San Francisco Asian Film Festival

The San Francisco Asian Film Festival runs through Sun/21 at the Four Star Movie Theatre, 2200 Clement, SF, and at the Presidio Theatre, 2340 Chestnut, SF. For ticket information (most shows $5-10) visit www.sfaff.com. For commentary, see last week's Bay Guardian.

Wed/17
Four Star Devil Hunters 12:30. Crazy N' the City 2:45. R-Point 5:10. Arahan 7:25. Vital 9:45.

Thurs/18
Four Star Satin Steel 12:30. Requital 2:45. Crazy N' the City 5:10. Marebito 7:30. A Snake of June 9:30.

Fri/19
Presidio Dragon Town Story 12:30. A Chinese Ghost Story 2:45. One Night in Mongkok 5:10. Arahan 7:20. Natural City 9:45.

Sat/20
Presidio Crying Out Love in the Center of the World 12:15. Windstruck 3. Women of Breakwater 5:10. Mongolian Ping-Pong 7:50. Pulse 9:50.

Sun/21
Presidio Mongolian Ping-Pong 12:45. Rice Rhapsody 3. The Big Swindle 5:15. Mughal-E-Azam 8.

*Elevator to the Gallows Coinciding with Louis Malle tributes at both SF's Balboa Theatre and Berkeley's PFA Theater is this newly restored print of Malle's 1958 first dramatic feature. (More newly restored, one supposes, than the print that played the Castro Theatre a few years ago.) It's a cool, crisp suspense drama that seemed terribly modern and sophisticated at the time – and still does, to an extent, in large part because Malle had the very, very good idea of letting Miles Davis improvise the soundtrack score. A young, chic, high-strung Jeanne Moreau and her lover, Maurice Ronet, come up with an ingenious scheme to rid themselves of her pesky husband. But every perfect crime has an unexpected imperfection, and this one goes awry in a particularly claustrophobic, clammy, sweat-inducing way that pays off in considerable moral irony. Based on a pulp by Noel Calef, Elevator's upscale, faintly intellectualized melodrama suggested its director had a future in refined genre movies – a notion he would waste no time in confounding, starting right away with that same year's "shocking" international hit The Lovers. (1:28) Act I and II, Lumiere. (Harvey)

*The 40-Year-Old Virgin See Movie Clock. (2:00) Century Plaza, Century 20.

God's Sandbox Doran Eran's bizarre, low-budget, soft-core political screed has a few things going for it, most of them visual. As Liz, an aged writer forced to look back at a painful past, Razia Israeli has the kind of wizened face you don't come across often – a mix of the late Viveca Lindfors and Gena Rowlands-in-torment – and her visage fights for screen dominance with beautiful yet scary shots of seemingly endless Sinai Desert horizons. Unfortunately, God's Sandbox suffers from clumsy dialogue and a heavy-handed story-within-a-story plotline, in which a young man tells Liz and her daughter Rachel (Orly Perel) about a woman whose unbridled sexuality was punished by Bedouin patriarchy – a young woman who looks an awful lot like ... well, I'm sure you can guess. Last year, Ousmane Sembene's Moolaadé addressed the subject of female circumcision with near-perfect intelligence and dramatic power. Elan's movie wanders into some Kama Sutra-like passages devoted to marathon lovemaking on the way to its own take on the subject, and suffers for it. (1:32) Galaxy. (Huston)

The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam An Iranian American boy in Houston inherits his dying brother's responsibility as keeper of the storyteller's legends, beginning an obsession with Omar Khayyam that sends him mentally, and later physically, Eastward even as his engineer father single-mindedly points the family toward a solely American future. Meanwhile, back in 11th-century Persia, young Khayyam pursues his studies in astronomy under the patronage of a Seljuk shah, writing a little poetry on the side, and pining for the slave girl love-of-his-life, all amid a European invasion and a growing threat from a fanatical Islamic faction. Iranian American filmmaker Kayvan Mashayekh's first feature is a big-budget indie whose relentless intercutting of a homely immigrant tale with the storied life of the great Persian poet means to combat the negative and ill-informed perceptions of Middle Eastern peoples post 9/11. A movie with a mission – replete with the costumes, locations, battlefield recreations, belly dancing, world-music score, and wildly mismatched performances you might find in a Discovery Channel biblical spectacular – it has the look and the sentiment of what postcolonial scholars call Orientalist fictions and almost everybody else calls decent family entertainment. In fact, high production values and a Vanessa Redgrave cameo only call attention to its familiar tropes, the worst being the anachronistic preplay of current political dogma as history, quietly banishing entirely modern, Western-fueled problems into the dustbin of "ancient hatreds." (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Avila)

*Red Eye See "Fright Attendant." (1:25) Century Plaza, Century 20, Orinda, Shattuck.

