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The Year in Film 'Don't ask, don't tell" does win and does sell. What else can you extrapolate from the box-office returns and awards-season dominance of Brokeback Mountain? Using the cinema to gauge the nation's temperature is a mug's game, and each year, as DVDs continue to obliterate ticket sales, the phrase "it's only a movie" seems more apt. Nonetheless, Hollywood and its juries seem more comfortable sympathizing with America as a cowboy in denial – sexuality or weapons of destruction, take your pick – than, say, viewing it as a blood-spattered gangster in wholesome god-fearing disguise, à la Viggo Mortensen's character in A History of Violence. While I won't argue with organizations that favor Heath Ledger's performance, I will say there's plenty wrong with a perspective that thinks Ang Lee's sense of pace – not to mention the unity of his take on American dellusions – is superior to David Cronenberg's. Such are the grudges that come to light at the end of the year, when cinemaniacs of every stripe make their lists and check them twice. Sure, a whole new slew of amnesiac's-delight images beckon – the United States never suffers any shortage of visual material. But the quality of it is another matter, which is why there's a value to placing the past 12 months into a box marked "History," or at least into some pointed essays and funny top 10s. Having made one of the year's best local movies – and a documentary that deserved a place on the Academy short list – this week's cover star, Nic Hill, knows a thing or two about battling the transitory nature of images. A history of graffiti in San Francisco, Hill's Piece by Piece not only reveals and rescues people and artwork that are often erased and ignored, but it also adds a layer of permanence to them. Here's to more movies like it in the hours and times to come. (Johnny Ray Huston) Call of the wild March of the himbos The other George News flash: World cinema still dead! Mama Sunshine, Papa Stormcloud Race is the place The Struggle Ride lonesome Popcorn
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