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.

San Francisco Independent Film Festival

The sixth San Francisco Independent Film Festival – also known as "SF IndieFest" – runs Feb 5-15. Venues are the Castro Theater, 429 Castro, S.F.; Roxie, 3117 16th St, S.F.; Women's Building, 3543 18th St, S.F.; and Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway, Oakl. Advance tickets (most shows $7-9) and a complete festival schedule are available at www.sfindie.com. All times are p.m. unless otherwise indicated. For commentary, see "Amour Ewwww" and "Long Story Short."

Thurs/5

Castro Break a Leg 7. Revengers Tragedy 9:30.

Fri/6

Roxie Value-Added Cinema 5. 9 Souls 7. The Last Horror Movie 9:30. Running on Karma 11:45.

Women's Building Have You Seen Clem 2:45. "The Ongoing Wow" (shorts program) 5. Echelon: The Secret Power 7:15. Bruce Haack: King of Techno 9:30.

Sat/7

Roxie Echelon: The Secret Power noon. "awkward and lovely" (shorts program) 2:15. Gozu 4:30. Security 7. Piggie 9:30. Haute tension 11:45.

Women's Building Value-Added Cinema noon. In Smog and Thunder 2:15. "Righteous Babes" (shorts program) 4:30. Maybe Logic 7. Gory Gory Hallelujah 9:30.

Sun/8

Roxie "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" (shorts program) noon. Nobody Needs to Know 2:15. Outpatient 4:30. Aragami (Duel Project 1) 7. 2LDK (Duel Project 2) 9:30.

Women's Building A Certain Kind of Death noon. "Your Warped Mind" (shorts program) 2:15. Whole 4:30. Celluloid Horror 7. Olive or Twist 9:15.

Mon/9

Roxie The Last Horror Movie 5. Undermind 7:15. 9 Souls 9:30.

Tues/10

Roxie "awkward and lovely" (shorts program) 5. Funny Ha Ha 7:15. Gozu 9:30.

Opening

Barbershop 2: Back in Business Ice Cube, Eve, Cedric the Entertainer, and the rest of the cutting crew return in this comedy sequel. (1:40) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London.

Catch That Kid Though marketed like another Spy Kids, Catch That Kid is missing the ultracool gadgets, outlandish villains, and zippy pace that made that series fun. This is Ocean's 11 Years Old – in other words, your average bank-heist flick dumbed down to a boringly digestible degree. Kristen Stewart plays Maddy, a daredevil rock climber whose parents disapprove of her hobby. That's understandable because Dad took a nasty digger on Mt. Everest and now requires emergency surgery. Maddy rashly decides she must rob a bank to pay for his operation and recruits the help of her two dorky sidekicks/admirers. Conveniently, Mom (Jennifer Beals) designed the bank's flimsy security system and the children easily sneak in. The whole thing is slow and run-of-the-mill but harmless enough. Stewart can actually act, which she proved as Patricia Clarkson's tomboy daughter in The Safety of Objects. Let's hope she spies her way back to the art house. (1:34) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London. (Koh)

Miracle See Movie Clock. (2:25) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Shattuck.

*My Architect Told from the vantage of a son who barely got to know his famous father before his death, bankrupt and unidentified in a men's room at New York City's Penn Station, newcomer Nathaniel Kahn's My Architect is a kind of exploded view of a family melodrama. Kahn, we learn, was Louis's third child, the son of the mysterious architect's second mistress, and officially unacknowledged by Louis's wife at his father's funeral. But what comes into focus over the course of the film isn't just the elder Kahn's unconventional sense of domestic relations but also his equally self-centered devotion to the aesthetic ideals of his work (at the expense of commissions and wealth). Nathaniel's filmmaking doesn't begin to pretend to equal the mastery of Louis's architecture, and indeed there are some fabulously irritating aspects to My Architect. But there's no denying the respect and maturity Kahn the younger displays in the way he photographs his father's buildings: he really gets what it means to stand at some crucial vantage point in one of those astonishing creations, watching light murmur through those mysterious angles and cut-ins. (1:46) Act I and II, Castro, Smith Rafael. (Stephens)

Secret Things Jean-Claude Brisseau directs this erotic French thriller, the tale of two women who use their charms to climb the corporate and social ladder. (1:55) California, Opera Plaza.

