Arab Film Festival

The ninth annual Arab Film Festival runs through Sun/2 at the 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 go to www.aff.org. All times p.m. unless otherwise indicated. For commentary, see last week's Bay Guardian.

Wed/28

Cubberly Looking for Freedom 6. The Syrian Bride 8:45.

Thurs/29

Coppola At the Window and Cousines with "The Eternal Dance" noon.

Fri/30

California The Dreams of Sparrows 4. The Syrian Bride 7. Liberace of Baghdad 9:30.

Sat/1

California Minders and A Stone's Throw Away 1. At the Window and When Men Cry 3. The Sleeping Child 5. Occupied Minds with "Secret Hebron: The School Run" 7. Threads with "Tahara" 9:30.

Sun/2

California Waiting for Quds with "The Eternal Dance" noon. All about Darfur 2. Concrete Curtain 4. Terra Incognita 6. Clay Dolls 8:30.

Wheeler Door to the Sun (Part One) 1. Door to the Sun (Part Two) 4:25.

Opening

The Future of Food It sounds like science fiction, but it ain't: We really do live in a world where fiddling around with plant DNA is the main order of business for corporations angling to control the world's food supply. Deborah Koons Garcia's The Future of Food traces the history of the "green revolution" – the formerly well-intended plan to make agriculture systematic, like industry – as well as the twisted tale of Monsanto, the greedy, seed-hoarding megacorp that gleefully sues farmers it believes have infringed on its many (try 11,000) patents. Animated illustrations map out how, exactly, genetic engineering works (helpful for those of us who barely remember The Double Helix from high school science); experts and activists chime in to discuss the long-term negative effects of playing God. If you don't seek out organic produce already, the eye-opening (and incredibly alarming) lessons shared by The Future of Food will no doubt speed you in that direction. (1:29) Shattuck. (Eddy)

*The Goebbels Experiment As a key early Hitler supporter and Germany's minister of propaganda from 1933 to 1945, Joseph Goebbels was hugely important in shaping the people's enthusiastic compliance in what would soon be considered the most loathsome regime in history. This striking documentary by Lutz Hachmeister and Michael Kloft is assembled from lesser-seen archival footage that chronologically charts its subject's saga from well-heeled, well-educated if sickly youth to a career that wielded extraordinary power – and broke sophisticated new ground in using mass media to shape the public will (or the public ignorance, when preferable). Among many fascinating moments here is when Goebbels – his diary entries read by Kenneth Branagh, who hasn't given a better film performance in years – sneers at a British propagandistic film's clumsiness, since the ones he oversaw for Germany achieved a state of nonstop rabble-rousing climax. We also hear him complain about Triumph of the Will director Leni Riefenstahl's (offscreen) "lunatic histrionics," dismiss Churchill as a "revolting fat beast," and so forth. A true believer in the Social Democratic "German Revolution," and a fierce anti-Semite and stirring orator, Goebbels was also full of private competitiveness, resentment, and neurosis, often giving in to self-pitying depression at the slightest hurdle. If you saw Downfall, you know that as Allied forces raided Berlin, he and his wife took the lives of their six children before taking their own. If you see Experiment, you'll understand the personality that could consider such unfathomably extreme actions a natural endpoint in patriotic duty. (1:47) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Greatest Game Ever Played Surely the greatest game ever played involves drinking and Showgirls, but the title of this Disneyfied golf flick does not refer to the sport of golf in general, but rather to a tiebreaker round played in the 1913 US Open. After an opening credit sequence that looks like Andy Warhol had a bad dream about Cheers, director Bill Paxton asks the classic sporting question: What does it mean to be a true gentleman? In this film golf stands for class separation: Caddies aren't allowed to play, and a truly phenomenal golfer like British champion Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane) is too common-born to join the elite club that houses his trophies. So it feels honorable when three golfers of lower class origins – including Vardon and the film's 20-year-old hero, caddy Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) – whup a bunch of upper-class pricks and end up battling it out in the finals of the US Open. Morality lessons and an ever-swelling score overwhelm the plot, but LaBeouf plays his earnest part well. Unfortunately some filmic devices hai l too much from this century – spaceship noises accompany X-treme close-ups of golf balls, and the competitors play through pouring rain with such slo-mo grit captured by Just-Do-It camerawork that their tweed caps might as well sport the swoosh. (1:55) Century Plaza, Century 20, Oaks. (Koh)

