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

*Millennium Mambo The first in what Hou Hsiao-hsien intends as a series of films about life and love in present-day Taipei, Millennium Mambo has a habit of striking viewers who've only seen it once as one of the filmmaker's slightest works. Twice seen, it blossoms into something far greater: a study of lost time and outgrown impulse in line with the admittedly superior Flowers of Shanghai. In Mambo a restless twentysomething (the exquisite Shu Qi) vacillates between two boyfriends, one a techno DJ, the other a tough guy played by Hou veteran Jack Kao. Shu Qi's character narrates the movie's disordered series of events from the distant perspective of 10 years after the time frame of the film, which is a gorgeously photographed meditation on agony, ecstasy (the drug), and the life-changing effects of snow. (1:41) Opera Plaza. (Stephens)

New York Minute The artists formerly known as the Olsen Twins star in this Big Apple-set comedy caper. (1:26) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Oaks, Orinda.

Noi Noi (Tómas Lemarquis) is a smart fuckup on a slow road to nowhere. His grandmother uses a shotgun to rouse him from bed in the morning. His dad is a woeful Elvis impersonator – shades of Aki Kaurismäki and Jim Jarmusch – too drunk to realize he's sabotaged the goals he's set for his son. While indebted to the wry humor of the aforementioned directors, Dagur Kári is more commercial minded; he's crafted a coming-of-age tale, albeit a morbid one. Noi's vast snowy landscapes aren't kinetic, but they are striking, and they certainly emphasize the isolation faced by the title character. Bleak? Yes. But there are also some hilarious scenes – a failed bank robbery and a bloody family get-together, in particular – in Kári's effective slice of life and death. (1:28) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Huston)

*Super Size Me Morgan Spurlock donated his body to filmmaking – and he almost got the chance to donate it to science as well when his 30-day diet of McDonald's food began destroying his liver. No one has had quite this much fun with the first-person film-crusade format since Michael Moore went searching for Roger. Spurlock has chosen just as wily and dangerous a foe, and he too has the rare qualities of showmanship that make this polemic against junk food in our schools, neighborhoods, and indeed our brains as entertaining as it is informative. Anyone who finds Moore's pedantries a touch patronizing when it comes to the one-on-one interview (and, for the record, I do not include myself in that category) will find nothing to object to in Spurlock's methodology. As generous with the folks behind the counter as he is with the portions, it's Spurlock himself – throwing up out a car window, displaying a hard-won spare tire in patriotic briefs – who suffers for our Mcfastfood sins. (1:38) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Gerhard)

*This So-Called Disaster See "Disaster Control." (1:27) Roxie.

Van Helsing Hugh Jackman takes on Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's monster, and other legendary baddies; The Mummy's Stephen Sommers directs. (2:12) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London.

Ongoing

*The Agronomist As thousands of international peacekeepers try to settle the unrest in Haiti, filmmaker Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) aptly releases The Agronomist, a documentary about late Haitian radio journalist Jean Dominique. Demme intertwines Dominique's struggle for democracy with a recent political history of Haiti, bringing us up to speed on the unrest, corruption, and violence that have been choking the country for decades. Surviving threats and long periods of exile, Dominique voiced his opinions on the radio waves until his murder in 2000. And as of now, it's still a losing battle. The journalist's wife, Michèle Montas, narrowly escaped assassination in 2002. Dominique's station, Radio Haiti Inter, has remained off the air since last year, when persistent threats forced Montas to shut down all broadcasts. Consequently, Demme's own frustration often surfaces as a weighty us-versus-them tone; if you're looking for objective discourse, The Agronomist isn't your movie. But since the film comes as indigent Haitians prepare for their fifth government in 20 years, remaining neutral is an understandable challenge. (1:30) California. (Kim)

The Alamo Well, at least this drama from director John Lee Hancock (The Rookie) isn't a bloated, faux-epic misfire on the scale of Pearl Harbor. Though the tone here is reverent and the sentiments sincere, the most immediate cinematic comparisons to this take on the iconic Texas battle are films like Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, which are more concerned with reenacting historical events than with anything else. The performances – including Dennis Quaid as Gen. Sam Houston, Jason Patric as knife-waving Col. Jim Bowie, and Patrick Wilson (Angels in America) as young Lt. Col. William Travis – are, predictably, reverent and sincere. The film's few inspired moments come courtesy of Billy Bob Thornton, who's perfectly cast as folk hero Davy Crockett. Thornton aside, The Alamo is pretty ho-hum; history will always remember that fateful spring of 1836 – but this film, not so much. (2:17) Galaxy. (Eddy)

Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius Golf aficionados speak of Bobby Jones (Jim Caviezel) reverentially, remembering the legendary giant of the green that dominated courses throughout the '20s, founded the Masters, and ended up being the only golfer to achieve a grand slam – winning all four major tournaments in one year. This cinematic tribute follows Jones's story dutifully from sickly wunderkind to iconographic winner, laying wreaths before his mythic stroke with bionic slo-mo idolatry. Yet its insistence on mythmaking kept at the platitudinous level of a Hallmark card substitutes a saccharine rush for actual drama, gimping through the legend's crippling bouts with drink and debilitating health disorders while an abundance of faux-folksy wisdom and endless for-the-Gipper speechifying gets slathered on thick. The film's adherence to an old-fashioned athleticism-over-adversity sports-biopic template would make Louis B. Mayer beam, but the blinding radiance of its golden-boy halo glow can't putt it past the plodding sensation of being way under par in every other respect. (2:13) Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

Bon Voyage French director Jean-Paul Rappenaeu sets this elaborate genre-blender in occupied Europe, but don't expect The Pianist; Rappeanaeu's caricatures and farcical predicaments treat the Nazi invasion with the gravity of a prom disaster. A besotted writer (Grégori Derangère) becomes a fugitive when he helps a beautiful actress (Isabelle Adjani) get away with murder. All of Paris then relocates to Bordeaux to escape the Germans, and the writer finds himself negotiating with escaped convicts, high-society patricians, and a French minister (Gerard Depardieu) to sort out his life. Add a beautiful scientist handling a top-secret experiment and you've got a plot that involves far too much brain labor to follow. Bursting at its seams, the film often feels as crowded as the town it's set in, but the director's sharp wit and tongue-in-cheek melodrama – along with Derangère's performance as the defeated hero – still make this blue-blooded farce pleasurable to watch. (1:54) Clay, Shattuck. (Kim)

Broken Wings Israeli writer-director Nir Bergman's first fictive feature is a dreary portrait of a Haifa family who have been wading ever deeper into despair since its patriarch died a few months ago. Mother Dafna (Orli Zilberschatz-Banai) drags herself to working a hospital night shift, leaving the burden of parenting her younger children to 17-year-old Maya (Maya Maron), who resents the premature ending of her youth. Teen brother Yair (Nitai Gvirtz) has dropped out of school for a degrading job distributing flyers in a giant mouse costume, when not generally moping around. A still-younger bro hurts himself in a fall, the youngest daughter is withdrawn, and the car keeps conking out. Oy vey indeed. Broken Wings swept the Israeli Oscars and has won awards elsewhere too, but it's the kind of movie so suffused with self-important gloom from the very start that some viewers will feel more numbed than moved. If you're in the mood for 86 minutes of heavy sighs, eyes cast wearily skyward, crying scenes, and so forth – well, go ahead, knock yourself out. (1:26) Act I and II, Galaxy, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Carlos Castaneda: Enigma of a Sorcerer Carlos Castaneda's series of books detailing his alleged apprenticeship with a Yaqui sorcerer – a figure many believed the onetime UCLA anthropology major simply made up – turned him into the 1970s' great popularizer of non-Western shamanic concepts among Me Decade heads. And that guru status in turn made Castaneda the orchestrator, or prisoner (depending on whom you talk to) of his own mythology. He was seldom photographed or interviewed, commanding a massive following while dealing directly with only a small "inner circle" that included "a large harem" of women with whom he was sexually involved. "He believed his sperm changed our brains," one former member attests. Made and mostly populated by those onetime "participants," R. Torjan's film provides just enough critical questioning to satisfy as a nontoadying overview of Castaneda's theories, methods, and murky life. Was he a plagiarist? A charlatan? A trickster-shaman whose teachings transcended terms so rooted in the rational, physical world? Presumably due to lack of budget, Torjan incorporates no archival footage here, which means the film exists mostly on its own altered plane of talking heads against psychedelic computer graphics. One could imagine a more fully rounded, technically accomplished documentary about this subject, but whether you approach from a New Age or skeptical viewpoint (the biographical similarities to, say, Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard are plentiful), this current effort does weave a certain enigmatic spell. (1:31) Little Roxie. (Harvey)

The Clay Bird Though banned in its own country on grounds that it would "hurt religious sentiment," Tareque Masud's The Clay Bird rejects any form of religious or political extremism. Masud sets his film in East Pakistan (modern-day Bangladesh) during the 1960s, when the political climate of the country was set to revolution and independence. A strictly religious father sends his son Anu to a madrasa, an Islamic boarding school for lower-class Muslims. Anu has trouble adjusting to the ascetic life of a madrasa student and befriends an eccentric outcast among his classmates. Meanwhile, politics drastically shift in East Pakistan, affecting everyone from Anu's activist uncle to his conservative, orthodox father. While Masud's childhood drama successfully hits the charming humor chord, it's too often breached by political tirades and religious validation. The film's pacing slows to a crawl as the story develops, but Masud's penchant for quiet, everyday beauty makes it a little easier to sit through. (1:38) Castro, Smith Rafael. (Kim)