Touching the Void See "Death Trips Inc." (1:46) Bridge.

Ongoing

*Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer During her final interview – shortly after she accuses prison officials of using satellites to place sonic pressure on her head, and just before she erupts into rage when asked about the mother who abandoned her at birth – Aileen Wuornos tells documentarian Nick Broomfield to "put a big question mark" on his latest film. She needn't have spelled it out; she has already spun a ready-to-tear web of contradiction. On-screen, she has refuted the self-defense claims that functioned as faulty armor throughout Broomfield's 1992 portrait, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. But deceived by Broomfield into thinking all recording devices are off, she mutters that she did – sometimes? – resort to self-defense in killing seven men. Her isolation now governmentally sanctioned, she just doesn't want to postpone her inevitable last date, with the Florida state executioner. Broomfield is an old-school muckraker, a bumbling gumshoe drawn to film noir territory. With his on-camera presence and penchant for voice-over, he alternately implicates himself and verges on grandstanding. Yet Life and Death differs from his past pulpy biographies in terms of compassion. As he strives to understand Wuornos's shooting spree, his failures – plainly exposed – also reveal hers. (1:27) Opera Plaza. (Huston)

Along Came Polly (1:30) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness.

The Barbarian Invasions Remy (Remy Girard) is terminally ill; an irascible personality, divorce, and endless flings suggest he's the sort who might die alone. However, his ex-wife Louise (Dorothee Berryman) dutifully guilt-trips their son Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) into returning to Montreal from London for the sake of a father he's scarcely on speaking terms with. Dad views son as a crass capitalist; son views unrepentant "sensual socialist" dad as, well, an asshole – which he is, among other things. Their gradual reconciliation is foregrounded in the cluttered canvas of Denys Arcand's new film, a belated sequel to 1987's Decline of the American Empire that replaces that film's sexual politics seriocomedy with a thematically sprawling meditation on post-9/11 life. A collapsing Canadian health care system, aging baby boomers queasily entering late middle age, callous and/or lost younger generations, threats to the social order both external (e.g., terrorism) and internal (drug addiction) – these are just a few of the myriad issues Arcand touches on here. He balances them all cleverly, even building up to a close many viewers will find genuinely tear-jerking. This film is winning prizes all over. I found it just as glib, misanthropic, and sentimentally manipulative at times as it is undeniably skillful overall. (2:03) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

The Big Bounce Just because Elmore Leonard's tropical noirs seem tailor-made for multiplex big-screens doesn't mean his every published trifle demands the adaptation treatment, and even his worst work certainly doesn't warrant the hack treatment on display here. The author's 1969 crime fiction debut about a drifter (Owen Wilson), a young femme fatale (Sara Foster), a load of loot, and the usual suspects on a Hawaiian island may have introduced a new poet of pulp, but this second attempt to film it plays like alchemy in reverse, turning golden prose into lumpen lead. Wilson's smarm-charm combo isn't enough to carry the film (or your entire career, sir), and neither Miami Blues director George Armitage's proven pedigree with such material nor the aristocratic thespian supporting cast (Morgan Freeman! Gary Sinise!) can sustain a total third-act meltdown of narrative coherence, filmmaking competence, and overall audience confusion. (1:29) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

