The 28th annual San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival runs through Sun/27. Venues are the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; Roxie Cinema, 3117 16th St, SF; Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand, Oakl; and Parkway Theater, 1834 Park, Oakl. For more information call (925) 866-9559 or go to www.frameline.org/festival. For commentary see last week's Bay Guardian. All times are pm unless otherwise noted.

Wed/23

Castro "My Best Kept Secret" (shorts program) 1:30. The Wind, in the Evening 4. Proteus 6:30. Goldfish Memory 9:15.

Herbst Drag Kings on Tour 6:30. Twist 9.

Roxie In My Father's Church and Just(ly) Married 6. Laramie Inside Out 8:15. "The D Word" (shorts program) 10.

Grand Lake Journey to Karifistan 6:30. The Adventures of Iron Pussy 9.

Thurs/24

Castro A Swiss Rebel: Annemarie Schwarzenbach 1908-1942 2. "Amores Locos: Latin Gay Shorts" (shorts program) 4. Round Trip 6:30. Sugar 9.

Herbst The Assassinated Sun 6:30. Inescapable 9.

Roxie Liberty: 3 Stories About Life and Death 6. Resisting Paradise 7:30. Father and Son 9:30.

Grand Lake Kevin's Room 2: Trust 6:30. Un amour de femme 9.

Fri/25

Castro "The Antipodeans: New Gay Films from Australia" (shorts program) 1:30. "Skool's Out: New Films by Queer Youth" (shorts program) 3:30. Harry and Max 6. Go Fish: Tenth Anniversary 8. Raspberry Reich 11.

Herbst Tying the Knot 6. Brother to Brother 8. Make a Wish 10:15.

Roxie Rainbow Pride 6. Venus of Mars 8. The Adventures of Iron Pussy 10:15.

Sat/26

Castro "It's All Right to Cry: Kids' Matinee" (shorts program) 11:30am. The Truth or Consequences of Delmas Howe 1:15. April's Shower 3:30. Testosterone 6. Hellbent 8:30.

Herbst "Girls by the Bay" (shorts program) 12:30. "Boys by the Bay" (shorts program) 3. The Tasty Bust Reunion 5:15. Arisan! 7. "Crime and Passion" (shorts program) 9:45.

Roxie Kevin's Room 2: Trust noon. Saints and Sinners 2. Almost There and Yellow Peppers 4. "Fun in Girls' Shorts" (shorts program) 6:30. "Fun in Boys' Shorts" (shorts program) 8:30.

Sun/27

Castro You I Love noon. Alice 2. "Euro Trip" (shorts program) 4. D.E.B.S. 7:30.

Opening

Facing Windows Holocaust survivor Davide (the late Massimo Girotti) suffers a memory lapse and wanders the streets of Rome, mistaking the modern Italian cityscape for the restive, war-torn Rome of 1943. A bitchy young accountant named Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and her husband, Filippo, come to Davide's aid, letting the confused senior stay in their apartment till they can figure out who he is or where he lives. But the couple have plenty of their own problems and soon – in a subplot that virtually douses out the main narrative – Giovanna falls for a neighboring stud (Under the Tuscan Sun's Raoul Bova) whom she's been ogling through her window each night. Writer-director Ferzan Ozpetek examines Davide's anguished past without flashbacks, deftly integrating past and present in the same subjective film space – 1940s characters mingle with present-day ones, steady pans signify historical change, and memory becomes indistinguishable from reality. But the director's flashy in-camera maneuvers, namely his relentless use of spiral tracking shots, end up distracting the viewer from the already unfocused, multilayered narrative. (1:46) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Kim)

*Fahrenheit 9/11 See "Fahrenheit 9/11." (1:50) California, Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

*The Five Obstructions See "Leth Is More." (1:30) Act I and II, Lumiere.

The Notebook See Movie Clock. (2:01) Century Plaza, Century 20, Four Star, Grand Lake, Orinda.