Supercross: The Movie Two brothers bond while training for a big motorcycle race; somehow Robert Carradine and Aaron Carter also factor into the proceedings. (1:32) Century Plaza, Century 20.

*2046 See "Eternal Affairs." (2:07) Act I and II, Embarcadero.

Valiant Here's a relative rarity on these shores: a World War II movie without any Americans – and, for what it's worth, hardly any human beings. The Royal Homing Pigeon Service gets all the glory in this computer-animated tale, featuring an all-star cast of Brit voices (including Ewan McGregor, Ricky Gervais, Tim Curry, and John Cleese). Though the history lesson aspect of Valiant adds a bit of interest to this predictable underdog (underbird?) story, there are neither excessive laughs nor awe-inspiring animation to make the film all that distinctive. Of note, however, are the enemy falcons, led by General Von Talon (voiced by Curry, of course) – though their evil feathers are swastika-free, you can still add Valiant into that Sound of Music category of kiddie films featuring Nazi villains. (1:16) Century Plaza, Century 20, Shattuck. (Eddy)

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 a 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 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Broken Flowers When does soulful become sardonic and minimalism register as merely boredom? As taciturn ladies' man Don Johnston – a role director Jim Jarmusch wrote exclusively for him – Bill Murray is in full middle-aged morose mode. Moping on the couch in a Fred Perry tracksuit, Don stares catatonically at his flat-screen TV as Sherry (Julie Delpy), his latest lady friend, prepares to leave him. Her departure is only the beginning of Don's female trouble: A pink epistle from an anonymous former girlfriend arrives, informing the sad-sack lothario that he is the father of a 19-year-old son. Don's neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright) takes great interest in this letter from an unknown woman and drafts a travel itinerary for Don, who crosses the country in search of the ex-paramour who wrote the missive. Jarmusch masterfully finds a way to make Murray's pared-down style seem fresh by matching him with a wonderful array of actresses who play Don's exes: Delpy, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton. The characters may have crossed wires, but Broken Flowers is a shimmering display of actor-actress give-and-take, with Jarmusch crafting for each woman a meaty, if minor, role, a mini-showcase for her talents to complement – and often surpass – Murray's laconic style. (1:46) Century 20, Embarcadero, Empire, Orinda, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Melissa Anderson)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Despite ingredients that sounded mouthwatering 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, Presidio. (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) Galaxy. (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, Oaks. (Harvey)

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo Tearing a page from the National Lampoon's Vacation playbook (up next: Deuce Bigalow: Christmas Gigolo) cowriter and -star Rob Schneider's titular hero-ho, Deuce, takes a Euro-holiday at the behest of his former pimp, T.J. (Eddie Griffin), who has set up shop in what can only be described as man-whore paradise, Amsterdam. When T.J. is wrongly accused of murdering local gigolos, the retired Deuce is forced to get back to the whorin' in order to find the real killer, whom he suspects is a she-john. Complete with a dubious payoff that somehow manages to lamely rip off Brian DePalma's Dressed to Kill without a trace of Hitchcock homage, European Gigolo's thudding lack of finesse is truly stupefying. Schneider is amiably uncharismatic, but the few promising bits are overwhelmed by gross set pieces like the one about the unfortunate woman with a – wait for it – penis in place of a nose. Where's a good old-fashioned dyke-plugging joke when you need one? (1:17) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Devereaux)