Big Fish Parenthood can turn almost anybody into a softy, which is good news for the human spirit overall but occasionally very bad news for the artistic one. The fact that he recently had a child with Helena Bonham Carter (who plays several heavily disguised roles here, to no great effect) is the only explanation I can hazard as to why Tim Burton has suddenly started – suck in your breath now – imitating Steven Spielberg's worst instincts. The bedside vigil of semi-estranged son Will (Billy Crudup) over Southern braggart dad Edward Bloom (Albert Finney, better than this crap deserves) is the spur for reprise of the latter's favorite "autobiographical" tall tales, which are like old Twilight Zone episodes with a sugar glaze. This crossbreeding of Forrest Gump and What Dreams May Come is Disney-esque pseudo-folklore whose grasp on "childlike wonder" and maudlin "family is the most important thing!" values feel factory-issued. Never mind that Edward has been a crappy, egomaniacal, hot-air-blowing father – reconciliation here is grimly, cloyingly inevitable. (2:00) Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Butterfly Effect Long have the world's stoners pondered the questions raised in The Butterfly Effect: namely, (a) if you could go back and replay one scene in your life, what would be the consequences for you, your loved ones, and the universe at large, and (b) wouldn't that be trippy? And in a sense, who better than Ashton Kutcher, the small screen's patron saint of smoke-filled rec rooms, to grapple with those questions writ large as Evan Treborn, a troubled college student prone to journaling, nosebleeds, and traveling back in time via memory to avert personal tragedy? There's some sick, sick shit going on here, including child porn and extreme acts of cruelty toward animals and babies. But having to sit through Kutcher's exaggerated attempts at dramatic interpretation for the length of a feature film surpasses even those outrages. It's fun watching Evan and his friends go through extreme makeovers with every new scenario, but as the thrill of hurtling down memory lane wears off, The Butterfly Effect may raise a topical question for restless filmgoers: namely, how would my life had been different if I hadn't gone to the movie theater today? (1:53) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Lynn Rapoport)

Calendar Girls (1:48) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont.

Cheaper by the Dozen (1:38) Century Plaza, Century 20.

*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, Orinda, Shattuck. (Huston)

*Cold Mountain A more reliable literary adapter than Merchant Ivory (at least of late), Anthony Minghella, director of The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley, brings admirable cinematic sweep, intelligence, and detail to Charles Frazier's hugely popular historical novel. Jude Law is astutely cast as Inman, the young laborer turned Confederate soldier who makes a long, dangerous trek back to his rural North Carolina town during the waning days of the Civil War. Egging him onward through various hardships and bounty-hunter perils is the promise of a reunion with Ada (Nicole Kidman), pampered, Charleston-bred daughter of a minister (Donald Sutherland) whose premature death leaves her alone and helpless amid wartime deprivation. The original, tentative romance between principals is flash-backed between scenes from their variously harrowing present: traveling on foot, he's nearly killed several times over; she almost starves to death before spunky hillbilly Ruby (Renée Zellwegger, dynamic if borderline cartoonish) shows up to commandeer cultivation of the late minister's neglected farmland. Starting with a memorably horrific depiction of the era's savage yet impersonal warfare (dramatizing the July 1864 siege of Petersburg, Va.), Cold Mountain is never less than engaging, with passages by turns lyrical, ironic, brutal, and tender. Still, it's not quite as moving as one would like – and actually becomes least so when Ada and Inman are finally reunited in the last act. (2:35) Century 20, Four Star, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Harvey)

*The Company The climactic moment of Robert Altman's The Company takes place 20 minutes into the film, as a pair of dancers perform a soulful, romantic duet on an outdoor stage and the weather turns bad. It's a gorgeously theatrical moment – and a lucky break for one of the dancers, an upcoming member of the company named Ry (Neve Campbell), who was understudying the part when the scheduled soloist sustained an injury. And in another movie altogether – let's say 2000's Center Stage – this windswept scene would have been a shoo-in for grand finale. Instead, we're in Chicago, watching real members (except for Campbell) of a slightly fictionalized Joffrey Ballet, in a film where a surprising, successful performance is, in the shorter term, one good night for one dancer in a season of ups and downs. When director Robert Altman set out to make the film, he clearly believed the real-life dramas of the company's days and nights would be enough to sustain a one-and-a-half-hour movie. But the question remains, will people be transfixed by a series of quiet offstage spectacles, stay to the end waiting for the point to kick in, or leave the theater early in disgust to have irate discussions in the car about the nature of art? (1:52) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

