MadCat Women's International Film Festival

The ninth annual MadCat Women's International Film Festival runs Sept 13-Oct 13 at El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; and PFA, 2575 Bancroft, Berk. For tickets ($7-20) and a complete schedule, call (415) 436-9523 or visit www.madcatfilmfestival.org. For commentary, see "Phones and Bones."

Tues/13

El Rio "Shhh I: Silent Films Set to Live Music" 8:30.

Opening

Côte d' Azur The opening night film at the 2005 Frameline fest, this French farce follows the romantic exploits of a family vacationing on the Riviera. (1:33)

*El Crimen Perfecto Life, according to Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, is absurd. Further, as womanizing protagonist Rafael (Guillermo Toledo) puts it, "Life is absurd, stupid, and unpleasant." But that sentiment surfaces only after he is deposed from management of paradise, incarnated as an oasis of regimented beauty, elegance, and expensive perfume: the women's section at a local department store. Things fall apart when archrival men's department manager Don Antonio (Luis Valrela), claws his way to the top of the food chain and becomes floor manager. The two come to blows, resulting in Don Antonio's accidental and gleefully gory death. But there is a witness, homely yet maniacal salesgirl Lourdes (Monica Cervera), who aspires to entrap Rafael by becoming his accomplice, positioning her to get revenge for a lifetime of misery inflicted at the hands of superficial men. This sort of manipulation is apparently the raw material used to forge the chains of marriage – an institution de la Iglesia seems to be skeptical of. He also skillfully provokes some musing about just what mayhem lurks beneath the shimmer of consumer culture. (1:45) Smith Rafael. (Odes)

*The Exorcism of Emily Rose See Movie Clock. (1:38)

The Man Samuel L. Jackson + Eugene Levy = buddy comedy! (1:24)

Milwaukee, Minnesota Even though he operates on approximately the same level as Forrest Gump – with a Gump-ian control-freak mother (Debra Monk) to boot – Albert (Troy Garity) has racked up a small fortune thanks to his uncanny ice-fishing talents. When Mom gets bumped off by a hit-and-run driver, the vultures close in, with both saucy slattern Tuey (Alison Folland) and sleazy salesman Jerry (Randy Quaid) targeting Albert as the critical component in their respective get-rich-quick schemes. Working from a script by R.D. Murphy, first-time director Allan Mindel has created a movie that is barely distinguishable from countless indie dramas that have come before – though there do seem to be less of 'em clogging theaters these days. Garity (whose claims to fame include being Jane Fonda's son, as well as a featured role in Barbershop) is appealing enough, but Milwaukee, Minnesota comes equipped with a forced quirkiness that begins to grate early on. (1:35) Roxie. (Eddy)

My Mother's Smile Morose modern-art painter Ernesto (Sergio Castellitto) has enough drama in his life, seeing as how he's separated from his wife and his mother was murdered by his mentally ill brother. But the issues that really trouble him aren't what you'd expect. He's none too sorry about losing his wife (especially after he falls in love with another woman), and, frankly, he always hated the family matriarch. So when he's made aware of a campaign to make Ma a saint, the avowed atheist is stunned – especially when he realizes his family's selfish motives in having the woman canonized by the Catholic Church. Italian writer-director Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket) gracefully digs into complex issues of faith and family, while Castellitto brings a weary realness to his downbeat character. And don't let the sappy-sounding title scare you off – Ernesto, whose own inappropriately timed grimace is one of the film's recurring motifs, describes his mother's smile as "lethal ... a smile I could never rip off my face." (1:43) Balboa. (Eddy)

The Net See Critic's Choice. (1:55) Artists' Television Access.

