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Film Listings
The 20th Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema runs Nov 11-14. Venues are the Roxie Cinema, 3117 16th St, S.F.; and the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, S.F. For tickets (most shows $8-10) and more information, call (415) 552-FILM or go to www.filmarts.org. See "Tales of Two Cities," for commentary. All times p.m. unless otherwise indicated. Fri/12 Sat/13 Sun/14 International Latino Film Festival Wed/10 Thurs/11 Fri/12 Notre Dame A Silent Love with "The Carriage Driver" 7:30. Sat/13 La Peña KordaVision 7. B-Happy 9:10. Sun/14 Opening Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason The bumbling Brit (Renée Zellweger) returns for more misadventures. (1:48) Century 20, Grand Lake, Orinda. Cowboys and Angels It becomes clear all too quickly while watching David Gleeson's Cowboys and Angels that the writer-director isn't shy about rifling through the many clichés of that most clichéd genre, the coming-of-age story. The voice-over, the sexual tension, the hazy house party: all the signposts are here, only now the characters have Irish accents! Shane is the bloke caught between boy and man, struggling to settle into Limerick's city life. He's a fledgling civil servant working with people three times his age and wants oh so badly to revel in youth and art. Enter Vincent, a Queer as Folk city type with a penchant for men and fashion. The two inexplicably become flatmates, and Shane's maturation process is officially under way. The characters are likable enough, but their situation is so thoroughly ridiculous that it's hard to feel like we actually know them – a decidedly bad thing for a film aiming for meaningful character development. (1:29) Lumiere. (Goldberg) Enduring Love Things start off weird and get weirder in Notting Hill director Roger Michell's adaptation of Ian McEwan's Booker Prize-winning novel. Straightlaced professor Joe (Daniel Craig) leads a calm, uneventful life with his girlfriend, sculptor Claire (Samantha Morton) – until an idyllic picnic outing is disrupted by a freak accident involving a hot air balloon. Joe and three other strangers, including Jed (Rhys Ifans), launch a rescue attempt that goes horribly awry. Joe is badly shaken, and his guilt is exacerbated when creepy Jed – wielding Kurt Cobain hair, a grubby Members Only jacket, and a fondness for belting out "God Only Knows" in public places – begins to stalk him, claiming the two made a love connection during the incident. Though the performances are suitably intense, the film's thoughtful extrapolations on the nature of love and emotion are ultimately overshadowed by its Fatal Attraction flourishes. (1:40) Act I and II, Bridge. (Eddy) Go Further See Movie Clock. (1:20) Act I and II, Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. Junked Director Lance W. Lane's self-consciously "edgy" drama focuses on a quartet of grimy junkies – including hustler Switch (The Punisher's Thomas Jane) and his hooker sister Niki (Cabin Fever's Jordan Ladd, whose look exactly replicates a trashier version of Boys on the Side-era Drew Barrymore). When one of their ca-ca-crazy associates randomly knifes someone, the streets – already mean – get downright ugly (cue chase scenes, fight scenes, rape scenes, etc.). Junked is one of those movies where nearly every line of dialogue ("Man ain't got respect, he ain't got a goddamn thing!" "Whores don't love nothin' but money!" "I ain't suckin' no dick!" "I told you to shut the fuck up!" "There ain't no families in hell!") is shouted; the film's few subtle moments come courtesy of Jane, who's occasionally able to garner some sympathy for Switch, the film's only semilayered character. (1:26) Galaxy. (Eddy) The Polar Express Cleverly adapted, choreographed, and stunningly executed, Robert Zemeckis's animated feature will have critics asking: what's the point of animation, if it's emulating realism down to its subtlest nuances? The latest benchmark in motion-capture technology, "performance capture," is put to work here, recording actors' body movements with unprecedented 3-D detail. Befitting the magic of the story, the system's gorgeous product is a visual step above real life more than an attempt to simulate it. Tom Hanks stars as a young boy who's having doubts about Santa's existence. On Christmas Eve, he boards an enchanted train with a surly and slightly fascist conductor (also played by Hanks) headed for the North Pole. With any luck, the train will make it before midnight and allow the boy to meet Santa, along with about a million funny-looking elves (look for Steven Tyler). Though it boasts remarkably cinematic angles, tracking shots, and a fantastic POV sequence involving a lost ticket, The Polar Express does have trouble capturing key facial expressions. But it'll keep the wool over youngsters' eyes for another year of mall