The Cooler William H. Macy is a sadder-sack Bogart, and Maria Bello an updated Gloria Grahame, in this slick indie gloss on retro-Hollywood "B" conventions. He's a former gambler so pathetically ill-starred that he's employed as a "cooler" at a fading-out Vegas casino – a man whose luck is so bad he can be counted on to end winning streaks simply by passing the tables. She's a much younger cocktail waitress with (what else?) a "past." When they fall in love, love redeems them – and their luck, which unfortunately earns the wrath of a casino boss (Alec Baldwin) who can't endure such status quo shifts in the face of his own imminent corporate-management phaseout. The acting is very good, of course – how could Macy disappoint in yet another "lovable loser" role? – and director and coscenarist (with Frank Hannah) Wayne Kramer's story is crafty and flavorful enough in an MGM-circa-1955 way. But even then the story wasn't very fresh or especially interesting, save as a showcase for actors who deserved better. Which they still do. The final reel springs some decent surprises, yet the scent of reheated genre formula is still the strongest smell to emerge from The Cooler. (1:41) Galaxy, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*The Fog of War: 11 Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara Faced with the unspeakable, say, the killing of 100,000 civilians in one night of firebombing in Japan, an artist could be excused for choosing not to speak. You certainly can't blame Errol Morris for offering up Philip Glass's assertive soundtrack as a fig leaf for Robert McNamara as he stands naked in a survey of a half century of horrific war footage he had some part in creating. Morris's primary challenge in The Fog of War, a documentary about the frightening fallibility, the terrible inevitability of the American war machine, is that he doesn't just have images of chemical warfare, missiles dropping, nations destroyed. He also has a speaker, a practiced one, to explain and reflect and second-guess – to, in essence, misdirect. Which may be why Morris gives this former secretary of defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson so much room to speak, even when he's evading; it's Glass who gives us the real interpretation. Glass's take comes through loud and clear in wind and strings: be afraid, be very afraid. (1:46) Act I and II, Embarcadero. (Gerhard)

Girl with a Pearl Earring Lost in Translation It girl Scarlett Johansson plays another passive protagonist in Peter Webber's debut film, an accomplished yet oddly distanced translation of Tracy Chevalier's acclaimed novel. She's forced to work as a servant in the household of master painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) when her own family's fortunes take a downturn in 1665 Delft, Holland. Uneducated yet naturally inquisitive, she gains the attention of the master as model and apprentice – both roles scandalous for a lower-class girl of the era. Girl with a Pearl Earring is nothing if not artful: domestic strife, moral hypocrisy, and class consciousness are neatly interwoven with an artistic inspiration that would eventually loom large in art history. It's handsomely done in aesthetic terms, polished in performance terms. Yet for all its intelligence and skill, Girl just kinda sits there, emotionally, and becomes more schematic than moving. (1:39) Albany, Clay, Empire. (Harvey)

House of Sand and Fog (2:06) Oaks.

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, wannabe 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, Piedmont. (Koh)

Japanese Story Marooned in the Australian outback, an imperious businessman (Gotaro Tsunashima) and a resentful guide (Toni Collette) are forced into intimacy. But just when the desert turns into an Eden, a fall awaits them. Gossip maestro Michael Musto recently decreed that "quirky romances with a rarefied Japanese twist" have replaced Douglas Sirk tributes as the current cinematic trend; the implicit Western bias of that statement applies to Sue Brooks's Japanese Story as much as to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, though Brooks's fumbling sincerity differs from Coppola's stylish entitlement. These days the lead actors of award-minded dramas are stronger than the films themselves, and Collette's raw, multifaceted performance here is an Oscar calling card complete with the required vanity-free naked moments. (1:45) Smith Rafael. (Huston)

The Last Samurai (2:24) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness.

