December 4, 2002

film

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Meryl Cohen, David Fear, Dina Gachman, Susan Gerhard, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Patrick Macias, and Chuck Stephens. See Rep Clock and Movie Clock for theater information.

Black LGBT Film Festival

The second annual Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Film Festival takes place Dec 6-8. Venue is the Brava Theater Center, 2789 24th St, S.F. Tickets ($8-35) can be purchased by calling (415) 901-0210 or visiting www.ticketweb.com. For more information, call (415) 647-2822 or visit www.blacklgbtff.org. For commentary, see 8 Days a Week. Times are p.m. unless otherwise indicated.

Fri/6

Punks 6:30.

Sat/7

Kali's Vibe with "Sweet Baby J'ai on Divas Breaking Taboos" and "The Boyfriend" 11a. "Men on the Down Low: Fact or Fiction?" (workshop) 11a. "The Right Time: Lesbian and Bisexual Characters in Black Movies" (workshop) 1. Speaking Out: Women, AIDS, and Hope in Mali and Simon and I with "Testing, One...Two..." 1:15. A Luv Tale and Tongues Untied with "Goodnight Liberation" 3. Naked Truth with "Life on Christopher Street," "Queer Geography: Mapping Our Identities," and "You 2" 3:30. One Week with "Like A Woman Should" 5. Sweet Hideaway 5:15. Of Men and Gods and The Cookie Project 7:45.

Sun/8

Ruth Ellis Living With Pride @ 100 and The Edge of Each Other's Battles: The Vision of Audre Lord 11a. Ava and Gabriel noon. I Got What You Want 1. Living With Mimi with "Among Good Christian Peoples" 2. Some Real Heat and The Execution of Wanda Jean 3:30. Proof Positive 4. Karmen Geï with "Shadowboxing with Jesus" and "Mi Companera, A Travelogue" 6.

Opening

Analyze That Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal return as the troubled mobster and his shrink in the sequel to Analyze This. (1:35) California, Jack London, Orinda.

Empire John Leguizamo stars as a gangster from the Bronx determined to make it on Wall Street. (1:40) Century Plaza, Century 20.

Equilibrium Mixing the most cheesebag derivation of 1984 and every other standard fascist-future text with ludicrous sub-Matrix digital chopsocky, this major kersplat offers the worst of both sci-fi worlds: its pretentiousness is as dumb as its action hyperbole is thrill-depleted. Christian Bale plays a sort of telepathic snitch sussing out "sense offenders" – those who dare to appreciate art, cry, etc. – in a postnuke society where emotions are banned. Plot logic and intentional humor also appear to have been banned from writer-director Kurt Wimmer's debacle, which in five years or so might ripen to the camp level that Battlefield Earth accessed upon toxic release. Still, there are moments ready for immediate savoring, as when Bale anxiously pipes "She's scheduled for combustion!" while emotional outlaw Emily Watson walks Star Trek/Joan of Arc-like to her fiery sacrificial doom. There are worse things here, but to reveal further would spoil the soil for bad movie aficionados. Good movie aficionados are advised to do something, anything, else this weekend. (1:47) Century 20, Lumiere, Oaks. (Harvey)

Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story Somewhere between a turgid BBC profile and a touchy-feely E! True Hollywood Story, this documentary on Queen's flamboyant front man covers the facts – born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, attended boarding school in India and art school in Ealing, died young of an AIDS-related illness – and boasts some choice archival concert performances and personal tidbits (the footage of his 39th birthday party is better seen than described). But despite access to exclusive testimonials from Freddie's family and friends, filmmakers Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher seem incapable of realizing that the chronologically random recreations of the singer's childhood mixed with hyperbolic comments from famous fans does not a portrait make. The fact that his band's actual work is barely touched upon becomes too glaring an omission to overlook; considering the Mercurial mix of lowbrow pop entertainment with high art and even higher camp begs for cultural insight, it's a pity this superficial puff piece blows its chance at rhapsodizing the bohemian in exchange for simply eulogizing the bitten dust. (1:17) Roxie. (Fear)

Martial Medicine Dr. Zee Lo wrote, directed, and stars in this martial arts-filled tale of the "American Hwang Fei Hung." (1:46) Four Star.*Personal Velocity See "Stumbling Forward." (1:26) Embarcadero.

