San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

The 25th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival runs July 21-Aug 6 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; Mtn View Century Cinema, 1500 N. Shoreline, Mtn View; and Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael. For tickets (most shows $9-11), call (925) 275-9490 or visit www.sfjff.org. All times p.m. unless noted. For commentary, see "Freedom Rock."

Thurs/21

Castro Go for Zucker! 8.

Sat/23

Castro Zero Degrees of Separation with "Meet Michael Oppenheim" noon. On the Objection Front 2:30. Wall with "God on Our Side" 4:45. The Talent Given Us 7:30. Metallic Blues 10.

Sun/24

Castro Odessa ... Odessa! with "Yelena's Story" 11:30am. "Peace One Day: Youth Program" (shorts program) 2. The Front with "Gertrude Berg" 4. The Locket 7:30. Arye 9:45.

Mon/25

Castro A Cantor's Tale with "The Tale of the Goat" 2. Arna's Children 4:15. The First Time I Was Twenty with "Jai" 6:15. Hotel Berlin 8:45.

Tues/26

Castro The Search 1:30. Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellman and Poumy 3:45. Commune with "The Nuclear Physicist Gives His Son a Haircut" 6:15. Massacre 8:45.

Opening

Bad News Bears Billy Bob Thornton tones down his Bad Santa routine to PG-13 levels, taking on the Walter Matthau role in Richard Linklater's remake of the Little League classic. (1:51) Century Plaza, Century 20, Oaks, Presidio.

Crónicas Call it a version of the Beverly D'Angelo Effect, that strange combination of winning actor and lousy films: Up until Land of the Dead, the presence of John Leguizamo usually meant a stinker was in store. Crónicas, however, serves up a surprise – while no classic for the ages, it's more substantive than your average US thriller, with an ending that just might linger in your mind the next time you tune into the exploitative harangues of Greta, Nancy, and others on cable TV. Director Sebastián Cordero's handheld approach works best in the early scenes, particularly when a mob scene erupts around a man (wild-eyed Damián Alcázar) who seems like an innocent victim. Leguizamo plays Manolo Bonilla, a reporter whose work has crossed the line from news into entertainment, requiring him to play the hero no matter what the circumstances. Faced with some giveaway clues about a man who has raped and murdered many children in an Ecuadorian village, Bonilla begins to manipulate the cops and his network boss to land the ultimate story before his next Miami vacation. What he ends up with is soul-corroding proof that he's a fraud. (1:48) Lumiere. (Huston)

*The Devil's Rejects Designed to be a guilty pleasure of the sort that finds you crouching, like the undead, over the entrails of good taste, The Devil's Rejects represents a huge step forward for writer-director Rob Zombie over his more erratic Rocky Horror-like and music video-influenced debut feature, House of 1,000 Corpses. Looking to '70s action, horror, and trash cinema such as Deliverance, Sugarland Express, and, of course, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Zombie gets that era's crucial drive-in mix of low-budg grit, cinema verité-style, pop savvy, taboo-thrashing violence, and even working-class empathy. Cutting up the action with extreme close-ups and lots of Southern rock and blues, Zombie throws the viewer immediately into a firefight between the law and the Firefly clan, a murderous family of crazy hillbillies that includes patriarch-killer clown Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), necrophiliac longhair Otis (Bill Moseley), and sexy sadist Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie). Flesh masks, over-the-top amoral bloodletting, B-movie star cameos, and lots of soon-to-be-classic scenery-chawing ensue (with special Peckinpah-like intensity rolling off William Forsythe as a vengeful sheriff, Leslie Easterbrook standing in for House's Karen Black, and Geoffrey Lewis and Priscilla Barnes as members of a C&W band who fall into the Fireflys' trap). Ushering in what seems like a redneck movie revival, Rejects will make trash connoisseurs want to see what Zombie does next. (1:49) Century Plaza, Century 20. (Chun)

*Hustle and Flow See Critic's Choice. (1:44) Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Shattuck.

