Castro "Fun in Girls' Shorts" (shorts program) noon. "Fun in Boys' Shorts" (shorts program) 2:15. Unconscious 4:30. Transamerica 7:30.

Bewitched See "Nose Candy." (1:45) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Orinda, Shattuck.

*Caterina in the Big City See Movie Clock. (1:30) Embarcadero.

*5x2 See "Don't Look Back." (1:27) Act I and II, Lumiere.

George A. Romero's Land of the Dead The zombie master returns. And we love him for it. (1:48) California, Century Plaza, Century 20.

*Heights Trashing two humiliated Julliard students' passive interpretation of a Shakespearean scene, Broadway diva Diana (Glenn Close) laments today's overall dearth of passion: "We are tepid voyeurs, we are tap water!" she cries. But perhaps it's her own lost youth she's lamenting, given her open marriage, which seems increasingly open for one spouse only; a husband whose latest mistress is, embarrassingly, her own youthful understudy; and a photographer daughter, Isabel (Elizabeth Banks), whose forthcoming marriage – to dullish lawyer Jonathan (James Marsden) – her mom not-so-subtly disapproves of. But Isabel is just seeking the stability that her parents and childhood never afforded her. As it turns out, Jonathan has a past that suddenly comes back to haunt him, and a present more complex than he lets on. During the eventful 24 hours of Amy Fox's concise screenplay (adapted from her stage play), mother and daughter both suffer some rude awakenings about their relationships – including their own – and emerge at dawn with destinies redirected. This witty but nicely weighted Manhattan seriocomedy is like an extralong New Yorker story, modest in tenor yet precise in observation, easing us into a world that looks "glittering" on the surface but proves riddled by some very standard human flaws underneath. The excellent cast also includes, in small but sharp appearances, Isabella Rossellini, Rufus Wainwright, Eric Bogosian, George Segal, and Michael Murphy. (1:33) Albany, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Herbie: Fully Loaded Lindsay Lohan stars as the new owner of the enchanted VW bug in this G-rated comedy. (1:35) Century Plaza, Century 20, Oaks, Presidio.

*Rize See "Krump Towers." (1:25) California, Century 20, Embarcadero.

Writer of O "Women are as immoral as men, period." So says Dominique Aury, and she should know. Using the pseudonym Pauline Reage, in the 1950s Aury sent shock waves across the ocean by authoring The Story of O, which updated the pornographic aesthetics of the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch for the 20th century. Pola Rapaport's film moves between documentary footage of Aury – an editor at the esteemed Gallimard Press – and somewhat silly reenactments of the novel and of Aury's life. The opening credits, similar to a low-budget perfume-ad parody, do not bode well, but Rapaport hits her stride when investigating the discourse around the novel (which antiporn feminists claimed was written by a man), in particular, the fact that Story of O was a book of love, penned to please Aury's fellow literary figure Jean Paulhan. The undeniable star is the late Aury, who passed away in 1998, a few years after journalist John de St. Jorre uncovered her authorship. Spry and soft-spoken, with a teasing look in her eye, the ninetysomething Aury makes for a charismatic interview subject. (1:20) Red Vic, Smith Rafael. (Huston)

À Tout de Suite Director Benoît Jacquot seems comfortable slipping into the on-the-run subgenre of art cinema (think Pierrot le Fou or Morvern Callar) in his well-regarded if not entirely exceptional À Tout de Suite. The title translates to "right now," but like any existential French gangster picture worth its salt, this is a movie that knows how to take its time: It's more prone to hushed moments of character study than to explosive action. Jacquot's camera and story are unrelentingly committed to Lili (dynamically played by Isild Le Besco), a spacey, sometimes rash bourgeoise who falls hard for Bada (Ouassini Embarek), a Moroccan-born gangster. Lili discovers Bada's occupation when he's stealing away from his last score; he asks if she wants to run away with him, and she – in the great tradition of so many pliable new wave heroes – packs her bags. The French new wave was formative for Jacquot (he even apprenticed with celebrated director Jacques Rivette), and he wears this influence on his sleeve, both in terms of À Tout de Suite's style and narrative. Good thing, then, that Jacquot is an assured enough director to shape these influences into a stand-alone work. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D Robert Rodriguez must have felt pretty good about 2003's Spy Kids: 3-D since he decided to dust off those red and blue glasses once again for a new kids' flick (following up his cheery Sin City). Blond fourth-grader Max is the protagonist here, dreaming up escapist fantasies (those are the 3-D parts) where he doesn't have to endure the constant 10-year-old realities of parents fighting and bullies at school. George Lopez is fun to watch as the disgruntled teacher-evil overlord, and the movie shows promise with a children-of-the-Matrix concept in which the Planet Drool can function only by harnessing the energy generated by constant roller coaster rides. The plot thins appreciably from there, and Rodriguez ties up all the loose ends with yawnable neatness. On some level, though, the movie plays as pro-dream manifesto for Rodriguez, which might explain the source for some of the weirder stuff he's put on-screen in the past few years. (1:34) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Odes)