Connie and Carla Writer-star Nia Vardalos' previous effort was a little something called My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which earned about 50 kajillion bucks and is being touted in ads for Connie and Carla as "the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time." It's unlikely that this follow-up will achieve such stratospheric status, though it is intermittently amusing. Lifelong friends and failed cabaret singers Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) go into hiding as drag queens after they witness a murder; before you can say To Wong Foo (or Sister Act or Some Like it Hot), their new act is causing a sensation in West Hollywood. Complications arise and covers are nearly blown at every turn, including frequent unexpected visits by the next-door neighbors (all drag divas themselves) and the arrival of a hunky straight guy (David Duchovny) who makes Connie feel like a natural woman. A handful of entertaining production numbers highlight what's mostly just silly, forgettable fun. (1:48) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Distant As Nuri Bilge Ceylan's third feature has slowly journeyed through the United States, some well-known landlords of taste who dismissed it have had to second-guess themselves. Covering Cannes, Roger Ebert referred to Distant as the type of movie in which "grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point." This unfair, monosyllabic (if rhythmic) description refuses to recognize, let alone contemplate, the film's elegy for an aging, failing male body. Aesop's fable of the city mouse and the country mouse is given a simple, resonant reversal in Ceylan's tale of the nonrelationship between young rube Yusuf (the late Mehmet Emin Toprak, an overgrown, time-torn teddy bear here) and his older, well-appointed cousin Mahmut (crone-faced Muzaffer Ozdemir). Ceylan patiently allows life to enter the frame – shots that initially seem stagnant are invaded by sights and sounds (a car alarm, a dangling grocery basket), often with comic results – until a sad story gradually emerges from potent observation. (1:50) Roxie. (Huston)

Dogville This movie's bark may be worse than its bite, but that won't keep you from feeling like the fire hydrant that just got pissed on by the time this canine of a film ends. Lars von Trier, the world's greatest torturer of women on film, moves from the melodramatic crucifixions of Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark (which at least offered cathartic relief) to unblinkered mockery with Dogville. If you've never seen live theater, you may be wowed by the austere light effects and staging (the "town" is rendered in chalk outlines; no walls) as von Trier turns a make-believe, Depression-era Rocky Mountain town over the spit and damns us as we watch it sizzle. But I trust if you're reading this, you don't fit into that category. I'm sorry to report the cast – Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Clarkson, Ben Gazzara, and Stellan Skarsgård – perform as if they're taking orders from the military staff at Guantánamo Bay. If the idea of feeling scorn for an unrelenting three hours appeals to you, your film has finally arrived. (2:57) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Gerhard)

Ella Enchanted Granted the gift (or curse) of obedience by her fairy godmother, young Ella of Frell (The Princess Diaries' Anne Hathaway) must carry out every command given to her, including offhand directives and figures of speech. When her snobby stepsisters begin taking advantage of her condition, she sets out to find her snappy godmother (Vivica A. Fox) to rid herself of the curse. While on her quest, Ella also protests the many injustices brought upon nonhuman inhabitants, teaming up with an ambitious elf, a talking book, and a giant (Heidi Klum) to fight Frell's unreasonable king (Cary Elwes). Full of witty anti-Grimm Brothers commentary, this politically correct fairy tale has the same sardonic edge that made Shrek so parent-friendly. The only problems you might have with the film are its glaringly tacky special effects and the random song-and-dance number tacked on at the end. But director Tommy O'Haver manages to steer clear of clichés and wanton chauvinism, passing on a decent moral message to the kids. (1:35) Century 20. (Kim)

Envy Who likes doggie poo? No one, that's who, which is why an idea about a spray that makes canine dung disappear smells like a surefire success to its inventor (Jack Black). His pragmatic, play-it-safe best friend (Ben Stiller) doesn't believe the would-be Edison can cut the crap; when "VaPooRize" becomes a reality and the fastest-selling product in history, the titular sin rears its head, a mysterious vagabond (Christopher Walken) preaches revenge in a stilted cadence, and a horse gets shot with an arrow. The parade of baggage and bad press that preceded Barry Levinson's latest picture lent an early fecal stink to the proceedings, though it earns its droppings status by squandering the cast's potential and the rather sharp script. The crime is that Envy has all the elements of a classic screwball comedy yet comes pitched out at the wrong speed, a perfect example of an anti-Midas touch with which everything turns to, well, shit. (1:39) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

*Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind A glance at the work of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature) might lead you to believe he's at war with reality. In his new collaboration with Nature director Michel Gondry, Kaufman gives two characters the chance to erase one another from their love-stung psyches. A morose man (Jim Carrey) is stationed in his bed with electrodes on his head, having the memory of his girlfriend (Kate Winslet) erased, when the technician (Mark Ruffalo) becomes distracted by the receptionist (Kirsten Dunst) who just stopped in to strip in front of her coworker. Oops. The patient's mind has just fallen off the map. Please call the head doctor (Tom Wilkinson), so that more chaos, complexity, frustration, and titillation ensue – while the patient, in his momentarily untrackable mind, is rediscovering the higher meaning of love, which he's now determined not to have erased. The rule with Gondry and Kaufman is that the crazier it first appears, the more believable they can make it feel. By sticking to fundamental emotional truths, these two prove you can deconstruct love while still being drawn to it. (1:48) California, Empire, Galaxy, Piedmont. (Gerhard)

