Arab Film Festival

The ninth annual Arab Film Festival runs Sept 23-Oct 2 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Camera 12 Cinemas, 201 South Second St, San Jose; California Theater, 2113 Kittredge, Berk; Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley, Berk; Coppola Theater, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway, SF; and Cubberly Auditorium, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford University, Stanford. For tickets ($5-15) and a complete schedule, call (415) 564-1100 or visit www.aff.org. All times p.m. unless otherwise indicated. For commentary, see Script Doctor.

Fri/23

Castro "Student Screening" 10am. The Dreams of Sparrows 1. Waiting for Quds 3:30. Sabah with "Aadan" 7. Exils 9:30.

Sat/24

Castro "Cousines," "Tahara," and "The Eternal Dance" 11am. The Sleeping Child 1. The Syrian Bride 3. Douar de Femmes 5. Beb el Web 7:30. Terra Incognita 9:30.

Sun/25

Castro Bahibb al-Sima 11am. Concrete Curtain 1:45. Tenja with "Your Dark Hair Ihsan" 3:15. Looking for Freedom 5. Occupied Minds 7:45. The Magic Box 9:30.

Camera "Student Screening" 10am. "Beirut, Coming Back to You is Not Painful," "BerlinBeirut," "Mardi 29 Fevrier," and "At the Window" noon. Clay Dolls 2. Ahla al-Awqat 4. Sabah with "Aadan" 6. Shouf, Shouf Habibi! 8:30.

Mon/26

Camera "Student Screening" 10am. All About Darfur 1. Threads with "Tahara" 2:45. Diary of a Teenager 5. Beb el Web 7:30. Exils 9:30.

Tues/27

Camera "Student Screening" 10am. Occupied Minds 12:30. Tenja with "Your Dark Hair Ihsan" 2. Abouna 4. Douar de Femmes 6. Enta Omry (My Soulmate) 8:30.

MadCat Women's International Film Festival

The ninth annual MadCat Women's International Film Festival runs through 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. All times p.m. unless otherwise indicated. For commentary, see last week's Bay Guardian.

Wed/21

El Rio "Women Speak Up" (shorts program) 8:30.

Fri/23

ATA "Unpacking Histories" (shorts program) 7:30.

Sun/25

YBCA The Phantom of the Operator 7. The Time We Ki lled 8:30.

Tues/27

El Rio "Shh II: Silent Films Set to Live Music" 8:30.

Opening

Dear Wendy See Movie Clock. (1:40) Act I and II, Lumiere.

Everything is Illuminated An American overseas (Elijah Wood) searches for the Ukranian woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. (1:42) Embarcadero.

Flightplan Jodie Foster stars as a mother who mysteriously loses her young daughter midway through an international airplane flight. (1:28) Century Plaza, Century 20, Century 20, Presidio, Shattuck.

Green Street Hooligans An American overseas (Elijah Wood) discovers England's football underworld. (1:48) 1000 Van Ness.

Hellbent Billed as the first gay slasher flick, this slick and amiably silly debut feature for writer-director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts reveals what was missing in all prior movies about Unstoppable Killing Machines killing hotties: They neglected to make the killing machine hot too! You, too, may wish to be impaled on the, ahem, sword – figuratively speaking – packed by the Tom-of-Finland-from-hell fantasy figure who stalks our protagonists around West Hollywood on Halloween. International Male model-looking "cop" Eddie (Dylan Fergus) is sorta on the case when the decapitated bodies of two guys, who were on a date, are found. Subsequently, Eddie and his flatmates Joey (Hank Harris), Chaz (Andrew Levitas), and Tobey (Matt Phillips) are targeted by the mute but otherwise hard to miss Devil Guy with his horned mask, sharp scythe, and six-feet-five-inches of bulging musculature. What's his problem? Is he even human? Doesn't he like twinks? Is this the other dark side of crystal? Don't expect any explanations – or character depth (these cuties-but-dummies pretty much hold to the Melrose Avenue standard of Looks, "10," Personality, "0") or plot logic. (Unintentionally hilarious moments include one where a character is stabbed to death in the middle of a crowded dance floor, and no one notices.) In other words, it's just like a real '80s-style slasher movie, lively and colorful enough to rate a half-cut above that decade's median. It's guilty-pleasure fun that may actually raise your pulse if you're a 'fraidy cat. Triv ia note: The title Hellbent was arrived at via an Internet contest, somehow trumping the genius proposal 28 Gays Later. (1:24) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*A History of Violence See "Boys to Men." (1:35) Metreon.