The Island Suturing together the DNA of Logan's Run with a stand of The Matrix, and spit-shined and sprinkled with enough product placements, twisted metal, concrete rubble, and broken glass to decorate a disaster flick as conceived by a luxury automaker, The Island might be considered director Michael Bay's finest moment, unless you have a soft spot for Bad Boys. Giving '70s-era hope-I-die-before-I-get-old, fear-of-a-youthful-planet storyline a nice hard twist toward the bioengineered future, The Island centers around the glamorous dreams and seemingly glam, charmed existence of Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson), sexless hotties who wear all-white jumpsuits and live a clean, controlled existence indoors among many of their kind, protected from a mysteriously contaminated exterior world, and given hope by a lottery that promises to deliver them to the Island, the last uncontaminated place on Earth, where they can cavort freely (i.e., reproduce). But there's trouble in paradise once Lincoln questions givens and thinks thoughts that don't seem to belong to him. The pair's supposedly hygienic existence really boils down to a multibillion-dollar test-tube farm, or better, ghetto, because they're clones who are being bred for genetically on-point organ harvest, the property of wealthy sponsors. The likable McGregor and Johansson do their best to add some "humanity" to the humongous bang-up mechanism of The Island, which throws in a half dozen explosions where one would do. And Bay's inevitable glamour shots of vehicles and their star drivers – most noticeably of Johansson, looking voluptuous and pouty in super-slo-mo, even as she goes to her bitter harvest – can be annoying, though here a case can be made for their inclusion, when the newly escaped Jordan ends up staring at a giant, real Calvin Klein fragrance ad starring Johansson, or rather her "sponsor." Omigod, Honey, we forgot to sell our bodies to the marketplace. (2:12) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Orinda, Presidio. (Chun)

Last Days If there's a word that fits the still-air quietitude of Gus Van Sant's recent efforts, it might be antiseptic. You get the feeling even the grunge – the grime and mildew on the kitchen cupboard doors of a Northwest mansion, not Michael Pitt's uninspiring compositions – has been minutely art-decorated in this snore of a film, which aims, I think, to offer some sort of conjecture about the hours that led up to Kurt Cobain frenching a shotgun. Van Sant recreates a well-circulated postmortem news photo of Cobain, and Pitt has the old-man posture down, but when it comes to chord changes and lyrics, he's a movie star pretending to be a rock legend, and the nonstop indecipherable muttering gets old mighty quick. Other than that, we have some pink-panty posing by Asia Argento, cameos by cold-fish Kim Gordon and slightly amusing Harmony Korine, "Venus in Furs" ad nauseum, and Lukas Haas's eyes magnified by some Coke-bottle glasses as he picks and strums a lovely acoustic ditty. (Oh, and there's a non sequitur boy-kiss, of course.) Overall, the ever-so-formal exercise seems as doomed as Cobain's gesture; Van Sant and Pitt definitely know how to convey fatigue, but psychological turmoil is beyond their range. (1:37) California, Embarcadero. (Huston)

*Lila Says The perils and pleasures of teenage sexuality are on display here, as 16-year-old Lila (Vahina Giocante) enchants Chimo (Mohammed Khouas) with her lurid fantasy life. Both inhabit an impoverished sector of Marseilles, a place with few escape hatches into the world of successful career options. More daunting for Chimo, he and his Arab buddies face a society increasingly hostile to young men with Muslim names attempting ascent to higher rungs on the economic ladder. So, while Lila gropes towards her nascent personal and sexual identity, she empowers herself in conscious distinction from her far less empowered brown-skinned peers. Her blond hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin – so valorized by Brigitte Bardot and the rest of French culture – become the basis for Lila's understanding of the angelic side of her multifaceted personality. Also surfacing is audacity, which in this case begets the temptress, and ultimately, due to highly charged surroundings, the victim. Her awakening also lets director Ziad Doueiri get at some of the tense racial issues in contemporary France, and on the whole he does so with insight and consequence. (1:29) Act I and II, Lumiere. (Odes)