*The Fog of War 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) Shattuck. (Gerhard)

Godsend Maybe it's tough bringing new material to the shocker genre, but this lame sci-fi drama doesn't bother to even try. Director Nick Hamm throws in everything on the thriller-movie checklist: mad scientist, iconic shower curtain, rickety mansion, a disturbed Haley Joel Os – whoops, I mean Cameron Bright – parochial town, cryptic photographs, and of course, spooky schoolhouse. Still, Godsend might have been a good movie, or at least a tolerable one, if it didn't take itself so damn seriously. A hip young couple (Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) lose their well-behaved son, Adam (Bright), meet the world's best geneticist (a devilish Robert De Niro), and agree to have the kid cloned. Things go well until the new Adam's eighth birthday, when a sinister streak cuts through his angelic demeanor. The cloning idea brings a touchy ethical nuance to the gothic, but Godsend veers into clichés when it hops on the whole spooky-kid bandwagon. (1:42) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Kim)

*Good Bye, Lenin! A huge hit at home in Germany and throughout Europe, Wolfgang Becker's dramedy cocktail is mixed with such crowd-pleasing astuteness you might almost feel guilty – there's nothing very art house going on here past the subtitles. Resistance is futile, however: Good Bye, Lenin! is easily the most satisfying release of the year so far. Fiercely dedicated East German Christiane (Katrin Sass) collapses into a coma after she witnesses the impossible: hordes openly defying the state, marching in the streets for the right to "take walks without a wall getting in the way," as son Alex (Daniel Bruehl) puts it. When she wakes months later, history's course has drastically shifted. But since the doctor urges that her weak heart be protected from any excitement, Alex is determined to hide this news at any cost. Thus the family flat becomes a tenuously sealed bubble of prereunification life – but reality keeps finding new cracks to leak through. Good Bye, Lenin! transcends a gimmicky premise to make the central charade's construction and teardown work on several levels. The ingenious script might be accused of emotional string-pulling – that is, if its characters didn't seem so full-bodied or the cumulative effect weren't so unexpectedly poignant. (1:58) Embarcadero, Empire, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Hellboy Entertaining as, well, hell, this comic book-adapted tale from director Guillermo Del Toro (Blade II) is right-on in so many ways: the pacing, the special effects (though C.G.-heavy, the action rarely looks phony), and the casting, especially Ron Perlman (TV's Beauty and the Beast) as the titular hell-spawned hero. At first, Perlman seemed like an odd choice for the role – he's kinda old, and he's not exactly a big movie star – but he nails it, making Hellboy a sarcastic, takin'-care-of-business type whose softer side emerges whenever his crush, the pyrokinetic Liz (Selma Blair), enters the picture. The plot – a pair of ageless Nazis and a supernatural Rasputin plan to destroy humankind, but they need Hellboy's underworld connections to do it – is ridiculous, but Del Toro, Perlman, and company handily ensure this isn't another superhero stinker (Daredevil, anyone?) (1:52) Balboa, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Home on the Range Rumor has it that Disney is planning to phase out traditionally animated features (as opposed to the computer-graphics likes of Toy Story), and this disappointing new film isn't likely to reverse that unfortunate decision. Their owners' debt-coagulated dairy farm threatened with foreclosure, three cows (voiced by Rosanne Barr, Dame Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly – together at last!) and a blustery stallion (Cuba Gooding Jr.) venture into the wide open prairie to hopefully capture cattle rustler-land baron Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) and the reward money that comes with him. Curiously, the movie looks more like old Warner Brothers cartoons than anything from the Mouse House – you almost expect Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, and Yosemite Sam to peek from the sagebrush here. But memorable characters and slapstick vigor are missing from this innocuous baby-sitting creation, which isn't outright bad but falls short of the studio's otherwise high average in recent years. Singers deployed to croon Alan Menken's mock-country songs include k.d. lang, Tim McGraw, and Bonnie Raitt. (1:16) Century 20, Oaks. (Harvey)

*I'm Not Scared Despite the film's title, it's impossible not to be frightened by how heinous adult behavior can be, especially when it involves kidnapping and imprisoning a young boy in a muddy hole. Director Gabriele Salvatores (Mediterraneo) looks back at a politically turbulent 1978 Italy. Racked by poverty, residents of a tiny rural settlement in the Puglia region seek an easy solution, holding for ransom a boy from an affluent home. All goes well until 10-year-old Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) discovers the prisoner, ultimately learning that grown-ups don't always walk the straight and narrow. Salvatores implements horror conventions only to throw us off; the bulk of this stunning work resonates with coming-of-age themes and elegiac visual grace. Paying homage to Victor Erice's Spirit of the Beehive, Salvatores chooses a stark rural backdrop for Michele's exposure to adulthood, and thankfully, doesn't conclude with phony moralism. (1:41) Albany, Embarcadero. (Kim)