The Dukes of Hazzard Descended from the TV show that ripped off '70s yee-haw movie hits (Smokey and the Bandit, Every Which Way But Loose) which in turn had lifted from drive-in cheapies (Eat My Dust, etc.), this is genially lowbrow entertainment that could've been less faithful to its sources' original dumbness. Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) are the dirt-road-tearin', moonshine-deliverin', barfight-pickin', Sheriff (James Roday) enragin', Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds) bedevilin' Duke boys. The Barbie-like Jessica Simpson is their cuz Daisy, filling out her role's skimpy costume requirements but proving that just being dumb isn't the best requisite for playing dumb. (Her funniest line is in the press kit, wherein she enthuses that she and supporting player Willie Nelson are "like musical soulmates.") Jay Chandrasekhar directs handily, though the movie could have used some of the anything-for-a-laugh recklessness that marked his two prior Broken Lizard features (Super Troopers, Club Dread). If the amusing-but-never-all-that-funny tone reminds you of last year's similar retread Starsky and Hutch, that may be because John O'Brien wrote the just-OK scripts for both. Knoxville and Scott are a good team; the latter is maniacally inspired at times, despite his mediocre material; and some of the car stunts are pretty dang cool. Other major plusses are few, but if your expectations are low enough, this ain't a bad way to spend a summer night. (1:37) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Harvey)

11:14 Greg Marcks describes the concept behind his screenwriting and directorial debut as "dissecting a moment in time," but that seems secondary to a story punctuated by some gnarly gore, lies, and cruel manipulation. Taking the increasingly popular backwards narrative approach and combining it with a Tarantino-esque rehashing of time through each character's eyes, Marcks tells of the monumental woes rattling the small town of Middleton. There are some complex and inexplicable plot machinations, one of which involves a cringeable dismembering, but with the help of a solid cast – including a braces-clad Hilary Swank and an apparently tired yet able Patrick Swayze – there is a dose of entertainment here. The film doesn't wax philosophic like other coincidence-inspired works that precede it; instead, it promotes a cynical worldview contending there are some bad people out there who do some really bad things, and those things can really mess with somebody's quiet night watching the Discovery Channel. (1:25) Roxie. (Odes)

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 20. (Eddy)

Four Brothers The Mercer brothers – hardened, brash, and not exactly model citizens – return to their native Detroit when thugs shoot their foster mother in a liquor-store holdup. Bobby (Mark Wahlberg) is the impulsive, all-up-in-your-grill type who urges the rest to become vigilantes. Despite warnings from the police department, they tear the city apart for their mother's killers and discover there's more to this murder than a fluke robbery. Thickening the plot are corrupt cops, a gangster named Sweet and his goons, none of whom are very interesting or even threatening until the Alamo-style gun battle at the end. Never one for subtlety, director John Singleton overplays both the sad and the comic, cueing us with pithy clichés and a soundtrack programmed to trigger tear ducts. Still, Four Brothers isn't an awful movie and, aside from its unfocused melodrama, stays pretty entertaining throughout. The senseless violence and '70s-era Blacksploitation themes help push it along a bit. (1:48) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Kim)

*Funny Ha Ha Way more real than The Real World, this slice-of-life look at a postcollege wanderer is so truthful you'll swear director Andrew Bujalski is actually a documentarian, not a feature filmmaker. The fact that he uses 16mm film – which gives the effect of a home movie – makes it even more convincing. But Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer) is a fictional character, even if she seems exactly like someone you know (or perhaps exactly like yourself). Unsure about what she'll do with her education, or with life in general, Marnie is skinny, shy, pretty, and prone to romantic awkwardness. See, she's had a crush on Alex (Christian Rudder) forever – though they're good friends, he assures her he "thinks the world" of her and is given to stopping by her apartment late at night, and they have an easy, genuine rapport when they're alone. But, yeah, he doesn't love her back. Meanwhile, she's also being pursued by a dorky suitor who's clearly wrong for her (played, with supreme bravery, by Bujalski). I could have watched the enormously likable Marnie fumble through her life for hours, but alas, the film's a mere 90 minutes. And that's just about the only bad thing I can say about it. (1:30) Red Vic.(Eddy)