*I Am Cuba This massive propagandistic "friendship project" between the USSR and Cuba was despised by both sides when it premiered, amid much patriotic hoopla, in 1964 – fickle Kremlin culture-guardians branded it retro revolutionary kitsch, and Cubans were taken aback by the very Soviet filmmaking style deployed to tell their own ostensible story. It wasn't seen in the West until 1993, when Martin Scorcese and others hailed it as a rediscovered masterpiece. Which it is, at least of overwhelming visual invention. What director Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying) had engineered was an epic hymn to romantic Communism, a living agitprop mural as deliriously choreographed for the camera as anything Bertolucci ever devised. A female voice-over portraying the soul of Mother Cuba links four episodes that see the land despoiled by capitalist pigs, then rescued by popular revolt. The first shows Havana's titillating, decadent pre-revolution nightlife for tourists and the contrasting extreme poverty of nearby shantytown residents. Then cane workers are seen setting fire to their fields rather than surrender them to United Fruit Co. thugs, student radicals face off against government troops in a harrowing riot, and guerrillas unite with peasants for a final glory-of-comradeship tableau. Photographed in shimmering deep-focus B&W by Sergei Unsevsky, the enormously scaled, almost dialogue-free film has more spectacular "How did they do that?" shots than just about any other feature you could name. What it doesn't have is much character focus or narrative involvement – this is the-people-as-protagonist cinema, Eisensteinian in both dazzle and didacticism. But if it's more an objet d'art than one of the heart, I Am Cuba is still a one-of-a-kind movie that should be seen at least once. (2:21) Balboa. (Harvey)

Into the Blue John Stockwell (Blue Crush) helms this yarn about treasure, sharks, Paul Walker's abs, and Jessica Alba in a bikini. (1:50) Century Plaza, Century 20.

Keane See "Little Girls Lost." (1:40) Opera Plaza.

*MirrorMask See Movie Clock. (1:41) Act I and II, Lumiere, Smith Rafael.

Oliver Twist Roman Polanski directs his take on the Dickens classic, starring Ben Kingsley as Fagin. (2:15) Century 20, Piedmont, Shattuck.

The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio Apparently no longer content to don a housedress solely for worldly deconstructions like The Hours and Far from Heaven, Julianne Moore embraces her inner cornball in this kitschy yet earnest melodrama, with generally positive results. Moore plays Evelyn Ryan, the whip-smart, long-suffering mother of 10 trapped in midcentury Midwestern purgatory. When her bitter, dimwitted husband (Woody Harrelson, born to play a fedora-sporting ultrasquare) almost literally drinks the family out of house and home, the only thing that keeps them afloat is plucky Evelyn's pen – she compulsively enters jingle-writing contests, winning everything from sizable cash prizes to grocery store shopping sprees. As directed by Marin County filmmaker Jane Anderson (it's based on a memoir by SF writer Terry Ryan), Moore lends Evelyn much less of a trailblazing blush than the film's title implies: Here, defiance is a place more than a state of mind. Instead, Evelyn's obvious talents, which she could have fully exploited in another era (and income bracket), allow her to dexterously work a system she has resignedly accepted with a knowing inner sigh and bittersweet smile. Raising 10 kids on 25 words or less? Just think what she could have done with a 200-word movie blurb. (1:39) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Devereaux)

*Serenity From the opening spaceship chase scene over a wild west planet, to the final showdown with scary, ultraviolent cannibals, Joss Whedon's Serenity delivers the kind of smarty-pants science fiction action his fans expect. Whether this movie spin-off of Whedon's cult SF-western TV series, Firefly, will work for the Star Wars and War of the Worlds crowds is another matter. Exciting and well-written, Serenity isn't exactly a special-effects extravaganza. Instead, it's a character study of a small group of renegades whose revolution was crushed by the wealthy, imperial Alliance (a mishmash of the former US and Chinese governments) several years before the film begins. On the frontiers of known space, the crew of the ship Serenity is lead by former rebel leader Capt. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his first officer, Zoe (the amazing Gina Torres). They've become outlaws to survive. But their thieving goes awry when Malcolm decides to steer the crew on a final – and possibly fatal – mission to undermine the social controls of the Alliance. In the process, they'll solve the mystery of Serenity's most mysterious crew member, a psychic, superpowerful young woman named River whose brain was modified by Alliance doctors. Fun, action-packed, and full of bizarre future-Mandarin curses, Serenity is sure to please anyone who likes adventure stories with brains. (1:59) Century Plaza, Century 20, Shattuck. (Annalee Newitz)

*Who Is Bozo Texino? See "Man of Many Marks." (:52) Artists' Television Access.