An Unfinished Life Strong performances by Morgan Freeman and Robert Redford (who apparently has found his signature, unshaven character in his later years and is sticking with him) make this a solid and largely enjoyable family drama. The two men play a the two men play a pair of cowboys quietly living out their years the Wyoming wilderness until the daughter-in-law of Einer (Redford) finds herself at his doorstep in need of protection from her obsessive and abusive boyfriend, Gary (Damian Lewis). Jean (an interestingly yet appropriately placed Jennifer Lopez) and 11-year-old daughter, Griff (Becca Wood), try to make the most of their new surroundings, but Jean's presence stirs up some not-so-below-the-surface anger from Einer, who still blames her for his late son's death. The strings of forgiveness and redemption are strummed a little too loudly and frequently, and some of the personal dilemmas could be less modeled on psychology textbook tropes, but overall Freeman and Redford carry enough weight to neutralize the shortcomings. (1:47) (Odes)

Ongoing

The Aristocrats Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette's extended riff on a joke that's a secret handshake of sorts in the stand-up world is cast-of-hundreds inclusive. Yet it's also uncomfortably skewed: A few Whoopi bits aside, Chris Rock is about the only nonwhite performer, and he's the only one who doesn't seem to be enjoying himself in the closing-credits outtakes. The Aristocrats can be uproarious, and there are off-the-cuff high jinks aplenty, from Rip Taylor's migrating red wig to Fred Willard's Victorian dandy impersonation. But why no Mo'nique, Wanda Sykes, or Dave Chapelle, when Carrot Top and Emo Phillips are allowed (if only for a few seconds) to stink up the screen? The absence is especially notable since Jillette repeatedly notes the joke's best renditions involve the type of improvisation mastered by John Coltrane. The title of The Aristocrats is also the punch line of an obscene joke – detailing a family's showbiz act, it has its roots in vaudeville, but you could easily argue it's indebted to the Marquis de Sade, who was all about detailing the perverse proclivities of the privileged classes. Of course, de Sade isn't as funny as Gilbert Gottfried, whose version at a roast for a leathery and discomfited Hugh Hefner inspired this doc. (1:26) (Huston)

*Asylum Crazy folks, it seems, may know how to steam it up between the sheets, but usually if they're locked up, they've got more troubling them than just a surplus of passion. Or at least, so contends the new, grimly gothic romance from Brit David Mackenzie, based on Patrick McGrath's novel of the same name. Stella Raphael (Natasha Richardson) moves with her doctor husband and son to a home for the criminally insane, where she's supposed to blend in with the other housewives and play by the rules. But once we see her in all the bad-girl glory of a sexy black dress with ample décolletage, we know that most likely she has inclinations more stimulating than knitting. The mysterious, tortured artist Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas) awakens her sexual animal, but when he escapes the prison, Stella finds that she may be prone to a little insanity osmosis, and soon unearths her own personal demons. The best part is watching Ian McKellen in all his maniacal glory, shorn of billowing Lord of the Rings-ness, playing the master manipulator to them all. (1:45) (Odes)

*Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Space and time entangle in poetic ways to generate the premise for Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name by Chinese author Dai Sijie (who also directs). The setting is early 1970s Maoist China, and two teenage children of the "reactionary bourgeoisie" are relocated to a remote village along the Yangtze River to be reeducated in the ways of the "revolutionary peasantry." This involves a shedding of the fetters of Western culture – including literature, cooking, and classical music – and an assumed subsequent appreciation for the joys of shoveling shit and carrying it up mountains. Fueled by hormones and romanticism, the two pupils, Luo (Kun Chen) and Ma (Ye Liu), take it upon themselves to turn the tables on the villagers, introducing rural minds to the world of storytelling and rudimentary dentistry. They find an especially willing accomplice in the beautiful Little Seamstress (Xun Zhou), whose mind is exploded by French writers and the notion that her life can be more than survival. The story and eye-catching cinematography capture the contradictions of the times – the sweet inner nature of premodern Chinese culture and the unstoppable locomotive of development. (1:51) Smith Rafael. (Odes)

*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) (Melissa Anderson)