*Murderball "We're not going for a hug, we're going for a fucking Gold Medal" says one Team USA member in this documentary about quadriplegic rugby, differentiating the dead-serious athletic competition of the Paralympics from the give-these-kids-a-hand events of the Special Olympics. (Some well-intentioned soul at a party had mistakenly congratulated him on attending the latter – the last time she made that mistake, no doubt.) At first impression the Sundance hit feels as pumped-up and potentially obnoxious as its leading protagonists. The latter (most notably Team USA spokesman Mark Zupan and Joe Soares, a sorehead who responded to his aged-out team cutting by turning "Benedict Arnold" as Team Canada's new coach) are type A-for-Asshole über-jocks, in your face and up your arse. However, we soon get to glean other sides to their personalities, particularly the ones that emerge when they're not on court driving customized wheelchairs into each other like little gladiator chariots. In the end, Murderball has a lot to say about able-bodied and differently-abled life, the huge difficulties of forced transition from one to the other, and why man like sport good. (1:26) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Saraband See "Master of Torture." (1:47) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Wheel of Time See Movie Clock. (1:20) Smith Rafael.

Ongoing

*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, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*The Beat That My Heart Skipped From French director Jacques Audiard (A Self-Made Hero, Read My Lips) comes this remake of the 1978 James Toback neo-noir Fingers, though The Beat That My Heart Skipped works on its own terms – it's even better if you haven't seen, or barely remember, the original. Romain Duris is Tom, the surly, mercurial son of a shady real estate magnate (Niels Arestrup) who uses his lone offspring as both presentable boardroom "suit" and as violent enforcer. Like his late concert-pianist mother, any refined side Tom might have appears to be long dead. Yet an unexpected meeting with mom's former manager stirs a dormant fever. Tom recommences his own long-abandoned ivory tickling, taking on a Chinese-émigré instructor (Linh-Dan Pham) in preparation for a major audition. Already high-strung enough, this additional pressure makes Tom even more anxious and distracted, angering his father and business partners. The handsome Duris looks a bit like Liam Gallagher, which is perfect since this protagonist seems more like an tantrum-prone, wiseguy-impersonating brat than the ticking bomb of operatic psychosis Harvey Keitel was in Fingers. Likewise, this smoother, less erratic (but also less memorable) version lacks the reckless pulp dementia of Toback's film, as well as its more jarring bursts of violence and hostile sex. Still, in some ways less is more: A fairly outrageous story is easier to swallow here, its elements better integrated without sacrificing melodramatic juice. (1:47) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Beautiful Country The title of director Hans Petter Moland's drama applies to both Vietnam and the United States at various points in the film. The title is also loosely ironic, as each location erects its own hurdles for a half-Vietnamese, half-American refugee as he makes the harrowing journey to reconnect with his GI father. Representative of a generation of bui doi ("dust of life"), Binh (Damien Nguyen) flees his oppressive homeland in search of a chance for a better life selling shoes in America, but is cast into a process ripe with human traffickers who leech off the population's desperation. There is a lot of hidden political history brought to light here, and Moland does well to call attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by the American occupation of the last generation's Iraq. The fault of the film may be its overreaching aim – it tries to cover too much ground, and ends up trimming some crucial narrative meat in the process. The plot feels elliptical at points, but becomes increasingly compelling once Binh reaches the US and connects with the war-weary Steve (played by the appropriately grizzled Nick Nolte), when the film finally achieves an appropriately melancholy tone. (2:05) Albany, Embarcadero. (Odes)

*The Best of Youth Italian director Marco Tullio Giordana's epic drama finally reaches American theaters nearly two years after its acclaimed European release. With this generational tale of two brothers, Giordana has crafted what is arguably the best foreign film in recent memory. Beginning in 1966 and reaching the present day, Best of Youth follows the storybook tale of the Caratis, Nicola and Matteo, whose lives and loves mirror the major social and political crises that have marred the picturesque Italian landscape over the past half century. Best of Youth is as much a historical retrospective of Italy's self-destructive past and a critique of the forces that have guided it, as it is a family drama. Not unlike Once upon a Time in America, Best of Youth is an ambitious film whose scope and length offer a complexity and depth rarely achieved in cinema. Even with countless characters and a near six-hour length, the strong performances and powerful story will leave you pining for more. (Part one: 3:02; Part two: 2:56) Balboa. (Matthew Lake)