Oasis A film as formally scattered and out of control as its characters – a criminal sociopath with a winningly curdled grin and a severely challenged woman – Lee Chang-dong's Oasis takes a radical turn toward (brutalizing) sentimentality. Given that this South Korean screenwriter turned director's previous work, Green Fish and Peppermint Candy, depended on intricate plotting and precise structures to make many of their political points, this combination of ugly urbanism, set-devouring overacting, and occasional flights of magic realism is particularly jarring. Is it progress? Well, at least some aspects of current South Korean cinema remain true to its past: stand and cheer for leading misfit Sol Kyung-gu – who's as brilliant as his costar is preening – if you will, but this is still inescapably a film about a woman who falls in love with her rapist. (2:13) Galaxy. (Stephens)

Two Brothers From their parents' dramatic mating ritual onward, we follow twin tiger brothers Kumal and Sangha as explorer Aidan McRory (Guy Pearce) nabs and separates them, a circumstance that eventually leads to a feline battle to the death for the ringside entertainment of some other nasty humans. Take The Jungle Book and Free Willy, add a dash of The Parent Trap, and you've got Two Brothers; it's nothing terribly innovative in the world of epic animal cinema. There are points where director Jean-Jacques Annaud (Enemy at the Gates, The Bear) seems to aim for heart-wrenching but inadvertently winds up with comedy, and at times the film stinks of oversentimentality and predictability. Nonetheless, there are about 20 glorious seconds in the fight scene where Kumal and Sangha claw the shit out of each other, and plenty of opportunities for the animal lovers in the house to "awwww" in unison as baby tigers skip around doing nauseatingly cute things. (1:49) Century Plaza, Century 20, Shattuck. (Huang)

White Chicks So, like, black people are totally different from white people, and ohmigod, isn't it funny to watch those lovable Wayans brothers slap on prosthetic pale faces, ditch their urban drawls, and do Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer in reverse? But calling this one by the weighty term controversial would be fueling a nonexistent flame; White Chicks is meant to be taken lightly, so to speak, and if the race card does get dealt in this hand, it's played solely for a cheap laugh or two. After flubbing an easy assignment, FBI agents Kevin and Marcus (Shawn and Marlon Wayans, respectively) undergo rich-white-girl transformations, posing as hotel heiresses Tiffany and Brittany Wilson for a weekend in the Hamptons. Brash histrionics and dick 'n' fart jokes abound, dialogue plods along between decent gags, and the agents' ghastly disguises make suspension of disbelief damn near impossible. The film's real hero is buff-man actor Terry Crews, whose deadpan schmaltziness ekes out a laugh-out-loud moment whenever we start to lose interest. (1:45) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London. (Kim)

Ongoing

Around the World in 80 Days London, 1872. Would-be scientific innovator Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan) is humiliated into accepting a frivolous wager from dastardly, snobbish Lord Kelvin (Jim Broadbent): circle the globe in a finite amount of time (see title) or close up shop. Setting out with his mysterious but faithful new servant (Jackie Chan) and a French femme, Fogg embarks on his geographic adventure and in search of his destiny. And thus Jules Verne's classic tale gets turned into a mediocre chop-socky Chan vehicle, complete with the usual acrobatic kung fu set pieces diluted into repetition and banality. Unlike the celebrity-strewn 1956 version that vacuum-packed cameos into every scene, famous guests are kept to a low-key minimum (save for one gubernatorial figure playing a narcissistic lecher ... yeah, it's a stretch). Unfortunately, so is the excitement of the movie's source material; any natural talent on display here or inherent imagination gets the second class-citizen treatment, jettisoned in favor of more flavorless Disneyfied spectacle. (2:05) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Fear)

Baadasssss! After achieving some success with European features and one mainstream Hollywood film (Watermelon Man), writer-director Melvin Van Peebles scraped together enough cash to make Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, a 1971 tale "Starring the Black Community" (and himself, in that billing order) that proved a runaway success and – not unlike Do the Right Thing years later – was accused by some critics of inciting black-on-white racial violence. Since then, the film has been attributed with everything from kick-starting the blaxploitation movement (it certainly did provide a model, though it was hardly conceived in crass commercial terms) to originating American independent cinema (a stretch). Sweetback remains by turns crude, outrageous, avant-garde, dull, and politically radical – a great social artifact if not necessarily a great movie. Mario Van Peebles's Baadasssss! reconstructs the seat-of-pants creation of the original film, with dad (played by the second-generation writer-director) portrayed as equal parts visionary, driven, vulnerable, and egomaniacal – as well as an indifferent father to the son who's now made this tribute. Baadasssss! isn't a great movie either, for the different reason that Van Peebles Jr. has always been a journeyman rather than an inspired artist (New Jack City, Posse, Panther). Yet despite its unevenness and overlength, this dramatized family portrait is worth seeing, because the story behind Sweetback's making really is a striking instance of how much madness, self-sacrifice, and hard business goes into making filmic art. (1:48) Galaxy. (Harvey)

