film

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Susan Gerhard, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Laurie Koh, Rachel Odes, Lynn Rapoport, and Chuck Stephens. The film intern is Ihsan Amanatullah. For show times see Rep Clock and Movie Clock.

International Latino Film Festival

The ninth annual International Latino Film Festival Bay Area runs though Sun/20 throughout the Bay Area. Local venues are the Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF; City College of San Francisco, Rosenberg Library, 50 Phelan, SF; Dominican University of California, 50 Acacia, San Rafael; and La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk. For a complete schedule (including films this week in Sonoma, Belmont, and San Jose) and tickets (most shows $6-10), go to www.latinofilmfestival.org; tickets may also be purchased by calling (415) 392-4400. For commentary, see the Nov 2 issue of the Bay Guardian. All times p.m. unless otherwise noted.

Wed/16

City College "City College Shorts Program" 6:30.

Dominican University Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano and Scribble's Creations 6:30.

Thurs/17

La Peña Failing Grade 7. Everything Blue 9:10. Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano 7. The Art of Losing 9.

Fri/18

Mission Cultural Center Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary 6. Coca mama 8.

Sat/19

Mission Cultural Center 1809-1810 Before Dawn 2:30. La Fabri-K: The Cuban Hip Hop Factory and Scribble's Creations 4:30. Muzes: Authentic, Fearless Seekers of Danger 6:15. Where All Roads End 8:20.

Opening

*The Dying Gaul See Movie Clock. (1:29) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

Ellie Parker Shot over the four years during which Naomi Watts won fame, Ellie Parker confirms that Watts is far more talented than a star need be. In the title role, as a small-time Aussie actress whizzing around Hollywood from one hopeless audition to another, her ability to change gears and fling herself into a part at will is scary, if not overbearing. Otherwise, this shapeless, fragmented satirical comedy, written and directed on a pauper's budget by Scott Coffey (who also plays a hideously flaky potential boyfriend), periodically wears out its welcome – it has the characteristic bloat of a short indulged to feature-length, with too much inert, flabby connective tissue between the truly spiky, caustic bits. And the store-bought digicam videography looks just as crummy and desperate as authentic. But viewers should have fun noticing numerous parallels with David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, and Chevy Chase puts in a fine, washed-up performance as Ellie's agent – like Bill Murray, the melancholy of late middle age suits him. (1:35) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Amanatullah)

Formula 17 Newly arrived in the big city, naive country boy Tien (Tony Yang) promptly falls for "Playboy No. 1," Bai (Duncan). Will the sweet, virginal innocent tame the player? Does love conquer all? Any more facetious questions? Literally speaking, the film is totally gay: It's set in a dreamland version of Taipei where women and straight men are either extinct or on the endangered list; only pretty boys and old queens remain. Repackaging a scenario familiar from countless straight romantic comedies in pink ribbons, Formula 17 is calibrated as no more than cutesy fluff – it's nearly a live-action yaoi manga, and may appeal to adolescent girls (the demographic that helped make it a hit in Taiwan) more than adults of any stripe, thanks to its vision of gay men as adorable poodles. DJ Chen directs with enough corny theatrical verve to almost surmount a very old story, and the result is unabashedly disposable and bubbly; Formula 17 would be crowd-pleaser if the crowd was entirely from junior high. (1:33) Castro. (Amanatullah)

*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire I was pretty high on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is, without a doubt, the new champ. Its PG-13 rating is well earned, with sinister spookiness and kids-in-peril all but replacing whimsy and wonder (though one of Harry's first lines, after witnessing the TARDIS-like powers of a tent that looks tiny on the outside and spacious on the inside, could be a bumper sticker for the series: "I love magic!") The Hogwarts gang are teenagers now, and director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) wisely keeps author J.K. Rowling's balance of wizardry and growing pains intact. What could be scarier than facing down villain Lord Voldemort (an unrecognizable Ralph Fiennes)? Try asking your crush to the school dance – a task that utterly paralyzes even the great Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe). (2:37) Century 20, Century Plaza, Four Star, Grand Lake, Orinda. (Eddy)Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue Non-jazz fans may have a hard time with this musical doc, but the Miles Davis faithful will find much to enjoy. Director Murray Lerner uses vintage performance footage and contemporary interviews with those who were there (Carlos Santana, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joni Mitchell, etc.) to trace Davis's transformation from traditional jazz to electrified (literally, figuratively, and in his wardrobe – whoa!) musician. Critic Stanley Crouch pops up to represent the naysayers who termed Davis a sellout, but most of Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue is laced with praise for the trumpeter's adventurous spirit. The film ends with Davis's entire performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival – a 38-minute jam session the free-thinking musician dubbed, appropriately enough, "Call it Anything." (1:27) Red Vic. (Eddy)