*The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King The quest to deliver "The Greatest Fantasy Trilogy Ever Made" has been completed. The hype is right. The Return of the King is the best of the three, but only in part. And it all depends on which part you're talking about. In the first act, we're still mucking about with various monarchs, noble families, and peasants as the film unfolds. Our main characters, hobbits Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin), are still on their dangerous trek to the volcanic Mount Doom. Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and plucky halfling Pippin (Billy Boyd) have arrived at the kingdom of Gondor – ground zero for the long-awaited War of the Ring – where the tone of Return becomes quiet and hushed. Heroically, director Peter Jackson decides to slow down and take a breath himself. From here on out, Jackson assumes a total mastery of the material, and even the deviations from Tolkien's text start to look like improvements. The long, arduous journey to the credits may not have been perfect, and perilously few of those character subplots ever pay out, but for a hearty share of its 3-hour-and-18-minute running time, there can be no doubt that King rules. (3:21) Century 20, Grand Lake, 1000 Van Ness. (Macias)

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, Orinda, Shattuck. (Chun)

*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, Oaks. (Harvey)

Mona Lisa Smile (1:59) Galaxy.

*Monster As de-glamming makeovers go, Charlize Theron's dumpification in this dramatization of the late Aileen Wuornos's 1989-90 serial killing spree sure kicks the bejesus out of Nicole Kidman's Oscar-winning nose cap last year. You can believe it when characters here identify her as indigent and/or crazy by just a glance. Without going into much tortured-childhood backgrounding (a few discreet, disturbing flashbacks under the opening credits suffice), this first feature by writer-director Patty Jenkins effectively conveys the accumulated psychological and physical damage that perhaps inevitably turned Wuornos into a menace. The film charts a span when her life got both better and a whole lot worse: A committed if awkward relationship with a younger woman (Christina Ricci, just so-so) gets her off the streets, determined to improve her circumstances. Without means, education, or any (legal) work experience, however, that goal proves near impossible. And once she crosses a line – killing a brutal roadside-pickup prostitution client in self-defense – financial desperation, suppressed rage, and a faint grip on reality push her to cross it again and again. While the murders are handled bluntly enough, Monster is more depressing than scary or lurid. Its principal aim is as a cautionary character study: used or abandoned by family, institutional help and society in general, Wuornos embodied how extreme human need can warp into "monstrous" toxicity. A worthy movie, driven by a very strong lead performance. (1:51) Embarcadero, California, Century Plaza, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Mystic River (2:20) Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Lumiere, Shattuck.

The Perfect Score The SAT may be hard to take and harder to steal, but you wouldn't really know it from The Perfect Score, a film about six kids who aren't afraid to draw outside the bubble (or break into an office building to get copies of the test). The alleged message here, explicated at great length, with diagrams, is that standardized testing is sexist, racist, blind to a young person's individual potential, and generally bunk. These are important points, and I for one am grateful to director Brian Robbins (Ready to Rumble, Varsity Blues) for raising them. But The Perfect Score, packed to the gills with high jinks, stoner gags, and shots of Scarlett Johansson's cleavage, doesn't seem that interested in inciting a rage against the machine. Plus which, it's just dumb. The jokes may provoke incredulous laughter, but that doesn't make them funny. The script in general is likely to wear on the nerves of anyone past tweenhood, the film's only hope of a demographic. And Johansson stands out from her colleagues mostly because of her saucy outfits but also because she can act. It almost makes you wonder if standards are good for something after all. (1:33) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Peter Pan (1:45) Century 20, Orinda.

*The Same River Twice Documentarian Robb Moss shot Riverdogs, a chronicle of his 35-day Grand Canyon rafting trip with 17 (mostly nekkid) best friends, in 1978. A quarter century later he contrasts that footage with the present-day lives of his now middle-aged former fellow travelers, who've nearly all settled into more conventional lifestyles: kids, home ownership, marriage, divorce, health woes. Yet a spark of lingering counterculturalism remains for many; no less than two have earned stints as progressive mayors. The Same River Twice has the built-in fascination of watching real people evolve on camera. If modern life casts a rather wistful shadow on the idyllic views of freespirited youth au naturel amid nature, this is nonetheless one movie that suggests '60s-bred ideals aren't quite dead yet. The only disappointment here is that Moss doesn't seize the opportunity to comment on or analyze the phenomenon of '70s communal lifestyles in general; he's content simply providing a before-and-after snapshot. (1:18) Oaks, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Something's Gotta Give (2:03) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness.