Santas and wish lists. (1:33) Century Plaza, Century 20, Four Star, Grand Lake, Oaks. (Kim) *Reconstruction Thirty-Two Short Films about Two Couples? The boy-meets-girl story arc has rarely been dissected as coolly and closely as it is in Reconstruction, a striking debut feature by director and cowriter Christopher Boe. The winner of the Caméra d'Or at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival revolves around the sparest narrative – the locked eyes, the flicker of recognition, the briefest of encounters between two strangers, Alex (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Aimee (Maria Bonnevie). The tryst that follows is complicated by Aimee's cuckolded husband, August (Krister Henriksson), a fiction writer who spins the love story into a kind of Kafkaesque nightmare for his rival: Alex's lover Simone (also Bonnevie) has no memory of him in the wake of the affair, his father is a stranger, his apartment has vanished, and that hoariest of clichés has come to pass – everything has changed. Boe's minimalist mind games evoke fellow Dane Lars von Trier's existential thrillers, Wong Kar-wai's deconstructed couplings, and even Milan Kundera's po-mo halls of mirrors; among those heady heavyweights, he manages the considerable trick of making his own variation on a theme ring true. (1:30) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Chun) Seed of Chucky The Child's Play series moves into full-on camp mode (three words: John Waters costars) when the killer dolls take on Hollywood. (1:27) Century Plaza, Century 20. Ongoing Being Julia Above all else, Hungarian director István Szabó's backstage drama Being Julia is about its star, Annette Bening. With every emotive gasp and bubbly burst of dialogue, Benning petitions the camera for her Oscar. She stars as Julia Lambert, a brilliant English stage actress who has grown unsatisfied with matters personal and professional. Fast approaching the impasse of middle age, Julia throws herself into a reckless love affair with Tom (Shaun Evans), an American admirer many years her junior. All is well until Tom convinces Julia to accept his other, younger love interest as an understudy. The movie wholeheartedly invites the All about Eve comparison, often borrowing entire scenes from Bette Davis's tour de force. The difference between the two is that while Davis's performance feels like a very real act of resistance against a misogynistic script helmed by a man's voice-over, all of the cards fall just right for Bening: her performance is coaxed and catered to. The result is pleasant enough, but it's a distant echo of Davis's original. (1:45) Albany, Embarcadero, Empire. (Goldberg) Birth Widow and wealthy professional Anna (Nicole Kidman, sporting a Jean Seberg coiffure) agrees to remarry after a decade of mourning, only to meet a 10-year-old boy (Cameron Bright) who claims to be the reincarnation of her dead husband. She's incredulous at first, but the boy soon proves to know more than just the dead man's name. With this bleak second feature, director Jonathan Glazer departs from the offbeat, dialogue-dependent comedy of Sexy Beast, defying suspense clichés with a sparing, Kubrickian delivery. Brooding performances oust the genre's shock tactics, meditative shots test our attention spans, and dialogue is kept simple – often excruciatingly so. Still, Glazer maintains the intrigue that most films of artsy monotony lose by their second acts; well-integrated cinematography and a delicate score by Alexandre Desplat keep the film from feeling overly stilted. Working with such an implausible story, Glazer deftly places character psychology in the limelight rather than juggle a bunch of tricky justifications. Kidman, following suit, brings deeper and subtler layers to her wounded-woman persona, a role she's had plenty of chances to master. (1:40) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Kim) Fade to Black OK, so it's a little narcissistic to screen what should've been The Black Album's bonus DVD in theaters nationwide. Plus, the whole culmination-of-a-career aspect is sort of pointless since the Jigga Man is back on tour at the moment, less than a year after announcing his retirement. But directors Patrick Paulson and Michael John Warren have pieced together an absorbing, high-energy doc that will, if nothing else, restore some of your faith in mainstream hip-hop. Jay-Z's "final" concert in a sold-out Madison Square Garden is the doc's main event. But between H.O.V.A.'s chart-toppers, the audience's line-for-line recitation of "Big Pimpin'," and nostalgic nods to Reasonable Doubt, the filmmakers cut to intimate Black Album recording sessions. In one scene, Jay-Z argues with his producers about the toss-up between success and self-expression. Turning toward the camera, he roars, "See what y'all did to rappers? They scared to be theyselves!" Later, he stares his advisor straight in the eye and spits an introspective, socially conscious verse – a no-no for commercial radio play. These moments are what keep the film from simply being a two-hour ad for his tour; unfortunately, they don't surface nearly enough. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness. (Kim) Friday Night Lights Nestled in the barren, Wal-Mart-speckled landscape of West Texas, the town of Odessa has a singular focus: high school football. Based on the real-life Permian High Panthers' 1988 season (and H.G. Bissinger's book by the same name), the gritty Friday Night Lights is a sports drama in the most dramatic sense, with blessedly little comic relief diluting the tension and heartbreak that go down on (and off) the field. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton, who manages to be both low-key and intense) knows the importance of winning, but he also recognizes the individual struggles of his players, in particular the cocky star (Derek Luke) who suffers a devastating injury. As a former Permian player – and now one young tailback's alcoholic dad – country star Tim McGraw gets perhaps the film's most poignant moment, explaining to his son the importance of making the most of one's glory days. Director Peter Berg (The Rundown) overdoes the shaky hand-held camera, but in all likelihood, gridiron fans will be too wrapped up in the agony and ecstasy to notice. (1:57) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy) *Garden State Aspiring actor Andrew "Large" Largeman (Zach Braff) is living in Los Angeles and table-jockeying in a chic Vietnamese restaurant when the call comes that his mother has died. He reluctantly returns home for a few days of closure. Hanging out with his boyhood pal (Peter Sarsgaard) – now a full-time stoner grave digger – and a goofy young woman (Natalie Portman) he meets in a neurologist's waiting room, Large searches for the epiphany that'll ease him out of his vegetative mind-set. At first glance, Garden State may seem like just another twentysomething woe-is-me mopefest looking to ride Holden Caulfield's coattails. But thanks to writer-director-star Braff's knack for deliciously deadpan setups, the film works an alchemy of bemused charm that steamrolls over most of the story's clunks. There are a few neophyte missteps, notably in the faux-naif lines poor Portman has to pop out (still, it surely beats acting against droids) and Large's slightly stock climactic confessional with dad Ian Holm, but Braff nails the mixture of melancholia and absurdism so beautifully that it's hard not to be won over. (1:46) Lumiere, Shattuck. (David Fear) *Gloomy Sunday Though steeped in melodrama, Nick Barkow's novel of overlapping love affairs amid war-torn 1930s Budapest translates stunningly to the big screen. Director Rolf Schübel recaptures all the magic of an old-school drama as his charismatic actors bring the romantic script to life. Very much in love, Laszlo (Joachim Krol) and Ilona (Erika Maroszán) run a restaurant and hire Andras (Stefano Dionisi) to play piano. Andras is quickly pulled in by Ilona's charms, and the three develop an understanding relationship, rather than suffering one man to live without her affection. The film takes its name from the stirring yet depressing song Andras writes for Ilona (in real life, the so-called suicide song, made popular by Billie Holliday, was written in 1935 by Hungarians Rezsö Seress and Laszlo Javor). A return to real movie making, where all the elements blend in a harmony seldom seen in Hollywood these days, Gloomy Sunday cleverly deals with threats to perfect love: the "other man," manipulation, war, and even death. (1:54) Balboa. (Melissa McCartney) The Grateful Dead Movie (2:12) Roxie. *The Grudge After The Sixth Sense and other friendly-ghost movies, it's good to know, just in time for Halloween, that the dead are still evil – thanks to the efforts of Evil Dead and Spider-Man director Sam Raimi, Evil Dead producer Rob Tapert, and Ringu producer Taka Ichise, who oversaw this rewrite-remake of Takashi Shimizu's Ju-On: The Grudge and eventually got Shimizu to direct. Consider this cultural exchange a little more evenhanded than, dare I say, Lost in Translation: American expats meet Japanese ghost-demons, and wacky miscommunication and blood-letting ensues! The pleasantly minimalist Grudge may not be reinventing the wheel (of death), but it does provide plenty of creeps, more per minute than Dubya's State of the Union addresses. And that's plenty. Let's say you'll never look at long black hair or adorable little Japanese boys with bowl cuts and no genitalia quite the same way again. The punch line is that when Shimizu trains his camera on stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Bill Pullman, he seems to be possessed by, or paying homage to, horror kings Dario Argento and David Lynch, with Gellar looking as teary, gelatin-skinned, and doll-like as a bird