*Take Care of My Cat Set alternately in the sleepy port town of Icheon and the bustling center of Seoul, Korean film Take Care of My Cat is the story of five close-knit, longtime girl friends who find themselves slowly drifting apart as their adult lives scatter and diverge. Director Jae-eun Jeong artfully uses starkly contrasting external landscapes – the bustle of the brokerage firm where the vain and selfish Hae-joo (Yo-won Lee) works, the squalor of the apartment the artistic and introverted Ji-young (Ji-young Ok) shares with her grandparents, the overbearing home life that restricts the adventurous Tae-hee (Doo-na Bae) – to represent the very different internal pathways these onetime best friends now travel. As the film unfolds, the fragile threads that connect the friends (cell phone text messaging snippets, a lost kitten in search of a home) become ever more strained until a sense of sadness, inevitability, and, finally, freedom take hold. Told with a distinctly Korean style and flair, this modern fable of girls growing up, growing apart, and heading out into the world will surely resonate with viewers everywhere. (1:51) Four Star. (Sabrina Crawford)

*The War Photographer Most people would shudder at the thought of traveling to the world's worst hot-spot battle zones and inserting themselves smack-dab in the middle of militant uprisings and military firefights; for James Nachtwey, considered by many to be the best war photographer working today, it's simply par for the course. This stunning documentary follows Nachtwey on assignment in Kosovo, Jakarta, Ramallah, and several other dodgy locales, ducking bullets and angry mobs, in pursuit of the perfect Kodak moment. Filmmaker Christian Frei's portrait literally puts the viewer behind the lens (thanks to a "micro-cam" attached to the top of Nachtwey's camera), making for some of the most visceral you-are-there moments you're likely to witness. But the film is less about the adrenaline-junkie correspondent circuit than a single humanistic conduit – unflappable, inscrutable, and driven to put himself in harm's way to chronicle the world's misery in pictures far more eloquent and moving than many thousands of words. (1:36) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Fear)

The Way Home See Movie Clock. (1:25) Lumiere.

Ongoing

Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights All-American fart-joke funny boy Adam Sandler brings his standard formula home for the holidays in this fully animated Hanukkah tale, which is chock full of juvenile humor and painfully bad musical numbers. Sandler, who is transformed, in cartoon form, into a square-jawed, super-cut Mr. Universe version of himself, stars as Stone, a holiday-hating antihero. Thanks to a few reindeer, a leprechaun-like do-gooder basketball coach (also voiced by Sandler), and his wig-wearing sister (ditto, and this one's by far the best character), Stone gets force-fed a healthy dose of holiday cheer and learns to like it. Oh, and for those wondering: yes, the film does feature an updated version of Sandlers "Hanukkah Song" – but you'll have to sit through two ear-piercing hours of sing-a-long nightmares to get to it, and the wait is hardly worth it. (1:27) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Crawford)

Ararat A filmmaker (Charles Aznavour) begins shooting a biopic based on the Turkish massacre of Armenians in 1915, sparking a ripple effect of ancestral angst among a widowed Armenian author (Arsinee Khanjian), her son (David Alpay), a Turkish actor (Elias Koteas), and an uptight customs officer (Christopher Plummer). The latest work from Canadian Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) is a fascinating and frustrating experience, a personal look at the reverberating effects history can have on later generations that manages to be moving, muddled, and maddeningly oblique. What starts out as a blistering metacritique of cinema's penchant for trivializing and reducing past tragedies for today's voyeuristic pleasures (an edit from a horrific rape scene to a passive movie audience blankly staring cuts like a knife) ends with a generic text scroll stating that "to this day, the Turkish government has never admitted to the massacre." In one nullifying swoop, Ararat turns into everything it has spent the rest of its run time abhorring, a butterfly bent on transforming itself into a wriggling caterpillar. (1:55) Embarcadero. (Fear)

*Bloody Sunday It started out as a "peaceful march against internment;" it ended up with thirteen dead and turned a town in Northern Ireland into ground zero for "the Troubles." That early morning massacre in Derry on January 30, 1972, has been memorialized in books and song, but it's filmmaker Paul Greengrass's gut-wrenching recreation of the day of infamy that truly captures the sheer horror of the tragedy. Focusing on the events leading up to the shooting of Irish demonstrators and its aftermath, Bloody Sunday incorporates the viewpoints of MP-activist Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt), nervous soldiers, one of the victims, and several British army commanding officers to present a multi-sided, fragmented perspective. The film's gritty you-are-there verite camera work begs comparisons to The Battle of Algiers, but it's the sequential fade-outs that reduce everything to elements of a nightmarish waking dream, bypassing sensationalism and sentimentality for a dread-filled march towards the inevitability of history. (1:40) Four Star. (Fear)

