film

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Kimberly Chun, Sabrina Crawford, 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.

Opening

Aeon Flux Charlize Theron stars as the limber secret agent in this sci-fi flick based on the animated MTV series. (1:33) Century 20, Century Plaza.

All Dolled Up: The New York Dolls The Roxie's New York Dolls-centric programming expands to include this performance footage-packed documentary, billed as "the definitive document" of the rockers. (1:35) Roxie.

First Descent This docudrama profiles both pioneers and current daredevils in the sport of snowboarding. (1:50) Century 20.

Going Shopping See Movie Clock. (1:46) Opera Plaza.

*Naked in Ashes Even in a nation of 1 billion, 13 million is a pretty respectable minority – and that is the estimated number of yogis currently traveling a 5,000-year-old spiritual path in India. Paula Fouce's documentary trains its somewhat loose yet engaging focus on about twenty individuals around the nation. Some practice "austerites" that are downright carnivalesque: There's a guy who¹s been standing upright 24/7 for 12 years, and another who attracts attention by pulling a fully loaded jeep with his, er, third arm. (As he helpfully advises, "This penis control trick is not for everyone.") There are also yogis who take regular pilgrimages high into the Himalayas, walking naked in snow, risking death from exposure. But Ashes isn't the Mondo Cane of Hinduism. Its benevolent outlook makes such bizarre behaviors understandable as one person's path of liberation from our current dark age of empty materialism. More often, this diverse survey of yogic gurus and disciples conveys the serenity gained by renunciation of earthly desires via prayer, meditation, charitable works, yoga, and so forth. To Fouce's credit, she's made an entertaining (as well as illuminating) movie about people with no use for "entertainment" whatsoever. (1:58) Act I and II, Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Three of Hearts Boy meets Boy, then Boy meets Girl, then Boy and Boy and Girl live happily ever after. Or not. Susan Kaplan's documentary follows the nine-year rise and fall of a Manhattan threesome between three singularly self-absorbed people who thought they were in it for love. After Sam Cagnina and Steve Margolin settled into couplehood, Cagnina got Margolin's consent to bring Samantha Singh into the relationship, and she went on to bear their children as all three achieved financial success and social acceptance. Did the same banal fault lines that sunder "normal" marriages work their magic here? Let's just say that Three of Hearts is broken-backed, the product of three people deciding to triumphantly, even smugly, document their new, path-breaking "trinogomous" lifestyle, only to call back the cameras when things got ugly, giving us an entirely different motivation for watching. There's a sharp U-turn from the superficially applauding first section into the investigation and bitter deflation in the second, and the spine connecting these disparate chunks can't take it. (1:37) Castro. (Amanatullah)

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. (Koh)

*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) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Kabuki, Oaks. (Goldberg)

Dorian Blues Ever since gay cinema grew from being an anomalous concept to a sort of genre in itself (commercially at least), the coming-out story has been its most common denominator. It's an easily accessible, obvious subject – maybe a little too much so. Dorian Blues is a mixed bag. This first feature by writer-director Tennyson Bardwell has a lot of wit, confidence, and energy, qualities that on a first viewing pretty much conceal the fact that there's a whole lot of same-old going on here. Dorian (Michael McMillian) is an upstate New York teen whose agonies of adolescent adjustment are as irksome as they are ordinary. He's the odd man out not just at school but at home – his star athlete brother, Nicky (Lea Coco), is favored by their overbearing, conservative dad (Steven C. Fletcher). Result of coming out to Dad: Well, it's lucky he can leave early for college. There, at NYU, he endures first love, first heartbreak, and other maturing adventures. Set in the early '90s (though the soundtrack's bad indie rock songs sound all too current), Dorian Blues takes a big leaf from the Annie Hall-era book of Woody Allen tricks. For the most part, it's got the flair for funny lines and situations to pull that off. (1:38) Roxie. (Harvey)