Après Vous Racing to make a date with his très belle girlfriend, Après Vous's protagonist, Antoine (Daniel Auteuil), happens into a disheveled gent attempting to hang himself in the park. Antoine awkwardly cuts the jumper down and takes him home. From this point forward, the comedy hinges on Antoine's unending dedication to the stranger, Louis (José Garcia) – he keeps Louis out of trouble; he lands Louis a job at a chic restaurant; he refurbishes Louis's love affair with his ex-girlfriend, Blanche. All of these tasks provide for endless pratfalls to the point that it seems like Antoine must enjoy being put through the ringer. But alas, this isn't a realm of reality or even common sense; rather, director Pierre Salvadori places us in a storybook world of fancy restaurants, cutesy apartments, and, against all better cliché-judgment, a luminescent flower shop. Perhaps because of the bourgeoisie sets or the firmly formulaic plot, Après Vous feels more like shopping than film – a consumptive excursion wherein love is something one acquires rather than feels. (1:50) Clay, Shattuck. (Goldberg)

*Batman Begins Batman Begins boasts plenty of talent behind the camera, with Christopher Nolan (Memento) directing from a script he cowrote with avowed comic-book fiend David S. Goyer (Blade, Dark City). Nolan's approach is way less fantasyland than Tim Burton's; his Gotham is seedier, and his Batman (Christian Bale, who heads an superb cast) is younger and way more pissed-off. The first half of the film is given over to the hero's origin story; the real action kicks in once the man in black decides to clean up his city on his own terms. "People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy," he explains to his faithful butler Alfred (Michael Caine). Among the film's multiple villains is psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane (28 Days Later's Cillian Murphy), who himself has an alter ego – let's just say he puts the "scare" in "Scarecrow." Batman Begins may have little in common with any of the Caped Crusader's previous films, but it does resemble other recent superhero flicks, particularly Spider-Man 2, with its more existential approach to dual-identity crisis. The way Bale's Bruce Wayne/Batman character is handled here adds appreciable depth to a film that's also rife with enough essential coolness – gadgets, the Batmobile – to thrill Bat-fans of all stripes. (2:10) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda, Presidio. (Eddy)

Cinderella Man Ron Howard's Cinderella Man has more in common with Seabiscuit than with any other recent movie – and that includes the similarly boxing-themed Million Dollar Baby. Based on the real-life rise, fall, and rise again of Depression-era heavyweight Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe, solid as always), Cinderella Man aims to show how Braddock became a hard-times hero to a nation that was really, really holdin' out for one. After we taste Braddock's initial success, circa 1928, we zoom ahead to 1933, where life sucks. The family (including wife Mae, played by Renée Zellweger) is now poverty-stricken, and Braddock has unjustly had his boxing license revoked. When he finally gets a second chance, the comeback trail leads him to Max Baer (Craig Bierko), notorious for killing two opponents in the ring. As their big bout approaches, the angle of Braddock as "an inspiration" to downtrodden Americans is suddenly tossed into the mix. It feels a little like screenwriters Cliff Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman (who also penned Howard's A Beautiful Mind) belatedly realized they needed more context, lest their script just be about a really nice guy who managed to become a champion again after a couple of rough years. (2:18) California, Century 20, Empire, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Eddy)

Crash Being promoted as the most critically acclaimed film of the year (so far), Paul Haggis's first directorial feature provides a fine opportunity to note which critics you need never take seriously again. Namely, any caught clapping their heads off at this crap-a-palooza, a steaming pile of horseshit spray-painted Oscar gold – though, in fact, Crash takes itself so seriously, it might settle for nothing less than the Nobel Peace Prize. Hewing way too close to the Magnolia model, it throws together umpteen marquee names (including Sandra Bullock, Brendan Frasier, Matt Dillon, and Don Cheadle) as two-dimensional characters who intersect during a fateful 36 hours in that Hollywood veteran's perennial notion of Everytown, LA One dimension is that they're all racist – and aren't we all, the movie sorrowfully chides – and the other is that they're still "human," meaning they love their kids or have sick parents or such. With every scene a blunt confrontation, the movie is a Rube Goldberg contraption in which one overamped event sets off another, each obvious irony and tragic misunderstanding highlighted in boldface throughout. (1:40) Empire, Four Star, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Deal This thriller-by-numbers is made vaguely more interesting by two factors: First, it's set in a fairly plausible parallel universe where a war between the US and the "Confederation of Arab States" has caused gas prices to hover around six bucks a gallon. Second, somehow Christian Slater got cast as the lead. Last seen howling for his innocence while being tucked into an NYPD squad car, the alleged ass-grabber hasn't been in many quality films lately. In The Deal, he plays a Wall Street banker whose career slump is revived when he's tapped to handle a billion-dollar deal involving an American oil company's bid to buy out a Russian competitor. Of course, in the film's Grisham-lite universe, sinister forces are at work behind the scenes. Though slickly produced, director Harvey Kahn's film has a straight-to-video vibe; also, its zero-chemistry romance between Slater and costar Selma Blair exists only to provide conflict, and proves somewhat embarrassing to watch. (1:47) Galaxy. (Eddy)