Bewitched The vault of old television shows is robbed yet again for Bewitched, the latest from frequent Hanks-Ryan purveyor Nora Ephron, who applies a semi-postmodern twist to Darren and Samantha's story. She also taps her own Sleepless in Seattle formula, slathering a generous coating of puppy love on a romance between grown-ups. The movie opens as honest-to-goodness witch Isabel (Nicole Kidman) touches down in Los Angeles, determined to give up her spell-casting ways. Elsewhere in Tinseltown, self-obsessed actor Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) decides to jump-start his career by starring in a new version of Bewitched. How Isabel comes to be cast as Samantha to Jack's Darren has everything to do with her nose, which she's able to twitch in exact imitation of Elizabeth Montgomery. She agrees to be on the TV show because she's attracted to Jack – for a witch, she sure is naive, interpreting his show-biz schmooze as genuine affection. Kidman and Ferrell – the unlikeliest couple since Emily Watson fell for Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love – actually make an OK pair here, but Bewitched, which is packed with Hollywood in-jokes, ultimately fails to transcend its sitcom-style superficiality. (1:45) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Caterina in the Big City In Italian director Paolo Virzì's Caterina in the Big City, newcomer Alice Teghil plays Caterina, a small-town girl who moves to Rome with her misanthropic father and hapless mother. When she gets to school, she has to navigate the dicey terrain of teenage cliques and attempt to get in with the "right" crowd to help Dad climb the social ladder. Instead of limiting the story to the girl's predictable identity crisis, Virzì is willing to bring the class and political debates in contemporary Italy to the surface and posit them as a fundamental component of her family's troubles in their new hometown. Caterina's father, Giancarlo (Sergio Castellitto), represents the experience of the aspiring bourgeoisie, frequently running into the impenetrable wall of old money that surrounds the city's institutions. This frustration ultimately turns the movie inward, focusing on the emotional fallout that results from Giancarlo's failure to achieve the professional success he's so convinced he deserves. Caterina grows in the process of all of this, of course, but the movie's resolution is much more satisfying than many other loosely comparable films. (1:30) Four Star. (Odes)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Despite ingredients that sounded mouth-watering on paper – Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, the beloved story – this emerges as an elaborately packaged, stale bonbon with a ball-bearing where its heart should be. The sadistic edge in Roald Dahl's writing (both for children and adults) is duly much more on display than it was in the middling "classic" 1971 film version of the children's book, but there's no sense of counterbalancing fun, as if somehow all the joy bled out between the storyboarding and the shooting schedule. What results is a garishly psychedelic spectacle full of outré ideas that should play a lot more entertainingly than they do. Church mouse-poor Charlie (Freddie Highmore) is the only deserving child among five who win entry to Willy Wonka's gated sweets factory, where Oompa Loompas turn out the world's best and most outlandish confections. The four other horrid brats meet various grotesque fates during the tour, making this a sort of kiddie slasher pic. The cartoonish parent-child roles are perfectly cast, but Burton gives the performers very little room to breathe – excepting Depp, of course. Channeling Michael Jackson (as you've heard), as well as Liberace (that voice), Anjelica Huston (that hair and that upscale-dominatrix manner), and other inspirations too subliminal to name, his is a polymorphously perverse turn that's fascinating, if a tad repellent. But the parodic production numbers (to Danny Elfman's songs), CGI effects, imaginative sets, et al. come off as overblown and charmless, the overall lack of real esprit underlined by perhaps the most wildly unconvincing family-values pap ever shoehorned into a giant marketing tool. For all Burton's eccentricity, this is finally just another Hook, Toys, Grinch, even dread Cat in the Hat – something meant to be warm and cuddly, drowned in a rancid tub of excess money and technology. (2:00) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Harvey)