The Brothers Grimm Yes, it's the latest (albeit delayed) release from Terry Gilliam, and under most circumstances, a new Gilliam film is grounds for some excitement. The Brothers Grimm, however, is a lame Ghostbusters-Van Helsing hybrid, with crappy special effects and several fairy tale in-jokes that have already told by one or both Shrek movies. The titular brothers (Heath Ledger and Matt Damon) roam French-occupied Germany, scamming villagers who believe the pair are able to shoo away witches, trolls, and other once-upon-a-time-type menaces. Their profitable racket is forcibly stopped by Napoleonic authorities, who insist the Grimms take on a gig that may actually involve real supernatural evil lurking in a real enchanted forest. Ledger and Damon are likable enough as squabbling siblings, and it's always nice to see Peter Stormare in anything, even if he's working a terrible toupee and over-the-top French accent. But for all the quality folks and good intentions involved, the forces of mediocrity prevail, as The Brothers Grimm fails to cohere into anything memorable or even recommendable. (1:58) (Eddy)

The Cave Neither as thrilling as it could have been, nor silly as it should have been, The Cave is notable only for its utter lack of inspiration. Not that there aren't some promising ideas floated early on: The titular cavern, built below an isolated Romanian church, is marked by a mosaic depicting Knights Templar battling what appear to be winged demons. Unfortunately, the elite cave divers – Cole Hauser, Morris Chestnut, and several other generically pretty types – summoned to investigate this potential devil's playground couldn't be more snooze-worthy. Once this gang of humorless Abercrombians is trapped below the surface, the critters reveal themselves (Alien rip-offs, natch), snack on a few members of the team, and facilitate heated arguments over which claustrophobic shaft/steep cliff/watery ditch is, in fact, the fastest escape route. Three things that could've saved The Cave, or at least made it a little more interesting: the gory freedom that goes with an R rating (Seriously, what is the point of a PG-13 monster movie?); at least one character with a pulse (think Jon Voight in Anaconda or Vin Diesel in Pitch Black); and a satisfying payoff on that whole Satan thing, which ultimately proves only a stinky tease. (1:38) (Eddy)

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) (Harvey)

*The Constant Gardener With Ralph Fiennes as its star, rather than, say, Tom Hanks, the film version of John le Carré's 2000 novel, The Constant Gardener, isn't likely to be as popular an entertainment as it could have been. Which is everybody's loss: This is a very good movie almost any post-teenage viewer could enjoy, and within its classic framework of life-love lost and avenged, excellent points are made about how the world really works. Fiennes plays Justin Quayle, a British civil servant posted to Kenya, where he upholds the standard of international diplomacy by maintaining a polite smile, turning a blind eye, and privately wishing one could do something for these people. Storming into his quiet life with placards afire is Tessa (Rachel Weisz), the kind of borderline obnoxious but indomitable child-of-bourgeois-liberal-activist who actually does get things done. We know from very early on that she ends up raped, murdered, and burned in an ambush on a rural road, presumably for pushing her activist sleuthing. Gardener charts Justin's attempts to find out who ordered her death and why, intercutting that quest with flashbacks to their relationship. In his English-language debut, director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) creates a thoroughly accomplished work that manages old-school plot intrigue, conventional romance, globe-trotting location work, and a heavyweight cast with ease. (2:08) (Harvey)

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) (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) (Devereaux)

*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) (Harvey)

Eternal An impressive gated mansion on Montreal's outskirts is the current home for the mysterious Elizabeth Kane (Caroline Neron), whose many attractive female guests never leave the premises. When latest to disappear is the bi-curious wife of philandering police detective Ray Pope (former pro kickboxer Conrad Pla), his own penchant for kink and Liz's deadly sense of sportsmanship commence a cat-and-mouse game littered with corpses and heavy-breathing sex. This first feature for co-directors-scenarists-producers Wilhelm Liebenberg and Federico Sanchez demonstrates what they learned in past design-advertising jobs, as the film's stylish surface (it's got that Hunger sheen on what was likely closer to a Red Shoe Diaries budget) easily outclass its skin-deep characters and flimsy scripting. But hey, who expects depth from a movie whose major agenda is a ye olden vampire-lesbian-chic one? And it does it quite nicely, to guilty-pleasuring if not quite memorable results. (1:48) Roxie. (Harvey)

