The Adventures of Iron Pussy (Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Michael Shaowanasai, Thailand, 2003) Q: What do you get when the world's most inventively resourceful new filmmaker dons stylistic drag? A: The Adventures of Iron Pussy, a silly but also sublime feature-length video by Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul. The sweet spirit of Blissfully Yours's credit sequence flavors all of this messy confection; it's a triple-layer musical-romance-adventure cake covered with soap-opera icing that contains more IQ points than calories. Weerasethakul indulges every freeze-frame (or Pause button), split-screen, and establishing-shot impulse – the low-budget visual wonders include sparkly Kylie appliqué, 7-Eleven cash registers that broadcast spy instructions, pink and blue subtitles for masculine-feminine duets, Méliès-style moonfaced pix, and a tiger hunt worthy of a cobra woman. Decked out in high-heeled white boots, copious frilly tulle, and a That Girl do, codirector Michael Shaowanasai's go-go boy-gone-good girl title character is multifaceted yet always perfectly apposite – her clutched-bosom expressions of shock never fail to showcase divinely painted nails. Iron Pussy is your avenging hero tonight. June 23, 9 p.m., Grand Lake; June 25, 10:15 p.m., Roxie. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Anonymous (Todd Verow, USA, 2003) Todd Verow's Frisk, the writer-director's unflinchingly brutal debut, may have prompted Frameline viewers in 1995 to scream at the screen and leave early, but his latest work will only send them home yawning. Narcissistic and affectedly ponderous, Anonymous stars Verow as an aimless cinema manager (also named Todd) who works the Internet-dating circuit when he's not masturbating or strip-dancing in his office. One fateful afternoon his boyfriend, John, catches Todd cheating in a public bathroom stall, beats him to a bloody pulp, and throws him out of their apartment. The rest of this tedious film shows Todd wandering the city streets, dejected and hopelessly bad at decision-making but still as horny as ever. The film's secondary characters have about as much depth as cardboard cutouts, while potentially interesting ones – like the eerily mesmeric Linda – never get the chance to do much. But for all its stilted gravity, Anonymous has little inhibition in the coupling department; nearly every contrived encounter between male characters includes a cue for graphic sex. If it's dully written voyeur candy you want, you'll get more than your fair share. Sun/20, 9:30 p.m., Herbst. (Dave Kim)

Callas Forever (Franco Zeffirelli, Italy/France/Spain/U.K./Romania, 2002) Franco Zeffirelli tried and failed to film Maria Callas as Tosca, and his movie version of La traviata attempted to transform Teresa Stratas into La Divina (whom he eulogizes at length in the best of many Callas documentaries). At the beginning of Zeffirelli's latest homage, a jet touches down on the runway to the strains of ... the Clash. "Complete Control," the title of the song Zeffirelli uses, was something Callas knew plenty about, but that incongruous choice is just the first of countless daffy ingredients here. Joe Strummer and company stand in for the sound of Bad Dreams, a band managed by Larry Kelly (ever haughty Jeremy Irons, equipped with clip-on ponytail). Greeted by Joan Plowright (as an Elsa Maxwell-type reporter), Kelly arrives in Paris in 1977 with an underlying scheme to rescue Callas (Fanny Ardant) from her self-imposed grieving exile by asking her to lip-synch those pesky real-life troubles away in film versions of her greatest recordings. The ludicrous idea that she would even consider such a project is the basis for Zeffirelli's nostalgic fantasy, which presents an Onassis-as-Scarpia comparison as revelation. Stylistically, the director doesn't need to re-create the era – he seems permanently stuck there. Ardant aptly mimics Callas's calculated wide-eyed coquettishness but scarcely hints at her fury. She's been McNally-ed and Dunaway-ed to oblivion and beyond, but Callas's talent still dwarfs those who evoke or attack her legend. Sun/20, 6:30 p.m., Castro. (Huston)

Father and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia/Germany, 2003) "A father's love crucifies. A loving son lets himself be crucified." This homily, repeated twice during Aleksandr Sokurov's new movie, serves as a gate into the director's intensely physical and spiritual examination of paternal bonds. Recent Russian cinema, facing militaristic political and historical wounds, has foregrounded this subject matter; last year's Koktobel and The Return cover similar terrain, and Sokurov's movie shares specific elements with the latter – in particular, a near mythic vision of masculinity on the precipice. The Danny, Champion of the World-like filial passion beneath the plotline of the gray-hued Return floats to the golden-tinted surface of Sokurov's film, yet the result is a work of even subtler beauty and greater mystery. Some might consider Father and Son's presence in a gay fest questionable, especially since Sokurov – who views the movie as the second part of a familial trilogy, following 1997's comparatively morbid Mother and Son – has dismissed references to homoeroticism as the product of "sick European minds." Homoromanticism (perhaps more taboo, even in gay films) might be a better term, because the many sweet-eyed stare-downs and half-clothed grappling sessions here undeniably add up to a sincere love story, as attuned to love's repressive elements as it is swept up by love's power. June 24, 9:30 p.m., Roxie. (Huston)