*The Dying Gaul The first directorial feature by playwright-scenarist Craig Lucas (Longtime Companion, Prelude to a Kiss) was passed on by major-league distributors; it has ended up as perhaps the starriest and slickest US feature ever captured by ever-gay-subject-matter-friendly Strand Releasing. One worries the unappetizingly titled film may still be too thorny even for most gay audiences, let alone average art-house ones. It's not exactly a feel-good movie, allowing for the fact that seeing Campbell Scott and Peter Sarsgaard naked together and screwing can indeed feel pretty good. Sarsgaard plays Robert, an NYC writer flown to La La Land by studio executive Jeffrey (Scott), who wants his screenplay – one he'd written for the lover who recently died of AIDS and that Jeffrey's wife, Elaine (Patricia Clarkson), pronounces "perfect." Yet it is the way of Hollywood that perfection can always be improved on, or at least made more marketable; thus Jeffrey begins seducing Robert into creative compromises. He also seduces him in the more traditional fashion, even as oblivious cuckold Elaine takes a passionate, quasimaternal interest in the still-grieving author. When her good intentions get wire-crossed with the boys' misbehavior, this loaded triangle takes several perverse, eventually macabre turns. Adapted from his stage play, Lucas's script cuts sharp as a knife, recalling the terse psychological sadism of vintage Harold Pinter, albeit with more warmly rounded characters. (1:29) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Elizabethtown "There's a difference between a failure and a fiasco," humiliated shoe designer Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) explains early in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, before adding, "A fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions." I don't know if "mythic" applies to Elizabethtown, but unsuspecting audiences may benefit from a certain amount of disaster preparedness. The movie starts off kinda Jerry Maguire: When Drew's sneaker project bombs, he's fired from his Nike-like company and promptly plots an elaborate suicide. Then Crowe goes all Garden State, dispatching the morose lad to Elizabethtown, Ky., after his father unexpectedly dies. (A spontaneous romance between Drew and Kirsten Dunst's flight attendant is the film's eventual focal point, and it's a cringe-worthy one). Though the overhyped Bloom couldn't be blander here, Elizabethtown is ultimately defeated by Crowe's sappy script and meandering direction. The filmmaker may be skilled at crafting memorable moments (Lloyd Dobler and his boom box), catchphrases ("Show me the money!"), and mining success from uniquely personal stories (Almost Famous). But while Elizabethtown is also based on Crowe's life, its trite plot and broad themes (reconnecting with family, discovering what's really important) are pretty ho-hum compared to, say, a teenage journalist hanging with rock stars. (1:47) Shattuck. (Eddy)

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) Galaxy. (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) Century 20. (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)

*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) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Four Star, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Orinda. (Eddy)

*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) Galaxy. (Huston)

Ice Harvest So what exactly is the matter with Kansas? If you're John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton, it's not so much the frigid winter temperatures as it is the yuletide body count. As adorably bumbling Wichita underworld types, they've managed to steal more than two million bucks from the mob on Christmas Eve – too bad for them they don't know where to safely stash the money. Too bad for us: that this movie is so relentlessly mediocre. It shouldn't be; Thornton and Cusack make a great on screen pair – Billy Bob's quick-witted, sarcastic chicanery mixes nicely with Johnny Boy's laconic bemusement. And both have a proven neonoir track record (The Grifters, The Man Who Wasn't There). But Harold Ramis's direction exudes such an "aren't we naughty" aura, it's hard to be either amused by the seriousness of it all or take the funny stuff seriously, especially when the double crosses are about as twisty as a Great Plains interstate. Personally, I'd rather visit Brainerd, Minn., again. They have a Paul Bunyan statue, y'know. (1:28) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Presidio. (Devereaux)

In the Mix 1:37) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Kabuki, Shattuck.

*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, Four Star, Kabuki. (Eddy)

Just Friends With a PG-13 rating, Just Friends, a kind of sanitized There's Something About Mary, is ripe for the holidays – a clean getaway for packs of teens, returning college students, and anyone else fleeing the post-family-meal, sit-around-the-table-and-stare-blankly-at-each-other routine. It's based on the classic nerdy boy revenge fantasy: a dorky, overweight teen who can't pass best buds status with his pretty gal pal flees to LA and returns home to Jersey a decade later as a walking GQ cover. Or, read from the girl's view: The sweet, but thoroughly unattractive boy next door comes back a Tom Cruise lookalike who's still hung up on you (Danger! Danger! Now entering the Jerry Maguire zone). Either way, Just Friends sticks to romantic comedy clichés in a big way. Most of the punch lines, like the plot are predictable, and too safe to deliver the way Farrelly brothers films do. There are some gems, though, like star Ryan Reynolds' Saturday Night Live-style lip synchs. Amy Smart co-stars as the pretty girl, while Anna Faris (of Scary Movie fame) plays a bratty pop diva who bears an uncanny resemblance to Britney Spears. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza. (Crawford)

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. (Harvey)

*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) Oaks. (Gerhard)