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) (Eddy)*The 40-Year-Old Virgin Though Wedding Crashers has its moments of Vince-Vaughn-and-maple-syrup goodness, fellow R-rated comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin boasts more laughs and way more insta-classic moments. Freaks and Geeks guru Judd Apatow makes his feature-directing debut, with a script cowritten by star Steve Carell (The Daily Show). It's all there in the title: Andy (Carell) has never done the deed; he's so blandly nice that an acquaintance is moved to observe, "I'm pretty sure he's a serial murderer." After they discover his secret, Andy's well-meaning coworkers (Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, and Seth Rogan) attempt to steer him into debauchery, leading to comic high points involving porn, apple bongs, manscaping, and the following advice on how to talk to a woman: "Be David Caruso in Jade!" Of course, as it turns out, Andy doesn't really need their help, winning over single mom Trish (Catherine Keener) despite his blatant dorkiness. Though Virgin eventually reaches a predictable climax, the path it takes to get there – crude enough to include puke humor, random enough for a running Michael McDonald joke, and guffaw-inducing throughout – is well worth it. (2:00) (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) (Dave Kim)

*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) (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) (Chun)

*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) Red Vic. (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) (Eddy)

*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) (Harvey)

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) (Avila)

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) (Koh)

*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) Smith Rafael. (Gerhard)

Margaret Cho: Assassin The well is really running dry in SF native Margaret Cho's fourth concert movie, a routine stand-up record (shot in DC) that suggests it's time for her creative juices to redirect. Too much of this set is a desultory series of weak "So, what's in the news today?" jokes, predictably tapping audience outrage at "the most embarrassing president in history," stroking their fur with a lot of references to the gay-marriage issue, and so forth. These are hot topics, but this time they stir surprisingly little comic invention. And Cho now takes herself rather too seriously as spokesperson for the beleaguered left – the sentiments are laudable, but she expresses her politics as crudely as the glibbest right-wing pundits do. You know somebody's running out of ideas when they resort to jokes starting "You know you're in a gay neighborhood when ..." Even Cho's beloved mom character is tired here – understandably, since the real edition is recovering from a heart attack, but still. A handful of good lines can't justify preserving this mediocre preaching-to-the-converted night for posterity. Let's hope Cho's forthcoming narrative producing-writing-starring project, the very promising-sounding "fag and fag-hag Dumb and Dumber," Bam Bam and Celeste, which she duly plugs here, finds her back in sharp and funny top form. (1:30) Roxie. (Harvey)

*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) (Huston)

The Memory of a Killer Angelo Ledda (Jan Decleir) is an aging career hit man who's done his offing all over Europe for decades. But when he realizes his latest target is a 12-year-old girl who's been forcibly prostituted, he abruptly decides to turn into a righteous avenger against the crime bosses and corrupt officials who'd hitherto employed him. If you can buy that premise – and forget that, had the girl been a few years older, Ledda likely wouldn't have blinked at nuking her – this slick Dutch thriller will provide a couple hours of painless entertainment. In the tradition of Insomnia and Memento, it throws in a mental-health gimmick: Ledda is starting to experience the memory lapses and disorientation of early Alzheimer's. But apart from providing an excuse for some visual fuss (in crazy camera-swaying, fast-cutting Alzheimer-vision!), this gimmick isn't really integral to the plot until the last reel, by which time the film has gone on too long anyway. Fast paced without ever being thrilling or suspenseful, serious-minded yet lacking ingenuity or real depth, this is a movie that carries itself with more dignity than its material actually warrants. (2:00) (Harvey)

*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) (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) (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) (Eddy)

My Date with Drew (1:30)