with crystal plumage and Lynch-pins Pullman and Grace Zabriskie resembling some sort of sinister waxy buildup. And don't take that the wrong way. (1:36) Century Plaza, Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun) I Heart Huckabees Even before it darts through gray office mazes not far from Being John Malkovich's portal, David O. Russell's fourth film charts Charlie Kaufman territory – there's more than a hint of Adaptation to an introductory scene that places audiences squarely within the self-critical mind of disgruntled eco-activist Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman). A plot synopsis of I Heart Huckabees is a mug's game: ultimately, Schwartzman's character is the Matt Gonzalez, and Jude Law's white-collared climber is the Gavin Newsom, of this meta-story, which races through philosophy at a Preston Sturges pace and engineers more than one too-polite head-on collision at the intersection of politics and economics. The fact that Schwartzman's character looks an awful lot like Russell would seem to hint at where the director's sympathies lie, yet the stargazing Law – along with Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts – excels in this antic terrain. (Old pro Lily Tomlin fares best, though she isn't on-screen enough.) Russell went into this picture batting three-for-three, but I Heart Huckabees, while fitfully funny, isn't quite a splendiferous charm. (1:45) California, Four Star, Galaxy, Kabuki, Piedmont. (Huston) *The Incredibles In a movie market glutted with films that attempt to reach across demographics by playing to the lowest common denominator, Pixar productions are a welcome rarity. Films like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Finding Nemo have established the company as a reliable source of well-crafted entertainment: the real deal in "fun for the whole family." Its newest computer-animated wonder is The Incredibles. While there's no shortage of recent superhero movies, writer-director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) offers a clever turn in playing the "it's hard being a superhero" plotline off a Leave It to Beaver-type nuclear family. The Incredibles delivers the wit, visual splendor, colorful cast, and enthralling action sequences we've come to expect from Pixar but never quite coalesces the way its predecessors did. This is largely a matter of story; the narrative lacks the cohesion and resonance that made Finding Nemo so unique. Still, The Incredibles is consistently imaginative, and as such, it's an exemplary blockbuster. (1:55) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Goldberg) Incident at Loch Ness First a disclaimer: the views expressed in this blurb do not represent the views of an audience of 500 others with whom I had the displeasure of viewing Incident at Loch Ness. They laughed uproariously at a film I consider the worst thing Werner Herzog has ever lent his name to. And maybe you, too, will find the idea of a fake documentary, a "mockumentary," original. You may find the idea of the great cinema poet Herzog taking self-reflexive jabs at his own legendary exploits in a trip to Scotland to look for the Loch Ness monster hiiiilarious. And you may laugh and laugh at the concept of a double-crossing producer working behind Herzog's back to turn his mythic quest into cheap entertainment, complete with sexy girl-in-wet-suit gags. Seriously, don't let me talk you out of seeing this movie, just don't accuse me of recommending it. (1:34) Smith Rafael. (Gerhard) *Maria Full of Grace Seventeen-year-old Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) thinks she could do better than her boring boyfriend, boring job de-thorning roses at a flower factory, and boring home life as meal ticket for a demanding mother, whiny sister, and the latter's wailing baby. The trouble is, Maria lives in a nowhere town outside Bogota, Colombia, where options are few. Restlessness, anger, and willpower alone aren't enough to reroute Maria's dead-end life trajectory, especially after she discovers she's unhappily pregnant. So she seizes on one extremely risky road to material success: working as an international drug mule, smuggling heroin into the United States via umpteen ingested jumbo capsules that are horse tranquilizer-size and fulla horse, period. A hefty financial reward awaits if she and several other nervous young women survive the gauntlet of suspicious customs officials, possible capsule leakage (which would be fatal), nausea, cramps, and any unforeseen additional disasters. Writer-director Joshua Marston's drama may lack the emotionally grueling force of some prior, more floridly cautionary works on this subject (most famously Midnight Express), but its documentary-style directness still offers a powerful microcosm of one woman's attempt to share in the "free trade" bounty that pretty much flows just one way – out – from disadvantaged