*The Great Raid Based on the genuinely harrowing true story of a mission to rescue American POWs at the end of World War II, The Great Raid delivers with some well-crafted suspense sequences and a solid cast including Joseph Fiennes, Benjamin Bratt, and Connie Nielson. The screenplay is based on several thoroughly researched accounts of the three years following the Japanese-led Bataan Death March, after which only hundreds of the initial 70,000 prisoners survived. Fiennes is Major Gibson, the ranking officer at the POW camp in Cabanatuan who has to contend with malaria and declining morale as years pass with no sign of help from General MacArthur – who had promised to return after retreating in 1942. Suspicion of flag-waving plots is advisable in times of war, and this one overlooks some inconvenient facts (notably that the Americans also were perpetrators of a none-too-ancient brutal occupation of the Philippines), but to the film's credit, native resistors are represented as capable fighters against the Japanese and valuable allies in the daunting rescue operation. (2:12) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Odes)

*Grizzly Man The cold reaches of the Kodiak archipelago touch the heart of German filmmaking legend and Grizzly Man documentarian Werner Herzog, who presents the fascinating life and gruesome death of self-styled grizzly expert, wildlife preservationist, and ex-actor Timothy Treadwell. Treadwell lived for five seasons, without a gun, with his beloved bears, in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Reserve, extensively videotaping his own life and his wildlife for a nature series before he was killed and devoured along with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, in 2003. Herzog has shot his share of nonnarrative cinematic poetry, but he refrains in Grizzly Man, giving the fascinating story of the late activist, would-be nature-doc star, and wannabe grizzly a wide, respectful berth, as if he wanted to allow the slumbering beast within Treadwell to come out and caper on film. To that end he uses extensive video shot by the self-made grizzly expert, of himself and his animals, permitting them the space and air they seem to demand. The rest of Grizzly Man is shaped through interviews with Treadwell's friends – and skeptical observers who viewed the naturalist as insane and/or naïve in his violation of the unspoken boundaries between animals and humans. (1:43) Embarcadero, Empire, Shattuck.(Chun)

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) Opera Plaza. (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) Shattuck (both dubbed and subtitled versions). (Eddy)

*Hustle and Flow 'What are you going to do with your life?" small-time Memphis pimp DJay (Terrence Howard, in a memorable performance) asks his top girl, Nola (Taryn Manning), as they wait in DJay's sweaty car for the next john to happen along. DJay may be addressing Nola, but it's really a question he's posing to himself. Hope blesses the hopeless after a chance encounter with DJay's old pal Key (Anthony Anderson), a recording engineer who's being slowly stifled by the middle-class blues. With Key's help, aspiring rapper DJay decides to record a demo, aiming to get the finished product into the hands of Skinny Black (Ludacris), a Memphis local who's hit the hip-hop big time. Written and directed with gritty élan by Craig Brewer, Hustle and Flow vividly illustrates the joy of the creative process (and with it, the revival of dusty dreams), even as it's punctured by bitter doses of reality. That MTV Films is distributing this Sundance Film Festival hit is no surprise; it's definitely a crowd-pleaser, even as it dips into cliché near the end. (1:44) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Junebug Junebug is a movie about culture clash that itself benefits from creative clash. Director Phil Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan are on almost entirely different pages despite the fact that they're both North Carolinians – and the tension between them lends the film texture and depth it might never have had otherwise. Too thin, too refined, too friendly and faux-casual in learned ways, Brit émigré Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) is a dealer for a Chicago art gallery. After a whirlwind romance, she marries handsome, younger George (Alessandro Nivola), and business soon lures her down to his native North Carolina: There's a folk-art painter she's desperate to sign as a client before the rest of the dealer world "discovers" him. While down thataway, there's naturally no reason the couple shouldn't spend some quality time with George's family as well. Winning over the clan she's married into, however, doesn't go so smoothly for Madeleine. Least happy to see George home is sibling Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie), who takes his frustration out on his heavily pregnant wife, Ashley (Amy Adams), a breathless fountain of gee-whiz amid the dry-creek emotions of her adopted family. If MacLachan's work is naturalistic to an almost vérité degree, that of Morrison is abstract, self-conscious, and mannered to the brink of ruin. He risks being too much of a conservatory artiste to suit the working-class "real" people he takes as dramatic subjects – yet somehow all these affectations end up enriching the material. (1:42) Albany, Embarcadero.(Harvey)

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) Oaks. (Harvey)

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) Four Star, Opera Plaza, Red Vic, 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. (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, Century Plaza, Century 20, 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) California, Lumiere. (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) Galaxy. (Eddy)