The Ninth Day Fans of German cinema will want to seek out The Ninth Day not only for its director, Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum, The Legend of Rita) but also for its star, Ulrich Matthes, last seen lurking in Hitler's bunker as Downfall's creepy Joseph Goebbels. Here, Matthes applies his haunted eyes and gaunt frame to the based-on-truth character of Father Kremer, a Catholic priest from Luxembourg who's sent to Dachau's "Priest Block" as punishment for his anti-Nazi stance. The physical horrors Kremer suffers in the concentration camp are nearly matched by his spiritual turmoil, especially when he's suddenly released into the care of Gebhardt (August Diehl), an SS officer with spiritual issues of his own. Kremer, who's from a respected (and conveniently easy-to-threaten) family, soon realizes his release is part of a plot to force Luxembourg's Catholic leadership to align themselves with the Nazis. Though it deals in substantial, soul-searching themes – and Kremer and Gebhardt's pointed discussions about Judas (Gebhardt praises him as a "man of action") are none too subtle – The Ninth Day is surprisingly understated, thanks in large part to Matthes's quietly moving performance. (1:38) Balboa. (Eddy)

One Night in Mongkok Fresh from playing at the San Francisco Asian Film Festival is this mostly unconventional cops-and-gangsters drama from director Derek Yee. On the night in question – Christmas Eve, as it turns out – the Hong Kong underworld is gripped by infighting, and a police informant squeals that an assassin, Lai Fu (Daniel Wu), has been hired to dispatch a key triad boss. Arguments, trigger-happy rookies, and world-weary moments of quiet reflection keep the cops busy, while Lai Fu – an unlikely proponent of Buddy Holly horn-rims – strikes up a friendship, somewhat reluctantly, with chatty hooker Dan Dan (Cecilia Cheung). With one chase scene after another, One Night in Mongkok is fast paced and slick, heading toward the expected blood-soaked conclusion. And since this is a Hong Kong movie, much of the action is propelled by endless cell phone calls – though in this case, the phones ring with an unusually high percentage of "Jingle Bells." (1:42) (Eddy)

Pretty Persuasion Fifteen-year-old Kimberly (Evan Rachel Wood) is arrogant, rude, and manipulative. But this being a "black comedy," magically no one seems to notice those qualities, enabling her to falsely accuse a teacher (Ron Livingston) of molestation, wrap a cynical TV reporter (Jane Krakowski) around her little finger (and other body parts), and destroy various other lives out of sheer spite. Comparisons to Heathers, my ass – this stab at "politically incorrect" (Kimberly is full of pithy comments about the handicapped, homos, and nonwhites) humor more closely recalls such inglorious prior "dark" high school "satires" as Drop Dead Gorgeous and Jawbreaker. Pretty Persuasion is smug, witless, too long, an embarrassment to its performers (James Woods really hits a low point here), and fully exploitative of the heroine's jailbait sexuality even as it decries her exploiting it herself. Worse still, it lacks even the courage of its own crassness. At the end, our poor little psychotic rich girl at last realizes the hollowness of her triumph – and the camera holds on her longer than it did on Garbo at the end of Queen Christina, as if to say: Here is tragedy. Here is pathos. Here, America, is your wounded soul. Say, wanna buy a bridge? (1:44) (Harvey)

Reel Paradise Movie producer John Pierson, who briefly came out from behind the scenes in 1996 when his indie manifesto, Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes, was published, has been below the radar except to those who may have caught the IFC show Split Screen – created by Pierson and wife Janet. Production of that show took the Piersons to Taveuni, Fiji, where they were enchanted by the island's old movie house, the 180 Meridian Cinema, and the locals' exotic approach to film consumption. Pierson decided to move the family (which also includes Georgia and Wyatt, then 16 and 13, respectively) to the island and show free movies to the Fijians while "blowing up" his teenagers' world in the process. The real drama centers on the Piersons' experiences living as foreigners, coping with the cultural differences separating their lives from the locals', resulting in theft and contention with those who doubt the purity of the Americans' charitable motives (the most notable criticism comes from the Catholic church, which knows a thing or two about questionable missionary pursuits). Documentary filmmaker Steve James has explored the theme of transcending social divisions before, very directly in 2002's Stevie, but Reel Paradise is less heady in that respect, achieving most of its emotional resonance in the crises of parenting a rebellious teenage daughter with cameras rolling. (1:50) Smith Rafael. (Odes)