*Doing Time, Doing Vipassana This short, newly rereleased 1997 film by Eilona Ariel and Ayelet Menahemi seems as much a recruitment-advocacy tool as a straightforward documentary, but there's no arguing with the value of its cause. In the mid-'90s a guard recommended that India's inspector general of prisons, Kiran Bedi (who looks rather alarmingly like Joan Baez, and has since been appointed civilian police adviser to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations), experimentally try out the titular meditation discipline at one of the nation's worst penal institutions. Long considered an inhumane hellhole of crime, drugs, violence, and abuse by residents and staff alike, the Tihar facility is crammed with more than 10,000 detainees – 90 percent of whom are merely awaiting trial, a wait that can last years thanks to the slug-slow Indian court system. Vipassana is a centuries-old practice that proves to have a remarkable impact on the first group of prisoners to take its demanding 10-day, vow-of-silence introductory course. Inmates are immediately calmer, less dogged by hostility, cravings, and desires for revenge; a bigger picture than the usual (very narrow, often self-destructive) issues of penitentiary life opens before them. It's quite a surprise to see them sobbing gratefully in the arms of their jailers after completing the program. Similar projects have since been implemented elsewhere in India, as well as abroad – even in the U.S., though, at this point, expecting our prison system to widely deploy something (a) truly rehabilitative and (b) rooted in non-Christian religious practice requires a considerable leap of faith. Doing Time, Doing Vipassana plays with Magdalena Sole's short A Zen Tale. (:52) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room When the Enron scandal hit, it grabbed enough headlines to outrage even non-Wall Street types. But if the reasons behind the company's spectacular collapse still seem kinda enigmatic – err, something about the stock market, and, like, shady accounting practices? – Alex Gibney's excellent doc Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room offers clear, damning explanations. With a clever pop soundtrack keeping the pace, Gibney charts Enron's rise by delving into the psyches of charismatic company heads Ken Lay and especially Jeff Skilling; he also expounds on Enron's shady business tactics, which included banking on projected (and ultimately "imaginary") profits, firing analysts who disagreed with Enron brass, stashing debts in offshore companies, masterminding the California energy crisis (and therefore contributing to the election of the Governator), etc. Among the film's many engaging interviewees is Fortune magazine reporter and author Bethany McLean, who dared – during the boom years – to ask how exactly Enron made its billions. The answer – a mixture of hope, misguided faith, and sinister financial magic – turns out to be just as compelling as how exactly Enron lost its billions. (1:49) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Happily Ever After Totally innocuous and pleasantly fizzy, Happily Ever After is an odd mélange of Cassavetes and whimsy. The film's subject is ostensibly that of marital discord, but writer-director-star (gulp) Yvan Attal (My Wife is an Actress) isn't interested in getting mucked up in the messy emotionalism that comes with such relationships. Rather, his characters dance around one another, crying one moment only to forget what they were so upset about a few scenes later. The film starts by focusing on a set of three male friends (two married, one flashily single), though it soon becomes clear that our stars are Attal's Vincent and Charlotte Gainsbourg's Gabrielle. Attal never really clarifies Vincent's conflicted feelings for his wife – he's friskily playful with her in one scene and cheating on her in the next – though it must be said that nowhere does he purport to understand love. Happily Ever After has a habit of losing track of itself, making for a sugary, if not entirely memorable, ride. Taken with Gainsbourg's sharp looks and a thoroughly silly cameo by Johnny Depp, though, it's a very pretty picture indeed. (1:40) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Goldberg)