The Statement (2:00) Galaxy.

The Station Agent (1:28) Opera Plaza, Red Vic.

*To Be and to Have Veteran French documentarian Nicolas Philibert's To Be and to Have, a huge commercial success in France, unfolds in a series of scenes and scene fragments organized around the lessons given by a single teacher, the soft-spoken, superpatient, and soon-to-retire Georges Lopez, to a single roomful of children ranging in age from 3 to 11. What we witness are children coloring, doing sums, flipping crepes, and generally struggling with learning, their faces passing all the while under cloud covers of emotion ranging through confusion, delight, fear, bewilderment, anger, and sorrow. Those wanting to see To Be and to Have as a strictly bright or nostalgic vision of education may be interested to learn that the film's instructor, Lopez, has gone on to media celebrity in France. It isn't difficult to imagine Lopez (who has twice sued Philibert for further financial compensation in the wake of the film's success) as the suave but inwardly seething center of something like The Discreet Charm of the Blackboard-oisie, just as the film's pervasively placid tone makes it seem perverse not to imagine that some of the pint-size pupils will soon blossom into the dead-end dropouts and no-hope moto-misfits of Bruno Dumont's La vie de Jésus. (1:44) Castro, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Stephens)

*Tokyo Godfathers Director Satoshi Kon's previous film, 2001's awesome Millennium Actress, took audiences on a dizzying trek through 2,000 years of Japanese history. His latest work, Tokyo Godfathers, homes in on the tumultuous events of a single Christmas holiday, with equally impressive results. Three homeless friends (a young woman, a transvestite, and an aging drunk) stumble across an abandoned baby and vow to return it to its parents, wherever and whoever they may be. The premise is little more than a redo of John Ford's 3 Godfathers, but Kon takes the material in smart new directions. With extraordinary yet subtle animation, he caricatures an already surreal Japan and gives the stage over to the city's most seldom heard voices. While touchy subjects are on the agenda, Tokyo Godfathers never gets preachy or overly sweet. Instead, there's a dense amount of visual and verbal gags to keep things engaging. Humorous, emotional, and concisely executed, it's the anime film to top in 2004. (1:31) Galaxy. (Macias)

Torque (1:21) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Triplets of Belleville Perhaps the first major animated export from France since René Laloux's sci-fi epics Fantastic Planet (1973) and Light Years (1988), comic book artist Sylvain Chomet's feature debut is a uniquely vinegary comedy that's like a grown-up 101 Dalmatians. A champion Tour de France bicyclist is kidnapped by bad guys and taken to America for ill purposes. His abduction spurs cross-Atlantic pursuit by grandmother Mme Souza and their corpulent, waddling dog Bruno. Their principal helpers are the titular trio, 1930s music-hall stars since fallen into decrepit eccentricity. Dialogue-free Triplets is funny, inventive, and endlessly referential. The only minus is an overpoweringly dour comic tilt that may strike some viewers as a tad too dyspeptic and cranky for full enjoyment. Like Ralph Bakshi's cartoon features of yore – albeit in a much less racy vein – Triplets is dazzling at times yet so misanthropic you might leave the theater feeling a tad soiled. (1:20) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*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) Embarcadero, Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! Director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) should have entered a sweepstakes to win a decent script and some personality for his characters. As far as I can tell, writer Victor Levin spent time trapped inside a Hallmark store pilfering romantic wisdom (to use the term loosely) from Valentine's Day cards; then, after collecting all the lines about love Shoebox had to offer, he divided them among the bland cast. As small-town girl Rosalee, Kate Bosworth (Blue Crush) is cute; she grins constantly and is sweeter than you can stand. Topher Grace holds his own as Rosalee's hilarious, bitterly sarcastic, and romantically overlooked best friend. But Josh Duhamel, the "Tad" of the title, is supposedly a hugely successful, lecherous Hollywood jerk. Considering he can't even act interested in the other characters – or act like he's awake for that matter – it's hard to buy him as a famous thespian. Not everything about this film is bad; it's just that nothing stands out as overwhelmingly good. (1:36) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (McCartney)