*Red Eye The unfriendly skies get their due in Red Eye, a tense tale that enhances Carl Ellsworth's so-so script with skilled direction by veteran horror-helmer Wes Craven and strong performances by its leads, both rising stars who're already having a damn good summer: Rachel McAdams, from Wedding Crashers, and Cillian Murphy, from Batman Begins. Lisa (McAdams) hates to fly. But she's the top concierge at a fancy Miami hotel, and her crisis-management skills are sorely missed while she's attending Grandma's funeral in Texas. When her late-night flight is delayed, she meets the blue-eyed Jack (Murphy), who ends up sitting next to her on the plane – positioning that, we soon learn, is by no means coincidental. Craven, who sealed his name into legend with A Nightmare on Elm Street (and made Hollywood love him all over again with the gazillion-dollar Scream trilogy), is working in somewhat new territory here. Though Jack aspires to Freddy Krueger-esque cruelty, he's only human; Red Eye is a bare-bones thriller rooted firmly in reality. As one character observes, foreshadowing Lisa's fate as well as making a broader comment on current events: "Travel is war these days." (1:25) (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) (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) (Kim)

A Sound of Thunder About the best thing I can say about A Sound of Thunder is that it's based on a Ray Bradbury story, a pedigree which adds a fraction of dignity to an otherwise unfortunate exercise. In the year 2055 a company called Time Safari exists for two reasons: one, to make scads of cash for its owner (a campy Ben Kingsley) by taking rich tourists on time-travel dinosaur safaris; and two, to supply research data for Dr. Travis Ryer (Edward Burns, practically rolling his eyes the whole time). Just as doom-speakin' physicist Sonya Rand (Catherine McCormack) predicts, eventually someone accidentally upsets the order of things in the past – wreaking evolutionary havoc in the present day. Most of the movie involves Travis and company scrambling around a futuristic Chicago overrun with vicious, freshly sprouted plant and animal life, all of which is created with CG effects that appear about as high-quality as something you'd get out of a gumball machine. Will the weird scientists set things right before they're all picked off by evolutionary-altered predators? Eh, I'd rather see 'em get eaten, personally. (1:42) (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) (Patrick Macias)

Supercross: The Movie The choice is yours, sports fans: Stay home and watch the X Games on TV for free, or spend 10 bucks on a movie about an extreme sport couched in a series of extreme plot clichés. A rift grows between scruffy brothers KC (Affleck-esque Steve Howey) and Trip (Mike Vogel) when KC is hired to be the "wingman" to a more established motocross rider. Of course that means he's never supposed to win any races himself. Dude! Meanwhile, the more reckless Trip competes as a "privateer," cleaning pools on the side to fund his daredevil pursuits. Dude. The brothers bicker with each other, sneer at rival riders, etc.; there are also some girlfriend-related plot threads. Mostly this movie is about the races themselves, which are heavy on slo-mo and expository voice-overs, and (of course) packed with stunt doubles galore. Supercross itself may be thrilling to watch, but Supercross: The Movie is about as exciting as an extended Mountain Dew commercial. (1:32) (Eddy)

*Tony Takitani With his coolly restrained new film, director Jun Ichikawa manages to visualize at least two unseen and less-than-celebrated aspects of modern Japanese life that are so ubiquitous they're practically hiding in plain sight: shopping addiction and an obsession with all things Audrey Hepburn. In a scene that echoes Funny Face's makeover scenes and fashion-shoot montages, Rie Miyazawa – playing Hisako, a waitress who's just been hired to be the title character's housekeeper and the double for his deceased wife, Eiko (also Miyazawa) – paws through rack upon rack of designer clothing in the dead woman's huge walk-in closet. The emotionally illiterate Tony Takitani (actor and writer Issey Ogata) has his work cut out from him in Ichikawa's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story. Takitani is forever lonely until Eiko enters his world and punctures his routine – but the act of possession (be it a wife or a designer boot) only triggers a fear of loss. Complicating matters is the fact that Eiko, the otherwise perfect housewife, is also compulsively acquisitive. Tony Takitani humbly hoists a perfect cold, sad cocktail to a life, a lifestyle, that's almost shocking in its banality, its singular notes on class difference. (1:15) (Chun)