*POPaganda: The Art and Crimes of Ron English Pedro Carvajal's documentary on anti-corporate culture jammer Ron English is as colorful as English's art, which skewers pop culture icons like Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Mouse, and the so-deserves-it Thomas Kincaid. Though the film celebrates English's fine art paintings, the rebel artist's heart clearly belongs to the pursuit of "billboard liberation." As Carvajal's camera whirrs, English scales buildings to bring his art (shaming targets like McDonald's and Camel cigarettes) to the masses. He's an engaging figure, which makes the film even more entertaining – though POPaganda includes footage of English and his wife discussing how his billboard fixation has strained their marriage. The doc also follows a few intriguing tangents, including a "Ron English open mic" where all the musicians sing praise to the artist; a fond look back at English's rowdy childhood (filled with proto-Jackass high jinks); and clips from appearances on the Morton Downey, Jr. show. (1:18) Red Vic. (Eddy)

Proof Shakespeare in Love director John Madden reteams with that film's Oscar-winning star, Gwyneth Paltrow, for this cinematic take on the Pulitzer-winning play by David Auburn (who coadapted the screenplay with Rebecca Miller). Impressed yet? Fortunately, Proof feels hardly as overloaded and "actorly" as it could've been, even considering the rest of the cast is Anthony Hopkins (as a brilliant mathematician who struggles with madness), Hope Davis (as his uptight daughter, and sister to Paltrow's character, Catherine), and Jake Gyllenhaal (as a grad student and Catherine's sorta-boyfriend). Proof zeroes in on the double meaning of its title after the sisters' father dies, leaving behind an important mathematical discovery that may have actually been made by Catherine herself. Meanwhile, the dour, bitter Catherine struggles with the idea that if she shares her father's genius, she may also share his proclivity for mental illness. Devotees to the play may bristle at filmmaking liberties taken, but generally strong performances do make the big-screen Proof worthwhile. (1:39) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Pure Though Keira Knightley's name and face loom large on the poster, she's only a supporting player in this London-set tale of a hardy 10-year-old (Harry Eden) trying to wean his mum (Molly Parker) off heroin (after realizing that the needle he includes with her breakfast-in-bed isn't for medicine). The film is a lumpen meld of Ken Loach grit and Billy Elliot-style slick uplift and can seem like a Lifetime movie for working class cockneys at times. Pure makes most of the predictable stops on the recovering-junkie story route, but sometimes with grace and true sensitivity, despite occasionally unsure direction from Gillies MacKinnon and a manipulative score. The film squeaks by on the uniform excellence of its actors: Parker ably switches betw een jangling raw nerves and nursing her zonked fragility, but it's little Eden who holds Pure together with his fierce stare and stubborn, desperate pluck, even when his character's resourcefulness is stretched to Home Alone extremes. As for Knightley, who adroitly plays a kindly waitress, her movie star beauty doesn't fit into the East End milieu, but as the posters show, it's a hell of a marketing aid. (1:36) Galaxy. (Amanatullah)