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) Balboa. (Kim)

The Chronicles of Riddick Pretty much everything that was great about Pitch Black – its simplicity, its horror elements, its interesting cast – is tossed aside for this so-so sequel, which favors huge C.G. landscapes and subplots complicated enough to fill a Sci-Fi Channel soap opera. Back for this orgy of excess are Pitch Black director David Twohy and variably charismatic star Vin Diesel. As it turns out, bad-guy-with-secret-heart-of-gold Riddick (Diesel) happens to be the only one who can save humankind from a gothed-out race of "Necromongers." Crammed into the fringes of the plot are Thandie Newton, who struts around in fantastic space-age gowns as a scheming Lady Macbeth type, and Judi Dench, supplying endless exposition (and, one hopes, picking up a fat paycheck for her troubles). (1:59) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Coffee and Cigarettes If Coffee and Cigarettes feels like little more than a smoke break before the next major Jim Jarmusch project, that's because it's composed of short films made between his past ones. Nicotine and caffeine consumption loosely unites the 10 segments (along with, to a lesser degree, a visual fascination with checkerboard patterns). Some try to get by on little more than name recognition – Jack and Meg White's Tesla coil demonstration, for example, coasts on "aren't we cute and cool" attitude. Other skits (Cate Blanchett as herself and as a resentful punk rock cousin; Alfred Molina fawning over a diffident Steve Coogan) bring an actorly sense of irreverence to the notion of celebrity. Jarmusch saves the best for last. "Delirium" lets Wu-Tang's RZA and GZA lecture a wasted-looking but feisty Bill Murray about the benefits of holistic health. Set in a dive bar on a sunny day, "Champagne" allows Taylor Mead – whose appearance certifies the film's Warhol debt – to show the nascent improvisers exactly how it should be done: with a worldly and weary sense of the absurd and enough imagination to pretend a Styrofoam cup of instant is a flute of Krug. (1:36) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Huston)

*Control Room Al-Jazeera – a fledgling and embattled network established in 1996 in Qatar that has since grown to serve 40 million Arab viewers – had already earned a rep for breaking stories and taboos about covering political corruption, religion, and the role of women in society. But after Sept. 11, 2001, al-Jazeera found itself the target of a new and ever more powerful enemy. Both President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have harshly criticized the network, but ironically – as Egyptian American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim's doc Control Room shows – it's been al-Jazeera's loyalty to the values the United States claims to support (democracy, freedom of expression), as well as journalistic standards rightly or wrongly associated with the West (independence, balance), that's defined the network as such a threat to the neocons. The film finds that it's actually U.S. media that were, in the words of al-Jazeera senior producer Samir Khader, one of the main characters in the film, "hijacked" by the Bush administration. (1:24) Bridge, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Camille T. Taiara)

*The Corporation Everything catchy and simple about despising George W. Bush doesn't apply to the incredibly complicated and kinda boring real stuff behind his smirking barn door. The genius of new Canadian documentary The Corporation is that it puts a sort of identifiable human-esque face on the infinitely tentacled green, white, and cyber-paper trail beast we ought really to be voting, legislating, protesting, and counter-investing to its knees. In a just world, every ticket to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 – destined now to become the one political documentary normally apolitical people will see, by the millions – would come with free admission to this invaluable primer, which measures the self-perpetuating system ultimately responsible for most of our international imbroglios. Drawing its basic thesis from Joel Bakan's crisp if dry tome The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Achbar and Jennifer Abbott channel their message through a bold organizational scheme that lets the focus jump around in interconnective, humorous, hit-and-run fashion. (2:25) Act I and II, Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Day after Tomorrow Some impressive special effects aside, this environmental disaster flick from director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) is about as exciting as watching water freeze. Which is what takes up a lot of screen time, along with a tedious story line about a climatologist (Dennis Quaid) hell-bent on reuniting with his oft-neglected son (Jake Gyllenhaal), who's stranded in snowed-under New York City as a new ice age rapidly engulfs the planet. Kudos to whoever decided the devastating effects of global warming deserved this kind of large-scale cinematic treatment, and especially to the folks twiddling the C.G. knobs. Ultimately, though, the cornball Day after Tomorrow proves once again that technical prowess can't make up the difference when all other elements – boring characters, a predictable plot, a thuddingly earnest script – remain subpar. (2:03) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

A Day Without a Mexican (1:40) Oaks, 1000 Van Ness.

*Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story Corporate fitness chain GloboGym (slogan: "We're better than you, and we know it!") wants to buy out rival gym Average Joe's, owned by slovenly everydude Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn). There's only one way La Fleur and his gang of lovable misfit regulars can keep their weight room open: win the $50k prize against GloboGym CEO White Goodman (Ben Stiller) and his goons in a pro dodgeball tournament. To say writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber exhausts the comic potential of folks being hit in the testicles by rubber balls is a vast understatement, yet surprisingly, his Zucker-esque approach to comedy – throw everything against a wall and see what sticks – vomits up enough genius moments around its playground-sadism subject that you almost forget the dead space. The first hour's Simpsons-esque satirical bite eventually gives way to a typical Snobs vs. Slobs sports movie parody, but there's so much sharp writing and crack timing in this little-comedy-that-could that its status as a quotable cult insta-classic is as inevitable as a nut-punch gag. (1:36) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London. (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) Empire, Galaxy. (Gerhard)

Garfield: The Movie Droll, curmudgeonly Bill Murray is probably the best choice to supply to voice of the famed orange feline, but even he falls flat in the ill-conceived Garfield: The Movie. Jim Davis's outdated strip about a lazy, boorish cat and his pathetic bachelor owner makes for terrible kiddie fodder, especially when watered down. Perhaps the film's producers have get-rich delusions about resuscitating the '80s suction-cup kitty phenomenon. Garfield (rendered suspiciously like a stuffed animal) lives the good life with aw-shucks owner Jon Arbuckle (Breckin Meyer) – until Arbuckle adopts dumb pooch Odie at the request of a pretty vet (Jennifer Love Hewitt), and the jealous cat sets about abusing the hapless pup. But when Odie runs away, Garfield sluggishly rescues him from an evil TV pet food pusher, learning about friendship in the process. If your child is drawn to fuzzy, jiggling objects, he or she might like this film, but I swear I heard eight-year-olds snoring at the screening. (1:25) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Koh)

*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) Opera Plaza, Red Vic. (Harvey)

*Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban The first two films adapted from J.K. Rowling's hugely popular series got the job done under the steady hand of director Chris Columbus. Here, director Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mama también) takes a moodier, less whimsical approach perfectly suited to Prisoner of Azkaban's darker story line, which involves an escaped killer with connections to Harry's troubled past, sinister supernatural prison guards, nighttime chase scenes, creepy omens, and the like. As before, the adults are played by a who's who of British all-stars (new this go-round: Michael Gambon, subbing for the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore; Gary Oldman in a brief but memorable turn as the titular prisoner; and Emma Thompson and David Thewlis, both spot-on as additions to the Hogwarts faculty). More important, though, the younger cast – especially Daniel Radcliffe as Harry – all nail it, proving there's room even in the biggest blockbuster for believability and heart. (2:30) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, Shattuck. (Eddy)

*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) Balboa. (Kim)

*Imelda Director Ramona S. Diaz attempts to go beyond the shoes in this doc about the former first lady of the Phillipines. And while the end result is a fascinating film, it's entirely possible nobody will ever understand exactly what makes Imelda Marcos tick (witness: the scene in which she literally draws out her bizarre philosophy of life, which revolves around "seven portals to peace and order"). Through interviews with the enigmatic Imelda herself, plus friends, family members, former employees, Marcos opposition leaders, and others with vivid memories of the former dictator's highly corrupt reign (1966 through 1986), Imelda maps out the life of a powerful woman – a politician driven by an array of self-indulgent interests that benefited precious few in the country she supposedly served. (1:43) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

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) Empire, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

The Mother Those who associate director Roger Michell with period pieces (Persuasion) or pithy comedies (Notting Hill) may be in for a shock with this devastating drama about a widow (Ann Reid) who, after years of playing the dutiful wife and mother, decides to make up for lost time regarding her heart and her loins. Unfortunately, it happens to be with a handyman (Daniel Craig) several decades her junior. He's also her son's best friend and her narcissistic daughter's lover. Michell and legendary Brit scribe Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette) go at the subject sensitively yet refuse to pull any punches, adding layers of psychological complexity to the December-May relationship that could have easily drifted into movie-of-the-week territory. Both actors anchor the film with jaw-droppingly honest performances, with Reid's take on the sexagenarian wounded-bird woman awakening to her dormant corporeal desires providing the veteran TV actress the chance to flex serious muscle. (1:51) Albany, Embarcadero. (Fear)