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) 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (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 Fraser, 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) Galaxy, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Dark Water Desperate to find affordable housing postdivorce (and mid-bitter custody battle), jittery Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) snatches up a dingy apartment on Roosevelt Island, just off the shore of Manhattan island. Soon after she and daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade) move in, what at first seems like a run-of-the-mill tenant's complaint – a persistent leak in the ceiling – snowballs into supernatural shenanigans that threaten to push Dahlia from mentally fragile to all-out cuckoo. Director Walter Salles (Motorcycle Diaries) stays relatively true to the Japanese original, adapted from a story by the author of The Ring – and anyone down with the Ring films, particularly Ring 2, will recognize most of Dark Water's plot points (spooky, watery little girl strikes again!) More psychological drama than horror movie, Salles's Dark Water skimps on scares, to a fault. The cast, however, is uniformly excellent, with supporting players John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, and Pete Postlethwaite chipping in to save the drippy Dark Water from being completely irredeemable. (1:42) Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*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) Four Star, Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Fantastic Four Neither totally offensive (Daredevil) nor totally awesome (Spider-Man 2), this serviceable comic book movie plays like a less-exciting X-Men, with a quartet of astronauts (and one villain) transformed from regular (if photogenic) humans to superpowered freaks of nature. (If the powers seem familiar, you've no doubt seen The Incredibles, a note-by-note homage to the Marvel quartet.) It takes half the movie for everyone's abilities to manifest. The remainder consists of tedious infighting: Stretchy science geek Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) tries to appease the I-wanna-be-normal-again desires of the superstrong, superfugly Thing (Michael Chiklis); the occasionally invisible Susan Storm (Jessica Alba) longs to rekindle her relationship with Mr. Fantastic; Susan's brother Johnny (Chris Evans) uses his Human Torch-ness to amplify his athletic pursuits, personal fame, and female conquests; and evil metal god Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon) slinks around plotting the downfall of the Four. Every bit of conflict – not to mention widespread destruction of New York City property – springs from the whims of the five main characters, none of whom are actually all that fantastic. Same goes for the ho-hum special effects. (1:50) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Happy Endings Proving again that she was the only cast member of Friends with hidden talent, Lisa Kudrow steals writer-director Don Roos's Happy Endings with her gift for playing un-Phoebe-like embittered cynics. This homage to the lighter side of family dysfunction runs in the same vein as a previous Kudrow triumph, Roos's The Opposite of Sex. This time Roos lets loose his clever dialogue on a larger ensemble cast, all of whom are game for the script's shadings of self-absorption. A wannabe filmmaker (Jesse Bradford) tries to blackmail Mamie (Kudrow) about a child she once gave up for adoption; her stepbrother Charley (Steve Coogan) and his partner, Gil (David Sutcliffe), become convinced that their lesbian friends lied about not using Gil's sperm donation, since their baby is a dead ringer for him. Meanwhile, young, closeted Otis (Jason Ritter) loses his pretend girlfriend (Maggie Gyllenhaal) to his wealthy dad (Tom Arnold). Roos gives all his characters at least the hint of complexity, no doubt helped by the sarcastic, explanatory subtitles he places next to the action as a form of running commentary. (2:10) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Koh)

Herbie: Fully Loaded The first Herbie film (1968's The Love Bug) starred Dean Jones, who, as human lead in That Darn Cat, The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, and other classics, was the quintessential picture of Disney wholesomeness. Disney cultural elitism aside, Jones was talented at letting his assorted animal and inanimate costars hog the spotlight, a skill diva-ette Lindsay Lohan lacks. Instead she saunters (and sometimes screeches) through Herbie: Fully Loaded with no regard for building onscreen chemistry with her cute 1963 Volkswagen bug-with-a-soul. Herbie, a junkyard graduation gift, causes mischief right away, and speed demon Maggie finds herself breaking promises to Dad (Michael Keaton) as the bug brings her back to the racetrack. In male disguise at first, she eventually must defend her racing family's dynasty against smarmy NASCAR champ Trip Murphy (Matt Dillon). Director Angela Robinson, the first African American lesbian Disney has trusted with such a project, nearly churns out an amiable family comedy, but Lohan's lackluster acting and a weak script keeps Herbie stuck in first gear. (1:35) Century 20. (Koh)

*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) Galaxy, Kabuki, Shattuck (Shattuck shows both dubbed and subtitled versions). (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)

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) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Machuca Relying on a claim by the adolescent Silvana (Manuella Martelli) that "kids and drunks never lie," director Andrés Wood recounts the story of the year preceding "Chile's September 11" from her perspective. Loosely based on Wood's own recollection of the events surrounding Pinochet's coup, Machuca spends considerable time delineating the complexities of class division in Salvador Allende's Chile. At St. Patrick's, a prestigious Catholic boys' school in the heart of Santiago, Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna) enrolls on scholarship, eventually bridging class and cultural divides to befriend upper-middle-class Gonzalo (Matias Quer). The two navigate the rocky landscape that temporarily unites their worlds, and must come to terms with the irreconcilabilities of their experiences as the world around them unravels and everyone is forced to choose a side. According to Wood, Machuca is the first film to retell the events of this period made by someone who actually lived through them, and the results unearth an emotional reality of a unique revolutionary period in world history. (1:55) Balboa, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Odes)