You Got Served I can't say for certain what caused the breakup of hip-hoppers B2K; my theory is that after seeing their own dismal performances in You Got Served, they realized a collective lack of talent necessitated a fade from the public eye. If history – and J.Lo – has taught us anything, it's that a (quasi-) talented singer does not an actor make. Perhaps if choreographers Wade J. Robson and Shane Sparks could lend their substantial talents to the script or spend as much time coaching line readings as break dancing, this film would fare better: while the dance sequences are phenomenal, and luckily frequent, the rest of the movie is thoroughly cringe-worthy. You Got Served will find an audience with those fans of hip-hop and dance who enjoy the setting and are less interested in substance. My advice? Scrap the nondancing scenes and convert the rest into an extended music video. In other words: everyone involved should stick with what they know. (1:33) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, 1000 Van Ness. (McCartney)

The Young Black Stallion North Africa is the real star of this new Disney Imax film directed by Simon Wincer (Free Willy), who fills the screen with amber images of rolling sand dunes, craggy mountains, and Arabian horses. The story (a prequel to the 1979 film) follows the adventures of Neera (Biana G. Tamimi) and a young, wild stallion as they struggle through the desert and form an unshakable bond. To save her family, she comes up with a plan to enter the horse in the village race. The plot feels hokey, even for a children's movie, yet the beauty of the landscape makes up for it. Despite a few glaring oddities (such as the fact that the two lead children, supposedly raised in North Africa, are the only characters with American accents), the scenery is breathtaking, and the film's short length ensures the pace doesn't drag. (1:00) Metreon Imax. (Emch)

*Yves Saint Laurent: 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris To Deneuve or not to Deneuve – that is the question for those who catch only one of David Teboul's pair of documentaries about Yves Saint Laurent. 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris, the more kinetic and cinematic of the two, favors the former option. A bespectacled, tough Catherine Deneuve appears early with maximum dramatic diva effect, violently pulling back curtains so viewers can watch her judge and model YSL daytime wear while surrounded by a buzzing throng. During this brief, too-smart-for-reality-TV performance, one learns that she has many hens (and prefers them to roosters), and that – surprisingly – she'll answer a cell phone call in the midst of a conversation. Of course, the film is about Saint Laurent, or, more specifically, the creation of his 2001 spring-summer collection, from sketches to finished garments. Direct and highly stylized, Teboul's direction doesn't have to look far to find an arty angle – one shot uses a dressing-room mirror to hallucinatory effect – but he's also keenly attuned to the personal dynamics of those who work by Saint Laurent's side, and the resentments of those who work under them. One dress-in-progress is, in the designer's own words, "sensational." (1:25) Roxie. (Huston)

*Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times A more straightforward biographical primer that functions as a counterpoint to the artist-at-work approach of David Teboul's other Yves Saint Laurent documentary, His Life and Times fascinates and frustrates as it charts the rapid ascent, descent, and resurrection of Christian Dior's heir apparent, who bows only to Chanel when contemplating his own legacy. Some anecdotes are funny: his mother remembers a three-year-old Yves voicing disapproval about an aunt's dress! The personalities of two YSL muses – Loulou de la Falaise and Betty Catroux – are set in stark relief, while the designer's chief love, Pierre Berge, offers different memories of, and perspectives on, their shared past. (That is, when his parrots aren't drowning him out.) Chain-smoking and quoting from his beloved Proust as he nears retirement, Saint Laurent resembles a less-alien Andy Warhol in terms of chilly enigmatic presence; his melancholic side is abundantly apparent, but Teboul – true to his fashion – shies away from unflattering personal details. (1:17) Roxie. (Huston)

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