Roll Bounce This disco-era, coming-of-age comedy stars hip-hop's Bow Wow (he ain't Lil' no more) as a Chicago roller skater whose neighborhood crew finds trouble when their local rink is shut down. Making matters worse, they're subsequently served a challenge by the "baddest mo-fos on wheels," Sweetness (Wesley Jonathan) and his gang of Tootsie Rolls. Director Malcolm D. Lee (Undercover Brother) puts an energetic soul spin on the whiter-than-Wonder-Bread roller skating genre (previously best-known for classics like Patrick Swayze's Skatetown U.S.A. and Linda Blair's Roller Boogie). Roll Bounce's funky routines are quite thrilling and are performed with genuine late-'70s flair by the young cast, especially the scene-stealing Rick Gonzalez (Coach Carter). Though the genre's traditional focus on T&A is mostly foregone in favor of broken-family issues – well-intentioned but way too sentimental – Roll Bou nce's bumpin' soundtrack and the final skate-off turn this mother sucka on for maximum retro pleasure. (1:47) Century Plaza, Century 20. (Jesse Hawthorne Ficks)

*Thumbsucker See "Boys to Men." (1:36) Embarcadero.

*Tim Burton's Corpse Bride God bless Tim Burton, the ever-lovin' freak. Just when you thought he'd become completely immersed in the tar pit-like sap of Big Fish or encased in the sickly hard candy shell of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he emerges like a stop-motion butterfly with this visually stunning, thoroughly winsome fable. And he manages to rescue Johnny Depp (at least his vocal chords) in the process. Not since the Depp-Burton love-match Edward Scissorhands has the director displayed such a knack for conjuring Gothic morbidity leavened with a gentle, childlike sweetness. Depp plays sad-sack hero Victor Van Dort, whose resolve is even more precarious than his Skellington-esque spindly legs. He's meant to be the every-puppet in this scenario, but the surprising emotional core is the wistful Corpse Bride herself. Possessing the body of former Burton flame Lisa Marie (she's voiced by current squeeze Helena Bonham Carter) and adorned with blue Play-Doh Fun Factory hair and Courtney Love's (new) lips, she's a gorgeous-frightening misfit who just wants to be loved – is that so wrong? Call her Bride of Scissorhands. (1:15) Ca lifornia, Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake. (Devereaux)

*Touch the Sound Touch the Sound opens with muffled noises, faint under the kind of muted hiss that most people actually interpret as "silence." Then the camera zooms through a warehouse toward petite percussionist Evelyn Glennie as she savagely plays an enormous gong. Director Thomas Riedelsheimer (Rivers and Tides) lifts the gauze off the film's sound mix and the intensity of the ringing fills the movie theater – an ear-splitting reminder that the profoundly deaf Glennie can hear far less than we through her ears alone. But as Riedelsheimer reveals, Glennie has learned to tune her whole body to noises and pitch, until her extreme sensitivity to the vibrations of music is, as the title of the film suggests, based on touch. Riedelsheimer's aim is to show how integrated Glennie's love of music is, not only with the soundscapes of various locations – busy New York City, a Japanese meditation garden – but with every aspect of her life. As a poetic statement, this is lovely, but anyone looking to learn more about Glennie, a renowned percussionist, will have to do so elsewhere. The film unfolds gorgeously, though the last half-hour drags after a somber climax. Touch the Sound is the second in Riedelsheimer's planned trilogy of documentaries on Scottish artists. (1:53) Balboa, Oaks, Smith Rafael. (Koh)

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 mig rating red wig to Fred Willard's Victorian dandy impe rsonation. 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) Bridge, California. (Huston)

*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) Balboa, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Odes)

*Broken Flowers When does soulful become s ardonic 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) Embarcadero, Empire, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Melissa Anderson)

The Brothers Grimm Yes, it's the latest (albeit delayed) r elease 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 been told in 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) 1000 Van Ness. (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 ch ildren 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) 1000 Van Ness. (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 ques t with flashbacks to their relationship. In his English-language debut, director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) creat es a thoroughly accomplished work that manages old-school pl ot intrigue, conventional romance, globe-trotting location work, and a heavyweight cast with ease. (2:08) Century 20, Empire, Galaxy, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Orinda. (Harvey)