*High Tension On the surface, French director Alexandre Aja has built a loud, bloody, shoe-scrunching, tendon-tearing, adrenaline-rush machine, capping it with a crimson shower of a finale that presents an alternate, unhappy version of the hitchhiking rescue that caps Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The setup is as simple as the execution is stylish: Law students Marie (Cécile De France) and Alex (Maïwenn) have retreated to the farmhouse owned by the latter's parents for some heavy-duty studying. Sexual tension simmers in their friendship; butch Joan of Arc-type Marie harbors an obvious crush on long-haired American Alex. Yet these two aren't the only ones traveling toward their rural destination: A homicidal maniac (Philippe Nahon) also has a nighttime appointment there. On arrival, he uses a piece of restored furniture to dispatch his initial victim, and the battle is officially on, with Marie racing to save herself and Alex from a vicious and gruesome death. High Tension's high profile says something about the changing commercial tides of French cinema; here, Aja forsakes the art-house shock tactics that have been de rigueur of late for outright imitation of – or, in this case, outdoing of – big-budget Hollywood bombast. (1:31) 1000 Van Ness. (Huston)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Lackluster and aimless, Garth Jennings's adaptation of Douglas Adams's beloved series about wacky aliens in search of a meaningful existence has a few funny bits but mostly disappoints. Sam Rockwell turns two-headed, interstellar playboy politician Zaphod Beeblebrox into an inexplicable cross between Jerry Lee Lewis and a muppet; Mos Def is uncharacteristically blah as galactic travel writer Ford Prefect; and Martin Freeman's lovelorn human Arthur Dent is droopy and irritating by turns. Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), a geeky spaceship navigator in the novels, becomes in the movie an extraneous girlie girl obsessed with kitchen appliances. Still, there are a few standout moments. Who doesn't want to see Earth destroyed by bureaucratic Vogons building an interstellar freeway? And the film's climactic moments at a factory for building customized planets boasts some cool CGI and manages to evoke the irreverent dark humor that made Adams' books famous. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Annalee Newitz)

The Honeymooners Bus driver Ralph Kramden (Cedric the Entertainer) and his best friend Ed (Mike Epps) need to raise a lot of money fast in this inane comedy, a remake of the classic postwar sitcom starring a dumb, fat, loud guy and his inexplicably out-of-his-league wife. The spitfire spouse in this version (Gabrielle Union) wants to buy a house with their savings – only Ralph and Ed have secretly blown it all on stupid investments ("Damn, maybe we need to pimp some midgets"). So the next logical steps: Find a stray dog in a dumpster, train it for two days, and race it for a $20,000 prize. John Leguizamo steals the show as their guerilla-style dog trainer, while Cedric seems chained at the ankles to his drab, mostly expository lines. Wasting any potential that a reinvention of fifties Americana could have, this one placates, slings gags like the cayenne pepper in a chicken bit, and fails to rehash Jackie Gleason's wife-beating intentions. (1:29) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Kim)

*Howl's Moving Castle Don't miss this latest fantastic fantasy from Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away), an early and deserving contender for next year's Best Animated Feature Oscar. Howl's Moving Castle has already grossed a kajillion dollars overseas, and should add to its haul with Pixar and Disney overseeing the English-language release. In a quaint village surrounded by vast fields ("Nothing out there but witches and wizards," a character remarks matter-of-factly), a young hatmaker named Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer) is turned into an elderly woman (Jean Simmons) at the whim of a vain witch (Lauren Bacall). To break the spell, Sophie befriends Howl (Christian Bale) – an alluring wizard with problems of his own – and ends up moving into his titular home, a rattling contraption that strides about on spindly legs and is powered by Howl's friendly fire demon (Billy Crystal). A love story, an enchanted scarecrow, a potent antiwar message, and the immortal line "I see no point in living if I can't be beautiful!" – this gorgeous movie's got it all, and then some. (1:40) Dubbed: Century 20, Kabuki, Piedmont. Subtitled: Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Interpreter The political thriller is a delicate game; for it to work, the filmmaker must deftly maneuver between the personal (hence the thrills) and the political without seeming too preachy. The Interpreter is a Democrat's movie (hence Sean Penn), but its party line doesn't keep it from succeeding where last summer's Manchurian Candidate remake fell short. Nicole Kidman plays Silvia Broome, a United Nations interpreter who becomes embroiled in an assassination plot when she overhears threats made on a genocidal African leader's life. As investigator Tobin Keller (Penn) quickly finds out, though, the facts of the case are murky and misleading. While Kidman's flattened chemistry with Penn doesn't afford the film an emotional core, The Interpreter gets enough meat from metaphorical substance (the UN, diplomacy, etc.) and director Sydney Pollack's taut suspense sequences to mostly plug its holes. And, yes, it's hard not to find an ambiguous popcorn movie refreshing in a time when tunnel vision so dominates political discourse: That our allegiances to characters and narrative aren't so clearly demarcated as in a state-of-the-union address seems a good thing indeed. (2:08) Galaxy. (Goldberg)

Kingdom of Heaven Set in Christian-controlled Jerusalem between the Second and Third Crusades, Ridley Scott's latest echoes several recent sword-swingin' war flicks, including the director's own Gladiator ("A hero will rise" – again). Further double vision is propagated by the casting of period-movie poster boy Orlando Bloom, whose blacksmith-turned-knight character is hardly commanding enough to anchor such a huge story (see Russell Crowe in Gladiator for the reverse effect). Kingdom hews to political correctness by ensuring the film's baddest bad guys are Christians, avoiding any contemporary-context tension when Jerusalem's citizens eventually find themselves battling Muslim invaders. Director Scott is fully adept at delivering a proper historic epic, but we've all seen that siege-of-the-city scene a few too many times lately (the Lord of the Rings films, Troy, Alexander, etc.); also, there's definitely no "Are you not entertained?" sarcasm coming out of William Monahan's script. Gladiator may have had its corny moments, but Kingdom of Heaven is completely humorless, which suits the subject matter if not the attention span of the average popcorn-chomper. (2:18) Four Star. (Eddy)

