EVENTS

Thursday October 2, bring three cans of food to any Regal Theater and get in free. Saturday October 4, 9 am-noon the Hollywood Theater (4122 NE Sandy) hosts a Big, Big Movie Poster and Memorobilia sale. Don't miss it.

* American Splendor
The team of Jonze and Kaufman no longer own the meta-film genre. This Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner is an ingeniously structured biopic on the sublimely ordinary life of underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar. As an examination of the self-loathing artist, it is arguably a better film than Adaptation, thanks to the auto-on-autobiographical nature of the material and the on-the-nose performances by Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis combined with disarmingly deadpan voice-overs and interview interstitials with Pekar himself. (Shanon Gee)

* Any Number Can Win
Actor Alain Delon stars in this crime caper about a meticulously planned heist on one of the French Riviera's most luxurious casinos.

* Anything Else
Woody Allen's latest film, with Jason Biggs playing a young Woody Allen, addresses the concerns of a younger generation. Biggs has a bad relationship (with Christina Ricci), a bad agent (Danny DeVito), and a terrible therapist who never says a word. Yet, he feels tied to all of them, and his life becomes stupid because of it. Enter the real Woody Allen, who tells him exactly what he's doing wrong and helps him get his life out of the shitter. A pretty funny movie with some valuable life lessons. (Katie Shimer)

* Bubba Ho-tep
So campy-good that I was drawn away from a perfectly nice French-Haitian film playing next door to watch Elvis (Campbell) battle killer scarabs and a soul sucking mummy in an East Texas old folks home. It could be a complex metaphor about aging, or simply a freakin' hilarious midnight movie. (Shanon Gee)

* Casa de los Babys See review this issue.

Cold Creek Manor
Two well-to-do New York City-slickers (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone) take their kids and high-tail it for a life in the country. They find the house of their dreams in the titular estate. There's only one problem: the former inhabitant (Stephen Dorff) wants it back.

Duplex
Ben Stiller stars in another of his desperately middling marriages of Hollywood sub-royalty (Drew Barrymore) and cookie-cutter plot in yet another Danny DeVito-directed film (in the tradition of Throw Mama From the Train, War Of the Roses, and Death To Smoochy) about a murder for convenience--this time for the sake of a rent-controlled apartment.

* I'm Taraneh, 15
A young Iranian girl gets pregnant by her fiance, only to have him up and leave for Germany. Despite difficult circumstances, the girl is determined to keep the child. Directed by Sadr-Ameli.

* Joanna Priestley
Joanna Priestley is a world-class animator from Portland who will be on hand tonight. Check out the premiere of her new film Andaluz plus samples of her older work.

Junkers Come Here
Hiromi is an anime girl with problems like any little anime girl: boys are jerks, her mom is never around, and her only friend is a talking dog named Junkers. Made in 1995, and directed by Junichi Sato.

* Lost in Translation
In less delicate hands, Lost in Translation could easily have been a dull, pretentious disaster, but Sofia Coppola has two cards tucked up her sleeve. One is the city of Tokyo itself, which has never looked so mysterious and engaging in an American film, and the other is Bill Murray, the bulk of whose part comes across as having been improvised. Why someone has not thought of dropping Murray among the citizens of a strange foreign city before remains a mystery, but without him--and despite the fine work of Coppola and Scarlett Johansson--Lost in Translation would surely fail. (Bradley Steinbacher)

* Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack
Amuro Ray and the Federation must fight against the evil Char Aznable to prevent nuclear winter on Earth in this anime classic.

* Nuestra Vision, Nuestro Futuro: The Oregon Latino Youth Video Project
Fifty Oregon Latino youth collaborate with professional filmmakers to bring you their documentary and narrative creations.

Out of Time
Denzel Washington gets set up again, this time as a respected police chief, who must cover his tracks before being pinned with a murder.

* The Revolution Will Not be Televised
A documentary about the neo-liberal coup against the elected government of Venezuela. Featuring George Tenet of the CIA, Colin Powell, and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Part of PSU's John Reed-Ben Linder Progressive Fall Film Fest.

* Rundown
The Rock and Stifler from American Pie star in this entertaining action/adventure flick about a bounty hunter (The Rock) who has to track down his employer's son (Sifler) in the jungles of Brazil. Beautiful scenery and great fight scenes make up for a formulaic plot and terrible Brazilian accents. (Katie Shimer)

School of Rock See review this issue.

Secondhand Lions
A film about a boy who is left by his mother to spend an indefinite amount of time with his uncles, who, upon first impression, are stubborn hicks with a big barn. The eldest uncle, Duvall, was in his youth a man of action, a great soldier who defeated powerful sheiks and seduced a dark woman while riding a wild horse on the shores of Arabia. Impressed by this example of pure manhood, Osment switches his dependency on Mommy for an even more unhealthy dependency on this violent father figure. This movie just sucks. (Charles Mudede)

* The Station Agent
When a dwarf's only friend dies, he goes into hiding from the world in an abandoned New Jersey train station. But, as luck would have it, the outside world just won't leave the little guy alone.

* Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Eat pizza and watch people get hacked to bits at Old Town Pizza's Tuesday Night Movie Night.

Thirteen
Older people tend to address this film in an alarmist tone, while the younger set thinks it's crappy. The lead protagonist is a smart, well-behaved child--until the hottest, brassiest, most popular girl in school criticizes her socks. Then it's like she slipped on a banana peel and became the embodiment of parental paranoia: Drugs! Tongue piercings! Boys! Shoplifting! (Marjorie Skinner)

Under the Tuscan Sun
Under the Tuscan Sun finds Diane Lane luminous as Frances Mayes, a San Francisco writer who gets totally reamed in a messy divorce and hops a plane to Italy, when single life in the city becomes unbearable. She stumbles across Bramasole, a dilapidated villa in the country that becomes her home. In Tuscany, she finds love, empowerment, and humility. Plus some hot Italian guys! (Brian Brait)

Underworld
Once again Romeo & Juliet is dusted off and given a refurbishing. This time the setting is the gloomiest of all gloomy cities, where vampires and werewolves wage a secret, exhausting war with one another. The experience: much Matrix-like action (save for the wire work), crackpot dialogue, and a PVC-clad heroine (Kate Beckinsale) who looks sexy as all get out, but can barely muster a sprint thanks to her garb. The result: A boring, uninspired hack work. (Bradley Steinbacher)

* Washington Heights
Carlos Ramirez, a young Dominican man, wants to get out of his crappy neighborhood and become successful as a comic book artist in NYC. When his dad gets shot, however, Carlos is forced to take a step back and run the family store. And much to his surprise, his immersion in the community gives him tons of new material for his comics.

* Weather Underground See review this issue.

* Yvonne's Perfume
Directed by Patrice Leconte, the story of a man who is avoiding military service by hiding out in a French resort on the Swiss border. There he meets Yvonne, who is travelling with her "uncle." The two fall in love, but the mysteries surrounding Yvonne make their relationship impossible and short-lived.