countries. (1:53) California, Embarcadero. (Harvey) *The Motorcycle Diaries Walter Salles's The Motorcycle Diaries feels very much like a throwback to early-'70s road movies, but with an important improvement: its road-tripping protagonists get enlightened upward, gaining strength, purpose, and profundity from confronting injustice. The Motorcycle Diaries cannily exploits Che Guevara as icon by finding a quite legitimate context in which to ignore all the problematic aspects of his later life: early 1952 sees a 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Gael García Bernal) dropping out of med school one semester short of graduation to travel the South American continent with 29-year-old Alberto Granada (Rodrigo de la Serna – no relation to the above) on a 1939 Norton 500 hog dubbed "the Mighty One." Their ultimate destination is a leper colony where both volunteer; the resulting route charts a learning curve. The Motorcycle Diaries has plenty of dents, but they're fairly minor quibbles given the film's appealing assurance, which remains faithful to the pleasures, pains, and insights the protagonists derive from their journey. (2:08) Albany, Clay, Empire, Piedmont. (Harvey) *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) Four Star, Opera Plaza. (Harvey) Ray I'd love to say Ray does justice to the genius of Ray Charles and that Jamie Foxx's performance is, say, a greater contribution to pop culture than his hilarious if Pryor-derived stand-up routines. But Foxx's enshrinement as an A-lister, and all the critical respect that comes with it, stems from the "seriousness" of what he does here, and little else. His performance is impressive as a collection of mannerisms, but it doesn't dig into or expose an artist's soul – you'd be better off renting the Foxx concert performance I Need Security, or better yet, listening to Charles's records and reading David Ritz's biography. Ray's best moments aim to convey the hair-raising electricity of "Drown in My Own Tears" and other breakthroughs, and this movie – unlike, say, What's Love Got to Do With It? – is at least interested in conveying the experiences, inspirations, and stories behind its music. But director Taylor Hackford's predictable reliance on color-saturated childhood flashbacks leaves a bored mind to dream about what a director like Charles Burnett might have done with this subject matter, this budget, and this type of bottom-line studio support. Of course, that's another story, one that proves Hollywood isn't as evolved as it would like to pretend. (2:32) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Huston) *Red Diaper Baby Writer-performer Josh Kornbluth's celebrated monologue about growing up in mid-1960s New York as the child of unrepentant communists gets a lasting if not necessarily definitive treatment in director Doug Pray's concert film. Recorded on 16mm before a live audience at the Magic Theatre, and aptly supported by Marco d'Ambrosio's wistful score, the film opens with a shot of Kornbluth casually walking off the street and into the theater, intentionally recalling Jonathan Demme's beautifully integrated concert film of Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. Yet here, while apparently restaged to be equally film-friendly, stage and screen productions don't always mesh – projected backdrops get awkwardly cropped, and lighting effects designed for the stage cast ineffective shadows or simply make the film look dim. When they do, however, the combination is striking. And the film's shortcomings do little to detract from what is still an engaging coming-of-age story, while its power to augment certain scenes, including what has got to be one of the more ghastly, hilarious deflowering stories ever told, makes up for a lot. In short, anyone who missed Red Diaper Baby onstage will want to join Kornbluth's die-hard fans in catching it on-screen. (1:33) Roxie. (Avila) Remember Me, My Love In the tasteful, upper-middle-class apartment of an average-seeming (if ridiculously good-looking) Italian family, everything is quietly falling apart. After a chance encounter with his old sweetheart (Monica Bellucci), Carlo Ristuccia (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) has taken to skipping work and isolating himself from his nagging wife, Giulia (Laura Morante). A former actress, Giulia – who's suffering what could kindly be called a crisis of confidence – is suddenly offered a terrifying yet tempting chance to return to the stage. Suffering no lack of confidence is teen queen Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff), who's so vain she falls asleep staring at her reflection; meanwhile, sad-sack Paolo (Silvio Muccino) gazes into the mirror only when he needs a self-pep talk (which is often). As various conflicts reach boiling points, a melodramatic, overly convenient tragedy brings the family together again. Despite this trite plot