*Bowling for Columbine In Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore attempts to find out why, exactly, America is so very homicidal. What's so powerful about the film, a truly intelligent departure from the somber stranglehold of the Sept. 11 era on the topic of What's Wrong with America, is what's so powerful about all of Moore's films: his use of location, the comic mise-en-scène that one couldn't dream up in a studio setting, the "reality" of our reality that is truly too strange for words. I mean, after all this time, Who lets this guy in? The camera rolls as Moore makes pit stops that turn into filmmaking coups; by the time the interviews are over, those catch-phrase historic events that had been reduced to very singular meanings – "Columbine," "Oklahoma City," "9/11" – are reinvented as the truly terrible, complex situations they were. Ours is a population easily herded, a fact Moore enjoys as he revisits some of the old ghosts of media frenzy: those "Africanized killer bees" that never arrived, the razored apples poised to kill children on Halloween. Should a country this hyped up on fear be armed? That question is easy. The bigger one – Why are we so afraid? – is largely unanswerable. What's new for Moore is taking on a question so sticky in a time so angry in a country so thought-controlled. (1:59) Act I and II, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Gerhard)

Captain Pantoja and the Special Services (1:58) Galaxy.

*Comedian Two years after Jerry Seinfeld's sitcom went off the air, the acclaimed comedian made an unusual decision to retire every last joke in his well-worn arsenal and build a new stand-up act from scratch. Christian Charles and Gary Streiner, the producers of Seinfeld's American Express commercials, asked permission to document the process when they learned that the performer was actually terrified of taking the stage without the safety net of his old material. With two hand-held digital cameras, they followed Seinfeld around the New York City comedy club circuit, capturing the action, both onstage and off. The resulting film, initially titled Anatomy of a Joke, is a surprising and very funny behind-the-scenes look at the unique world of stand-up comedy. Featuring appearances by Colin Quinn, Chris Rock, Jay Leno, and Bill Cosby, Comedian reveals a community bonded by the daunting task of making people laugh night after night and committed to making it look easy. (1:22) Oaks, Opera Plaza. (Cohen)

El crimen del Padre Amaro Based on an 1875 novel by Portugese author José María Eça de Queiroz, though updated to present-day Veracruz by scenarist Vicente Leñero, the story tallies an almost Sadean checklist of sins, hypocrises, and abuses, mostly piled by the powerful and purportedly pious on the poor and helpless. Newly ordained young Padre Amaro (Gael García Bernal) arrives in Los Reyes, where he's introduced to its longtime chief papal representative Padre Benito (Sancho Gracia). Amaro soon learns to disdain the older priest's secret affair with café owner Sanjuanera (Angélica Aragón), not to mention Benito's money-laundering for drug kingpin Chato Aguilar (Juan Ignacio Aranda). Amaro is in no position to protest overmuch once he's commenced his own course of horizontal worship with Sanjuanera's nubile young daughter Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancón). Before things have run their course, abortion, murder, alcoholism, blackmail, and plenty of plain old fibbing have joined the story's list of confessable behaviors. How seriously you can take these two hours' histrionics will depend on your own relationship with papal authority. If, deep down, you do now or have ever believed they're somehow above ordinary human failing, then maybe El crimen del Padre Amaro's billing as "one of the most controversial films ever made" will resound as something more than hype. (1:48) California, Century 20, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

*Daughter from Danang The first war to be fought in America's living-room TV sets is still being dissected there, where archival footage is showing one era's proudest moments to be another era's sickest jokes. Mining the libraries of the major networks, Bay Area filmmakers Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco came up with the goods, evidence of American imperialistic hubris at work, through footage of "Operation Babylift," Gerald Ford's 1975 P.R. move to put a happy face on the sinister end of the Vietnam War. Orphaned Vietnamese children were supposedly being "rescued" by this effort, but many of the children weren't orphans: their parents had been coerced into sending them away. Dolgin and Franco's surprising doc intercuts old newscasts with the present-time story of one of those children – Heidi Bub, now a fully assimilated American living in the South with her military husband – going on a trip to reunite with her birth mom. The journey across cultures and through time turns out to be studded with land mines, leaving viewers knee-deep in emotional wreckage. (1:21) Opera Plaza, Rafael, Shattuck. (Gerhard)