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 sooo 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) Lumiere, 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 high jinks, 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 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*March of the Penguins Pity the emperor penguin. His name is glorious, but his lot in life – as incredulously documented by Luc Jacquet and narrated with morbid amusement by Morgan Freeman – is one of unrelenting duty and sacrifice. If social Darwinists love the traditional top-of-the-food-chain tale, only a true evolutionary thinker can really appreciate this one. Or a working parent. March of the Penguins has less in common with French adventures into animal kingdoms – Microcosmos, Winged Migration – than it does with the more moralizing cultural work of, say, Robert Flaherty. But it's still got to be the most beautifully filmed animal story of the year, in one of the landscapes most endangered by rapacious humanity: gorgeous mile after mile of frozen earth, with pastel skyscapes, brutal storms, and line after line of amazing, tuxedoed birds, devotedly marching in formation. (1:20) Albany, Clay, Empire, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Gerhard)

*Me and You and Everyone We Know With numerous grants, a few Whitney Biennials, a Sundance Institute Fellowship, and one Cannes Film Festival Camera D'Or prize, Miranda July might just be the crossover figure of the moment, and I can't say I'm surprised. What is surprising is how much of her "crazy, fantastic" (to quote from her short video The Amateurist) worldview she's managed to maintain in a more mainstream context, successfully juggling crowd-pleasing vignettes with nervier ones to create a winning film. To be sure, the thudding weight of Sundance groupthink sometimes drags at the edges of Me and You and Everyone We Know, threatening to turn the movie's oddballs into a sub-Solondz peanut gallery. But her levity prevails, even if at times other people in the movie seem to be echoing the amazement philosophies of July's character, Christine Jesperson. Christine falls for shoe salesman Richard (John Hawkes), though Richard's still burned – quite literally, in fact – from a recent separation. When Richard lashes out, it's at Christine's tendency to embellish the details of everyday existence, a near-ritualistic practice that permeates the movie itself. On their own, July suggests, life's everyday signposts aren't enough; they need to be messed with, scrawled on, and reimagined. (1:30) Act I and II, Bridge, Empire. (Huston)

*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 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*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)

*Rize Photographer and MTV video director-turned-documentarian David LaChapelle's Rize privileges Watts over Hollywood. Or, to borrow a linguistic fusion used by someone in the movie, it brings the two together to form Hollywatts. An exploration of new urban dance styles, Rize has greater kinetic energy and visual splendor than you're likely to find in this season's big-budget blockbusters. LaChapelle's framework is simple: He moves back and forth between personal story lines and adrenaline-pumping performance sequences, building toward a climactic stadium showdown between the House of Clown, led by pioneering dancer and neighborhood activist Tommy the Clown, and the newer wave of dancers – Krumpers – that have emerged from his influence. The dancers – in particular, a powerhouse named Miss Prissy – are amazing, from 300-pound-plus Big X to a little girl, all of four years old, throwing her coat on the floor with fierce concentration before wilding out. If a whiff of suspect ethnography lingers, it's because Rize's closest corollary would have to be Jennie Livingston's study of vogueing, Paris Is Burning, which drew accusations of exploitation during its media moment. Livingston's 1989 movie possesses a thoroughness that LaChapelle's, glossing over sexual ambiguity, lacks. But Rize still presents the closest thing to a hero you're likely to find in the multiplex this year – and not just one, but two, three, four, or more of them. (1:25) Opera Plaza. (Huston)

A Sidewalk Astronomer "Come see the moon," John Dobson cajoles passersby in San Francisco's Inner Sunset. Those that take him up on the offer – peering through the telescope he's set up on the street corner – ooh and ahh at what they see. Jeffrey Fox Jacobs's affectionate doc A Sidewalk Astronomer captures Dobson's passion for cosmology, filming the 89-year-old (though he seems at least two decades younger) as he discusses, literally, life, the universe, and everything. Dobson, who invented a telescope mount that made the devices portable and affordable, cofounded the Sidewalk Astronomers club in 1968. His joy in bringing deep space to the general public is unmistakable. He's particularly good at making science accessible to nonscientists, translating the size of objects in the cosmos into laymen's terms – "That crater is as big as Texas" – as is his wit: "The exterior decorator does lovely work," he affirms when a first-time observer gasps at what she sees through Dobson's lens. (1:28) Roxie. (Eddy)