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) 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 m ind 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) Shattuck, 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) Embarcadero. (Melissa Anderson)

*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) Century 20, Empire, Galaxy, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Orinda. (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." 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) 1000 Van Ness.

Everything Is Illuminated Frodo as 8 1/2-era Marcello Mastroianni? First-time director, SF native, and evident '60s-film buff Liev Schreiber evokes zanily surreal mid-period Fellini in his quest to capture the full meta-mania of Jonathan Safran Foer's debut novel. In his role as a young Jewish American writer named Jonathan Safran Foer in search of the Ukrainian woman who saved his grandfather during World War II, Elijah Wood plays the attractive if stylized foil in a suit and horn-rims (weirdly resembling Mastroianni, Harold Lloyd, and Wood's Sin City psychopath, but who can resist turning the ring-bearer into an icon?) to the cast of quirk-ridden characters encountered back in the old country. Among the latter, Gogol Bordello frontperson Eugene Hutz stands out – adding welcome humor and the scrappy texture of reality as a wannabe b-boy translator. Visually striking moments abound in this ambitious adaptation, but do moments add up to a strong narrative when it comes to this erratic feature, one that obviously places such value in the loaded, cathartic power of storytelling? (1:42) Albany, Embarcadero. (Chun)

*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 death. 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, Shattuck. (Eddy).

Flightplan See "Little Girls Lost." (1:28) Century Plaza, Century 20, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

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

Green Street Hooligans Unfairly chucked out of Harvard, a young American (Elijah Wood) crosses the Atlantic and falls in with a "firm" of football hooligans led by his brother-in-law (Charlie Hunnam). That firm is the GSE (Green Street Elite, fan-gang for West Ham United's team the Hammers), a fight club for yobbos who get bigger existential kicks from brawling with opposing firms than from watching football. Wood uses the pervy hint in his overripe cherub's face to convincingly play a lost sheep that runs with wolves and eventually becomes one, and Hunnam gives the picture vitality – even his wonky Cockney accent is an energy burst. Lexi Alexander, a quondam kickboxer, cowrote and directed; if you've ever wondered what a film made by a German kickboxing champ would look like, this jittery, vamping pounder is it. A sentimentally macho paean to the thrill of being in a screaming, bloodlusting, happily homosocial mob, Hooligans feels obligated to pay lip service to the costs of violence but celebrates the very relations that cause it; the film's crude buddy-values system (stand your ground and stick by your mates) can't foster genuine ambivalence. Despite the reality of firm hooliganism, the drama is vainly trumped-up. (1:49) Galaxy. (Amanatullah)

*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) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Chun)

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. Trivia note: The title Hellbent was arrived at via an Internet contest, somehow trumping the genius proposal 28 Gays Later. (1:24) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*A History of Violence Peel away an all-American facade, and you'll find a murderous gangster underneath: This message lurks throughout David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. The doc-like title of Cronenberg's latest (adapting a graphic novel of the same name) is par for a director whose vision has always been coolly antiseptic, and the first "big word" in its title is anathema to contemporary amnesia. Nonetheless, this lean and mean family tale has definite mainstream crossover appeal; Cronenberg's version of national allegory trumps Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, not least because it favors genre (Out of the Past, anyone?) and archetypes over bogus realism. From the Lynch-like diner small-talk about coffee and pie, to the foreboding, shiny black car slowly creeping into sunbathed golden settings, Americana fits the Canadian auteur like a surgical glove. The result is his best movie since Dead Ringers. There's a reason the name of History's protagonist, Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), is so plain, so benign, though he's loathe to reveal it to wife Edie (Maria Bello), son Jack (Ashton Holmes), and daughter Sarah (Heidi Hayes). Mortensen's Mt. Rushmore of a face is the film's riddle, allowing a pair of wonderfully outsize Mafia turns by a sarcastic Ed Harris and a hilarious William Hurt to effectively steal scenes, if not lives. (1:35) Century 20, Metreon. (Huston)