Die Another Day James Bond should not surf. Ever. But hit the waves he does in Die Another Day, not once but twice, heralding a distinct downturn in quality for the 40th anniversary of a once vaguely dignified franchise. In a mishmash of License to Kill and Diamonds Are Forever, a disgraced Bond (Pierce Brosnan) follows a trail of precious stones across North Korea, Cuba, the U.K., and Iceland, pausing to romance a paltry two Bond girls (Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike – what, no Miss France runner-up?) along the way. The script overdoes the sci-fi trappings, and the results at best recall the excesses of Moonraker, and at worst, the ice planet episode of Battlestar Galactica. Director Lee Tamahori goes for a mix of MTV-style cuts and leaden pacing that will please neither series purists nor casual thrill-seekers. But his greatest crime lies in using shoddy digital effects in lieu of actual stunts. If James Bond is going to surf, then at least let someone risk death doing it. (2:12) Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Macias)

*8 Mile Eminem's stab at big-screen stardom may hew closer to Purple Rain than any of his jokey, off-color videos, but it's hard not to get caught up in Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile, the tale of Rabbit, a scrappy guy from the wrong side of the tracks whose extraordinary rhyme skills are, clearly, his only ticket out of trailer-park hell. The obstacles – a crummy job, a crappy car, stage fright, hostile rivals, a dismal home life, the all-consuming Detroit dreariness – pile up, but even though you know Eminem is eventually going to rock the shit out of the mic, his performance as a quietly determined but often defeated dreamer is enough to make you worry a little bit. And the payoff delivered in the film's final rap battle is so immense that 8 Mile's faults (a few too many one-sided characters, particularly the female ones) are easily swept away by the triumph of the moment. (1:51) California, Century 20, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*8 Women Though other films by François Ozon (Water Drops on Burning Rocks, in particular) prove he's adept at creating unflattering male portraits, his latest gift to audiences comes wrapped in feminine packaging. When 8 Women's faux-Technicolor paper is ripped off, female duplicity is revealed, and Ozon presents the spectacle with compassionate cynicism. The musical whodunit unites many – but not all – of France's most famous actresses: Catherine Deneuve rules, or attempts to rule, with trademark hauteur over a cast that includes Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, Virginie Ledoyen, and grand dame Danielle Darrieux. During a title sequence that also pays homage to the rain shower of phony jewels in the opening credits of Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life, the name of each actress is matched with a flower, some symbolic of innocence, some overtly obscene. The plot that follows is a murder mystery, but Ozon's true investigation – as usual – is a misanthrope's inquest into human nature. (2:00) Balboa, Opera Plaza. (Huston)

The Emperor's Club The convenient, and sometimes interesting, microcosms of society that are uptight boys' prep schools provide much fodder for drama, populated by characters that can range from poignant, sharp portraits to whiny and clichéd caricatures. Here, Kevin Kline steps into the role of William Hundert, a masterful but tough teacher whom none of his students ever forget. Hundert is summoned to a 20-year reunion thrown by former student Sedgewick Bell (played by Joel Gretsch as an adult and by Emile Hirsch in the scenes set in the 1970s), who entered Hundert's classroom a pissed-off but reluctantly brilliant teen and is now a millionaire business mogul. The bulk of the film traces Hundert's relationship with the group of boys (stereotypes abound), especially his love-hate struggle with the young Bell. Michael Hoffman, who directed Kline in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Soapdish, serves up moral lessons about cheating and loyalty with a silver spoon. (1:49) Century 20, Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Gachman)

Extreme Ops Any time the word "extreme" is part of a film title, viewers ought to beware. Extreme Ops, which is one part video game and one part Gatorade commercial, is no exception. Director Christian Duguay's initial idea – a pack of snowboarders facing the harshest elements in a classic humans vs. nature flick – isn't a bad one. But the plot gets ridiculous when they become targets of a villainous Bosnian war criminal (someone should tell these people Slobodan Milosevic is ailing and on trial). To add insult to injury, the ultrastereotyped characters – the dark-haired punk-rock bad girl (Jana Pallaske), the blonde ski bunny (Bridgette Wilson), the daredevil skateboarder (Joe Absolom), and the pseudo nerdy camera boy (Devon Sawa) – are so grating after awhile you don't care if they plunge off the mountaintop. (1:33) Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Crawford)