Transporter 2 This ludicrous compendium of fisticuffs and chase scenes delivers pretty much everything you'd expect out of a B-grade action flick: villians with undefined accents, a glowing green supervirus, briefcases full of cash, the high-stakes kidnapping of a cute li'l kid, and a hero type as muscle-bound as he is misunderstood. Star Jason Statham returns from the first film, as do cowriter and producer Luc Besson and artistic director-turned-actual director Louis Leterrier (both late of Unleashed). No need for plot here, folks; like Statham's character, Frank, this stupidly entertaining tinfoil ball of a movie knows it has a job to do, and it does not deviate from the program. Ergo: intricate, prop-laden fight choreography, including a nifty bit with a fire hose; the world's least-realistic plane crash; and all the sweet, sweet car porn your eyeballs need ever behold. (1:28) (Eddy)

*2046 Once upon a time in Wong Kar-wai-ville, at the end of a movie called Days of Being Wild – which would turn out to be the beginning of a now-completed trilogy of movies about loving and leaving and the lingering memory of Hong Kong circa 1962 – actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai suddenly appeared onscreen. The movie was almost over, but Leung – who was quite a well-known Hong Kong actor at the time – had only just arrived. No one at the time could quite figure out where Leung's character, or indeed where Days of Being Wild's writer and director, had come from. Nearly a decade later, Wong finally found himself in the mood to revisit the story. Leung (as a tabloid scribe named Chow) and Cheung (as a lonely wife named Su Li-zhen who lives next door) came back with him, as brokenhearted neighbors in a brokenhearted rhapsody called In the Mood for Love. Now, and possibly forever, they're back again, in what may well be Wong's magnum opus. In 2046, Chow's smoldering but unreturned love for Su escapes and expands across fragments of time and the excruciating beauty of wide-screen space and resolves, somewhere between a future-shock space opera and a curdled-memory remix of the far-too-recent past, into one of the greatest love stories the movies have ever known. (2:07) (Stephens)

Underclassman Rapper-producer-writer-actor Nick Cannon (who starred in Drumline) anchors this comedy-action flick as a charismatic cop in unusual circumstances. Cannon has something to offer this story and provides the reason for the more enjoyable moments Underclassman musters. As precocious young bike cop Tracy "Tre" Stokes, Cannon finds himself back in high school on an undercover assignment trying to figure out how a student at an affluent private school wound up dead. Wheedling his way inside the exclusive, lily-white clique with his – you guessed it – killer skills on the basketball court, Tre finds that the shady dealings afoot are far graver than he'd anticipated. Cannon can't quite channel the comedic polish of Eddie Murphy á la Beverly Hills Cop before him, leaving the action-driven plot as Underclassman's only marginally redeeming component. (1:35) (Odes)

Undiscovered If you're one of the eight people who kept down their last meal during the Britney-licious Crossroads, then you're one of the 14 that might welcome this latest pop-star vehicle disguised as, okay, well, not really disguised as anything. Ashlee Simpson's had fewer pictures taken of her butt in the last few months than her blond sister; nonetheless, she apparently has acting aspirations all her own. Simpson plays an actress who wants to be a singer (favorite song lyric from the movie: "It's smart in a stupid way") who befriends sparkly-clean New York-to-LA transplant Brier (Pell James), a model who wants to be an actress. Luke Falcon (Steven Strait) is a ponytailed, brooding "songwriter" who just can't crack the money-art binary, until he gets a brilliant idea: Take the money. Tucked deep inside all the teary plot machinations is another unlikely kernel of wisdom: Publicity blitzes, a superficial culture, and money-grubbing record companies are what make mediocre artists multimillionaire superstars – a shocking and appalling revelation. (1:32) (Odes)