*New York Doll On the face of it, New York Doll would seem to be riding the wake of two trends: an increased interest in documentary filmmaking, and the glut of seminal punk bands reuniting to fully own their influence. However, in covering the inevitable New York Dolls resurrection from the perspective of the band's least-flashy member – bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane – director Greg Whitely comes out with a surprisingly tender portrait of a life lived on the margins. Kane went along with the glam and gluttony of the Dolls' brief life span, but after the band split, the bassist spiraled toward oblivion with the help of booze and nagging insecurities regarding the solo successes of singer David Johansen and perfectly coiffed guitarist Johnny Thunders. And then, unexpectedly, he found religion. Much of New York Doll's structure is drawn from the delicious juxtaposition of Kane's shirt-and-tie life as a faithful Mormon and his quest for vindication in the oh so secular world of rock 'n' roll. Kane's dream does come true (on the Royal Albert Hall stage, no less), but even in triumph, the film's tone is deeply melancholic. As Johnny Thunders's lament "You Can't Put Your Arms around a Memory" plays on the soundtrack, we see the bassist trying to do just that, striving to recapture a past glory while wheeling away toward an uncertain future. (1:25) Roxie. (Goldberg)

*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) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

*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, Century 20, Century Plaza, 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, Presidio. (Koh)

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) Smith Rafael. (Devereaux)

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)

Rent The Broadway-cinema continuum, which runs both ways (see: Chicago, Hairspray, and the hall of mirrors that is The Producers), has proved to be a highly lucrative alliance. So why does Chris Columbus's big-screen version of Rent – a slickly directed, energetically acted operation – feel kind of unnecessary right about now? For one thing, it's dated. The play's vision of Manhattan, circa 1990, no longer exists. The cast – made up almost entirely of the stars of the 1996 Tony-winning stage production – is also dated, if well-preserved. Had creator Jonathan Larson lived to see Rent flourish, it's possible the big-screen version might have been a little different, a little more innovative; as is, it's an exceptionally faithful interpretation. It doesn't do what Chicago did, reimagining and stylizing the source material for the big screen; neither does it offer the excitement of seeing genuine movie stars (the biggest name here is non-original-cast-member Rosario Dawson) singin' and dancin'. However, there's an upside to Rent keeping it real, beyond just pleasing "Rentheads" near and far. Unlike, say, last year's Phantom of the Opera, Rent's adherence to the Broadway cast insures that Larson's songs will be interpreted with faithful, I-wuz-there-at-the-beginning passion – making for some genuinely emotional moments. (2:08) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Empire, Kabuki, Oaks, Orinda. (Eddy)

*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, Smith Rafael. (Huston)

*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)

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) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

*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) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

A Touch of Spice Like so many other cinematic historians, filmmaker Tassos Boulmetis traces a sweeping narrative through the lens of a boy's coming-of-age in his semiautobiographical A Touch of Spice. The protagonist here is Fanis (Georges Corraface), a Greek boy who grows up in his grandfather's spice shop before his immediate family is deported from Istanbul. Fanis grows up an outsider, spurned from his country of origin and looked on with suspicious eyes in Greece. In these difficult circumstances he finds himself by channeling his grandfather's folksy culinary philosophies into his own instinctual cooking style. The history here is certainly underreported, but the narrative feels overplotted to the point of contrivance – between the flashbacks and chapters (the film is divided into three parts: "appetizers," "main course," and "desserts"), the film's excessive segmentation is a sure sign of an overstuffed story. As is always the case with these sentimental histories, the past is draped with cloying lyricism and nostalgia. The food looks great, but A Touch of Spice needs a bit more kick to be swallowed. (1:48) Balboa, Smith Rafael. (Goldberg)

Ushpizin A sweet, if somewhat slight, look at life in an insulated Jewish Orthodox neighborhood in Israel, Ushpizin is being billed as a breakthrough for its access to the normally guarded community. Written by and starring an Orthodox Jew (Shuli Rand) and directed by a secular one (Gidi Dar), Ushpizin has a folksy, parabolic narrative shape common to much Yiddish drama. During the Succoth holiday – when Jews dwell in a makeshift shelter for a week to mark the Exodus from Egypt – holy husband and wife Moshe (Shuli Rand) and Malli (Michal Bat Sheva Rand) struggle with a pair of unexpected guests. The two men are fresh from prison and ready to take advantage of the Succoth obligation to welcome ushpizin (guests). As the men cause headache after headache, and Moshe's pre-Orthodox life on the lam comes to light, much consternation (usually in the form of shouting at God) ensues. The narrative throws plenty of obstacles at Moshe and Malli but always indulges their faith; by the end, a narrative's resolution is cut from divine intervention's cloth. (1:30) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Goldberg)