*Far from Heaven Set in suburban Connecticut circa 1958, Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven primarily pays homage to Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows, but Far from Heaven is more than a semiotic Hallmark card to melodrama – it's an unashamedly florid expression of movie love. Within the meticulous architecture of Haynes's movie, Frank (Dennis Quaid), who reveals he is gay, and wife Cathy (Julianne Moore), who falls in love with an African American gardener (Dennis Haysbert), pass through revolving doors to meet betrayal and take elevator rides – always going down – toward a floor marked divorce. It has been argued that Haynes shows women have the least autonomy of Far from Heaven's triad of '50s outsiders or minorities, but the film isn't interested in weighing injustices so much as revealing how societal structures work to reinforce them. Cathy's and Frank's and Raymond's individual attempts at finding happiness collide, and one character's freedom becomes another's punishing trap. (1:47) Clay, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Huston)

Frida Director Julie Taymor (Titus) suffers from Tim Burton-itis: in her films the sumptuous art direction tends to overshadow everything else onscreen. Frida comes to life when Kahlo's colorful, sorrowful paintings are the focus, but the rest of the film – mostly concerned with the rocky relationship between Kahlo (Salma Hayek, who also produced) and husband Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) – is bogged down in melodrama and distracting cameos (Antonio Banderas, Saffron Burrows, Edward Norton) by Hayek's show biz pals. In her most high-profile role to date, Hayek – dutifully sporting the unibrow – looks gorgeous in Kahlo's elaborate costumes and hairdos. The pleasures of eye candy aside, however, it's too bad a biopic about such a passionate artist comes off feeling like too much decoration, not much soul. (1:58) Albany, Bridge, Century 20, Piedmont. (Eddy)

Friday After Next It's Friday (the one after Friday and Next Friday, that is), and cousins Craig (Ice Cube) and Day-Day (Mike Epps) are cozily snoring away in their new Shady Palms apartment. The Christmas tree is lit up, the presents are heaped up, and it's a silent night in the hood, until a drunken, skinny Santa Claus breaks in and snatches all of their gifts and the rent money they had hidden in a speaker. After three inept cops show up to scope out their apartment – and slyly "confiscate" their weed – Craig and Day-Day head out to their first day on the job as strip-mall security guards. Like all Fridays (in this series, anyway), this one snowballs into a chaotic hell of a mess. Music-video director Marcus Raboy keeps the action moving, though watching characters survive car crashes, beatings, and gunshots kind of makes Friday after Next feel like a Warner Bros. cartoon that's trying a little too hard to get some laughs. (1:25) Century Plaza, Century 20, Grand Lake, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Gachman)

Half Past Dead (1:39) 1000 Van Ness.

*Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Happily free from the burden of exposition (see last year's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which spent way too much time grappling with that tiresome-but-necessary task) Chamber of Secrets, again directed by Chris Columbus, is a fast-paced adventure from start to finish. Young wizards Harry, Ron, and Hermione (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, all spot-on) make like Hogwarts' own Bloodhound Gang, using smarts and spells to unravel a mystery so dangerous it's even got the school's unflappable teaching staff (including Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, and the late Richard Harris) on edge. New faces in Chamber of Secrets include Jason Isaacs as the sinister Lucius Malfoy and the particularly hilarious Kenneth Branagh as the smug, self-obsessed Professor Lockhart. A few scary scenes (including one involving giant, hungry spiders) may make younger kids a little nervous, but the film's magical elements, in the forms of a flying car, a hair-raising Quidditch match, chatty ghosts, screaming letters, clumsy owls, and much more – not to mention an underlying message about friendship and loyalty – are what lingers after the lights come up. (2:41) Century Plaza, Century 20, Empire, Grand Lake, Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Eddy)

*Heaven (1:46) Rafael.