twist, writer-director Gabriele Muccino's study of domestic turmoil is, for the most part, well acted and engaging. (2:05) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy) Saw When the plucky young filmmakers of Saw discussed how they came up with their concept after a Sundance screening this January, it was a reminder of how innocent cynicism can be. Nothing could've been simpler: they just wanted a break and, if necessary, would create one themselves. It would be a horror film, because that's commercial; mostly a two-characters-in-one-room piece, because that's cheap. James Wan had directed shorts and Australian TV shows like More Great Vegetarian Dishes; this strictly-for-carnivores feature would prove he could "handle" mainstream action stuff. He collaborated on the script with fellow Aussie Leigh Whannell, an actor, who naturally included a lead role for himself. Why did they make this movie? Well ... to get to make other movies. And they will. Which isn't nearly as depressing a prospect as actually sitting through Saw, a movie that's crass, sensational, gruesome, dull, ludicrous, laughable, and sort of offensive all at once. It's not just soulless; it keeps shoving you around and grinning like an idiot, assuming you're delighted too. (1:40) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey) Shall We Dance? Submitted for your approval in the current Twilight Zone-populated by Hollywood remakes of crowd pleasers made in Japan: Richard Gere as the bourgie wet dream of a well-heeled, unhappy hubby, in midlife crisis mode; Stanley Tucci as a footloose Latin-dance firebrand in an ill wig; and Jennifer Lopez as the pinched, prudish, and untouchable babe of an ice queen, her Danskins cinched a few sizes too tight. Director Peter Chelsom translates this remake of the 1996 hit by Masayuki Suo into an appealing middle-aged woman's romance by staying true to the original narrative of a bored desk jockey (Gere) searching for passion (and emotional expression) in the over-the-top world of ballroom dancing – while playing up the Grey Foxy Gigolo's time-tested, Pretty Woman-forged Prince Charming qualities. The story thankfully doesn't hinge on J.Lo – despite the subtextual snipes (her last partner just wasn't right for her!) and a surprise cameo by guess who. If this version of Shall We Dance? is a tad self-consciously cute with its assortment of artificially sweetened, zany dance-studio "characters" and its equal-time take on the spurned spouse (Susan Sarandon) – she's gotta dance too! – there's also certainly wholesome charm here. Ah, the supposedly secret life of men – how can Oprah, or any straight woman, resist? (1:46) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun) Shark Tale Admit it, you've been crossing your fingers for an animated kids' movie to jump on the hip-hop bandwagon. And now, thanks to the tragically hip eggheads at Dreamworks, you can finally enjoy Finding Nemo in the Hood. Little fish in a big pond Oscar (Will Smith) dreams of leaving his gig at da Whale Wash, so he can become somebody and live on top of the reef. Meanwhile, Lenny (Jack Black), a friendly (and suspiciously San Franciscan) shark who can't connect with his bloodthirsty mob family, wishes he could just be himself in front of his pop (Robert De Niro). A freak accident and a little truth-stretching make Oscar into an immediate hero, but he soon ends up seeking Lenny's help to maintain his celebrity status. Hip-hop-isms and a few mob movie allusions, some of which teeter on questionable taste, offer some hearty laughs for the grown-ups. But everything else is fairly routine, including high-speed shark chases and a being-different-is-OK message for the kids. (1:31) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Kim) *Shaun of the Dead A ne'er-do-well who's about to turn 30 but is still living like a college-age slacker, Shaun (Simon Pegg) is in such a rut that he doesn't notice the strangeness afoot in his London hood: a girl collapses, a homeless guy takes a bite out of a pigeon, and ambulances and military trucks squeal by with alarming frequency. He's far more concerned with the sorry state of his life, including the fact that his girlfriend's just dumped him. Over a pint at local hangout the Winchester, Shaun's best pal Ed (Nick Frost) consoles his bud: "It's not the end of the world!" The chuckle is, of course, that it is the end of the world, or damn near close, and the coming zombie invasion is apparent to absolutely everyone (audience included) except Shaun and Ed. Already a Brit blockbuster, Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead is jam-packed with similar instances of comedic foreshadowing ("Next time I see you, you're dead!" Shaun scolds the bratty kid next door), not to mention sight gags, pop culture references, double entendres, and running jokes galore. Sure, some of Shaun of the Dead's nuances may be lost on us