*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) Oaks, Opera Plaza, Presidio. (Harvey)

Must Love Dogs Though Must Love Dogs follows the date-movie formula to the letter – the couple meets, falls in love, mistakenly splits up, then ends up living happily ever after – occasional witty flashes help the predictability go down a little easier. Also on the plus side, Gary David Goldberg (who adapted his screenplay from Claire Cook's novel) directs a top-notch cast: Diane Lane stars as a recently divorced teacher frustrated by the single life – and the well-intentioned matchmaking forced upon her by her huge Irish-Catholic family (including Elizabeth Perkins and Christopher Plummer). Her most promising beau is played by a vaguely creepy John Cusack; imagine a melancholy, near-midlife crisis Lloyd Dobler, with "nervous talking thing" still intact. Still, that second-chance love will grace this Internet-matched pair is never once in question – nor is the fact that a movie called Must Love Dogs will feature plenty of adorable canine reaction shots. (1:28) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Oaks, Presidio. (Eddy)

Occupation: Dreamland "What if this was my home back in Chicago?" second-guesses one of the soldiers profiled in Occupation: Dreamland, a vérité look at the Iraq war by informally embedded filmmakers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds (Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story). Colorful language (the phrase "fuckin' Republicans" is muttered at least once) and cynical humor help the Army's 82nd Airborne deal with the daily perils of volatile Fallujah, circa the tense winter of 2004. The ongoing war has already inspired several docs – and at least one narrative television show, coming soon to the FX Network – but Dreamland makes itself memorable by keeping the focus on its regular-guy subjects (including one whose premilitary life included a stint in a death metal band). When it captures more political moments, Dreamland is never less than honest, as when one soldier opts not to "bash the fuckin' administration on camera" – or at a meeting where weary squad members are apprised of their "reenlistment options." (1:18) Roxie. (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) Four Star. (Huston)

Secuestro Express It's another day, another kidnapping for the trio of thugs in writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz's Secuestro Express, shot entirely in Caracas, Venezuela. Heading home after a night of partying, rich kids Carla (Alias's Mia Maestro) and Martin (Jean Paul Leroux) are snatched by a trio of thugs – Trece (Carlos Julio Molina), Budu (Pedro Perez), and Niga (Carlos Madera) – who quickly telephone the couple's parents with ransom demands. Hours of nonstop craziness follow, with drugs, dirty cops, and equal-opportunity threats of rape (and murder) making Martin and especially Carla wish they'd never gone out that night. Though he's not stingy with violence, Jakubowicz isn't just going for urban exploitation. Class struggles are delineated when the liberal Carla clashes with the snooty Martin, but her self-righteous stance is weakened when one of the crooks points out her expensive dress and tells her she should expect to be hated because "half the city is starving." Caracas native Jakubowicz has a gritty, flashy style – lots of split screens and freeze-frames – and he's also able to work sly humor into his grim story line. (1:26) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

The Skeleton Key Billed as a return to the great tradition of psychological thrillers, this fragrant pile of supernatural hokum is considerably less than all that. It's got a low body count and restrained direction by current horror standards, but the twist ending (which may not entirely surprise alert viewers) isn't necessarily worth so much poker-faced, kinda-silly buildup. Kate Hudson, of "Why is she a star again? Oh right, nepotism" fame, plays a young nurse who signs on as live-in caregiver to frail, mute John Hurt under the hawk eyes of his wife Gena Rowlands. Their quaintly decrepit bayou manse comes complete with many creaking corridors, sudden power outages, a creepy "secret" attic chamber, and alleged haunting by two black servants who'd been lynched for practicing black magic. Pretty soon our heroine is unlocking the home's "mystery" while coming to suspect that the mister of the house is less invalid than drugged captive. The last time a buncha Yankees and Brits went Deep South to explore the hoodoo that yoo doo, in 1987's Angel Heart, the results were no more convincing, but way more luridly entertaining. Jury's still out on whether Hudson can carry a movie; Peter Sarsgaard (as her sort-of love interest) is wasted, while by the end Rowlands's dignity has been sullied no less than it would have had she been asked to dance the lambada. Adequately directed by Iain Softley, Skeleton Key could be worse. But hoo lawd, it shoulda been better. (1:44) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