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)

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 20, Galaxy. (Macias)

*Tropical Malady Both tender memory and transcendental meditation, Tropical Malady presents further proof that Thailand's Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul is the most unique feature filmmaker working today. Of course, that which makes him unique also confounds a percentage of viewers. The trick with Apichatpong's movies is to relinquish all expectations regarding tidy linear narratives that have persistent forward momentum – a tough task for Hollywood-trained and art-house audiences alike. Tropical Malady's first half charts the growth and stasis of a blossoming flirtation between muscular forest patrol soldier Keng (Sakda Kaewbuadee) and wild-toothed country boy Tong (Banlop Lomnoi). In the film's second half, a soldier, played by Kaewbuadee, chases a shaman whose tiger manifestation looks suspiciously like a naked Tong with stripes tattooed onto his slim frame. Apichatpong has likened his narrative to a pair of mirrors placed with their backs against one another. It's a vivid metaphor, but one that nonetheless lacks a corollary for the lulling, time-stretching dream states he explores. Following in the footsteps of his 2002 feature, Blissfully Yours, into the woods Apichatpong goes, though this time his journey is infused with a mystic air. (1:58) Opera Plaza. (Huston)

*War of the Worlds Semi-deadbeat dad and dockworker Ray (a Tom Cruise so manly-man at first that he seems to be performing in a beer commercial, not playing a character) is forced to mind his two kids for the weekend while his ex-wife and her much-improved new husband visit relatives in Boston. Teenage Robbie (Justin Chatwin) is angry; 10-year-old Rachel (Dakota Fanning) is a peacemaker. Thank god something soon happens to shut their argumentative yaps: alien invasion. Faithful to H.G. Wells in essence, if not in narrative specifics, Steven Spielberg's film – from a script by David Koepp – is one long, panicked, every-man-for-himself flight from near-inescapable catastrophe, as the terrifyingly well-equipped space visitors prove eager and able to wipe out human life worldwide. The angry criticisms that have been directed at this movie are a little surprising, because its lean, mean through-line cuts through most of the stupidity and flab that have made nearly every other summer fantasy-action "blockbuster" of late a numbing experience. Not that there aren't problems: Screamin' Dakota has become such a precocious little actress that I'm not sure she can pass as a normal child anymore; and as usual, Spielberg can't resist caving in to schmaltz at the end, though mercifully this time it's just a puddle-of, not an ocean (à la A.I., Schindler's List, and so on). And let's face it – Tom Cruise's Everyman credibility is at a low, low ebb right now. But by current popcorn standards, War is admirably crisp, harrowing, and in firm control of (rather than overwhelmed by) its spectacular FX. (1:57) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Harvey)

*Wedding Crashers Frat Packers Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn star as divorce mediators John and Jeremy, best buds who live for "wedding season": that magical time of year filled with free drinks and eager, easy female targets. Conflict arises when John begins to regret his sleazy, playboy ways – though he allows Jeremy to talk him into crashing "the Kentucky Derby of weddings," a high-society affair where the father of the bride is US Treasury Secretary William Cleary (Christopher Walken). Further conflict presents itself when John falls for the maid of honor, Claire Cleary (Rachel McAdams) – and Jeremy becomes trapped by his all-too-successful wooing of Claire's nutty sister, bridesmaid Gloria (Isla Fisher). Like most romantic comedies, Wedding Crashers' plot throws zero curveballs. However, it's got many more laughs than most (Vaughn, talking faster than a used-car salesman on speed, gets almost all of funniest lines), and winning performances by McAdams (sweet but soulful) and Fisher (adorably terrifying) help balance the film's sexist premise. (1:59) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*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, Presidio, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Rep Picks