Interview with the Assassin Interview with the Assassin is the latest digitally shot feature to tweak the "live or Memorex?" lexicon of vérité stylings for dramatic fuel, but it owes less to the Blair Witches of the world than to what may be the most (in)famous piece of amateur filmmaking ever: the "Zapruder footage," a 26-second stream of history fossilized on Super 8 celluloid. When Interview's detour to Dealey Plaza begins duplicating the cinematic cadence of that landmark footage, it's not just a vogue bandwagon jump; the whole notion of a truth-based film form does a slow onion-peel before your very eyes. The film's conceit is that unemployed TV news cameraman Ron Kobeleski (Dylan Haggerty) has stumbled across the scoop of the century. His terminally ill, loner neighbor (Raymond J. Barry) has asked Ron to record a confession to a crime: he was the second gunman who killed Kennedy. The central gambit or gimmick, depending on your point of view, is that every ounce of information is presented to us in the medium of flattened, deadpan you-are-there interview footage, spy-cam moments, and video-surveillance transmissions. Director Neil Burger milks it for every meta-moment it's worth in the film's better sleight-of-hand passages, working deft tension into the low-rent thriller look. (1:28) Galaxy. (Fear)

Jackass: The Movie You can call this coproducer Spike Jonze's antiprestige project – a Bronx cheer to the Spiegel heir and anointed cinematic star's skateboarder roots. But apart from a cameo as one of a makeup-spackled crew of Lark-crashing, shoplifting oldsters, Jonze shouldn't get all the credit: after all, Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius, Bam Margera, and crew are the ones accruing the stitches and scar tissue. In any case, if you loved the series, you'll bust a gut at Jackass: The Movie – till you're in as much pain as the MTV pranksters. Basically a lengthy version of the series, complete with short-attention span episodes such as "Off-Road Tattooing," "Yellow Snowcone," and "Bungie Wedgie," a tossed-off, grainy-as-crap, straight-from-video look, and handheld bumbling (including vomiting camerapersons), Jackass: The Movie is the unholy, funny-as-hell spawn of Faces of Death, backyard wrestling, Evel Knieval, and Candid Camera. (1:25) Century 20, Shattuck, 1000 Van Ness. (Kimberly Chun)

*The Last Kiss Writer-director Gabriele Muccino's The Last Kiss, a tender look at the realities of growing up and settling down, is also a modernized take on the traditional Italian sex comedy. Less about raw lust (though there's no shortage here) than about the restlessness that permeates contemporary relationships, the film ultimately paints love as a state of perpetual confusion and repeatedly asks whether it is ever possible to recognize happiness once you've found it. Muccino accomplishes this through the interwoven stories of a group of college buddies on the verge of hitting 30: Carlo (Stefano Accorsi, also of the Italian import The Son's Room) is secretly petrified of marrying his pregnant girlfriend, Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) can't seem to get over his domineering ex, and Alberto (Mario Cocci) is beginning to question the value of an endless string of one-night stands. Well-structured and well-acted, The Last Kiss deftly canvasses the gamut of human emotions, from the joys of childbirth to the dizzying fear that somehow, somewhere, a better life is passing us by. (1:44) Four Star. (Cohen)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2:01) Galaxy, Shattuck.

Punch-Drunk Love It seems like it wouldn't be a stretch for Adam Sandler to play Punch-Drunk Love's Barry Egan, an average schlub given to fits of comical fury – unless, of course, you take into account that Punch-Drunk Love isn't the latest output of the Sandler laff factory; it's actually the new film from P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia). Love is a weird piece of work, displaying vaguely Coen brothers-like tendencies and a stop-go momentum that somehow fits its structure – essentially, it's just a series of very, very carefully plotted self-contained scenes in a world with deliberately stylized art- and sound-direction. Sandler plays Barry as nervous and earnest, and mines new emotional territory in scenes with the sweetly persistent Lena (Emily Watson), a perfectly normal person who somehow falls for the unstable, Healthy Choice pudding-obsessed Barry. By and large, Sandler pulls it off, though it's unclear whether Anderson zeroed in on him because he wanted to provide the comedian with a breakout role, or because convincing audiences to see Sandler as more than a goofy megaplex star is a formidable challenge, or just because. (1:37) Albany, Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Real Women Have Curves If 18-year-old Ana (America Ferrera) had gone to work in her sister's East L.A. garment factory 25 years ago, she and the other workers would be eyeballing the dresses and complaining they'd never be able to afford them. Ana would have given up plans for college and joined the movement, fighting for social and economic justice. But in Real Women Have Curves, set in the present day, the women are concerned about not fitting into the gowns, and Ana's contribution is to let them know their full-figured frames are fine just they way they are. You know from the beginning Ana's going to college despite familial pressure, but it's what happens along the way that matters. Director Patricia Cardoso offers East L.A. as a kaleidoscope of color, sound, and energy, and Ferrara's infectious Ana is impossible to resist. If feel-good flicks bother you, pass this up. But if you're looking for something to smile at – that's going around these days – here's something a little different to make you do just that. (1:25) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (J.H. Tompkins)