Sky High With all the comic book movies filling theaters these days, it's hard to make room for more superheroes (even pubescent ones) and the convoluted, FX-friendly plots that come with them. Disney's Sky High rides this same shitstorm of cinematic hyperbole but, surprisingly, is kind of likable and doesn't take itself too seriously. Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano), son of the most high-profile action heroes in town, starts his freshman year at Sky High, a school for kids with superpowers. He's promptly put into the sidekick – or "hero support" – class when they find out he's nothing special, but it's only a matter of time before his late-blooming powers make a knockout debut. Teenage high jinks and angst still apply in this boy-saves-school tale, which boasts some funny one-liners and an obnoxious appearance by Bruce Campbell. It's still way too innocent for the real high school crowd, but the ten-to-14-year-old demographic should get a kick out of it. (1:38) Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Kim)

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) Galaxy. (Macias)

Stealth In the "near future," three elite Navy pilots touch down from their latest exercise in "penetration detonation" to learn there's a new addition to their squad. That the stealth jet Extreme Deep Invader ("EDI" for short, pronounced "Eddie") is run entirely by computer concerns only Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas), apparently the only one who's seen WarGames or 2001: A Space Odyssey. "I got a bad feeling about this plane," Gannon tells his commanding officer, Capt. George Cummings (Sam Shepard). The movie may be called Stealth, but the script is thuddingly obvious. Director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, XXX) knows how to film things going fast, but he's still a few notches below gourmet cheesemaker Michael Bay. Stealth is corny, full of explosions, and boasts some of the prettiest people ever to fill out military uniforms, but it's missing that extra coating of the ridiculous – an Aerosmith theme song, Steve Buscemi as a pivotal creep, etc. – to elevate its action-movie machinations to Armageddon levels. Thus lacking, Stealth must settle for being a middle-of-the-road go-boom movie that samples from cinema classics past – if you consider Top Gun a classic. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

Wheel of Time Werner Herzog's quietly detailed look at the Kalachakra initiation, a ritual to ordain Tibetan Buddhist monks, is a doc that even nonspiritual types can appreciate. The filmmaker's occasionally droll voice-over guides the viewer through "the most eagerly awaited event for the faithful," which includes the construction of an intricate sand mandala (the purpose of which is explained by no less than the Dalai Lama himself, briefly interviewed here). The most striking aspect of Wheel of Time is how it captures the devotion of not just the monks, but also the half-million pilgrims who crowd Bodh Gaya, India, for the event. They travel miles and miles on foot – and some do prostrations with every step, laying down on the rocky trail and even in streambeds. Wheel of Time's coverage of the same ritual held months later in Austria is a little less interesting, but it illustrates how Buddhism has spread to the West, as well as offering more time with the Dalai Lama, who presides over the ceremony there. (1:20) Smith Rafael. (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) Four Star, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Rep picks

*'Harold Lloyd Series' Chaplin was perhaps more loved, and Keaton certainly more admired in retrospect, but Lloyd was actually the most popular of the great silent comedians – a hard worker whose more prodigious output in the 1920s entertained millions who (like Lloyd himself, no doubt) would have balked at the idea that they were watching, er, art or something. Yet these unassuming, formulaic, precision-tooled movies have aged very, very well; we should be so lucky to get such consistently good comedy product from the likes of Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, or (shudder) Rob Schneider. Pick a night, any night, at this week-long Castro Theatre retrospective, and you will be rewarded with more laughs than $10.50 has gotten you at the multiplex since Napoleon Dynamite. Famed for his spectacular stunts (the signature hanging-from-giant-clockface-on-skyscraper bit is in Safety Last), Lloyd's bespectacled, clueless-yet-unbreakable nerd characters got into every kind of trouble, even if they all turned out sorta similar: perpetually ill-suited yet triumphant, whether cast into college football (The Freshman), South American revolutions (Why Worry?), the Wild West (The Kid Brother), or Hollywood itself (Movie Crazy). The latter was among his few talkies, though The Cat's Paw (Harold vs. gangsters) and The Milky Way (milkman turns prizefighter) also proved he hadn't lost his touch. As levelheaded a businessman as his onscreen persona was addle-brained, Lloyd was by the late 1930s too rich to care whether new audiences wanted his old shtick, so he retired. In 1952 he got a special Oscar designating him "master comedian and good citizen" (?!). Was any great artist ever less tortured? His is a rare story with a rare legacy – a happy man who made, and still makes, people happy with his movies. Castro. (Harvey)