*Napoleon Dynamite In this first feature by director and co-scenarist (with wife Jerusha) Jared Hess, Napoleon (Jon Heder) is the geekiest high schooler in Idaho, if not the western hemisphere. He lives with Grandma (Sandy Martin), sexually ambiguous bro Kip (Aaron Ruell), and vainglorious Uncle Rio (Jon Gries). The latter comes to live with the "boys" when Gram suffers a dune-buggy accident. Napoleon's only friend is new kid Pedro (Efren Ramirez), who seems to be on major laxatives. Pedro enters the student body president election, running against the most corn-fed popular blond (Haylie Duff) in a cheerleader suit. Can he triumph over her odds? Can Napoleon get with girl-of-his-dreams Trisha (Emily Kennard), girl-who-maybe-even-likes-him Deb (Tina Majorino), or indeed any girl actually born a girl? (Actually, boy-born girls would likely decline him too.) Can he get horrible Uncle Rio the hell out of the house? Can he survive the climactic school talent competition without complete humiliation? This often excruciatingly funny exercise is like Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) meeting the Harmony Korine of Gummo (not his other crap). In other words, it's deadpan-surreal teen-flick absurdism absolutely loaded with possibly empty but hella filling entertainment carbs. Scarf it up, puppies! (1:26) California, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

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)

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)

The Saddest Music in the World Cinemania is as sinful and maniacal as can be when it comes from the hands and eyes of Guy Maddin, who reveals himself to be a leg man in this wonderful yet wearyingly manic depression-era comedy, set in a snow globe that doubles as his beloved hometown of Winnipeg. "If you're sad and like beer, I'm your lady," declares alcohol heiress Lady Port Huntley (Isabella Rosellini), who sports a pair of booze-filled prosthetic gams as she presides over an international music contest that makes Iron Chef seem tame and the Eurovision Song Contest seem tasteful: a spinning wheel of legs determines which nations battle for the titular honor, and the winner of each round slides into a vat of sudsy brew. Is a Serbian cello more soulful and doleful than a Scottish bagpipe? Will the "it's all showbiz" mentality of ugly America, led by a louse (Kids in the Hall alum Mark McKinney) who cuckolded his father, prevail? What happened to Canada? The answers are moot. Like a witty drunk, Maddin's movie starts out energetic and gradually loses focus. By the end it might be dead or just very, very sad. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Huston)

*Saved! Somewhere in suburban America, in a sector of the world where a woman might find pleasure in being named her community's "number-one Christian interior decorator," school is in session and the students are all praying for your immortal soul. Especially if you're gay. Or pregnant. Or Jewish. Welcome to American Eagle Christian High School and welcome to Saved!, Brian Dannelly's sweet-natured social satire about the kids of Christian America. The film revolves around the spiritual, physical, and emotional turmoil of a popular girl named, yup, Mary (Jena Malone) who eventually finds herself cast out by her peers when she ends up in a family way. The film's message isn't so much a call to burn down the evangelist churches and rehabilitate the youth group leaders as it is a down-to-earth plea for tolerance among those of the faith. School principal Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan) pushes the notion that where certain transgressions are concerned, there's "no room for moral ambiguity." And yet Saved! seems quietly certain there's plenty. (1:32) Century 20, Empire, Four Star, Galaxy, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

*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) Four Star. (Eddy)

*Shrek 2 Newlyweds Shrek the ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) and Fiona the princess turned ogre (Cameron Diaz), along with sidekick Donkey (Eddie Murphy, who gets less screen time this go-round and is therefore, thankfully, less annoying), head to meet Fiona's folks in the suspiciously Hollywood-esque Kingdom of Far, Far Away. Naturally, the Queen (Julie Andrews) and the King (John Cleese) are shocked when they first see their transformed daughter and new son-in-law; equally flummoxed are Fiona's one-time intended, the snooty Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), and his mummy, the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders). AbFab vet Saunders and Antonio Banderas (as lethal cat-sassin Puss in Boots) are the standout supporting players in Shrek 2, which zooms along at breakneck speed incorporating as many eye-blink spoofs, sight gags, and winks to the audience as an entire season of The Simpsons. A soundtrack filled with unexpected selections is a welcome carry-over from the first film, as is the intricate animation, which somehow makes even a hulking, green ogre capable of facial expressions layered with different emotions. (1:33) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (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, Balboa, Galaxy. (Gerhard)