The President's Last Bang Director Im Sang-soo's previous film, A Good Lawyer's Wife, might be described as a superior South Korean version of American Beauty, buoyed by a terrific performance from one of the country's best actresses (though she does have her detractors), the always bravura Moon So-ri. Im's follow-up is an ambitious take on recent political history, far more vast in scope. Technically, he's more than up to the task – navigating a complex narrative with considerable flair for camera placement and movement, he's capable of turning a series of interior shots into a God's-eye view of a human-scale diorama. Still, the success of The President's Last Bang depends on one's interest in and knowledge of the 1979 assassination of then-president Park Chung-hee by the head of his secret service, Kim Jae-gyu. In the latter role, Save the Green Planet's Baek Yun-shik provides a corrosive comic counterpart to Moon's extreme drama-mama in Im's previous film – in other words, his performance is big. (1:44) Balboa (Huston)

*Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic Is Sarah Silverman as racist as she is thin? Why do I like Volvic while she loves Fiji? And what would Margaret Cho make of unapologetic Jesus-killer Silverman and her tiff with Guy Aoki? Perhaps it doesn't matter – Silverman's new movie consistently shoots sharper than Cho's last effort, partly because Cho is reeling off concert films at a frightening rate. To be sure, Jesus Is Magic owes a huge mirror-gazing debt to Sandra Bernhard's Without You I'm Nothing, though its star may be closer to Dory Previn, partly because her dance with a black audience isn't so smart. Whatever: There are plenty of ROTFLMAO moments here. Faves include her "Can I steal you for a minute?" shtick, Holocaust body count one-liner (and love of "small" Nazis), and just about every parody of piety that she launches. One of the framing devices that pushes this film over the hour mark – a look at show biz competition and vanity, featuring Silverman's sis – is funny. The other – a series of music sequences – is not. But most of the time, Silverman is successful at "getting into the psychology" of an audience, making them laugh and then spanking them for it. (1:12) Act I and II, Lumiere. (Huston)*Walk the Line See "Thing Called Love." (2:16) Century 20, Grand Lake, Presidio.

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) Roxie. (Huston)

*Ballets Russes Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine's documentary Ballet Russes is fabulously entertaining – a great yarn, well spun. Though Geller and Goldfine have made a film on dance before (1988's Isadora Duncan: Movement from the Soul), Russes's hook isn't the art form but the people, most of them very old. The film untangles the complicated strands of Sergei Diaghilev's descendants. When Diaghilev, creator of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo, died in 1929, his company died with him. Out of the ashes rose two ensembles: one of the them the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the other the Original Ballet Russe. (Just to make things even more confusing, for a while in the '40s there was also a Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo.) Like members of any family with an inheritance, the two companies fiercely competed for dancers, for choreographers, and for audiences. The interviews Geller and Goldfine conducted gave them access to an extraordinary treasure trove of photos, film, programs, and flyers from a period of nonstop traveling by both companies that brought ballet to the hinterlands of America. Russes' greatest pleasure, however, is meeting so many of these dancers, most of them well into their 80s and still full of sparkle and enthusiasm, ready to do it all over again. (1:48) Albany, Smith Rafael, Opera Plaza. (Rita Felciano)

Bee Season Child actors don't get much more self-consciously adorable than Flora Cross, who plays Eliza Naumann - the sleeper child in Bee Season's family of overachievers, headed up by an annoying professorial stage dad (Richard Gere) and a furtive mom with a secret (Juliette Binoche). Directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel would undoubtedly love to have Cross's performance compared to those of Spanish waif Ana Torrent, whose appearances in The Spirit of the Beehive and Cria! so acutely embody the sadness and beauty, the complex shades and formative power, of childhood. But for that to happen Cross needs a better frame. The directors obviously dote on their Bay Area backdrops and do their darnedest to make the metaphysical concrete; the ineffable, literal - lovingly lingering on shots of giant letters dangling via helicopter over the Bay, and relying on CGI to turn Eliza's thought process into birds and flowers. But try as they might the directors don't quite convey the spiritual transcendence immanent in the words Eliza spells so dutifully, the power of the Kabbalah, or the sublime forgiveness - toward parents that fail you in both their weakness and strength - espoused by Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season's source-material novel. (1:44) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Chun)*Capote Truman Capote's life resists easy summary, so it's appealing that the first Hollywood biopic on the author ignores formula and turns one agonizing chapter of his life into an opportunity for an essay. Though Capote is based on the 1988 Gerard Clarke biography, Bennett Miller's film actually has a lot more in common with Janet Malcolm's 1990 The Journalist and the Murderer (a relationship the filmmakers also acknowledge). It's not so much a story of Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) as the illustration of the question Malcolm so artfully dodged: What, really, do journalists owe their subjects? In this case, what did the glittering Capote owe the two killers who lent him their life stories for his nonfiction "novel"? Hints of the hundred separate movies that could be made from Capote's life emerge in key details: The scarf he rattles like a saber in Kansas's cop HQ calls to mind the family warfare that accompanied his growing up gay in the '30s and '40s; the bottle of booze he doesn't seem to leave home without foreshadows a grim decline. This film makes a wonderful habit of entering ensemble scenes midsentence, creating a vérité feel without the sea-sickening camera, and it's hard to find fault with the casting: Catherine Keener, gently butch as the conscience of the film, Harper Lee, nails Capote's alter ego and "research assistant," hired for her ability to steward the writer into Holcomb, Kan.'s housewives' hearts. (1:50) Clay, Empire, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Gerhard)