American types – coscripters Wright and Pegg previously collaborated on the U.K. sitcom Spaced, which is freely referenced in Shaun – but the film's good-natured splatstick hardly gets lost in translation. (1:39) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy) *Sideways You can count on Alexander Payne to bring the pain to his characters: his new film, Sideways, dives into that reliably self-involved, potentially lamest of periods – middle age – with Olympian skill. But this time Payne uncovers the sentiment beneath his corrosive satire, and the risk pays off. Sideways' pitch – a couple of buddies hit wine country – might seem ho-hum, but Payne's fourth go-round rivals Election as a career highlight, largely because he allows actors to breathe life into roles. The leisurely paced story, based on a just-published novel by Rex Pickett, follows depressive wine connoisseur Miles (Paul Giamatti) and second-rate actor but first-rate womanizer Jack (Thomas Haden Church) as they rove through Santa Barbara County's wineries and recovery spots. Though this odd couple think they're going on vacation, their holiday winds up teaching them a hard lesson or two, with wake-up calls coming from Maya (an excellent Virginia Madsen) and Stephanie (Sandra Oh), the pair's respective romantic interests. In interviews, Payne has been up-front about the influence of pre-Jaws '70s American cinema on his sensibility, and Sideways is a film for adults, albeit one with uproarious streaks – largely and at least once literally supplied by Church – of juvenile comedy. (2:04) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Huston) *Tarnation Jonathan Caouette's movie-screen memoir is the story of a mother and a son – but it's also a hell of a lot more than any one linear story. When the narrative flow is violently interrupted by passages reflecting his and his mother's detached or unhinged states of mind, the results are sometimes visionary. Ironically, all the splintered stories in Tarnation threaten to be eclipsed by the story behind it: Caouette's first feature has acquired a reputation as "the $218.32 movie," in reference to how much the initial finished cost to make. Caouette first picked up a video camera at the age of 11; thus began his obsessive devotion to filming and audio – and videotaping himself and his family. Tarnation's 20 years of raw material were assembled with the free iMovie software included with a computer Caouette received as a gift from his boyfriend's aunt. Now the autobiographical project is finally complete. Or is it? Right up until the last month before its official release, Tarnation was undergoing changes. Will these tiny changes, or Tarnation's increasingly big picture, haunt Caouette – and can any telling of a life story be definitive? (1:28) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Huston) *Team America: World Police Seekers of sophisticated satire, and anyone who is easily offended, look elsewhere. Please. If, however, you can see the humor in a movie that skewers Hollywood blockbusters and self-righteous celebrities, casts the United States as a big bully, and drags out a puking scene to operatic lengths, settle in for Team America: World Police. It's easily the funniest (and most tasteless) movie of the year, brought to lifelikeness by a cast of wooden puppets. Given its title, which pretty much sums up the premise, Team America is surprisingly all over the political map, spraying barbs left and right and impaling targets both obvious (over-the-top patriotism) and seemingly random (Matt Damon). Just about the only topic creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone (a.k.a. the South Park guys) leave untouched is the presidential race, with George W. Bush glimpsed only in a brief cameo. Still, Team America makes its point about the United States' well-deserved bad reputation of late – with interludes of graphic puppet sex thrown in along the way, for good measure. (1:43) Balboa, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy) Undertow Days of heaven and nights of the hunter (and hunted) across Southern badlands: this quick description of Undertow gives a fair idea of the formidable muddy footprints director David Gordon Green is following. Since his first and perhaps best feature, George Washington, Green has shot for Terrence Malick's askew pacing and verdant visuals, and he's been helped considerably in that regard by cinematographer Tim Orr, who shifts his palette to deep brown this time, for a Southern gothic boys' adventure story involving cursed gold coins and two young brothers (Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell, and tiny androgyne Devon Alan in the Linda Manz role) on the run from a homicidal, greedy uncle (Josh Lucas). That plotline may promise more forward motion and standard thrills than the director's past work, but Undertow subverts those expectations. Green has