The Stepford Wives Ira Levin's original novel was a paranoid female-subjugation thriller (not unlike his Rosemary's Baby) that cleverly literalized women's early-'70s fears that somehow their liberation wave could be reversed and they might turn out just like their Betty Crocker moms after all. Bryan Forbes's 1975 film version stuck with people not just because the concept was so campy but also because it managed to mix satire, suspense, and character sympathy with genuine skill. This giganticized remake from Muppet-schooled director Frank Oz and queer sitcom specialist Paul Rudnick – neither renowned for subtlety – aims for a much more farcical tone than earlier incarnations. Nicole Kidman stars as a TV network president fired when one of her reality-show smashes turns into a radioactive legal quagmire. Chastened, she opts to start again as a simple "homemaker," taking husband Matthew Broderick and barely noted children to idyllic gated community Stepford. This "family paradise" of pseudo-colonial monster homes and shopping chimera is populated by nerdy white-collar men whose wives are gorgeous, adoring, passive, and absolutely mad about keeping the domestic front in white glove-test order. Kidman's partners in suspicion about that lopsided setup are Bette Midler (as a messy Jewish career ma) and Roger Bart (as the nelly half of a gay male couple – he's funny, though Rudnick's rainbow-flag stamp seems a mite gratuitous here). As they get to the bottom of the terrible conspiracy, the film itself descends from reasonably witty, overproduced entertainment to "something very wrong in Stepford" indeed. What follows the original-story endpoint at about 80 minutes is a failure of nerve that suggests Levin's not-so-challenging concept is too sophisticated and cynical for 2004 viewers. Guess what: Oz and Rudnick's "feel-good" cop-out will leave this movie remembered as a famous flop by exactly the same audience. (1:33) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Story of the Weeping Camel Any movie in which large, furry, and charmingly ugly animals play the lead characters faces the danger of being exploitative or trashed by effects-ridden Disneyfication. But filmmakers Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni take the documentarian's route for their tale of two camels, which reticently depicts the self-sustaining, sometimes merciless universe of the Gobi Desert. A nomadic Mongolian family assists one of its camels with a painful birth, growing concerned when the mother rejects its snow-white calf every time it tries to feed. After countless attempts at breaking the ice between the two creatures, the family hires a violinist to perform a reconciling music ritual for the frosty mother. This unembellished narrative really happened during the film's brief 23-day shoot, though some of its scenes are dramatic reenactments. Fascinating without resorting to oppressive ethnography, Weeping Camel models its faux-vérité structure on Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran and his pivotal Nanook of the North. Davaa and Falorni's project isn't as spectacle-oriented as the highly romanticized Nanook, but expect a few cultural performances for the camera toward the end. (1:33) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Kim)

*Strayed It appears star power, the ingredient that once assured a French director art-house audiences, is now André Téchiné's last commercial resort. Strayed showcases Emmanuelle Béart as Odile, a mother who flees to the countryside during the war-torn summer of 1940. Odile is one-third of a typically bent Téchiné family romance: dodging German bombs, both she and her adolescent son (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) are attracted to an outlaw teen (Gaspard Ulliel) who guides them through the forest to a home away from home. An early scene captures a civilian's-eye view of military might as potently as Roman Polanski's The Pianist, but subtler verities emerge from the wreckage; in comparison, recent resistance drama Bon voyage isn't as politically acute or as timely. While The Lost Ones is a more direct translation of the film's French title, Les égarés, the awkward Strayed fits Téchiné's ever restless queer and querying portraiture, which – aided by estimable cinematographer Agnès Godard – is masterful at revealing nature, human and otherwise. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (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)

The Terminal Steven Spielberg's rather typical new film affectionately licks viewers' faces with the director's usual "oh, the humanity" insistence. Man-child Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) – a traveler from the recently revolutionized fictional country of Krakozhia, unable to leave JFK Airport's terminals thanks to a political coup that's left him with a passive passport – substitutes for the usual Spielbergian pre-pubescent protagonist. And in lieu of characters or narrative, we get one-dimensional ciphers (Stanley Tucci as the villain! Catherine Zeta-Jones as the love interest!) and vignettes designed to show off Hanks's Little-Tramp-meets-Balki-from-Perfect-Strangers mimeograph performance. Like many of the filmmaker's past works, grace notes of true beauty peek through the prodigious displays of technique, but for the most part, tsunamis of overwrought metaphors wash over them completely. (2:01) Century 20, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Fear)

