Amen
See review this issue.

An Evening with Mitchell Rose
Collaborating with local troupe, Body Vox, choreographer/filmmaker Mitchell Rose has produced six short films. Delightful pieces best described as melancholy slapstick. Sort of like a waltz between a more graceful Charlie Chaplin and a more agile Buster Keaton.

Andrei Rublev
Taking a break from his sci-fi films, Andrei Tarkovsky turned his lens towards 15th-Century painter, A. Rublev. Not wed to biographically accuracy, instead the film evokes the beauty and tension of Rublev's paintings. Using eight imagined episodes, the film climbs in, out, and through Rublev's paintings.

Anger Management
Thank God for Jack Nicholson, who has more fascinating layers of repressed angst in one pinky than Adam Sandler has in his whole squat little body. Nicholson has explosive tendencies, but they're of the cunning variety. You can predict when Sandler is going to blow a gasket, and what he's going to do when he does: he's going to pick up a golf club and smash something. When Nicholson gets mad, you have no idea what he's going to do, and so you're gripped. Not to say the movie is gripping, because the script overwhelmingly falls flat, but at least Nicholson is there to pick it up and move it around a bit. (Justin Sanders)

Assassination Tango
Assassination Tango is a piss-poor film, specifically because all the choices made by Robert Duvall in creating his last film (The Apostle) seem to have been reversed. The story rambles in one direction, then veers into a blind alley; the performances wind on and on like improv class in the seventh circle of Cassavetes' hell; and the characters are wafer-thin excuses for the worst kind of cinematic vanity. (Sean Nelson)

The Bank Dick
W.C. Field's disdain for middle America is on display in full regale in this film. After a mishap turns Field into a hero, he is rewarded with a job as a bank guard. In his new position, he dupes his daughter's finance into embezzling money. An affront to the working man, to women, and to any moralist, The Bank Dick is a charm!

Basic
John Travolta is a DEA agent in Panama called in to investigate a murder at a local army training station. (Six army ranger commandos were sent on a jungle training mission; two return to report that the much-maligned drill sergeant is dead, as well as four other rangers.) Travolta's character, Tom Hardy, is enchanting because he mirrors an internal conflict for so many Americans: We want to believe that patriotism is a virtue, but also understand that it can poison the mind. Then again, this tension is a mere subtext to the film, and who really cares? After all, Basic is less a war movie than a fast-paced whodunit. It's an engrossing murder mystery that just happens to have a gleefully mean-spirited drill sergeant as the victim (Samuel L. Jackson) and a squad of disgruntled army rangers as the suspects. The story may not be wholly original--and in the end may not entirely add up--but nonetheless, Basic is well-produced and fun to watch. (Phil Busse)

Bend it Like Beckham
Not exactly a masterpiece, this film is a lighthearted, cute escape best suited for parents and teens. An adolescent, soccer-playing daughter struggles against her Hindu parents, who would rather gear her interests towards cooking and preparing herself to be a proper Indian bride. (Marjorie Skinner)

Better Luck Tomorrow
Evidently, this first-time film from Justin Lin caused quite a stir at Sundance, though after watching it I find whatever controversy it created a little perplexing. The story of a pack of overachieving Asian high school students turning to crime for kicks in suburbia, the film is little more than Goodfellas and Boyz 'N' the Hood spackled together with an Asian cast, directed with overly hyper flare by Lin, and purchased by MTV films for release to teens and tweens nationwide. Does swapping out Italians for Asians make for enough originality to create a buzz? I guess so, though it doesn't really make for a memorable picture. (Bradley Steinbacher)

Bringing Down the House
Plot: Steve Martin is a hard up workaholic lawyer. He gets in an internet chat room with a bunch of other lawyers. Queen Latifah is in the chat room looking for a sucker. Steve is the sucker. Queen pretends to be a horny blonde and comes over to his house for drinks. When she shows up, she's not blonde, and she's just escaped from prison. Queen needs Steve's lawyer help to clear her name, and she's not leaving until she gets it. Moral of the story: black people are equal... sometimes. Even though black people speak slang, they are not necessarily stupid. White people can learn things from black people, just like Steve learned to enjoy life more from Queen. Conclusion: This film is not worth wasting the gas it will take to drive to the theater. (Katie Shimer)

Bulletproof Monk
Finally, after all these years, Chow Yun-Fat has successfully translated his Hong Kong charm into the language of popular American cinema. Cooler Ranch Dorito anyone? (Charles Mudede)

Chicago
Basically, the last hour of Chicago is a mess. In addition to not trusting his material, Marshal doesn't appear to trust either of the two movie-musical solutions he picks. Nevertheless, I recommend Chicago. If you didn't get to see the Broadway revival, you should catch it. You'll have to endure Richard Gere as Billy Flynn, of course, but it's a small price to pay to watch the Fosse-inspired choreography and Catherine Zeta-Jones' star-turn as Velma Kelly. (Dan Savage)

Confidence
See review this issue.