Chicken Little The actual "Chicken Little" fairy tale is basically a cautionary story about causing mass hysteria. An acorn bops a hen on the head and she leads a gaggle of silly animals to their deaths in a fox's lair. Disney's version opens with the same premise. Chicken Little (a boy in this movie, voiced by Zach Braff) causes panic when he claims that something from the sky fell on his noggin. There the fairy tale stops and, after being taffy-pulled into feature-length material, the father-son movie begins. Chicken Little becomes the town loser after dad (Garry Marshall) and others don't believe him. Full of doubt, the teeny puffball decides to put the crazy episode behind him. But soon another piece of the sky falls, and Dad finally believes his son under the laser light of a full-scale alien invasion à la War of the Worlds. A supporting cast of animals provides familiar comic relief and references to our world are liberally added, including karaoke videos for kids and repeated use of the expression "Oh, snap!" Sappy Chicken Little will amuse children and overload the blood sugar of adults. (1:15) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Shattuck. (Koh)

*Christmas in the Clouds Completed in 2001, this film from NorCal director Kate Montgomery – only the second film allowed to shoot at Robert Redford's Sundance Resort in Utah – finally trickles into a local theatrical run. The preholiday release is aptly timed; despite a slight made-for-TV-movie scent that wafts around it, Christmas in the Clouds is actually rather charming. A struggling ski resort run by a Native American tribe snaps into action when they discover a critic from a top travel guide will be paying an anonymous visit; mistaken identities and romantic entanglements ensue. Go-getting general manager Ray Clouds on Fire (Tim Vahle) falls for the woman (Mariana Tosca) that he thinks is the critic – but she's actually the pen pal of Ray's father (Sam Vlahos), who enlists the real critic (M. Emmet Walsh) into his scheme to win a new Jeep at the local Christmas bingo. There's never any doubt about the confusion being sorted to make way for a happy ending, but the delights of this film are in the details, which include a running gag about a romance novel, Graham Greene in a bit part as the resort's militantly vegetarian chef, and a totally random (and totally funny) in-joke for Last of the Mohicans fans. (1:37) Galaxy. (Eddy)

*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) Galaxy. (Harvey)

Derailed The premier offering by former Miramax honchos Bob and Harvey Weinstein's new production company, Derailed is a hedge-your-bets kind of thriller. Charles Schine (Clive Owen) and Lucinda Harris (Jennifer Aniston) are married corporate execs who meet on the commuter train to Chicago. After some cutesy flirting, the two decide to pursue the affair in a dive hotel in the city (the film revives the Reagan era's fear and loathing of all things urban). But before you can wonder what Brad thinks of Jen's big scene, an amusingly articulate thug comes upon the lovebirds for money and kicks. Upon discovering the two execs are "messing around," he begins blackmailing them, and the movie chugs along towards its inevitable plot twists and script-doctored climaxes. Derailed is an ominous name for a first business venture, and, indeed, the film lives up to the title within its first reel when we realize these characters don't make sense, and, worse yet, we don't care what happens to them; one moment Charles is an ineffectual homebody, and the next he's stabbing some hooligan. Whatever, as long as it's all over soon. (1:40) Century 20, Century Plaza, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness. (Goldberg)

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) Four Star. (Chun)

Flightplan Jacked-up Lifetime mom Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) faces not just stranger danger but also terrorism when her six-year-old daughter, Julia (Marlene Lawston), implausibly vanishes aboard a jumbo jet. The small family is traveling from Berlin to New York with a tragic mission: to bury Dad, whose coffin is loaded into the plane's belly as Julia solemnly watches. Director Robert Schwentke, working from a script by Billy Ray (Shattered Glass) and Peter A. Dowling, foreshadows gleefully, playing off travel fears in the manner of another recent in-flight thriller, Red Eye. When Julia goes missing, Kyle – a propulsion engineer who conveniently knows her way around the gigantic plane's every nook and cranny – goes ballistic, demanding the captain (Sean Bean) allow her free reign to search. He's willing to help, at least until the question of whether or not Julia was even aboard in the first place is raised; a snippy air marshal (Peter Sarsgaard) and throngs of anxious passengers only make matters worse. Flightplan's reasonably tense first 80-odd minutes are compromised less by its expected twist than by its ridiculous epilogue, which tenders the ham-handed suggestion that we can all get along – despite a little "turbulence" along the way, of course. (1:28) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20. (Eddy)