*Kung Fu Hustle After all the Miramaxian kerfuffle surrounding Shaolin Soccer (release-date false alarms, dubbing-vs.-subtitling controversy, etc.), Stephen Chow is finally getting proper stateside respect thanks to a new distributor – Sony Pictures Classics – and an aggressive ad campaign talking up Kung Fu Hustle's flashy virtues. Here's hoping American audiences give Chow (sometimes called "the Jim Carrey of Asia," though I don't see Carrey writing and directing his films) a chance; subtitles are involved, but Hustle ain't really the kind of movie built on dialogue. The skimpy plot exists only to provide reason for Hustle's many adrenalized, cartoonish fights, which involve nattily dressed gangsters, secretly skilled residents of "Pig Sty Alley," two elderly assassins who slaughter with sound waves, a crabby landlady whose scream is literally a deadly weapon, a greasy convict who proudly claims the title "world's greatest killer," and Chow himself, as a wannabe bad guy who realizes his own kung fu superpowers. The result is highly ridiculous, and highly, highly enjoyable. (1:39) Galaxy. (Eddy)

Ladies in Lavender While he's appeared in more than his fair share of Merchant Ivory-type costume pieces, British actor Charles Dance has usually brought them a certain degree of Continental "edge," even villainy. So it's dismaying that this, his first directorial effort, is such a conventional, non-boat-rocking exercise in Masterpiece Theatre-style tea-cozy drama. Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith play elderly spinster sisters living on the Cornwall coast just before World War II. One day something washes into their English Channel cove: nearly dead Andrea (Daniel Brühl), a Polish-speaking sailor. This injection of cute youthful blood into their staid, sexless existence is an excitement that Dench's Ursula, especially, rather OD's on. She turns possessive, trying unsuccessfully to hide Andrea from the attentions of visiting painter Olga (Natascha McElhone), whose curiosity is piqued by overhearing the comely lad's skill as a violinist. The resulting tempest in a teapot – complete with scones and jam (or is that crones in a jam?) – is, of course, acted with old-pro assurance. But Dance overindulges every moment as if it were a precious keepsake (enough with the slo-mo already), and the story's predictability is never challenged. It's inoffensive matinee material for your inner Grandma – or your real one, if she's up for a movie date. (1:43) Four Star, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Layer Cake I suppose Matthew Vaughn has earned the right to direct his first feature – yet another Guy Ritchie-style British gangster ensemble thingie – because he actually produced those Ritchie movies everyone has been imitating since. To Vaughn's credit, he goes out of his way not to duplicate his colleague's hyperkinetic camera and editing gambits – Layer Cake is just as flashy, albeit in a controlled, weighted mode that will strike Ritchie-phobes as less annoying. Still, the script is cut from exactly the same cloth, emphasizing Tarantino-goes-Cockney character riffs, violent flourishes, and general tough-guy coolness over any emotional involvement or organic tension. I've already forgotten the plot – as if that mattered – except that basically several different factions of underworld society are chasing after a very large quantity of missing ecstasy. This good-looking caper, entertaining enough (if a bit "so what?" in the end), could have used more humor, though it does have one brilliant line. Explaining why a badder-than-bad hetero wise guy like him would spend so much time buggering male flunkies under less-than-consensual circumstances, a flashback figure says with a shrug, "Fuckin' birds is fer poofs." (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

The Longest Yard It's an Adam Sandler movie – which means its built-in audience doesn't give a crap about what any critic thinks. For what it's worth, this remake of the 1974 flick about an unlikely football game between a team of prison guards (boo!) and a team of inmates (yay!) isn't exactly overloaded with guffaws, though costar Chris Rock is good for at least a handful. And don't look for a repeat of The Waterboy – Sandler is way more mellow (some might say "sleepwalking") under the helmet this time around. The Longest Yard plays for the most part like a music video; the climactic game is underscored by what appears to be the largest assemblage of clichéd rock, pop, and hip-hop tunes in soundtrack history. Fortunately, there are some fun moments when Sandler, Rock, and Burt Reynolds (star of the original film, he appears here as the grizzled old coach) scour the jail for potential players – including rapper Nelly – and entice them to join the team, if only for a chance to wail on the guards, played by a beefy mix of pro wrestlers and former NFL stars. (1:47) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Look at Me Look at Me's generic-sounding title crystallizes an unvoiced and unanswered wish 20-year-old Lolita (Marilou Berry) has obsessed over her whole life: that her famous author-publisher father, Étienne Cassard (Jean-Pierre Bacri), might actually notice, approve of, and love her. Fat, uh, chance. Plump and insecure (she looks a lot like a pre-aerobicized Ricki Lake), the cruelly named Lolita is a timorous misfit in Dad's glittering world of power, prestige, and much younger women attracted by the same. What's worse, Cassard treats Lolita, an awkward reminder of his failed first marriage, as just that. Searching for approval and a parental substitute, Lolita fixes on her classical voice teacher, Sylvia (Look at Me's writer-director Agnès Jaoui), who doesn't need the burden – but changes her attitude upon discovering the girl's lofty paternal connection. Jaoui (cowriter of Alain Resnais's 1997 Same Old Song) has crafted a drama whose brilliant wit, pathos, and insight all rise organically out of characters and relationships that couldn't be more credible or intriguing. The rest of 2005 will have to spring some mighty big surprises for Look at Me to get elbowed off year-end best lists – or mine, at least. (1:50) Four Star. (Harvey)