*Thirst Local documentarians Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman's latest presents another smart bottom-to-top take on complexly related racial, economic, legislative, and individual issues. The crux here: can water access remain "part of the global commons" everyone should have free access to, or is it doomed to become an economic commodity bought and sold like any other? The prognosis is not encouraging. As in so many other areas of society, privatization is creeping into the hitherto strictly government-regulated terrain of water processing, delivery, and infrastructure. But is it wise to surrender control over so essential a resource to private, profit-driven entities? How can we be sure they have (and will maintain) our best interests in mind? The filmmakers travel to Bolivia and India, where such recent shifts have caused bitter strife. Stockton proves a Stateside focal point for similar argument when the mayor and city council try – and eventually succeed in – replacing a reputedly excellent local water department with German-led company Thames. This important and engrossing film provides a spur to activism that no one should ignore, unless they're rich enough in obliviousness to propose, "Let them drink sake." (1:02) Little Roxie. (Harvey)

*Troy Many will argue that Troy is held back from greatness by star Brad Pitt and his famous abs, or the Brabs, as they like to be called. This isn't true: Troy wouldn't be a great movie anyway, but there are a lot of good reasons to appreciate it. Most of them are for what it manages not to be: too corny, overblown, ponderous, laughable, or garish, for starters. The score, by James Horner, doesn't underline everything and then some. CGI effects are used mostly to heighten real-world ones, creating a rare modern blockbuster that doesn't feel like Space Mountain on endless loop. The cogent script by David Benioff ("inspired by Homer's Iliad" – well, who isn't?) trips on relatively few dialogue howlers. The heavy machinery of spectacle and actual plot (as opposed to those spindly legs top-heavy Gladiator and Braveheart stood on: you killed my woman, now I kill you) move their impressive bulk around without too many gears squeaking. Director Wolfgang Petersen – a man who's never wavered, or embarrassed himself, jumping willy-nilly from Das Boot to Neverending Story to Air Force One – rises to the occasion with slightly impersonal but very accomplished craftsmanship. As for Stark Raving Brad, what can one say? He's trying hard, voice pushed low, chiseled forehead lined from the warrior's woe of doling out life and death. Yet even bulked up for the role, he remains lightweight. (2:45) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

*The Twilight Samurai Forget Bill. Tarantino won't be filching much from this movie. Set just before the Meiji Restoration in rural Japan, Yoji Yamada's historical drama omits rampant violence and instead focuses on familial struggles and human perseverance. Seibei (Hiroyuki Sanada), a humble samurai earning a pauper's salary, loses his wife to illness, leaving him to support two young daughters and his senile mother. Though forced into an exhaustingly occupied life, Seibei eventually finds happiness in raising his daughters. But political unrest in feudal Japan spreads, and the dedicated father is unwillingly drawn into the conflict. Yamada's pacing matches the speed of an old Mizoguchi drama, moving from one narrative to the next with patient, undisturbed fluidity. The film's two sword-fight sequences may not be enough to appease die-hard samurai fans, but any more violence in this story would just seem gratuitous. Twilight doesn't try to reinvent The Seven Samurai or a Shakespearean saga, but it finds poignancy in even the most unassuming human conflicts. (2:07) Balboa. (Kim)

Rep Picks

*Bush Mama and Bless Their Little Hearts The PFA's "Los Angeles Plays Itself" series of movies goes deep into South Central – without the usual boyz-in-the-hood crime dramatics – via these two exceptional independent features. Both being black-and-white, 16mm, impressionistic, and bleak, neither was widely seen when released, nor have they been easily accessed since. Ethiopian-born Haile Gerima (who continued his career back at home after this U.S. effort) dropped Bush Mama in 1975, at the blaxploitation's height. Needless to say, Shaft and Dolemite would not have grooved on this portrait of Dorothy (Barbara Jones), a shell-shocked urban Amazon raising a daughter on her own. She's jobless, spending her gray days variably hassled by welfare, an alcoholic mom, and a friend who harangues her on behalf of black power ideals Dorothy shrugs off as "never [having] done nothing for me." The stream-of-consciousness, occasionally expressionistic film might look dull in any brief excerpt, but its buildup of minute details becomes riveting – and the climactic violence, if a bit schematic, truly does pack some shock. Gerima and the better-known Charles Burnett were fellow UCLA film department students with Billy Woodberry, whose 1983 Bless Their Little Hearts is something of a "his" companion to Mama's "her" perspective. His protagonist Charlie (Nate Hardman) is a living illustration of the so-sick, so-tired sentiments expressed in the soundtrack full of blues tunes (performed by Buddy Guy, Little Esther Phillips, and others). He's middle-aged, unemployed, odd-jobbing when possible, and made sullen and angry by the sense of having failed somehow. His wife (Kaycee Moore) tries to hold her own disappointment in check but begins to crack upon realizing he's cheating on her; they both take their frustrations out on their three hapless young children. Woodberry will be on hand to introduce these rare films. Bush Mama (1:36); Hearts (1:20) PFA. (Harvey)