Get Rich or Die Tryin' Answer to your first question: Get Rich or Die Tryin' is not as good as 8 Mile (nor does it boast an Oscar-worthy theme song). It's not that rapper-turned-thespian 50 Cent lacks charisma, and his life story (upon which the film is based) is certainly interesting – on paper, at least. So why is this film about a Queens drug dealer who dreams of becoming a music star so very, uh, boring? In America director Jim Sheridan – as incongruous a choice as Curtis Hanson was for Eminem's feature debut – sets the stakes weirdly low; the movie just kind of chugs along without conveying much urgency, excitement, or intentional humor (a brief scene where 50 Cent's character apes Taxi Driver in the rearview mirror of his new Mercedes is maybe the film's sole spontaneous moment). Get Rich aims for gritty authenticity, yet the music scenes are blah, and the film spends way too much time worrying about a romantic subplot that feels utterly false (the women in this film are, not surprisingly, barely one-dimensional). But perhaps the biggest problem with Get Rich is also its greatest strength: the casting of rising star Terrence Howard in a smallish part as 50's jailhouse pal. Every time he's on screen, it's hard not to wish you were watching the similar (and far superior) Hustle and Flow instead. (1:57) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Good Night, and Good Luck As Good Night, and Good Luck opens, Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) rips into an audience that has gathered to honor him at a 1958 Radio and Television News Directors Association gala. George Clooney (who also directs) and Grand Heslov's script stays true to Murrow's real-life speech, a searing indictment of television's shift toward fluffy programming, as well as the networks' increasingly close ties to advertisers. Were he alive today, Murrow would no doubt have additional thoughts about the 21st-century version of "this weapon"; in particular he'd probably take issue with the 24-hour-news culture, which favors sensational nuggets over in-depth stories. Good Night is a Murrow biopic of sorts, but it focuses on the specific events surrounding March 9, 1954, when Murrow's See It Now program dared to take on Sen. Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare. Director Clooney takes his cue from this moment in television history, using real film clips and plucking Murrow's on-air dialogue from transcripts. The result is a period-authentic, eerily resonant snapshot of a time when national security issues could trump the rights of individuals, and fear kept most Americans woefully silent. (1:30) Albany, Embarcadero, Orinda, Piedmont. (Eddy)

*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) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*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) Four Star, Galaxy. (Huston)

In Her Shoes It's a chick flick, sure, but In Her Shoes is actually meatier than most. Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) directs; Erin Brockovich scripter Susannah Grant adapts Jennifer Weiner's best seller; and Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine form the trio of women at its center. After a lifetime of picking up after her party-girl sister, Maggie (Diaz), plain-Jane lawyer Rose (Collette) finally puts her well-shod foot down when Sis pushes her too far. With nowhere else to go, Maggie tracks down the sisters' long-lost grandmother (MacLaine), who's living the Golden Girls life in Florida. Meanwhile, Rose decides she's had enough of the corporate world and finds a new job walking dogs; she also gets engaged to a devoted foodie (Mark Feuerstein), who inspires her to patch up her fractured family, which is divided not just by the Rose-Maggie feud, but the long-ago death of the girls' mentally ill mother. That tearful reconciliation will occur is never in question, but In Her Shoes digs in deep, facilitating relationships and characters that feel genuine. The acting is uniformly excellent, with poster girl Diaz displaying surprising range in the flashiest role. (2:10) Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Jarhead "Welcome to the suck," the film's poster announces, referring not just to Operation Desert Storm (or the long, boring days of Operation Desert Shield that preceded it), but also to the Middle Eastern desert (hot, dreary, and sand choked) and military service itself, as seen through the wide eyes of a young marine named Swoff (Jake Gyllenhaal). Based on Anthony Swofford's acclaimed memoir, and directed with artful composure by American Beauty's Sam Mendes, Jarhead is an incredibly timely, well-acted film that crystallizes the unglamorous, and even pointless, mechanics of modern warfare into two searing hours. Though some of the members of Swoff's unit occasionally slip into caricature, even the sporadic mixed-message moment (rifles are fetishized, while Scud missiles are not) makes sense in Jarhead's milieu of conflicts both personal and political, both of which still resonate today. "We never have to come back to this shit hole ever again!" exclaims one soldier when Desert Storm abruptly ends. If only. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, California, Century 20, Century Plaza, Kabuki, Presidio. (Eddy)

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang The first directorial feature from Shane Black – once the highly paid writer of action-comedy schlock, including the genre's Rosetta stone, Lethal Weapon – is presumably the more "personal" and "character-driven" project he really wanted to do all along. The pilot snarkster here is Robert Downey Jr., whose protagonist, Harry Lockhart, starts freezing frames and cutely covering Black's ass ("I apologize. That was a terrible scene") in voice-over narration from the very first moment. He's a thief who haplessly flees from a crime scene into an audition, ending up in LA as a possible Next Big Thing. Harry's "detective lessons" for his prospective big-break part pair him with a PI known as Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) because he's gay. (Like that trait would be so distinguishing in LA.) On a routine stakeout, they witness a crime whose further investigation develops into a convoluted pileup of female corpses, hired killers (who make up most of the film's ethnic-minority casting), tail-chasing (narrative and otherwise), chases, shootings, and muchas whatnotas. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang – even the title is derivative, coined for an obscure '60s Italian exploitation film and then borrowed by Pauline Kael for her first review collection – is so glossy its $15 million "indie" shine almost hurts. The movie primarily means to be witty, but when it stoops, it limbo-dances about as low as you can go. (1:43) 1000 Van Ness, California, Century 20. (Harvey)