*Côte d'Azur A seaside vacation means family bonding for mom Béatrix (Valeria Bruno-Tedeschi), dad Marc (Gilbert Melki), and teen son Charly (Romain Torres), though a variety of romantic conflicts, many resolved in huffy, door-slamming fashion, must first be addressed. All the original couples are completely shuffled (enter Mom's lover, Dad's childhood sweetheart, and Charly's gay best pal), but everyone gets a happy ending in the cheerful Côte d'Azur (last seen kicking off this year's San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival). Writer-directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau amp up the tension with plenty of sex talk, unexpected trysts, and characters who do more than bathe during their long, hot showers; there's also an unsubtle amount of shellfish-as-aphrodisiac discussions. The younger actors are fine, but the grown-ups, especially veterans Bruno-Tedeschi and Melki, help this sweet farce transcend mere soufflé-ness – goofy musical numbers notwithstanding. (1:33) Opera Plaza. (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. (Harvey)

*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.& quot; 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) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Odes)

Cry_Wolf (1:30) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness.

*The Exorcism of Emily Rose Based on the real-life story of German student Anneliese Michel, who died during a 1976 exorcism ritual, The Exorcism of Emily Rose updates the action to present-day America and focuses on the trial of Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), the priest charged with negligent homicide in the girl's dea th. The prosecutor (Campbell Scott) aims to prove that wholesome college freshman Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) suffered from epilepsy and died because Moore encouraged her to pursue spiritual, not medical, treatment. Meanwhile, defense attorney Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) must gather enough evidence to support Moore's belief that the teenager was possessed by several very pissed-off demons, including good ol' Lucifer himself. The top-drawer cast was clearly lured by the film's meatier themes – faith versus science is a key topic in the courtroom scenes – and Emily Rose's muscular (if flashback-heavy) plot elevates it above most shriek-of-the-week flicks. Of course, what'll really lure audiences are the scare tactics, which inevitably crib from The Exorcist (and, oddly, The Amityville Horror), though they're PG-13 sanitized for your protection. Still, between all the black-eyed apparitions and Carpenter's creepy performance, Emily Rose does deliver some decent jolts. (1:38) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck. (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) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (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 t here'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 20, 1000 Van Ness. (Dave Kim)

*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 wann abe 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) Lumiere, Piedmont, Shattuck. (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 cou ple 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, Balboa, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Just Like Heaven The latest from director Mark Waters (Mean Girls) is pure fantasy – and not just because it's about a lonely guy (Mark Ruffalo) who falls in love with the restless spirit of a woman (Reese Witherspoon) whose apartment he has just begun subletting. Sure, the romance is far-fetched (and indebted to Ghost, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and every other supernatural love story ever filmed), but the real fantasy here is the apartment itself: enormous, gorgeous, and blessed with a private roof that affords the kind of San Francisco views that only gazillionaire city dwellers dare to dr eam about. Of course, the metaphysically mismatched couple is so cornball and adorable, so cosmically meant to be together (screw your living will, darling!) that it's almost enough to let certain suspension-of-disbelief elements slide. As an occult bookstore clerk with "the gift," Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder casually swipes every scene he's in. Alas, his character is one of precious few offbeat elements that distinguish Just Like Heaven from Witherspoon vehicles past. (1:41) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Lord of War Set in the years immediately following the end of the cold war, the latest from writer-director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) follows the happy-go-corruptly Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), a Ukraine-born New Yorker with a knack for illegal arms dealing. Similar in structure to Blow – another as-years-go-by look at an international crook who manages to be both sympathetic and corrupt – Lord of War follows Yuri's rise, and rise, and rise in his chosen profession. At his apex he adds tanks and rocket launchers to his product line and begins doing frequent business with Liberia's bloodthirsty dictator. It's a jazzy enough concept for a movie, and the cast – which also includes Jared Leto as Yuri's druggie brother; Bridget Moynahan as Yuri's oblivious trophy wife; and Ethan Hawke as Yuri's Interpol n emesis – is nearly as pretty as Niccol's flashy visual style. But Lord of War ultimately falters, thanks in part to the film's breakneck pace, which zooms through the 1980s and '90s like a highlight reel of Yuri's misdeeds. In addition, character development is nonexistent, unless you're willing to accept Yuri's pithy voice-overs as evidence of personality. (2:02) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Man The pained grimace on Samuel L. Jackson's face evident for the duration of this attempt at action-comedy seems in part character-driven, and in part forced by frequent delivery of awful, awful lines. We've seen this all before. Andy Fidler (American Pie dad Eugene Levy), a dental supply salesman from Wisconsin, ends up in, gasp, Detroit on business and stumbles into an intricate web of attractive foreign ne'er-do-wells, snitches, and tough-on-the-outside, marshmallow-on-the-inside urban cops. Special Agent Derrick Vann (Jackson) "doesn't trust anybody," doesn't call for backup, and sure as heck doesn't care if he misses his only daughter's ballet recital – that is, until he is transformed by Andy Fidler's small-town charm. The biggest laughs come from some dull farting jokes, and most of the rest rely on Levy's delivery of phrases like "he's my bitch." Jackson is really about all The Man has going f or it, and considering he, too seems clearly aware of that fact, on the whole it falls way short. (1:24) Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Odes)