The Core
Young hottie geology professor Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) is yanked out of class one day by Federal agents to explain a score of unusual occurrences: People with pacemakers dropping dead, flocks of birds going wacko, and the space shuttle accidentally being forced to land in downtown Los Angeles. With the help of a Frenchie pal (Tchèky Karyo) and a Carl Sagan look-alike (Stanley Tucci), Josh figures out that the core of the earth has mysteriously stopped spinning. Who gives a crap, right? Well, you would, when the electromagnetic field started breaking down and your skin burst into flames. The solution is simple enough: Hop into an earth-burrowing machine, dive to the center of the Earth, and blow up a few nukes to get the core restarted. Yeeee-HAW! (Wm. Steven Humphrey)

The Gas Cafe
By his own account, Kelley Baker is the most begrudging and angry filmmaker alive. He has worked with Gus Van Sant on five feature films and garnered a reputation most filmmakers would die for. He has scored awards at film festivals from coast to coast, but still most of his own short films deal with his frustration with the independent film scene. His latest (feature length), The Gas Cafe, shot for under $4000, tells the odd story about three friends and two strangers who meet on a rainy night in remote Oregon. Oh yeah, one of the people is dead and another never actually lived! Baker will be on hand to talk about his anger and films.

Ghosts of the Abyss
A 3-D documentary exploring the wreckage of the Titanic. Sorry, Kate Winslet's boobs will not be in 3-D.

The Good Thief
Looking like Ichabod Crane, Nick Nolte shuffles onto the screen as a down-on-his-luck American ex-pat in Southern France. For Nolte, it's a role sent from Method Actors' heaven. He mutters and weaves between hard-luck reality and fantastical good fortune, juggling ethics, honor, and debauchery like a strung-out Cat in the Hat. Perhaps because of Nolte's recent rocky past, he fills out the troubled central character of The Good Thief to a tee: a heroin addict and sleight-of-hand thief. (Phil Busse)

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
How hysterical that as conservatives in this country denounce the French over Iraq (Freedom Fries anyone?), the French cinema machine releases a film starring Amelie's Audrey Tautou--probably the most beloved French export to come along since the first Gulf War--in a fairly nasty role as a rather cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs young Parisian woman in love with a doctor (Samuel Le Bihan). Politics (and possible bad timing) aside, however, is He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not any good? Oui, though it's not quite as entertaining (nor as nefarious) as the continual rantings of insipid war hawks. (Bradley Steinbacher)

Head of State
Chris Rock stars in a film about a Washington D.C. city councilman who yells a lot, turned unexpected presidential hopeful--who yells a lot.

Holes
Louis Sachar adapted his own book for the film version of Holes, and it shows. With the help of Fugitive director, Andrew Davis, the film is a shimmering web of story threads, perfectly woven together. The film shows us Stanley Yelnats, who is sent to Camp Green Lake, a hellhole in the middle of the desert, for stealing a pair of shoes he didn't steal. There, he is forced by the camp's psychotic director (Sigourney Weaver) to dig large holes in the sand, under the burning sun, as correctional therapy. (Justin Sanders)

House of 1000 Corpses
Written and directed by Rob Zombie, this is the story of a group of kids whose car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They take refuge in an old house with a psychotic family neck deep in Satanism, cannibalism, witchcraft, and dreadlocks.

The Hunted
Trained to be the ultimate special ops murder machine, Benicio del Toro sees a bit too much bloodshed while on a mission in Kosovo. Upon his return, he's awarded for his bravery, yet ironically, is driven crackers by the endless screams of the dead. When Benny goes AWOL, he becomes a marked man, and it's Tommy Lee Jones' job to capture him. It's almost impossible to describe how jaw-droppingly ridiculous this movie is--but therein lies the fun. (Wm. Steven Humphrey)

Identity
See review this issue.

It's A Gift
Who's funnier than the grumpy, red-nosed W.C. Fields? No one, that's who! In his Depression-era film, W.C. Fields plays a henpecked husband who finally finds fortune when his rich uncle kicks the bucket. Along the way to collect his California orange grove, he encounters a cast of annoying characters whom he disposes of with hilarity.

It Runs in the Family

A whole mess of Douglases (Kirk, Michael, Groucho, Harpo, etc.) toss together some vanity project (will not poke fun at stroke victims, will not poke fun at stoke victims) about wacky dysfuntion in a prominent New York family.

Laura (1944)
A detective is investigating the death of a young woman and falls in love with her, even though she's dead. But wait, a bizarre twist occurs and the beautiful lass may not be a corpse after all.

Laurel Canyon
See review this issue.

Malibu's Most Wanted
The wigga son of a wealthy politician is introduced to C.O.M.P.T.O.N. by Juilliard-trained street thugs. Sensitive treatment of complicated racial stereotypes follows.