*Lords of Dogtown If Lords of Dogtown looks familiar, no doubt you've seen Dogtown and Z-Boys. With its treasure trove of vintage home movies laid over a classic rock soundtrack, the acclaimed 2001 documentary captured the '70s heyday of the Z-Boys, a pioneering crew of skateboarders who honed their daredevil talents in empty SoCal swimming pools. Founding Z-Boy (and director of the doc) Stacy Peralta provides Lords' nostalgic script, which zeroes in on the trio of Peralta, Tony Alva, and Jay Adams – portrayed, respectively, by indie darlings John Robinson (Elephant), Victor Rasuk (Raising Victor Vargas), and Emile Hirsch (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys). Visually, Lords is nearly identical to director Catherine Hardwicke's previous youth-gone-wild epic, Thirteen, but her gritty handheld camerawork proves an apt choice here – many scenes appear to be carbon-copied directly from the doc. Lords has way more style than most sports movies; it also has the good fortune to be about a sport as alluring as skateboarding, which thrives on a certain anti-authoritarian glee that's precisely conveyed here. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Mad Hot Ballroom Amid the cheers of classmates, 11-year-old Dominican immigrant Wilson leads a rumba so effortlessly smooth it stuns a dance judge into howls of disbelief. Framed as Spellbound-meets-ballroom dancing, director Marylin Agrelo's documentary Mad Hot Ballroom tracks the mandatory ballroom programs at three New York City schools as the classes prep for competition. The film is highly entertaining when it spotlights the contrast between the elegant art form and the age of the kids, who are still squirmy when faced with touching the opposite sex. But no matter how clumsily they spin each other around, by performing a grown-up dance, these children visually embody their elders' inflated hopes that they will become "young ladies and gentlemen," à la a different era. The sentiment is catching for the audience too, in part because the kids are soooo damned adorable. Ballroom captures a range of children's perspectives instead of individual stories – a strategy that weakens the film a bit. But Mad Hot Ballroom is exuberant, fun, and worth it for anyone who loves to dance. (1:50) Bridge, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Koh)

Madagascar DreamWorks Animation must realize by now that it's no Pixar. Shrek has legions of fans (Shrek 2, fewer), but Shark Tale, while a financial success, had about as much originality and soul as a tin of sardines. Now comes Madagascar, cast with A-level voice talent (Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith) that doesn't do much to liven up the largely uninspired story. Central Park Zoo critters Alex the lion (Stiller), Marty the zebra (Rock), Gloria the hippo (Pinkett Smith), and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) lead a charmed life in the heart of New York City – until Marty decides he'd like to experience life in the wild. A series of snafus that pass for plot lead the quartet to the shores of Madagascar, where they stumble upon a jolly colony of lemurs presided over by the self-proclaimed King Julian (Da Ali G Show's Sacha Baron Cohen). Conflict arises when a hungry Alex's predatory instincts start creeping in – with no zookeepers around to feed him steaks at every meal, the lion begins to see Marty's striped rump as a tempting entrée. Kids will dig the animal hijinks, but grown-ups have little to work with here; Madagascar's idea of in-jokes for parents include tired Starbucks references and slow-mo sprinting to the Chariots of Fire theme. Suffice it to say, Madagascar fails to achieve anything resembling Finding Nemo-style heights. (1:26) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Eddy)

*Mr. and Mrs. Smith The rumored real-life love connection between Mr. and Mrs. Smith's stars, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, adds an extra layer of intrigue to Mr. and Mrs. Smith – potentially luring audiences who might otherwise brush off the film as True Lies redux. Which it is, essentially, sexing up the spies-in-suburbia angle with jazzy direction by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Swingers). The movie opens with the Smiths in marriage counseling, where he can't even remember how long they've been hitched ("five or six years"). The dull routine of daily life disappears once it's revealed that both Smiths are actually top-secret assassins. Inevitably, these ruthless executioners must battle each other, symbolically wreck their tasteful abode, and realize, with sudden clarity, they really do love each other. At last, they can finally be a fully functioning couple – just in time to face off with their angry, armed-to-the-teeth employers. Though the film's explosion-heavy final third runs a little long, Mr. and Mrs. Smith puts both Pitt and Jolie to ideal use, mixing action-hero antics with slinky dance numbers. US Weekly, Star, and all the other tabloids ain't lying – Brangelina's got chemistry to spare. (2:20) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Eddy)