The Legend of Zorro You know a movie is in trouble when it fails to stack up against its own parodies. While watching the latest celluloid escapades of Latin America's greatest folk hero, I couldn't get that Simpsons episode where Homer goes around glove-slapping people and demanding "satisfaction" out of my head. It also doesn't help that our hero himself, Antonio Banderas, was infinitely more engaging as a Zorro-esque kitty in Shrek 2. Heck, even Zorro's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) thinks it's time he hung up his sword. But he's too busy ensuring California's smooth transition to statehood, reigning in his adorable rapscallion of a son, and saving the entire US of A from the nefarious plots of a ludicrous secret society (sort of al-Qaeda meets the Priory of Sion). This is being billed as a film to delight the whole family, and if yours enjoys copious groin blows, pipe-smoking horses, and good old-fashioned jingoism, it won't be let down. But the stuff of legends, boys and girls, this ain't. (2:06) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Shattuck. (Devereaux)

*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) Four Star, Oaks. (Gerhard)

*'Matters of Life and Death: Recent Films by Jay Rosenblatt' Mixing the universally impersonal (newsreels, old educational movies) with the immediately personal (his own home movies), Jay Rosenblatt leaves you to close the gap, and you appreciate the delegation and trust. He takes the hard way with his found footage, refusing to score off it, instead imbuing it with a newfound specificity. At their most ominous these shorts tend toward a disquieting stillness, crafted with a clinical edge. The individual films are chains of vignettes, cut with astringent irony, even when capturing subjects of great charm and vivacity, such as his young daughter (as in I Used to Be a Filmmaker, a witty conception of fatherhood as formalist filmmaking). An apparent paradox – a self-effacing personal filmmaker – Rosenblatt lets intertitles address the viewer, eschewing first-person narration for a necessary distance. Anchoring this collection is Phantom Limb, an unsettling freewheeler first centering on the childhood death of Rosenblatt's younger brother, complete with haunting home movies of the dead boy, then moving outward through interviews with a cemetery director and phantom-limb possessor. Some of the odder segments, such as a squirming sheep sheared in slow motion as a grave female voice reads from Advice for a Grieving Parent, hearken back to the searing sense of discovery that marks earlier shorts such as Prayer, an eerie post-9/11 marriage of Muslim-Christian genuflection and duck-and-cover footage. (1:25) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Amanatullah)

North Country With dowdy wig, late-1980s fashions, and Minne-soh-ta accent firmly in place, North Country star Charlize Theron proves her Monster triumph was no fluke. Though Niki Caro's follow-up to Whale Rider is hardly perfection – violations include aggressive tear-jerking – it's a solid drama that often resembles Erin Brockovich in tale and tone. After fleeing her abusive husband, Josey (Theron) moves back in with her parents (Richard Jenkins, Sissy Spacek) with small daughter and sullen teenage son in tow. To her Dad's disgust, Josey follows the advice of a friend (Frances McDormand) and seeks out a job at the local steel mine, the only place for miles around that pays a decent wage. Josey soon finds that working shoulder-to-shoulder with raging misogynists is hardly worth the money she so desperately needs. As the abuse escalates and the film's general atmosphere of hostility intensifies, Josey takes a cue from Anita Hill and decides to sue the company. Caro avoids making all men evil by tossing a few good eggs into the mix (including Woody Harrelson as the lawyer who takes Josey's case), but the film is still exceedingly heavy-handed – I'm not kidding about the tear-jerking. Still, there's an integrity at work here (plus, you can't beat the cast, and the cinematography is outstanding) that keeps North Country from dissolving into movie-of-the-week territory. (2:10) Galaxy, Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Paradise Now When independent filmmakers in the United States started out, their aim was to show an America that Hollywood never put onscreen: ordinary people, speaking how they really speak, shot in towns and cities far from back-lot facades. Today Palestinian filmmakers are often driven by a parallel mandate: to show the world the shape of Palestinian lives far from exploding bombs and breaking-news broadcasts. Amsterdam-based Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad is intent on capturing the inanities and insanities of life in occupied territory. Paradise Now, his latest film (after Ford Transit and Rana's Wedding, among others), is a seriocomic thriller with a dose of romance. Shot in 35mm under virtually battlefront conditions, it resolutely keeps its lens – and our eyes, minds, and hearts – on the script. The result is far more engrossing, and ultimately far more deadly, when a pair of slacker friends are tapped for a fatal honor: to be their town's next suicide bombers in a mission targeting Tel Aviv. Paradise Now is as much about its characters' mind-sets as ours. In a way, Abu-Assad is building a bridge of subjectivity in the form of a madcap thriller. (1:30) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (B. Ruby Rich)

The Passenger (1:59) Act I and II, Lumiere.

