancer – and only a couple of months left to live. Choosing to tell no one, she compiles a list of things to do before exiting and methodically goes through them while keeping up a normal front. Writer-director Isabel Coixet's "quirky" supporting characters feel undercooked, her stylistic flourishes sometimes ditto. But for the most part, the film – and Polley – strikes just the right no-nonsense tenor needed to make an old-fashioned weepie work just as it's supposed to, without pandering or making the viewer feel guilty. (1:46) Balboa, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Mystic River After a poorly executed prologue – and before the plot goes to hell in the last reel – this adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel plays ideally to Clint Eastwood's strengths as a levelheaded, respectful director of both talented actors and meat-and-potatoes drama. A childhood incident in which 11-year-old Dave was kidnapped by pedophiles before the eyes of playmates Jimmy and Sean still hangs over their adult lives. All remained in their original rough, Boston neighborhood, though the three have maintained an awkward distance from each other ever since. That ends when the daughter of corner store owner Jimmy (Sean Penn) is murdered after a night of barhopping – a night when Dave (Tim Robbins) comes home at 3 a.m. to wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) bloodied by what he claims at first is an altercation with a mugger. Guess who's the homicide detective assigned to the case? Sean (Kevin Bacon), of course, alongside his partner, Whitey (Laurence Fishburne). Underplaying the material's potentially clichéd tough-guy milieu and pulp-thriller aspects, Eastwood and scenarist Brian Helgeland orchestrate an engrossing drama. Just the kind of starry, serious, conventional project sure to be remembered at awards time, Mystic River is nonetheless seriously compromised – in my book at least – by a last act that throws away the credible resolution we've been led toward, instead springing a left-field one wildly dependent on coincidence and contrivance. (2:20) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Pieces of April The fact that Pieces of April was a buzz film at the Sundance fest this year attests to the sorry state of American indie cinema, which has essentially become a minor-league Hollywood. A secondhand "original" soundtrack of corrosive Stephin Merritt lullabies sets the tone of Peter Hedges's digital-video comic drama. The screenplay's tired Guess Who's Coming to Dinner-meets-Daytrippers scenario traps viewers in a car with a miserable cauca-zombie family as they journey toward a Thanksgiving feast that's been thoroughly botched by black sheep April (Katie Holmes, in art-damaged attire that's very early '90s) and her (gasp!) black boyfriend, Derek Luke. Hedges's presentation of working-class urban life is even more stereotypical than a Wayans comedy, but at least the Wayans clan bring parody to the table. Pieces of April's moth-eaten liberal idea of just desserts requires that the sarcasm eventually gives way to a multicult sweetness – though not before Patricia Clarkson, as April's mother, provides a few potent glimpses of a dying woman's solitude. (1:20) Albany, Embarcadero, Empire. (Huston)

Radio Prolific sports film director Michael Tollin (Summer Catch) clearly has Oscar gold in mind with this overly warm film about tolerance. Though based on a true story, the film is beleaguered by tired stereotypes. Cuba Gooding Jr., undoubtedly hoping for an Academy nod himself, plays James "Radio" Kennedy, a mentally challenged man who is befriended by high school football coach Harold Jones (Ed Harris). Gooding brings much heart to the role, but little can be said for the one-dimensional character; Radio is full of blind optimism and hopeful exuberance, but he completely lacks any sense of negativity. The movie means well, and while this kind of cheerful goodwill in the face of adversity can be uplifting, if done correctly, Radio just feels manipulative. The same story has been told over and over (think The Waterboy – only not funny). Each hurdle thrown in the protagonists' path is an obvious one, right down to the prejudiced white Southerner who just won't accept Radio hanging around his beloved team. The television adverts alone should tell you how this one ends; if you're hankering for some schmaltz, this is your movie. (1:46) Galaxy. (McCartney)

*The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain's documentary, touted as a look at "the world's first media coup," might as well double as a California recall-hangover cure. In April 2002 the people of Venezuela foiled a TV revolt by taking to the streets of Caracas and storming the presidential palace to return briefly ousted president Hugo Chavez to power. Bartley and O'Briain, who initially conceived Revolution as an analytical profile of Chavez, largely bypass a cogent analysis of the differences between Chavez's populist promises and his actual accomplishments. The film's strength and originality stem from its eye-of-the-storm proximity to April 2002's political unrest and the perspective it has regarding televised distortions: as the attempted coup unfolds, international news reports claim Chavez supporters have resorted to sniper-style attacks on protesters; Bartley and O'Briain land footage that exposes those claims as lies. (1:14) Clay, Shattuck. (Huston)