'José Antonio Sistiaga's Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Arauaren' Basque visual artist José Antonio Sistiaga's 1970 film Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Arauaren is one of the great works of experimental cinema, or more specifically one of the great uses of cinema as an abstract-art canvas. He spent 17 months hand-painting 108,000 images directly onto 35mm frames. This isn't animation in any conventional sense – color and shape motifs provide some continuity, but the various blobs, spheres, grids, and TV static-like "bug races" of incessantly shifting, eye-blink imagery exist on a pure sensory plane way beyond character or even "meaning." Imagine Jackson Pollock or Jasper Johns somehow turning a painting into a 65-minute motion exercise, and you'll get some idea of the hypnotic, beautiful intensity of Ere Erera (the title is an untranslatable nonsense phrase). It's utterly silent, though such extreme visual busyness makes it in a way the loudest movie ever made – a cacophony of immense, hallucinatory activity. Seeing this seldom-exhibited work projected in a brand-new CinemaScope print should prove a fairly overwhelming experience. Presented by the San Francisco Cinematheque. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Harvey)

'Orson Welles' See 8 Days a Week. Castro.

*Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea If you missed Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer's excellent film at the recent San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, here's another chance to acquaint yourself with its subject, the embattled former "Riviera of the West." The 35-mile-long Salton Sea formed in 1905 after a snafu involving a poorly built dam, the Colorado River, and thirsty farmland. At first, it seemed like a happy accident; in the '50s and '60s, the Salton Sea was a vacation destination to rival Palm Springs (a commercial aimed at prospective land owners declares, "This unusual city has a date with destiny!"). But disasters galore were on the horizon: property destruction due to flooding and storms; an ever saltier composition that routinely kills off millions of fish a year (add to that the ever present stench of millions of rotting carcasses); and economic devastation. Apart from simply filming – often quite beautifully – this troubled landscape, Metzler and Springer seek out the characters who populate the Salton Sea's shores. A strange mix dwells here, with young "welfare people" bumping up against old-timers, many of whom linger simply because they have nowhere else to go. The wistful Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea connects with the viewer on multiple levels, coaxing equal parts affection and revulsion while illuminating a little corner of California most folks deliberately give the widest possible berth. (1:26) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Eddy)*Shanty Tramp Perhaps once a generation there comes a motion picture so unique, powerful, and indelible it can change lives. For some, perhaps, The Passion of the Christ was such an experience. For yours truly, similar thunderbolts from heaven into my very soul were felt upon first viewing this 1967 masterpiece among all Southern drive-in sleazefests. (Which is really saying something, given the existence of nearly equally genius artifacts like The Pigkeeper's Daughter and The Monster and the Stripper.) The, um, remarkable Lee Holland – never seen or heard from again on-screen, and surely someone whose subsequent obscurity ought to be corrected – plays Emily, tramp and tease, a Little Miss Slutsky-Wutsky who, during one long night, turns her native bayou burg upside down. Key torrid altercations include those with a biker gang at the roadhouse where Emily does her wild-with-abandon shimmy to jukebox tunes (a routine that should have started an imitative national dance craze); her seduction of an African American man, immediately followed by phony rape accusations; bad inbreeding business with her drunken-sharecropper Paw; and her encounter with a horndoggy traveling preacher who provides one of the greatest closing lines in the history of cinema. Leaving no exploitative stone unturned, director Joseph G. Prieto's black-and-white cheapie manages to encompass incest, false idolatry, lynching, patricide, and much more in an economical 72 minutes. It's the Citizen Kane of lurid pre-sexual revolution (hey, that moment was slow to arrive in this movie's deep Florida locations) grade-Z sexploitation flicks. Opportunities to worship Shanty Tramp on the big screen are as rare as snow leopards, so attendance at this Thrillville event is avidly advised. (1:12) Parkway. (Harvey)

'Youth Video Festival' See 8 Days a Week. Oakland Box.