*Pride and Prejudice Like the 12-bar blues and the facts of life, we all know how it goes, but precisely how do the particulars compare to our own internal Pride and Prejudices as well as, admit it, the definitive BBC miniseries with the wet-shirted Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy? Here, the crucial roles are fairly well filled: As Elizabeth, the bruised-eyed Keira Knightley is impish, girlish, and toothy, yet twinkly smart. Ape-draped MI-5 actor Matthew Macfadyen plays Darcy so low-down and subtle that he runs the risk of resembling a dot-mouthed cartoon, but when the time comes to confess his most ardent affections, he steps up and fills Firth's pantaloons, even if he has to channel Laurence Olivier's Heathcliff and stomp through the moors in what looks to be a bathrobe. Other roles are beautifully filled out by Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Tom Hollander, Judi Dench, and Jena Malone. Director Joe Wright favors a muddy, frizzy-haired, minimal-makeup naturalism, reminiscent of '60s-era reworkings of Penguin Classics, complete with zooming camera, an emphasis on daylight, pigs' testicles, and odd moments of modern-day randiness. Did Elizabeth really check out Wickham's ass in the book? (2:08) Bridge, Empire, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Chun)

Prime I think I saw this episode of Sex and the City; it's the one about mid-30s women dating twentysomething guys. Actually, Prime is a much longer, more tortuous take on the topic, without the catchy theme song and gratuitous fashion. Thirty-seven-year-old Rafi (Uma Thurman) has just finalized her divorce and is starting over with the encouragement of her therapist, Lisa (Meryl Streep, whose perky hair and loud outfits do their own acting). Meanwhile, a young guy named Dave (Bryan Greenberg) charms the pants off Rafi. Dave is 23 years old, Jewish, and an artist – in that order, those are the character's only, constantly referenced traits. The couple pursues an Ashton-Demi romance, hindered by a mother that disapproves of Ben dating outside his religion. There's also some other endless stuff about being at different points in their lives (the dialogue in an excruciating scene of almost-impregnation made me feel vomity). One plot twist adds a little juice, but otherwise Thurman and Streep are stuck in writer-director Ben Younger's uninformed fantasy of what a woman wants. (1:39) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Oaks, Presidio. (Koh)

*Protocols of Zion Filmmaker Marc Levin (Slam) delves into "the mother of all conspiracy theories" as advanced by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document debunked numerous times since its 19th-century origin yet still used by anti-Semites to offer "proof" of a Jewish plot to take over the world. (Unsurprisingly, Hitler was a big fan, as are contemporary neo-Nazi groups.) In this shocking, lively doc, New Yorker Levin – with the assistance of his father, who recalls coping with anti-Semitism during his Brooklyn childhood – explores how and why the Protocols have risen in popularity since 9/11. The interviewees include both a Holocaust denier and a Holocaust survivor; an Arab American newspaper publisher who printed the Protocols after the World Trade Center attacks; the head of white power group the National Alliance; and grinning Christians emerging from The Passion of the Christ. Interestingly, pretty much the only folks who wouldn't chat with Levin were so-called Hollywood Jews: We see Levin unsuccessfully phone-tagging with Rob Reiner, Larry David, and others. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

Quality of Life Local filmmaker Benjamin Morgan shot this genuine indie in the Mission District, following two young graffiti whizzes (Lane Garrison and cowriter Brian Burnam) after they're arrested for "bombing": One goes straight, the other continues tagging, despite the city's tendency to treat graffiti artists like armed robbers. "This city is covered in bullshit!" one boy rages. "What gives them the right to jam that bullshit down my throat?" So he decides to jam his bs down theirs by combing the blighted, decaying industrial side of San Francisco to create beauty in the wasteland: In one desolate, lovely, long shot, a warehouse spread of graffiti resembles a field of wildflowers. The film's social conscience and persecuted-artist theme – focused on the "quality of life" statute's draconian antigraffiti penalties – lumpily cohere with the acting-exercise feel of the dramatic bits, which ramp up to an implausibly overwrought climax. Though six people are credited with the story, the film feels padded, and the carpet-to-carpet soundtrack of hip-hop/alt-darlings is relied on to do too much of the dramatic work. But when it comes to capturing a specific milieu and subculture, Morgan, a former social worker, and Burnam, a quondam street calligrapher, achieve authenticity. (1:25) Roxie. (Amanatullah)

*Saw II Last year's Saw owed its surprise success not just to its creative brutality, but also to the slippery twists that let up only when the end credits began to roll. The sequel suffers a bit, then, because not only do you expect bigger, better, more bloodthirsty business – you also anticipate the eventual last-act revelation. Also, vindictive cancer patient Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) seems less menacing this time, probably because he's on camera chatting with his new nemesis, Det. Eric Mathews (Donnie Wahlberg), for half the movie. The killer's identity is certain, but what of the hapless victims targeted by Jigsaw's latest deadly morality lesson? This time there are more unwilling, unfortunate participants (a disparate group that includes Mathews's teenage son), and instead of a grimy room, their prison is a whole grimy house (it's The Real World: Torture Chamber!). The larger scale means Saw II is less tightly wound than its predecessor, and a little lower on the "Holy shit!" scale. However, the gruesome good stuff is all there – eyeballs gouged, brains splattered, etc. – and that's what we really care about, isn't it? (1:31) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20. (Eddy)

Separate Lies The title may sound generic, but it's an accurate summation of this story of death in plush places, a low-key thriller of manners that becomes a modest and quietly satisfying tale of a tested marriage. A fatal hit-and-run accident in the Buckinghamshire countryside ensnares a stolid, well-off solicitor (Tom Wilkinson), his emotionally neglected wife (Emily Watson) and her affectless playboy lover (Rupert Everett) in a roundelay of guilt-transference and complicity. Who was behind the wheel? Who should confess and who should keep quiet? Separate Lies first seems like another exercise in civilized nastiness and beastly bourgeois hypocrisy, but it avoids petty misanthropy, instead treating even the trashiest characters with very old-fashioned humanism, so that when the screws are steadily tightened, each plot twist seems organic rather than just another hoop for the players to leap through. Making his directorial debut after having written Gosford Park, Julian Fellowes operates with finesse, but the film would be slight if Wilkinson and Watson weren't giving some of the best performances of their careers. (1:27) Smith Rafael. (Amanatullah)