*My Summer of Love It's looking more like a summer of hate for 16-year-old Mona (Nathalie Press). With one parent dead from cancer and another long since vanished, she's stuck living in the pub they once ran with elder brother Phil (Paddy Considine), who wants to turn it into a "spiritual center" – and who was "a lot more fun" when his violent streak kept him in and out of jail. But escaping his usual cadre of praying born-agains one day, Mona makes the acquaintance of Tamsin (Emily Blunt), who needs a companion for her own semiexile. (Seems she's been thrown out of boarding school for offenses she's rather vague about.) Hardly your average Yorkshire village girl, Tamsin is impulsive, worldly, sophisticated, and confiding, with her own past family tragedy to share. She lives in a country manse that Mona soon more or less moves into; Tamsin's own parents are absent or indifferent to the point of nonexistence. So the two girls do the typical things teens do when they're sure they won't get caught: drink, smoke, get high, play with a Ouija board, and play pranks of varying degrees of cruelty on people who've pissed them off. They also experiment sexually, and make vows of undying devotion that sound doomed even as they're being said. It's all quite idyllic, apart from Phil's worries that Mona needs "saving," and apart from the flashes of abrupt maliciousness that sometimes make Tamsin seem like an unstable chemical that might blow up in one's face any moment. Writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort) has crafted a hypnotic parable whose humid, overripe, infinitely ominous atmosphere recalls early Peter Weir (especially Picnic at Hanging Rock). Scratch beneath the fascinating surface here and you might detect some reactionary concepts – female sexuality as a corrupting, Kali-like force, and lesbianism as something one is "seduced into." And the big, shocking twist toward the end may not surprise you at all. Still, My Summer's textural richness, unpredictable narrative details, and overall ambiguity make it one of the few films so far this year that can qualify as a must-see. (1:24) Act I and II, Embarcadero, Empire, Piedmont. (Harvey)

*Mysterious Skin I outright hated Gregg Araki's early films – those spectacles of phony rebellion populated by poseurs about one-tenth as clever as they thought they were. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say I practically wished death on the whiny, HIV-positive renegades of The Living End, simply for being so entitled, victim-y, and annoying. And I never expected Gregg Araki to create an excellent film – which makes Mysterious Skin, easily one of this year's best, a genuine surprise. The endless snarkfests characteristic of typical past Araki screenplays have been replaced by sincerity, sweetness, and most important, actual material. The film's source, Scott Heim's 1995 novel that explores the post-traumatic stories of two boys victimized by a pedophile, allows the director to drape his trademark glossy sheen over a story of substance, and Araki's visual sense – always his strongpoint – proves ideal for adaptation-style embellishment. Better still, Mysterious Skin's sexual politics, particularly during this conservative era, are so dedicated to logic and truth that they're quietly radical. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Huston)

The Perfect Man Two pressing facts gleaned from The Perfect Man: One, Hilary Duff looks good in anything; and two, rich guys make waaay better boyfriends than poor guys. Even if we had been spared the synchronized dancing scene, which reminded us that, yes, all single moms embarrass their teenage daughters – a point which, by the way, all such single-mom movies since Mermaids seem to make clear – there still wouldn't be much here to work with. Heather Locklear plays Duff's oft-dumped mother, uprooting the family each time she tires of the local crop of potential mates. The blondes finally arrive in New York City, where an all-knowing bachelor (Chris Noth) sops up the female family cynicism and gives Holly (Duff) hope for Mom's future. The online hijinks central to plot development get stale pretty fast, but if you wait until the very end, you might get a glimpse of Duff's one highly unfortunate hairdo – something you don't get to see every day. (1:51) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Odes)

*The Power of Nightmares Muckrakers and filmmakers love the smoking gun, that single piece of evidence that so tidily ties disparate plot elements together. But they aren't the only ones – the political philosopher at the center of The Power of Nightmares loved Gunsmoke. In this latest by BBC-funded documentarian Adam Curtis (The Century of the Self), whose political analyses have dug up all manner of muck and organized it into elegant essays, we learn that the series was the favorite of Leo Strauss, the seminal figure of the neoconservative movement who influenced the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Curtis uses only a single photo of Strauss throughout his three-part series, and he doesn't tire of using the tried-and-true zoom to indicate some fundamentally ambiguous evil lurking within that photo. But he doesn't have to: The many Strauss apprentices are scary enough as they speak of their global agenda to the British interview crew. Curtis's now-signature style of "illustrated journalism" lifts off from the talking heads, adding essential visual critique and at times even comedy to the film's sober political assessments. This time, he focuses on the neoconservative and Islamist movements through the past half century, arguing that both emerged from the same fear of moral weakness. (3:00) Roxie. (Gerhard)