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price You know how much you already despise Wal-Mart? The latest doc from Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism; Uncovered: The Iraq War) will make you fear and loathe it even more. The unscrupulous mega-retailer is exposed from every angle: its devastating effect on small businesses and communities; its inadequate health care plans; its rabid antiunion stance; the racism and sexism sprinkled throughout its ranks; its blatant disregard for environmental issues; its practice of importing nearly all its goods (churned from company sweatshops in countries like China, Bangladesh, and Honduras); and – perhaps most offensively – its faux-homespun television advertisements, which cast a golden glow on a corporation that clearly cares not for human beings, but for cold, hard cash. Catch the film at one of its local theatrical engagements, or go to www.walmartmovie.com to find smaller screening-and-discussion events. (1:35) Balboa. (Eddy)

*Walk the Line It's worth mentioning right up front that Walk the Line doesn't really shake up the template set down by Ray, the recent Elvis miniseries, and any number of other true musical tales: Start with a significant childhood event (preferably traumatic) to set the tone, then let that sucker echo throughout the performer's life. Coscripted by director James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted) and Gill Dennis and based on two Cash autobiographies, Walk the Line leans a bit heavily on Cash's guilt 'n' grief complex. It also relies on lurching transitions that map Cash's creativity in the most literal way possible. There's no doubting Mangold's reverence for Cash – though, seriously, everyone loves Johnny Cash – but thankfully the filmmaker is, at times, able to nudge past hero worship and point out that the man had some gnarly flaws. Cash's legend, especially when packed into the biopic mold, may be a familiar one, but Walk the Line still springs a few surprises. The lead actors are outstanding; both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon do their own singing and strumming. With shiny black pompadour lacquered into place, natural born brooder Phoenix eerily mimics Cash's wounded snarl and gravelly voice, while Witherspoon – Walk the Line's stealth weapon – turns in a thoughtful, passionate performance. (2:16) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Presidio. (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 transcendent 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) California. (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 missiles 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) Galaxy. (Eddy)

Yours, Mine, and Ours This might be what you'd expect when Nickelodeon reworks an inoffensive 1968 family comedy – in other words, it doesn't amount to much. Even with 18 child actors as the supporting cast behind Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo, this effort doesn't have much charm to spare. Helen (Russo) and Frank (Quaid) are recently single and middle-aged-yet-still-attractive, reunited after one marriage each and a long hiatus lasting from high school graduation to their 20-year high school reunion. It takes only one painfully awkward slow dance-induced smooch to rekindle the flames of desire for cohabitation, but both are forced to reveal some baggage: Quaid has 8 kids, and Russo has managed to chalk up 10. This doesn't stop them from Brady Bunch-izing the whole affair, moving all the kids into one giant house and hoping the preppies and hippies can all get along. Kids might appreciate the endless physical comedy, but there isn't much else to save the lackluster story and predictable morality play here. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, Century 20, Century Plaza, Kabuki, Presidio, Shattuck. (Odes)

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 intergalactic 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, Kabuki. (Crawford)

Rep picks

Festival See 8 Days a Week, page 48. (1:38) Red Vic.

*Sahara The windswept Libyan dunes prove a good match for Humphrey Bogart's haggard face in this 1943 war classic. Bogey plays a tank commander cut off from his unit, seeking water in one dry well after another while taking on a motley international crew and fending off a Nazi battalion. As directed by Zoltan Korda and shot by Rudolph Mate, Sahara is crackerjack stuff; you can almost feel the siroccos lash your face. None other than Rex Ingram, the genie from The Thief of Baghdad, plays an invaluable Sudanese trooper, one of the first respectfully treated black heroes in a war film. That might be due to co-scripter John Howard Lawson, later one of the "Hollywood Ten" blacklistees. On the other hand, he might be to blame for the script's occasional lapses into blabby popular-front sentiment (though otherwise it's rousing propaganda). James Agee noted that despite Sahara's "rectally fed" political and psychological intelligence, it remained "alert and pleasing" and realistic for its genre. Sixty-two years later, there's little reason to reverse his judgment. (1:37) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Amanatullah)

*'Samurai!' See "Play It Again, Samurai," page 41. Balboa.