*Intermission The closest thing to crassness in Intermission is how readily it exploits Colin Farrell's bad-boy image. The very first thing we see is Farrell's Lehiff in jittery, snake oil-selling close-up, chatting up a café waitress whom he suddenly nose-dislocates – the better to rob her cash box. He then dashes off, too crazy to be caught just yet. It's certain he'll trigger more havoc in the next 100 minutes, a bull zigzagging through other people's emotional china shops. Scenarist Mark O'Rowe's hit play Howie the Rookie concerned a mattress full o' scabies. His first screen effort finds equally vivid ways for myriad human interactions to embarrass, confound, and cause amusing pain before healing ointments are applied. In a quintessential contemporary Irish dramaturgical way, O'Rowe's language is gorgeous, gutter-slangy, and hugely enjoyable despite being almost impenetrable to foreign ears. Another significant youngish Irish theater talent, John Crowley, makes his feature-film debut directing. Even if he allows Intermission to look like fook-all (no one with a name as grandiose as Ryszard Lenczewski should be capable of cinematography this ugly), there's so much going on that after 10 minutes you'll forget cinema was supposed to be a visual medium. (1:46) Bridge. (Harvey)

Johnson Family Vacation Road trip movies have it easy. There's no real need for plot development, settings can suddenly change when they get old, and scenes that don't work can be ditched along the highway. So it's surprising when a vacation flick with all the right cards (stars Cedric the Entertainer and Steve Harvey, plus a tricked-out Lincoln Navigator) can end up so incredibly dull. Determined father Nate Johnson (Cedric) takes his wife and kids to Missouri to attend a family reunion, but the three-day journey sees them thrown in jail, encased in cement, cursed by the Antichrist (a hot but completely miscast Shannon Elizabeth), threatened by an alligator – you know, that sort of stuff. A mediocre script curbs Cedric's talent as a side-splitting comic, forcing the portly comedian into a tame family-man role with nothing really interesting to say. Hoping that the episodes and pit stops will get funnier proves to be fruitless, while the genuinely funny gags are like call boxes on the interstate – few and many miles in between. (1:35) Century 20. (Kim)

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 Twelve years after Reservoir Dogs and a decade after Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino is finally doing what might be considered real work again. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 was, ever so marginally, worth the wait. Sure, it was an exercise in pure style without content. But it gave great eye-ear candy, made Uma Thurman an action heroine at last (no, The Avengers doesn't count), and was funny, beautiful, and surprising enough at times to make expensive cineaste camp seem maybe justifiable after all. But carryover goodwill dies distressingly soon in Vol. 2. While one expects even quirkier ideas and grander set pieces, things instead start off slug-slow, and stay that way. Nothing here is as stylistically bold as the first film's anime episode, and no action choreography approaches the first's restaurant massacre. Instead there's just the Passion of Uma, as her Bride grimly endures one near-death pummeling after another. (2:00) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

*The Ladykillers Subtlety is all but absent from this remake of Alexander Mackendrick's 1955 comedy, but modest cajolery is hardly appropriate when a British classic moves to the sweltering South. An unlikely team of thieves assembles in the basement of Gospel-loving Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall), convincing her that they're Rococo-period church musicians. But instead of making holy music, they tunnel their way to the bank reserves of a nearby casino boat and filch several million in cash. All goes according to plan until Mrs. Munson discovers their secret, so the blundering bandits spend the rest of the movie trying to silence her for good. Tom Hanks plays Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, the delightfully prolix ringleader of the group, nailing his first comic role in over a decade with a nebulous Southern/British accent. The Coen brothers' grossly overstated characters provide most of the fun here, and while the writing-directing duo hasn't brought back its "A" game after last year's disappointing Intolerable Cruelty, this farce will have you in stitches nearly throughout. (1:56) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Kim)

Latter Days The timing couldn't be better for a movie about a gay Mormon to open in San Francisco. Religious controversy and gay rights seem to be the topics of the year, and writer-director C. Jay Cox manages to cover both bases with his first feature. A closeted Mormon missionary (Steve Sandvoss) moves to L.A. to proselytize the bacchanalian Hollywooders, only to end up falling for a hunky queen named – ironic metaphor alert – Christian (Wes Ramsey). Drastic life changes and paradigm shifts ensue, but, as a line in a laundry room scene suggests, perhaps the two are like whites and colors: they just don't mix. Segregationist propaganda aside, you'll sob out your tear ducts if you're the type to program the VCR for daytime soaps, but the Mormon-bashing melodrama gets tiresome after a while. Forced monologues punctuate the story with rhythmic predictability, often taking time away from resolving the film's several unsettled conflicts. Cox's project boasts plenty of man-on-man action, but overall it's too much of a standard tearjerker to be controversial. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Kim)