The Graffiti Artist (James Bolton, USA, 2003) The city of Portland, Ore., is a silent, half-empty, connectionless place in this second feature by James Bolton, whose Eban and Charley screened at Frameline in 2000. That may be because we're experiencing it while trailing after the title character, Nick (Ruben Bansie-Snellman), a mesmerizingly solitary teenage skater boy who conveys his thoughts to the camera mainly via staring, near-microscopic facial movements, and incredibly expressive eyebrows. As the camera tracks his nightly spray-can treks across the city and daily returns to document his work, we get a sense of compulsive devotion – from the character as well as the filmmaker, who records the progress of each piece with loving patience until it's done or the cops come. The minutes tick by, mostly in silence except for the soundtrack by Kid Loco, and the film becomes a kind of Jeanne Dielman for the tagger crowd – that is, until Nick meets fellow skater and graffiti artist Jesse. Watching Nick fall – or at least feel something – for Jesse is strangely moving, considering the monosyllabic, "yo, dude" quality of their exchanges. And when things go awry, listening to him attempt to articulate the barest fragment of whatever he's feeling in skater-boy patois is both sweetly comical and totally heartrending. Recommended for skaters and skater-haters. With "The Whiz Kids." Fri/18, 6 p.m., Herbst; Mon/21, 4 p.m., Castro. (Lynn Rapoport)

Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality (Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, USA, 2004) Here's the question you never wanted to know the answer to, and therefore didn't have to be too afraid to ask: was Hitler gay? Who better to look for an answer than Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the makers of Party Monster and The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a pair who seem to salivate at the contradictions that inevitably flow from moral corruptions. Pirate ship Bailey-Barbato manages to make a picayune argument between German scholars fascinating, as the archives are pillaged for signs of Hitler's homosexuality. It's a truly interesting debate, one that raises as many questions about those who want to squelch the research as it does about the unknowable history itself. Fri/18, 3 p.m., Castro. (Susan Gerhard)

Resisting Paradise (Barbara Hammer, USA, 2003) Letters from Henri Matisse to Pierre Bonnard, so candid they often sound like diary entries, provide some of the voice-over material in Barbara Hammer's latest documentary. Filming in Cassis, the fishing village in southern France where Matisse spent the last years of his life, Hammer often pairs the painter's thoughts with her own images that capture varieties of color and patterns of light and shadow. Documentaries are rarely as lyrical as Resisting Paradise. But as the title of her film suggests, Hammer is also concerned with the political actions – mostly by female members of Matisse's family – that made his final paradisical visions possible. As she interviews his grandchildren and surviving resistance fighters such as Lisa Fittko (who spirited Walter Benjamin across the Pyrenees mountains) and Marie-Ange Allibert Rodriguez, the war that surrounded Matisse's and Bonnard's artistic landscapes enters the film's picture. Posing a pair of timely questions – "What are our responsibilities during political crises?" and "How can art exist during a time of war?" – Hammer looks to Fittko and others for answers as she attempts to find her own. June 24, 7:30 p.m., Roxie. (Huston)

Shiner (Christian Calson, USA, 2003) Sex and violence are the main characters of Christian Calson's fragmented narrative, which sets up four sexually charged conflicts that reach an early plateau and remain stagnant. Offering little more than moody, aqua-dominated lighting and vicious fight scenes, bloodthirsty Shiner can't integrate its multiple plots smoothly enough to resemble a coherent work. Deeply disturbed individuals dominate the screen, including a masochistic homophobe named Danny (Derris Nile), a tormented boxer with a sketchy night job (David Zelina), and a closeted stalker who lives with his mother (Nicholas King). Confrontations between characters usually turn violent, punctuated by rhythmic cuts to masturbators and heterosexual lovers. Calson's dialogue is amateurish at best, while his contemplative pauses evoke a weighty subtext that, upon closer inspection, doesn't actually exist. Shiner works well as an exercise in highly stylized montage, but the rest of its 89 minutes is full of clichés, poor acting, and disjointed sensationalism. Fri/18, 10:30 p.m., Castro. (Kim)

Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis (Craig Highberger, USA, 2003) Carol Burnett adored Jackie Curtis, and Robert DeNiro made his acting debut in one of Curtis's plays. As one friend notes, Curtis was undeniably the "brains" of the Paul Morrissey-era Andy Warhol drag constellation. Yet his/her many poems and plays remain scattered throughout realms far more obscure than the dustiest library corner, while resident beauty Candy Darling – who favored eyeliner pencil over ink-filled pen – has had two books posthumously published. One hopes this documentary helps remedy that situation, because it showcases abundant alliteration-motored wit: Curtis's reading of the poem "B-Girls" could teach most better-known authors valuable tricks about writing and reciting. Like the recent Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story, Craig Highberger's movie is a biography for nonreaders. Pie had a living, ranting subject to grapple with; in contrast, Highberger gathers a colorful bouquet of admirers – Harvey Fierstein and Lily Tomlin (who also narrates) are two of the milder blooms on display – to sing the praises of a late, great icon. The production values aren't on the level of the recent doc portrait of the Cockettes, whose equally trailblazing antics Highberger leaves out of this picture. But that's a tiny quibble – Superstar in a Housedress gives Curtis the star treatment (s)he deserves. Sun/20, 10 p.m., Roxie. (Huston)