*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) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (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 l ove 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 dream 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 nemesis – 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, Shattuck. (Eddy)

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

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

*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, Empire, Piedmont. (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 between 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)

*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) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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 Bounce's bumpin' soundtrack and the final skate-off turn this mother sucka on for maximum retro pleasure. (1:47) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Jesse Hawthorne Ficks)

*Thumbsucker "Sensitive" masculine coming-of-age quandaries are found in Mike Mills's Thumbsucker, a likable, pointedly critical American snapshot that nonetheless illustrates the current – somewhat immature? – US indie tendency to cling to liberal milieus rather than infiltrate conservative ones. Given Mills's fondness for silly slogan T-shirts, black-hair-by-Clairol teen sirens, and off-kilter characters – Keanu Reeves's New Age dentist is a genius stroke of cameo star-casting – he has a kinship of sorts with Miranda July. There's something potentially radical about a thumbsucking main man, though Mills never really investigates the psychosexual aspects of the first addiction favored by ADHD high-schooler Justin (Lou Pucci) beyond father-substitute Reeves's assertion that he's found a replacement for Mom's breast. Television and psychopharmaceuticals are the two main targets Mills takes aim at from a postrecovery vantage point. Thankfully, he's too irreverent to be righteous, letting wisecracks and Justin's debate-club travels prove his points. (1:36) Embarcadero. (Huston)

*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 D ort, 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) California, Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (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) Smith Rafael. (Koh)

*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) 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: villains 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) 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. (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) 1000 Van Ness. (Odes)

Venom (1:25) 1000 Van Ness.

Rep picks

*'Dual System 3-D Series' See "Comin' Atcha!" Castro.

*Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper Shot during Alice Cooper's 1973 Billion Dollar Baby tour, this glorified concert film wraps up the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' "Heavy Metal Cinema" series in appropriately freakish style. Though most of the movie is Cooper capering before an adoring audience, flashing props (snake, rubber rat ... giant tooth?) and singin' the hits ("No More Mister Nice Guy," "School's Out," etc.), there's also a frame story that involves a deranged film director in pursuit of Cooper and his bandmates. These scenes have a Cannonball Run-ish flavor and allow "the Cooper gang" to don tuxedos and wigs for a performance of "The Lady Is a Tramp," ride elephants, etc. This ain't a work of cinematic genius, but it's a fun time capsule, as well as an opportunity to see Cooper squeal, "I love the dead!" before indulging in his trademark onstage guillotine stunt. (1:21) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Eddy)

*In This Short Life Local filmmaker Britta Sjogren's new B&W feature is a lovely interweaving of dramatic threads whose proximity to real life is genuine – most of the actors apparently play versions of their offscreen s elves. Every character is living on the edge in one way or another, especially in pinched financial terms. Sjogren herself portrays a woman whose happy domestic partnership (with Sean Uyehara) and career plans are imperiled by an unplanned pregnancy. An elegant older woman (Christine Sjogren) who gives piano lessons keeps a retired suitor at arm's length, while dealing with whiny young apartment neighbors who consider her playing mere "noise." Hapless Chris (Chris Sjogren), who doesn't seem to be firing on all mental cylinders, leans ever-more-heavily on his elderly father as he courts eviction through sheer property negligence. He can't seem to maintain the terms of his probation, either. A pushing-40 actor (Chris Shearer) blows off the security of an offered "real" job, waiting for a big break that is always just around the corner but never quite arrives. Blurring lines between scripted and improvisational, fiction and documentary, this quietly absorbing film is admirable in its sense of detail, and of omission – parts of these lives remain mysterious to the end, including some of the connections between them. Yet we feel we learn everything we need to know, even when the wonderful accident of a final shot throws one whole narrative strand into an ambiguous gray zone. Songs from Mark Eitzel (with and without American Music Club) complement a movie that, like so much of his music, reveals human isolation – even within relationships – as something tender and funny as well as poignant. (1:36) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Harvey)

*San Francisco's Broken Promise See Critic's Choice. (:30) Delancey Street Screening Room.