Laws of Attraction Ally McBeal meets Sex in the City in this smug romance, which pairs two unlikely stars in even less likely circumstances. An upper-echelon divorce attorney named Audrey (Julianne Moore, in one of her what-was-I-thinking roles) squares off with the new barrister in town (Pierce Brosnan), meeting her match in both the courtroom and the bed. The hotshot lawyers take opposite sides in a high-profile case, which conveniently sets up the conflict of their ironic, mostly inebriated romance. Boasting one of the most contrived plots in movie history, Laws of Attraction is still good for at least a quick laugh, albeit one prefaced with groans and a slap to the forehead. To enjoy yourself (and it is possible), you'll have to toss your disbelief, overlook Audrey's punk-rocking mother, and pretend you're not already sure what'll happen in the next scene. Hey, it's romantic comedy – thinking hard just makes it worse. (1:39) Century Plaza, Century 20, Four Star, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, Shattuck. (Kim)

*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) Oaks. (Macias)

Man on Fire Jean-Paul Sartre once declared, "Hell is other people"; I'll posit that a two-and-one-half-hour assault and battery from director Tony Scott (Top Gun and other flash 'n' crash offenders too numerous to mention) might be a close contender for second place. An ex-military man (Denzel Washington) with a heavy conscience takes a bodyguard gig in Mexico City during a rash of corruption and kidnappings. He develops a bond with his ward (Dakota Fanning), who predictably gets snatched; he predictably goes apeshit. What initially seems like a move toward character development via Scott's uncharacteristic first-act restraint – nearly an hour passes before the pyrotechnics start – would be admirable were it not just knee-jerk emotional manipulation set up to justify the third-act brutality. By the time the avenging-angel act reaches red-level proportions, not even Washington's charismatic eye-of-the-storm calmness can temper this prolonged marathon of cheap pathos and pain. (2:26) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Fear)

*Mean Girls Tina Fey, head Saturday Night Live writer and ruler of the snarky universe, pens (and costars in) a hilariously biting teen movie imbued with subtle sympathy. Sixteen-year-old Cady (Lindsay Lohan) enters high school with wide eyes (she was home-schooled in Africa) and is taken in by the ruling trio of perfect bitchy girls. These ladies have killer demolition techniques, pulled straight from Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes, a survival guide to femmelet warfare and inspiration for Fey's screenplay. Cady is supposedly spying on the "plastics" for her real, less-popular friends, but soon she's seduced, and director Mark Waters shows us why. When the evil ones emerge from a convertible to the tune of Kelis's "Milkshake" song, they kinda kick ass. But next Waters ridicules the image, as someone too old (a mom who still thinks she's a teenager) and too young (a little sister who gyrates to Britney videos) obscenely imitates them. Lohan, as Cady, skillfully travels to the dark side and back, bringing her school's girl population with her. Some moral reckoning at the end makes for Mean Girls' only trite notes. (1:37) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Koh)

*Monsieur Ibrahim If you only see one cinéaste's dream of Paris in the '60s this year – well, Monsieur Ibrahim doesn't have the fake sex, but in all other respects it's a whole lot better than The Dreamers. Monsieur Ibrahim is a coming-of-age nostalgia flick no edgier than that phrase implies. But its sweetness is genuine, and the showcased performances are very, very good. His mother having died, Momo (Pierre Boulanger) is stuck playing underappreciated housekeeper to a sullen father (Gilbert Melki). But the poor, working girl-dominated environs that depress dad are catnip to Momo's flaring adolescent nostrils. By the time pop has fled in general shame and self-loathing, our young Jewish protagonist has already lost his virginity, earned points toward a respectable first girlfriend, and landed a much better substitute father figure in M. Ibrahim, a.k.a. "the Arab" (Omar Sharif), who runs the dusty corner market. Slowly expanding from chamber dramedy as their relationship gradually deepens, François Dupeyron's feature turns into a road movie as soulful as it is picturesque. I could have done without the final turn to melodramatic tragedy, but that's a minor quibble. Sharif's performance suggests he's been waiting a lifetime for this role, which awakens something beautiful behind those famously liquid eyes. (1:35) Balboa, Empire, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Morning Sun Even folks with limited knowledge of Chinese history will be fascinated by Morning Sun, an eye-opening account of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) as remembered by men and women who experienced it as high schoolers. With straightforward honesty, the interviewees – everyone from the daughter of a "bad family," meaning her parents were viewed suspiciously by high-ups in Chairman Mao's regime, to a founding member of the militant, revolution-obsessed Red Guards – recall a time of paranoia, brutality, conformity, fear, great hope and excitement, and confusion. News footage, family photographs, propaganda movie clips, and a filmed performance of the 1964 pro-Communism stage spectacle The East Is Red are used to illustrate the subjects' stories, illuminating why the time period still resonates so deeply with this particular generation. (1:57) Little Roxie. (Eddy)