*School of Rock Jack Black finally gets his big break in Richard Linklater's School of Rock as Dewey Finn, a wanna-be rock god stuck in perpetual adolescence who refuses the request of his long-suffering roommates (Sarah Silverman and screenwriter Mike White) to give in to the rat race: "I serve society," he exclaims, "by rocking!" After our hero's band gives him the boot, however, his plan to win the local Battle of the Bands showdown falls apart. Masquerading as a substitute teacher to get some quick dough, he fills in at a prep school for the gifted. It turns out that some of his fourth-graders are musical prodigies, which inspires Dewey to start an opportunistic class project titled "Rock Band" – with the final to be held at the contest. If there's a Mighty Ducks-flavored bad taste in your mouth after reading that synopsis, you're not alone. But what Black and his partners in crime do with the material makes a world of difference. Any hint of sentimentality is bowled over by hitching the reworked warhorse narrative onto the comedian's meta-rock star/wild-man persona, and his territorial pissings all over the underdog material turn this into a series of sublimely ridiculous Black-out sketches. (1:40) Balboa, Shattuck. (Fear)

*Shattered Glass A drama starring Hayden Christensen might sound like a movie inherently doomed by a stiff, clonelike lead performance, but Christensen redeems himself playing disgraced New Republic journalist-fabulist Stephen Glass – while not the best actor here, he brings ample phony charms to the part. Screenwriter turned director Billy Ray fashions an intelligent, crisp narrative; Glass's rise and fall gradually turn into the story of Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard), the man who uncovered the full scope of Glass's falsehoods. When Ray contrasts bad-boy Glass's sexual ambivalence with Lane's family man "normality," the conservative morality of the dichotomy is annoying, but Shattered Glass's screenplay nails the covert power plays lurking beneath newsroom banter, and Sarsgaard is excellent. Keep an eye out for Heavenly Creatures alum Melanie Lynskey in a bit part. (1:34) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Huston)

The Station Agent Along with Pieces of April, this was part of Patricia Clarkson's one-two punch at the Sundance Film Festival; actually, Clarkson was in four films there, but the other two weren't award winners. In The Station Agent she plays a divorcée grieving her son's death, and the movie's strongest scenes involve her cold-shoulder response when people misguidedly reach out to offer comfort. Tom McCarthy's film is choreographed so that a triad of misfits – two loners (Clarkson and Peter Dinklage) and one extrovert (Bobby Cannavale) – meet up on the train tracks of small-town life, only to break apart again. Dinklage's dwarf protagonist alternately faces and escapes a patronizing world, but it's his rejection by Clarkson's character that truly stings. If all this sounds depressing, rest assured The Station Agent doesn't forget to add moments of hope and whimsy; they just aren't as interesting as its dark side. (1:28) Act I and II, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Huston)

Sylvia You are alone with Sylvia Plath in a movie theater: What would you like to know? Sylvia, the movie, probably won't tell you, which is perhaps its most frustrating feature. Director Christine Jeffs is too responsible to the source material for my taste in this gorgeously brooding duo-biopic of the infamously passionate relationship between Plath and Ted Hughes. The film does veer off that path at moments, providing a coy peephole view of the relationship itself at times, and playing it too lose with actual words these poets spoke, as if every moment were written in tense, heavy verse. But too much of the biography is already known, too little of the mystery better understood here. While the jury's still out on how well Plath's life does as a play, an opera, or in the many pieces of biography and few stray novelizations, it doesn't play so well as a movie. I'd like to suggest a return to the poetry itself. (2:02) Balboa. (Gerhard)

*Tamala 2010 Barbarella is gene-spliced with Hello Kitty in the surreal Blade Runner universe of this animated feature by two-man Japanese music-visual art "unit" t.o.L. (or trees of Life). Needless to say, you can check your head at the door. Tamala 2010 is like the chill-room alternative to last year's DJ QBert project Wave Twisters. Its heroine is a big-eyed space kitty blown off course during a solo trip from her native Cat Earth in the Feline Galaxy to Orion. She lands instead on Planet Q, where martial law enforcement and terrorism reports seem to barely stir the jaded, business-as-usual inhabitants (best illustrated by recurring scenes of two cat drag queens bitching in a bar). The mostly black-and-white cartoon looks like a Dada-fied take on classic original TV anime Astro Boy, with visual references encompassing everything from Metropolis to Diane Arbus; no doubt there's never been anything quite like this enigmatic explosion of cybercuteness. (1:32) Roxie. (Harvey)

*Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion Many people unfortunately think of the Free Tibet movement as little more than a cause perfect for good celebrity P.R., but if this documentary proves nothing else, it's that Tibet is in serious need of progressive international aid. Following the history of the country as an occupied territory, filmmaker Tom Peosay's look at the atrocities and injustices perpetrated on the Tibetan people – even owning a picture of their Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, will get you arrested – has a tendency to flip between a picturesque travelogue (Martin Sheen's narration seems lifted from a Discovery Channel special at times) and a catalogue of horrors. But neither the tonal inconsistencies nor the A-list movie star readings of victim testimonies make the occupier's sins any less painful, and with talking-head footage ranging from an in-denial Chinese diplomat to the Dalai Lama himself, it's an invaluable first step toward understanding Tibet's tragedy. (1:40) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Fear)

Timeline The latest film adapted from a work by Michael "I'm a real novelist! I swear!" Crichton is brought to the big screen with the same wildly inconsistent mediocrity that has defined the career of director Richard Donner. A group of archaeology students are sent hurtling back in time to 14th- century France in order to save their mentor (Billy Connolly), the accidental victim of a machine that renders nerds capable of time travel. The students are led by Paul Walker, whose acting influences apparently include 1950s sci-fi robots (though, with costars Frances O'Connor and Gerard Butler doing their best Keanu impressions, Walker is actually the most charismatic actor in the film). I'll give you a second to let the full horror of that last statement sink in. Bottom line: apart from a gluttony of severed limbs and flying arrows, Timeline fails to dispense the slightest thrill. (2:08) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (McCartney)

*21 Grams 21 Grams is a good movie hobbled most by its certainty of greatness; its entire construction, nonstop emotional urgency, and near complete lack of humor signal as much throughout. It's better than most "prestige" efforts – certainly the concurrent Sean Penn vehicle Mystic River, which similarly orchestrates several personal tragedies into contrived sentimental-existential narrative symphonies – due to the makers having one foot in art-house cred and another in starry Hollywood uplift. Amores perros director Alejandro González Iñárritu and scenarist Guillermo Arriaga should be congratulated for making a film that was first conceived for Mexico City seem not at all awkward in the English-language U.S. milieu; what's more, there's a grittiness of tenor and texture that's brave for a commercial film. 21 Grams is so frequently so good on a scene-by-scene basis that one wishes only it hadn't gotten some very big ideas. It's bleak, inventive, and heartfelt to degrees that feel right until they don't. (2:18) Bridge, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Under the Tuscan Sun After her husband leaves her, and she sells her San Francisco home for a tidy sum, writer Frances Mayes (Diane Lane) takes a trip to Italy at the bidding of her best friend, Patti (the wryly hilarious Sandra Oh). To everyone's surprise, and most of all, her own, Frances ends up buying a run-down villa; before long, "Francesca" 's new life in Tuscany is a whirlwind of home repairs, encounters with quirky locals, gorgeous landscapes, and broken heart-healing moments of joy and personal growth. To be sure, this likable comedy – directed by Audrey Wells (Guinevere), who also adapted her screenplay from the real-life Mayes' best-selling memoir – is tailor-made for the Oprah set. But it's impossible not to root for Lane, whose thoughtful performance handily rises above the film's more cheese-ball moments. (1:43) Galaxy. (Eddy)

Rep picks

*From Here to Eternity Looking back at the 1953 Oscar juggernaut that launched a million sand-encrusted romantic clinches, one can't help noticing its elements haven't dated well: the editing and director Fred Zinnemann's mise-en-scène couldn't be blander, the dialogue occasionally seems to have sprung from a can of creamed corn, and the story never quite finds a balance between the hairy-knuckled melodrama and straight-up populist pulp of James Jones's novel. And yet this barracks soap opera is still an irresistible slice of classic Hollywood cheese. Even if its iconic moment of low tides and high hormones doesn't whip you into a torrid froth, there's still that cast – Frank Sinatra as a blue-eyed loudmouth, moody Method dream boat Montgomery Clift in all his bruised-peach glory, Deborah Kerr as a bleached-blond queen of hearts, TV matriarch Donna Reed as a whore, Burt and Ernie (Lancaster and Borgnine, respectively) representing the twin poles of the he-man beef spectrum – as well a peek into the nonconformity chic that would become de rigueur for a majority of the decade's acting and output. (1:58) Castro. (Fear)

*I Vitelloni See Movie Clock. (1:43) Castro.