The Man on the Flying Trapeze
W.C. Fields once again turns his chaffing relationship with humanity into hilarity! As a bank teller who takes off his first day in 25 years (to watch a wrestling match), Field learns that perhaps he is better off staying hidden away from human contact--he receives four tickets in a row from a traffic cop, is harassed by a snotty chauffeur, and chased by a runaway tire.

Nowhere in Africa
Nowhere in Africa follows a rich Jewish family that leaves Germany in 1938 and moves to Africa. There they can avoid the Nazis, but have to deal with some other issues like, oh, the lack of water. Naturally, the characters all experience guilt (you just can't have a Holocaust movie without guilt), but there are also things here you never see in any movie, such as the scene in which a swarm of locusts plunder a field of maize. The hazards of humanity and the hazards of nature are not dissimilar, this movie argues, though (at two and a half hours long) not very succinctly. Thankfully, the actor Merab Ninidze, who's very sexy, is in almost every scene. (Christopher Frizzelle)

Occupied Territories: Stories from Iraq & Palestine
Video footage and stories from a liberal media inside the anti-war movement and occupied territories.

Pandora's Box (1929)
The story of Lulu the prostitute and dancer that sent actress Louise Brooks into international fame.

The Phantom of Liberty
Luis Bunuel's archaic Monty Python-esque critique of the bourgeoisie.

Phone Booth
The image of a man surrounded by cops in a lone phone booth in the middle of downtown New York City is striking initially, but grows mundane after an hour or so. Once the visual titillation wears off, it becomes painfully clear that Phone Booth is really nothing more than two guys talking on the phone. The sustenance of such a premise for a feature-length film demands a quality of screenwriting that even the best filmmakers would have trouble maintaining, let alone Can't-Pick-a-Script-to-Save-His-Life Schumacher. The director employs his usual swooping, gritty camera tricks to an almost nauseating degree, but can't come close to saving Phone Booth from tedious dialogue and mediocre characterization. (Justin Sanders)

The Pianist
Despite appearances to the contrary, the film is not about the indomitable spirit of a survivor. It's about how low a human being can sink in order to live, and the depths of abasement a race is capable of withstanding in order to avoid extinction. There's no heroism in the picture, and all redemption is tempered by the knowledge of what's coming next. It's here, in the deeply Eastern European black comedy of this knowledge, that the film and its maker mark their territory most boldly. (Reassuring the Poles that "the Russians will be here soon" is a classic Polanski irony.) For all the possible autobiography of the story, The Pianist is most personal when it stares into the abyss of the Holocaust and finds nothing looking back. (Sean Nelson)

The Real Cancun
See review this issue.

Rivers and Tides
Rivers and Tides chronicles the life and work of Andy Goldsworthy, a Scottish sculptor who makes temporary contraptions out of leaves, wood, mud--whatever grub the earth gives him. The lives of his pieces are shorter than a snow drift in the desert, as the wind blows them away or they melt. That's the beauty of this film: It captures these ethereal pieces--and the process to make them--before they return to the earth. A look at permanence and impermanence, and nature's inherent metamorphosis. (Phil Busse)

The Sacrifice
Andrei Tarkovsky's final film and the end of the Film Center's salute to the Soviets' most imaginative director. As seven friends gather on an island for a birthday party, World War III begins. One man is given an excruciating sentence: Save his friends by sacrificing himself to God! (At the time, Tarkovsky himself was dying from cancer.) Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes.

Spider
Spider (the nickname of the main character) begins with Ralph Fiennes--who says less than ten intelligible words in the entire film--entering a sort of halfway house for people released from the asylum. Even though the head of the house, Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave), tries to assimilate our dear mumbling Ralphie, he slowly starts living in his past, re-imagining the events that led him to the asylum. (Steven Lankenau)

Spirited Away
One of the last remaining directors of animation to truly capture the strange, subtly contented spirit of childhood (and, for that matter, one of the only directors of animation with any sense of singular recognition), Princess Mononoke director Hayao Miyazaki follows his 1997 masterpiece with his latest--an Alice in Wonderland-inspired fable about a little girl whose parents are transformed into pigs.

Stalker
Part of the Film Center's Andrei Tarkovsky sci-fi series, a peculiar film about three men--a scientist, a thrill-seeking writer and a guide--who travel into a forbidden zone. A meteorite or some other disaster in the area has caused widespread mutations to humans and the landscape, followed by heavy-handed policing by the Soviet government. While the gloom and doom of an atomic world is apparent, it is cleverly understated. The thrust of the film is about the three men and their metaphorical search for happiness, as they track down a legendary room within the post-apocalyptic wasteland--a room where "the strongest and sincerest wish can come true."

West Side Story
"Maria, I just met a girl named Maria."

XX/XY
See review this issue.