*The Love God? Oh, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts film programs, when will you cease to surprise us? Surely few other publicly funded institutions of high art would think to honor Don Knotts' 81st birthday, or revive this 1969 comedy that was the least characteristic, most ambitious, and next-to-last of the six starring vehicles he made for Universal between 1964 and 1971. As Abner Peacock IV, perpetual scaredy cat Don is a prizewinning birdcall imitator and editor of a 150-year-old birdwatchers' magazine now in financial trouble. Somehow it ends up in the legal possession of a professional smut peddler (Edmond O'Brien) who turns the publication into a "status symbol for swingers" à la Playboy, and uses appalled prude Abner as frontman in a First Amendment court case defending the rights of all "filthy little degenerates." Soon our hero is living in a Penthouse, flanked by four multiracial "Pussycats," dressing Carnaby Street unisex (crushed-velvet cape and flare pants ensemble with leopard trim), and sleeping in a heart-shaped bed with a scoreboard above it. This purported "flagbearer for the sexual revolution" even gets his own theme song, as a Supremes-like trio backed by mop-top rock group chirps "Mr. Peacock's our Don Juan / Mr. Peacock turns us on / No one else could be so groovy." Lest you reel in shock at this Apple Dumpling Gang star's hedonist makeover, however, rest assured that the plot ultimately hangs on Abner proving that he is, gosh, still a virgin. Which for a 45-year-old man (who looks 60), may be less a reaffirmation of family values than a revelation of sheer pathos. Though in the end it Just Says No to the new morality, and its style is strictly Universal B-grade televisual, The Love God? has its moments of nearly inspired satire and silliness. It was the only theatrical film written and directed by Nat Hiken, creator of such classic sitcoms as Sgt. Bilko and Car 54, Where Are You? and was doubtless not a success, but now its squaresville gawp at free love has a certain charm. (1:41) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Harvey)

*'The Unsinkable Debbie Reynolds' Debbie Reynolds is a true child of the old Hollywood studio system, which is to say she got orphaned by stages in the 1960s. Petite, perky, shiny as a new penny, she emerged as a quintessential ingenue for wholesome MGM musicals just as they were fading out (though she made it into the best ever, Singin' in the Rain). By the Eisenhower era's end, she was both a big star and a precarious one – too easily replaced in her sequels' hits by younger perkatroids like Sandra Dee, a runner-up to Doris Day in chastely comic smut, and overwhelmed by Amazonian sex goddesses. But she was also given a huge public-sympathy boost when that vixen (and fellow Metro contractee!) Liz Taylor grabbed her crooner husband Eddie Fisher. For Reynolds the 1960s were a crazy battle to fit in with changing times, finding her pure as driven snow one minute as The Singing Nun, and pawning herself as a loutish gangster transformed into a woman in Goodbye Charlie the next. Later things boiled down to TV guest appearances, a few stage vehicles – then, nothing. The roughly two decades in which Reynolds got no slack – bookended by her having to assume a second husband's bankruptcy debts and losing another pile on her own failed Vegas casino – comprised a middle-aged wasteland from which she emerged an old-lady character actress, grateful for the work. She'll be interviewed on stage by another skid-marked Hollywood survivor, The Poseidon Adventure's Carol Lynley, at Marc Heustis's latest Castro celebrity shebang. That and other live diversions (including impersonatrix Connie Champagne) will precede screening of 1964's The Unsinkable Molly Brown, a Broadway-to-film musical transfer that was probably the biggest movie Little Debbie ever carried alone. Castro. (Harvey)

*We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen Jamming economically – but thoroughly and with great passion – on the story of the best band to come out of San Pedro, director Tim Irwin and producer Keith Schieron manage to reconstruct the history of the unglamorous but musically formidable Minutemen through the testimonials and tales of friends, family, fans, and fellow musicians like Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, Flea, Greg Ginn, Raymond Pettibon, Thurston Moore, and Richard Hell. Peers generously wax eloquent on the musical impact of the trio, and the filmmakers take the time to set the mise en scène and the context from which the band emerged. Meanwhile quirky reminiscences offered by, say, D. Boon's sister, about the emotional support that the stocky frontman's mother would give him, make the film worthwhile for fans of human drama as well as the SST-philes and SoCal punkers that the director and producer so clearly are. (1:30) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Chun)