NASCAR 3D: The Imax Experience Spectacular car crashes and position jockeying at 200 mph outta be perfect fodder for the pie-in-face immediacy of 3-D Imax. Yet somehow this routine short feature about "America's most popular spectator sport" mysteriously fails to offer much vicarious, visceral excitement. It's also a blandly politic, corporate promo-style look at an inherently trashy sport, with no room for the colorful star drivers or fans to fly their freak flags. There are scattered behind-the-scenes points of interest, and the 3-D technology is the best (i.e., least headache-inducing) I've ever seen, even if it's not used very vividly. But as coproduced by the NASCAR organization itself, this "experience" is as stolidly patriotic, wart free, and unrevealing as an Army recruitment reel. Similarly, it is best appreciated by those who would like to join up, and/or are males between the ages of 7 and 14. (:48) Metreon IMAX. (Harvey)

The Passion of the Christ Mel Gibson has attained the top it's lonely at, where one can only lie down on stinging nettles of depression and paranoia. By his account, making The Passion of the Christ was a cleansing experience – more, it pulled him back from confessed suicidal urges. The clearest (secular) way to view this movie is as an act of penance. But just as Gibson's heroes recently have become humorless champions of family values against barbarian invasion – e.g., Signs, The Patriot, Vietnam apologia We Were Soldiers – so the directorial effort Passion uses sadism to express masochism. It stages the ultimate story of "faith, hope, and love" (Gibson's words) as unending slaughter. If you thought Braveheart almost lunatic in its brutality, welcome to the ninth circle of this mortal coil's hellfire. The rare mainstream film rated R solely for violence, it's not about the higher good but rather the lower bad. Choosing to portray only Jesus's last 12 mortal hours, Gibson has über-mall-flicked the Greatest Story Ever Told: there's nothing left now but jolting climax after climax, the Savior's body here profaned as Los Angeles freeways in yet another Lethal Weapon. (2:07) Galaxy. (Harvey)

The Punisher In this Marvel Comics-spawned tale, deep-cover FBI agent Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) thinks only of blissful retirement after completing one last deadly mission. Too bad local kingpin Howard Saint (John Travolta) blames Castle for his beloved son's gory demise – and turns Castle's tropical family reunion into a slaughterhouse. Aside from a few lively moments involving a pair of oddball assassins, The Punisher, as directed by veteran schlockbuster scripter Jonathan Hensleigh (The Rock, Armageddon), never quite comes together as the satisfying annihilation-fest it's meant to be. Maybe it's because Castle's a little too enigmatic to cheer for; beyond the early scenes with his doomed wife and kid, he's characterized mainly by his Wild Turkey habit, as well as an extravagant number of shadowy shots glorifying his shirtless torso. (2:04) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Robot Stories Built around the themes of love, death, family, and of course robots, Korean director Greg Pak's Robot Stories beautifully styles four tales. Through narratives both hilarious and touching, humans are forced to interact with robots in a way that eerily reflects the growing influence technology has on our lives. A young couple must prove themselves worthy of adopting a human child by caring for a robot infant in "My Robot Baby." When her son is left in a coma after a car accident, a mother dedicates herself to repairing his toy collection in order to connect with him, becoming "The Robot Fixer." iPerson Archie (a human cyborg played by Pak) learns to need "Machine Love" in his oppressive office job surrounded by off-kilter coworkers. "Clay" deals with a dying sculptor given the chance to download his consciousness into a computer and achieve digital immortality, provided he gives up his mortal body. Each story is stunningly executed and moving in its own right. (1:25) Balboa, California. (Melissa McCartney)

Sacred Planet When watching an Imax film, you're supposed to feel awe – like it's 1896, and you're in the front row watching Lumiere's "Train Entering a Station" – at the sheer wonder of the documentary form. These days it's not the ability to make moving images that creates awe, but, apparently, the size of those images. And bigger is truly better in the Robert Redford-narrated Sacred Planet, which touches down on some of the most pristine areas of Thailand, Borneo, British Columbia, and New Zealand in its attempt to make environmentalists of 10-year-olds. The filmmakers engage a few clichés en route (time-lapse photography, be it sunset-through-sunrise cycle or hyperspeed city traffic, just doesn't cut it), but doesn't old Mother Earth deserve 45 minutes of your time? (:45) Metreon IMAX. (Gerhard)

*Shaolin Soccer Finally – after multiple release-date changes, a dubbing vs. subtitles debate (subtitles won, thank goodness), the excising of some 20 minutes of footage, and a brief period when the title was rumored have been changed to Kung Fu Soccer – the 2001 Hong Kong smash opens stateside. And the wait was worth it: you'd be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining film, especially if you're already a fan of goofy Hong Kong comedies. With its many high-flying special effects, Shaolin Soccer could be dubbed Bend It like the Matrix: director-star Stephen Chow ("the Jim Carrey of the East") plays Sing, a.k.a. "Mighty Steel Leg," who believes Shaolin kung fu is the answer to everything (including tight parking spots). After meeting a disgraced former soccer star known as "Golden Leg," an inspired Sing rounds up his huge array of brothers, all of whom are gifted fighters who've fallen onto hard times (one's fat, one's depressed, one's unemployed, etc.) Under the leadership of Golden Leg, Team Shaolin trains with one goal in mind: to defeat the dreaded Team Evil in the championship match. Along the way, spontaneous dance routines, Bruce Lee homages, awesome on-field antics, and Chow's infectious energy elevate Shaolin Soccer far above the usual underdog sports tale, and into must-see territory. (1:40) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring Beauty and brutality mix like oil and water in another gorgeously shot film from Kim Ki-duk. This one follows a man's life in and out of a floating Buddhist monastery through one set of seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter, and another – youthful folly, teen lust, full-grown vengeance, and adult penitence. Like 2000's The Isle, which had its own shocking hook, this film lulls you into a dream state with its water-lapping-up-on-a-shore pace, then lowers the boom – with indelible tragicomic images. (1:43) Albany, Embarcadero. (Gerhard)