*13 Lakes and Ten Skies Defining the less-is-more principle, James Benning's landscape films of the last 25 years reveal limitless information in what movies usually relegate to "background." Typically a feature might consist of 35 stationary shots lasting two and a half minutes each – long enough for your average ADD entertainment junkie to go mad, then explode Scanners-style. But the deeper concentration eventually coaxed by such 16mm not-quite-still-lives generally proves hypnotic, even revelatory. Benning's latest, which end the PFA's "Eyeing Nature" documentary series, push that minimalist aesthetic to an even further point. Both 13 Lakes and Ten Skies's individual shots – their sum totals revealed in the titles – last fully ten minutes long. The first offers a baker's dozen views of Lakes Superior and Crater, the Salton Sea, et al. The horizon line is often at dead-center-screen, but these moving pictures otherwise demonstrate a near-infinite variety of climate, wildlife, surrounding scenery, refracted light, and human intrusion – jarring the environ with that ecological bête noir, jet skis, or heard-but-not-seen gunshots. Some of these images are so ravishing they seem to bow before nature's celestial perfection, but its vulnerability is always felt. The subtle – or sometimes dramatic – changes that can happen over 10 minutes within a "still" landscape seem even more so in Ten Skies. From the "action" of roared air-traffic and dissipating jet streams, or billowing forest-fire clouds, to a dreamy crop of cotton-candy cumuli kaleidoscopically effected by wind, sun, and passing birds, Benning shows there's a lot going on upstairs while we keep our noses to the ground. (2:15) PFA. (Harvey)

*This Divided State Say what you will about Michael Moore – and there are complaints to be lodged against W's most enthusiastic media opponent – but the man knows how to polarize a room, a state, or in this case, a college campus in the heart of Utah. Utah Valley State College student body leaders Jim Bassi and Joe Vogel saw it as sort of ho-hum thing, inviting a speaker who might engage the student population in politics as the 2004 election approached. Little did they know that a wealthy right-wing neighbor of the school, Kay Anderson, would use what he saw as a threatening and damnable abuse of power as a provocation to try to ruin their lives. Twenty-five-year-old director and writer Steven Greenstreet, who appears to be both liberal and a committed Mormon, follows the personalities and the fiery debate over free speech that precedes Moore's appearance on campus. For those who prefer a facile red-blue vision of the US., Greenstreet's doc is a good challenge – there are some sturdy activists in Mormon country, some who not only favor the Bill of Rights, but oppose Bush's war and everything he stands for. (1:28) Victoria. (Odes)

The Whip Hand While Senator Joe McCarthy's heyday was over by late 1954, Hollywood – which had suffered under his red-baiting reign – was slow to jump on the anti-Communist bandwagon with any great enthusiasm. Thus this 1951 RKO programmer, which presaged such Cold War propaganda classics as Red Nightmare and Red Planet Mars, is a real curio as well as a rarity. A no-name cast (future Perry Mason star Raymond Burr is the one recognizable face) and efficient direction by esteemed production designer William Cameron Menzies keep The Whip Hand percolating along in all earnestness despite the outrageous storyline. Injured while vacationing in northern Minnesota, a big-city journalist (Elliot Reid) seeks help in the nearest burg, a tapped-out former destination for tourist fishermen. But for the most part, the citizens suspiciously lack that small-town ultraniceness, suggesting they've got something to hide – as does the proximity of an isolated lodge curiously overprotected from snoopers by armed guards, barbed wire, and attack dogs. That doesn't stop our intrepid reporter, of course, even when his investigation turns life-threatening. Originally The Whip Hand's big secret was going to be a World War II flashback (Hitler survived! And he's gearing up for World War III in our heartland!), but in tune with the times, that concept was changed to something more red-scary. If you ever wanted to see The Island of Dr. Moreau reimagined as an anti-Communist allegory – well, this entertaining oddity is for sure the only chance you'll get in this lifetime. It will be introduced at the PFA by "spy master" Doktor Goulfinger. (1:21) PFA. (Harvey)