Saving Face Can a comely, workaholic medical resident (Michelle Krusiec) survive the frantic matchmaking of her haranguing mother (Joan Chen) and find love with a gorgeous dancer (Lynn Chen)? And what happens when the tables turn and a mother ends up knocked up and on her own daughter's doorstep? Director Alice Wu goes fishing for Wedding Banquet-style madcap comedy, with mixed results. The narrative arc is all too predictable in this Will "Hitch" Smith-coproduced venture, as enjoyable as it is to see a wide-screen beauty like Joan Chen play against type as a dowdy, fussy dowager, and as charming a pair as Krusiec and Chen make. (1:36) Albany, Lumiere. (Chun)

Sin City Rebel auteur Robert Rodriguez (Once upon a Time in Mexico) carbon-copies Sin City from codirector Frank Miller's graphic novels, bringing the author's stylized vision to life using everything-digital-but-the-actors technology. Visually, Sin City is everything last year's similarly engineered Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was not: bold and memorable, with effects that enhance rather than overpower the narrative. "Special guest director" Quentin Tarantino's influence is felt not just in Sin City's enthusiastic bloodshed but also in its Pulp Fiction-style structure, which creates twisted continuity from multiple Miller yarns. But despite an outstanding cast (Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen, and Mickey Rourke are standouts), lovingly rendered violence, and marvelous attention to comic-book detail, Sin City regrettably falls short of perfection. Though most of the characters are clearly, deliberately despicable, some are nearly too loyal to Miller's two-dimensional creations – in particular, Sin City's women are a depressingly unoriginal lot, posing in positions of power (hookers with guns!) but remaining absent from the movie's near constant voice-overs. (2:06) Galaxy. (Eddy)

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Quickly now, just hold your nose and swallow the concept of magic pants. Let it go and move on because the remaining story is entertaining and has surprising depth, for teen fluff. Four best friends pledge to share for the summer a pair of thrift-store jeans that inexplicably fits them all perfectly. Modest, shy artist Lena (Alexis Bledel) takes them first to a Greek island and lets her hair down for a hunky fisherman. Meanwhile, boy-crazy Bridget (Blake Lively) sets her lasers on a soccer camp coach; wannabe documentary filmmaker Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) deals with a precocious 12-year-old assistant; and Carmen (America Ferrera), whose scenes are the film's strongest, negotiates her place in absentee Dad's new Stepfordlike family. Director Ken Kwapis never reveals the divine secret of the ya-ya pants' origins (in my fantasy, they're the sidewalk pair that Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson repeatedly catch sight of in Ghost World), but at least they operate in subtle ways. However, besides faithfulness to the Ann Brashares novel, why pants at all? Why not an iPod hoodie, or better yet four narratives that stand on their own? (2:00) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Koh)

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith Rest assured, Revenge of the Sith makes for a better time at the movies than 1999's Phantom Menace and 2002's Attack of the Clones. Partially, that's because things could not get any worse, but it's also because, after two movies of setting up meaningless characters and subplots, there's nothing left to do but finally get to the meat of the story. Yet the dark side of George Lucas's digital-era filmmaking still looms large throughout; like its kin, Sith unfolds in video game-ready action sequences married to abominable dialogue, with every frame filled with as many childish and distracting CGI creatures as possible. But by the time the much-anticipated lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and bad seed Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), a.k.a. Darth Vader, erupts, Sith has managed to conjure up an air of credible space opera (albeit one totally lacking any suspense). By the time we see the revealed emperor and his new apprentice gazing out into space, simultaneously peering into the past and future of the Star Wars chronology, it's tempting to imagine that their evil Empire will mirror Lucas's own: the rise of the soulless blockbuster, the digital actor, and the move to turn cinema into a home theater demo. (2:19) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Macias)

*The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill Having moved to San Francisco at the end of the hippie era to become a professional musician, Mark Bittner never realized that goal. Instead, he belatedly found an alternate raison d'être, feeding and studying the colorful tropical parrots – originally abandoned or escaped pets who proved adaptable to this cooler climate – which often roosted on his doorstep in his North Beach neighborhood. Distinguishing all 40-odd birds by markings or behavior, he gave them each a name and ingratiated himself enough to be able to hand-feed them. When the landlords who've allowed him to live rent-free decide to remodel their property, he must move on. This is no small crisis, since Bittner has never held a "real" job, nor does he have any contingency plans. Veteran local filmmaker Judy Irving's beautifully shot documentary balances surprisingly engrossing aviary insights with rather poignant human ones, arriving at a charming portrait of the kind of mild dropout eccentricity that the world (and even San Francisco) barely tolerates anymore. (1:13) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)