Stupidity This snarky Canadian documentary purports to be a history and analysis of the titular quality that has perhaps influenced the course of humanity more than any other. There are some interesting educational tidbits (the origin for the dunce cap and word moron, etc.), but mostly what we've got here are rote potshots at reality TV, dumbed-down news coverage, George W., and other de-evolutionary signs o' the times. Writer-director Albert Nerenberg treats his subject less as a thesis than as a catchall into which everything from lying politicians, police violence, and interviewed people-on-the-street saying "Um" can be dumped. He decries the short-attention-span pandering of modern media culture, yet Stupidity itself is a perfect example of that approach. It's also padded out with irrelevant footage from Nerenberg's Trailervision Internet trailers for fake Hollywood movies (e.g., Rave Cops, Harry Potter, Hidden Dragon), which kinda blows the whole "documentary" conceit. A few among the 136 Trailervision titles to date will be screened before this thinly amusing, short feature. (1:10) Little Roxie. (Harvey)

13 Going on 30 "I wanna be 30, flirty, and thriving," 13-year-old Jenna Rink sobs to herself after her birthday bash is ruined by Tom-Tom, the most popular (and meanest) girl in her class. Thanks to some magical wishing dust inadvertently supplied by Jenna's dorky best friend, Matt, the Rick Springfield-loving teen is transformed into a full-grown, Manhattan-dwelling magazine editor, complete with a wardrobe Carrie Bradshaw would envy. Tadpole director Gary Winick's 13 Going on 30 owes a lot to a certain Tom Hanks comedy, though in this telling, kid-adult Jenna (Jennifer Garner) time travels as well, fast-forwarding through her own life from 1987 to 2004. Since she has no memory of those intervening years, Jenna's horrified to realize her 30-year-old self has a reputation as a scorching bitch who terrifies her employees, ignores her family, and – most heartbreakingly – has turned her back on once-devoted Matt (Mark Ruffalo). Fresh-faced Garner, who's best known for playing a superspy on Alias, proves highly likable as the game, goofy Jenna. (1:40) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Touching the Void Mountaineering documentaries generally suffer from the fact that you aren't there, while dramatized ones are either physically unconvincing or have jaw-dropping stunts but wooden characters. Hitherto a notable nonfiction director (One Day in September), Kevin Macdonald chose to realize this adaptation of Joe Simpson's classic 1988 bum-adventure memoir as a mix of documentary and reenactment, which brings its own problems but overall works pretty well. Simpson and his hiking partner Simon Yates alternate telling the tale in talking-head style while two actors (Brendan Mackey and Nicholas Aaron) register varying degrees of panic, exhaustion, and horror high in the Alps (standing in for the Andes). Touching the Void defines the subgenre of "armchair near death-experience travel;" the story is an incredible triumph over impossible odds. But as a viewer who actually enjoys grueling, steep hikes but draws the line when falling equals death, I couldn't help thinking, "These dumb suckers were sooooooo lucky!" from the opening titles to the final credit crawl. (1:46) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

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

*Young Adam Those looking for Dreamers-style exotica and soft-core thrills are barking up the wrong movie: while this somber study of working-class Glaswegians during the glum 1950s does have sex, it's of the furtive, deglammed, real-people-rutting type you might expect in an updated Angry Young Man flick. Ewan McGregor plays Joe, a young drifter who wanders into working on the coal barge operated by easygoing Les (Peter Mullan), owned by his wife, Ella (Tilda Swinton). Though Joe isn't particularly gregarious, his presence relaxes an atmosphere rather clouded by marital strain. Things have relaxed a little too much, however, when Ella and Joe commence jumping each other's bones. Meanwhile, Joe is haunted by memories of his romance with Cathie (Emily Mortimer), part of the very different life he's recently abandoned – and a sequence of events whose end might well be connected to the drowned woman he and Les pull from the drink at the start. The excellent cast and adapter-director David Mackenzie's deft approach – withdrawn yet intense – to an almost-too-internalized story make Young Adam a generally downbeat film that's nonetheless thoroughly satisfying. (1:38) Act I and II, Empire, Lumiere. (Harvey)

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