Unwanted Woman Iranian filmmaker Tahmineh Milani has proven a fearlessly outspoken champion of women's rights, though her attempt to reach wide audiences in a popular style has also probably contributed to her being the least powerful or imaginative of the cineastes embraced by international audiences as the New Iranian Cinema. In her latest work, a feminist road picture of sorts, she's at her best and worst: politically unbowed but genre-bound. A school teacher and mother in her mid-30s suspects her shifty husband of an affair with a young widow he's planning to escort from Tehran to her native village (on the relatively innocent pretext of collecting some reward from her family). So, baby in tow, she comes along with them to keep an eye out. Of course, the sleazeball is having an affair, and doing little after a while to conceal it from our unjustly treated and long-suffering protagonist. When, therefore, she encounters a fugitive (in fact a teacher like herself) who's just killed his wife and her lover, she sees in him a natural ally and maybe even a savior. Not a bad premise, but writer-director Milani saps much of its potential in a style drably reminiscent of '70s TV dramas (even the car looks to be a '70s make) wedded to a didactic, often clumsy form of cinematic pluralism, in which characters might periodically break into debating the rights and perspectives of men and women, husbands and wives, or children and adults. (1:43) (Avila)

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) (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) (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) (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) (Harvey)

*Winter Soldier Made in 1972, Winter Soldier has the otherworldly yet firmly earthbound immediacy of the best documentaries of its era, in particular, the black-and-white work of William Klein, Frederick Wiseman, and the Maysles brothers. Voices and faces are the main ingredients here: The participants in the Winter Soldier investigation testify to the atrocities they witnessed and took part in while in Vietnam. Combined, their statements become an overwhelming litany, one of the most horrifying and emotionally wrenching indictments of war recorded on film. This is no Oliver Stone leap into Samuel Barber-scored heroic tragedy, just an unflinchingly clear-eyed extended gaze at military-brand, all-American inhumanity – the racism, emotionally cauterized machismo, and governmental evil that results in mass bloodshed. When 109 Vietnam veterans and 16 civilians gathered at a Howard Johnson's in Detroit to discuss a war that was still raging, the media reacted with skepticism, if at all. If a collective of filmmakers – including people who've gone on to put history on celluloid in Harlan County, USA; Regret to Inform; and The Word Is Out – hadn't been present, the human impact of war would not have been captured. (1:35) Roxie. (Huston)

Rep picks

'Bay Area Now 4' Yerba Buena Center for the Arts film programmer Joel Shepard gave $500 to four local filmmakers and told them to make a movie, any movie, in six months. (Admittedly, some of them applied the cash to projects already in the works, or added it to contributions from other funders.) The result, constituting the film-video component of the triennial Bay Area Now showcase, is -- like that exhibit's latest edition --an interestingly mixed bag. Sam Green's Lot 63, Grave C is a terse, haunting black and white documentary about an infamous victim of 1960s violence who has nonetheless become utterly anonymous in his place of eternal rest. Also heavily into the whole death thing is Ellen Bruno's Sky Burial, a handsome travel document chronicling corpse-disposal rites at a Tibetan Monastery that are rather grisly in detail but quite serenely uplifting in subtext. Bill Daniel's Mission Bay 2001 is a new experimental short that looks like found footage, its views of that ever-changing area streaked, stressed and tinted until they resemble something found in a forgotten time capsule. Last and least, Caveh Zahedi's untitled short brings his usual cute, self-aware angst to bear on the fact that he doesn't know what movie he's going to make, and when he's forced to make one anyway, it sucks. "To have come up with nothing very interesting is sort of liberating in a way," he confides. Sez you, bud, sez you. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Harvey)

*'Heavy Metal Cinema: Rock, Shock, and Schlock' See "Beelzebub Bop." Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.