never met a non sequitur or odd stranger he didn't like, and such encounters make for his movie's most likable moments, offsetting the crucifixion symbolism and ludicrous action-genre freeze-frames in the opening credit sequence. But as Undertow gets curiouser and curiouser, it winds up a mere curiosity, as opposed to the iconic stories Malick once crafted about outlaws and train-hoppers. (1:47) Shattuck. (Huston) *Vera Drake Bustling around drizzly, post-WWII London with a happy, doughy face and gleaming eyes, Vera (Imelda Staunton) works as a floor scrubber for the wealthy, humming to herself and calling everyone "dear." For Vera, no problem is ever so great that a nice cup of tea can't solve it; she often visits ailing neighbors and occasionally helps expectant girls by performing homespun abortions. When one of these patients almost dies, Vera is arrested and tried for her "crime." Writer-director Mike Leigh contrasts Vera's story with that of a well-heeled girl (Sally Hawkins) who goes through proper channels for her abortion and suffers from crushing, psychological shame. Leigh shapes the superb Vera Drake as a repressed working-class companion to his 2002 film All or Nothing, establishing a vivid place and time but offering little in the way of comfort or comment. Staunton's performance radiates with glazed, dewy shock as she teeters into the film's wrenching final scene. (2:05) Embarcadero, Empire, Shattuck. (Jeffrey M. Anderson) Voices of Iraq(1:20) Opera Plaza. What the #$*! Do We Know? What's the purpose of life? Do we experience multiple realities? What exactly is the nature of space and time? What the #$*! Do We Know? attempts to answer life's real toughies with a host of appropriately mad scientists and experts in the field. The quasi-conclusive information is then supplemented by a sequence starring Marlee Matlin, whose character overcomes a jilted marriage and anger floating from her past and is freed by deeper knowledge of what's truly important. This film has the potential to stun with animation sequences of the body's nervous system and internal organs and maybe even teach us a thing or two, but instead it resorts to dumbed-down language and downright embarrassing sequences of cells dancing, speaking, and doing things they have no business in doing. For an after-school philosophy special for junior high students, fine, but as a feature-length film, What the #$*! Do We Know falls flat on its pseudo-metaphysical face. (1:51) Galaxy. (Nickie Huang) The World According to Bush This is the movie the Cannes Film Festival opted not to screen this year, after deciding one anti-Bush film (Fahrenheit 9/11) was plenty. After the local releases of Fahrenheit, Bush's Brain, Uncovered, Outfoxed, Unconstitutional, Unprecedented, etc., even the most ardent Bush haters might be starting to agree. But if you're not quite ready to scream "uncle," or if you have that one insane acquaintance who still thinks W. is a dandy guy, William Karel's film is worth a look. True, it touches on a lot of the same subject matter as Fahrenheit (in particular, the murky reasoning behind the Iraq war; it also covers the whole Carlyle Group-bin Laden family connection), but Karel also snags some input from folks who'd never talk to Moore (Colin Powell, Richard Perle). Also, it's hard not to enjoy a film that features Normal Mailer pegging Bush as "the worst president in America's history" in its first 30 seconds – even if on the whole it relies far too heavily on the driest of devices: endless talking heads. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy) Zelary If ever there was a film aimed at the Academy Awards, it's Zelary, a nominee for the 2003 foreign language Oscar. Based upon real events, Zelary is the story of a woman forced to transform her identity under Nazi occupation. Eliska is a cosmopolitan participating in Prague's resistance. When her clan of fellow dissenters is discovered, she must escape to the countryside with Joza, the injured peasant for whom she recently donated blood. Eliska becomes Hana and poses as Joza's beloved. The identity swap isn't easy, but our heroine eventually forges the kind of bond with Joza that will periodically send the audience for their hankies. This is the melodrama the Academy drools for: overblown and oh so literary. It would be nice to experience the film's emotional impact without the help of a syrupy score and predictable staging, but subtlety isn't what Czech director Ondrej Trojan is after. (2:30) Smith Rafael. (Goldberg) Rep picks The Future of Food See 8 Days a Week. (1:28) Castro, Roxie. Progress See 8 Days a Week. (1:27) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. *'3rd I presents San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival' See Critic's Choice. Castro, Roxie. 'UnderSkatement Film Festival' See 8 Days a Week. Castro. |
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