*March of the Penguins Pity the emperor penguin. His name is glorious, but his lot in life – as incredulously documented by Luc Jacquet and narrated with morbid amusement by Morgan Freeman – is one of unrelenting duty and sacrifice. If social Darwinists love the traditional top-of-the-food-chain tale, only a true evolutionary thinker can really appreciate this one. Or a working parent. March of the Penguins has less in common with French adventures into animal kingdoms – Microcosmos, Winged Migration – than it does with the more moralizing cultural work of, say, Robert Flaherty. But it's still got to be the most beautifully filmed animal story of the year, in one of the landscapes most endangered by rapacious humanity: gorgeous mile after mile of frozen earth, with pastel skyscapes, brutal storms, and line after line of amazing, tuxedoed birds, devotedly marching in formation. (1:20) Albany, Clay, Century 20, Empire, Piedmont, 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 t ired here – understandably, since the real edition is recovering fro m 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) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (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 bos ses 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) Galaxy. (Harvey)

*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 mis sed 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) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Shoujyo: An Adolescent It's a middle-aged man's fantasy in the flesh: a drunk, seedy cop (Eiji Okuda) falls asleep in a small town cafe; he wakes to see a gorgeous girl (Mayu Ozawa) tell him, "Say Mister, let's have sex." Post-coitus, he learns that she's in love with him – and she's only 15. This Japanese treatment of the Lolita complex is less daring than it seems. It's subtly patriarchal (Okuda must win the consent of Ozawa's protective male relatives and defend her from a jealous, slutty mother) and chock full of pat psychological explanations involving voyeurism and tattoos. Shoujyo never fully transitions from its wish fulfillment premise into a "serious" drama, since Ozawa, despite her fine performance, can't make cogent an opaque character's flimsy rationale for falling in love, especially when later revelations about who's related to and/or fucked who tire credibility. Eiji Okuda, a leading man making his directorial debut, has a painter's balanced and orderly sense of composition (no surprise, he's also a painter), an affection for Ozu-like pillow shots, and skill with actors. But these qualities can't mitigate a script in need of redrafts,or the ham-fisted editing, slow-motion overkill, and irritating use of French chansons during romance scenes. (2:12) Galaxy. (Amanatullah)

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 th e 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. (Patrick Macias)

*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 fro m 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) Opera Plaza. (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 eyeb alls need ever behold. (1:28) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness. (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) Act I and II, Embarcadero. < /I>(Stephens)

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) Oaks, 1000 Van Ness. (Odes)

Venom (1:25) Century 20, 1000 Van Ness.

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

*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 emotiona lly 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)

*'ResFest 2005' See "Boys to Men." Palace of Fine Arts.