Shopgirl Steve Martin's novella gets the big-screen treatment courtesy of director Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie), and the result is a mixed-bag look at modern – i.e., highly complicated – romance. Saks Fifth Avenue clerk Mirabelle (Claire Danes) drifts through her lonely Los Angeles life, filling her spare hours with charcoal drawings and vintage-clothes shopping (the latter is never shown in the film, but her budget wardrobe is 1950s-cool all the way). Very nearly simultaneously, she meets age-appropriate slacker Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) and older, wealthy commitment-phobe Ray (Martin). Ray takes her to swanky restaurants; Jeremy drags her to Universal CityWalk and asks socially inept questions: "Can I kiss you or what?" As the love triangle shifts and changes, Mirabelle is let down by her own expectations again and again (none-too-subtly telegraphed by Shopgirl's intrusive, often shrill score). This is probably Danes's strongest work since My So-Called Life – let's just forget about Terminator 3, shall we? – but even her performance can't overcome the inherent ickiness of the Mirabelle-Ray pairing. (1:44) Century 20, Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Side Effects (1:30) Galaxy.

*The Squid and the Whale 'You'd like Kafka – one of my predecessors," onetime literary prodigy Bernard (Jeff Daniels) informs eldest son Walt (Jesse Eisenberg), the perfect reflecting-mirror parrot for all Dad's pretensions. It's Park Slope, Brooklyn, 1986. Joan (Laura Linney) has finally realized that being Bernard's wife – his third – is hard labor no one should have to endure in a free society. Still, their separation hits 16-year-old Walt and 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline) hard, with joint custody splitting loyalties as well as the week. Frank wisely chooses Mom as a more reliable port in a storm, while Walt, as usual, seeks shelter 'neath professorial Dad's enormous ego; both kids deal with the home-front crisis in variably alcoholic, masturbatory, and plagiarizing ways. Noah Baumbach (Mr. Jealousy) won awards for both writing and directing at the Sundance Film Festival this past January, and his film is X-Acto-knife-sharply observed and acted. Yet one leaves the theater as if leaving a cocktail party where dinner was mistakenly expected. The conversation is brilliant; the hors d'oeuvres are superb. But a slightly dazzled inebriation wears off too soon, leaving the viewer sober and unsated. (1:28) Empire, Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Steal Me "Your mother is a whore" would be a fact, not an insult, to 15-year-old Jake (Danny Alexander), a rail-hopper in search of his wayward mom. He ends up in a small town in Montana and befriends Tucker (Hunter Parrish), a local boy, after getting caught trying to steal his Jeep's radio. Jake is invited to Tucker's house and becomes a member of his family, but his klepto tendencies and unmoored Oedipal libido threaten his newly won idyllic domesticity. Aided by cinematographer Paul Ryan, who shoots rural Montana as though he were working for Terrence Malick, writer-director Melissa Painter shows off a sure, sensuous, and youthfully impatient style, but it seems like that's nearly all she has to give – the film is more sketchy than thought-out, yet bloated beyond natural length, with way too many shots of happily cavorting teens in the wilderness. Yet Steal Me is sincerely felt, though airy, and the actors, especially Cara Seymour as Tucker's mom, are quite good. There's lyricism in the film, but little of it strays beyond that of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, or stock indie-prettiness. The sincerity struggles for life against the vacuity. (1:35) Smith Rafael. (Amanatullah)

*Three ... Extremes A trio of Asia's most thrilling directors contribute to this anthology of unease. The feature-length version of Fruit Chan's Dumplings played at this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, but even in shorter form it sets Three ... Extremes off on a path of gruesome delights. Bai Ling stars as a woman whose dumplings owe their youth-restoring properties to a taboo ingredient (lensed in brilliant crimson by Christopher Doyle). The creepy crunch-crunch-crunch of Dumplings bridges into Cut, in which Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy) checks in with his favorite theme – revenge – with the story of a film director and his wife who are taken hostage by an outraged background actor. Takashi Miike brings Three ... Extremes to a baffling close; his Box, about a circus performer turned novelist haunted by her dead twin sister, is eerily quiet and fantastically ambiguous. (1:58) Galaxy. (Eddy)

*Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Aardman's adorable claymation heroes finally get their own full-length film, codirected by Steve Box and critter creator Nick Park. Though Were-Rabbit is hardly a transcendant work of cinematic greatness, it is the best kind of children's film, which is the kind that pleases kids and parents alike (as well as nonparental adults, though perhaps to a lesser degree). The overriding joke – that the dog, Gromit, is smarter than the man, Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) – serves Were-Rabbit's fanciful story well, as cheese-loving inventor Wallace accidentally transforms himself into the title monster on the eve of a giant-vegetable competition hosted by his carrot-haired crush (Helena Bonham-Carter, on an animated roll after Corpse Bride). Naturally, it's up to Gromit – who can drive cars, handle power tools, and even fly airplanes, not to mention overcome his muteness with wryly evocative gestures and expressions – to save his master from a gun-toting romantic rival (Ralph Fiennes). For maximum hare-raising, watch this film, then go home and read Bunnicula with the rugrats. (1:25) 1000 Van Ness, California, Century 20, Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Weather Man Apparently, the midlife crisis is still fascinating to somebody – otherwise they wouldn't keep making films about it. Here we have David Spritz (Nicolas Cage), a Chicago weatherman whose grand swan dive into personal hell coincides with what would otherwise be a happy event: an audition for a gig at the nationally broadcast Hello America show. Smarmy and glib on camera, David's real life is marked by a Pulitzer-winning legend for a disapproving dad (Michael Caine); an estranged wife (Hope Davis) who openly hates him; and two unfortunate kids: troubled rebel Mike (About a Boy's Nicholas Hoult) and chunky preteen Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena). Yes, the icy, inhospitable weather is used as a metaphor for all the unhappy lives contained in The Weather Man's milieu; there are also quirky diversions about David's pursuit of archery, his colorful way with foul language, and a recurring bit about angry viewers pelting him with fast food. Frankly, he's such a dour character, those McNugget missles are actually well earned. As we know, Cage does hangdog well; Caine is amusing (never has "camel toe" been so elegantly explained); and Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) directs with glossy visual flair. But The Weather Man, a film that's really about a hollow man, is never as profound as it wants to be. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

Zathura Take two bickering brothers, one cobalt and chrome 1950s-style family board game with a mind of its own, sprinkle in a little sci-fi magic, and you get Zathura. This classic space action-adventure – complete with intergalatic lizard monsters, giant robots, and warped gravity fields – pits the wits of two young boys turned unwitting astronauts against the universe. Except for a brief appearance by Tim Robbins early on and a stranded space cowboy, the kids, along with their mostly absent, appropriately obnoxious teenage sis, are all on their own – as it should be in a true children's adventure. Based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg (of Jumanji and The Polar Express fame), this film from director Jon Favreau (Elf) is comprised of the stuff 10-year-old boys' imaginations are made of. The plot is pure comic book, and despite a few sappy, overwritten-by-adults moments, Zathura is pure fun, funny, kid-style action. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Orinda, Presidio. (Sabrina Crawford)

Rep picks

*Beyond the Rocks One of the most sought-after "lost" features of the silent era got found when a deceased Dutch private collector's hoard of unlabeled nitrate prints wound up at the Nederlands Filmmuseum. It's been nearly 80 years since anyone last saw this 1922 Paramount release, which is particularly notable for pairing two huge stars, Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson, at a time when such A-list teamings were still rare. (The studios kept their name actors so busy it seemed cost-ineffective to put more than one in the same film.) Beyond the Rocks isn't a great movie, but it's a great find nonetheless. Swanson plays Theodora Fitzgerald, daughter of a retired English sea cap'n. Hoping to shore up the family's fading fortunes, her spinster half-sisters guilt her into marrying a short, old, fat, sickly, but rich suitor (Robert Bolder) – even though she's already attracted the attentions of Valentino, who plays "Hector, 10th Earl of Bracondale." She does this by nearly drowning and requiring chivalrous rescue. (Of course, what she's doing rowing a boat for sport if she can't swim is anyone's guess.) Their look-but-don't-touch amorous torment is confirmed when she (again) requires rescuing, having fallen off an alp on her honeymoon with the dork. Torn between "love and duty," the leads pine for each other until a noble sacrifice clears their path. Based on a typically torrid best-seller by Elinor Glyn, the Jackie Collins of her era, Rocks is posh but silly stuff lent more conviction than its material deserves by director Sam Wood – a frequent Swanson collaborator subsequently credited with such MGM classics as A Night at the Opera, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and King's Row. (That reputation was later tarnished for posterity by his "naming names" at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings.) Wood gets a charmingly natural performance out of Valentino, absent his famous penchant for nostril-flaring. The petite, rather homely Swanson's appeal is less obvious now, though she's draped in a spectacular array of pre-flapper finery. Until a climax involving angry Bedouins attacking archaeologists in the Sahara (?!) renders unintentional laughter unavoidable, the movie is a first-class, if not quite first-rate, vehicle for two stars at the zenith of their popularity. (1:20) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

My Grandmother Nope – this ain't a heartwarming yarn about somebody's old granny. This 1929 entry in the Soviet Eccentric Cinema movement may or may not be certifiably insane: It's the tale of an office drone who battles bureaucracy (and his vindictive wife) after he loses his job. Imagine a silent, surreal, black-and-white version of Office Space, except with stop-motion animation, crazy camera moves, and way more physical comedy. Beth Custer's score – performed live at this screening – is a rapid-fire blend of styles, with her formidable clarinet talents guiding her energetic, multi-instrument ensemble. (1:05) Victoria Theatre. (Eddy)

'The Reel Mission: The Films and Videos of Lourdes Portillo and Son' See 8 Days a Week. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.