The Ring (1:45) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

*Rivers and Tides (1:30) Rafael.

Roger Dodger First-class lout Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott) uses his gift of dizzying gab to become the top copywriter in his advertising firm – and to woo every female who strays into his sight line. But the cruelest joke of all is that this self-proclaimed ladies' man really doesn't know dick about the fairer sex; his one truly intimate relationship is with his own self-loathing. So when his precocious teenage nephew, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), shows up looking for tips on the art of seduction, you can practically hear the backbone-snap of innocence lost coming like a far-off thunderclap. Words are also first-time director-writer Dylan Kidd's main ace in the hole, as he's constructed a film consisting of one riff of whirling verbiage after another with a self-conscious case of antsy Cassavetes-camera jitters. Mainly, it's the performers' line readings of Kidd's hyperbolic prose that makes Roger Dodger worth a look, giving the budding filmmaker's love of nihilistic patter a life even in a third act of diminishing returns. (1:45) Opera Plaza. (Fear)

The Santa Clause 2 (1:45) Century Plaza, Century 20, Jack London.

Solaris The 1972 Russian Solyaris is nearly three hours of Soviet humorlessness and philosophical luggage, orbiting very slowly in the Mosfilm Studio universe. You could hardly miss that Andrei Tarkovsky's outer space was really inner space. But clear away the hocus-pocus, and Solyaris is just one of the most pompous movies ever made about a failed marriage – no more, no less. So is Steven Soderbergh's version, which mercifully slogs along for only 98 minutes as opposed to 165. An old friend's urgent message gets psychologist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) picked to rescue a space station that's mysteriously cut off all communication with earthly headquarters. His first onboard sleep summons memories of his suicided wife, Rheya (Natascha McElhone). As he wakes, she turns up at his side, seemingly in the flesh. Whether back from the dead, "copied" by the enigmatic neighboring galactic body Solaris itself, or simply hallucinated, she's just as baffled about this turn of events as Chris is. Solaris is a stab at a cerebral movie about basic emotions, by a writer-director who is smart but not meditative, observant but seldom deeply moved. At least Tarkovsky was working in an idiom where he felt most at home. Soderbergh, cutting himself adrift from all the elements that normally spark his interest, has created pretentious space junk. (1:38) Jack London, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Orinda. (Harvey)

Spirited Away (2:04) Act I and II, Balboa.

*Standing in the Shadows of Motown They played on more number-one hits than Elvis and the Beatles combined, providing the instrumentation for such milestones as "My Girl," "What's Going On," and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" – the soul music soundtrack for untold numbers of sweat-drenched backseat conceptions. Yet the names of the house musicians that graced Motown's legendary Studio A have been relegated to footnotes in rock history, obscured by the well-known artists and groups they backed. That's about to change with filmmaker Paul Justman's tributary documentary of the Funk Brothers, Studio A's collective of skin beaters, brass blowers, and ivory ticklers, which puts names and faces to the sounds. The film mixes oral histories of the aging musicians (call them the Motor City Social Club), and of the social climate they provided the score for, with reunion concert footage and event "re-creations." Standing falls just shy of rote as a documentary, but as a musical homage to forgotten heroes, it may be the most infectious, joyous restoration job to grace a Dolby system. (1:48) Grand Lake, Lumiere, Rafael, Shattuck. (Fear)

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2:22) Metreon IMAX.

*Sweet Home Alabama (1:49) Balboa.

They (1:30) Jack London, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Treasure Planet There had to be a bomb sooner or later in Disney's uninterrupted string of good-to-very-good animated features, and here it is. A high-concept, low-yield bust, this "Star Wars meets Treasure Island" adventure – it's not just an advertising blurb, it's a whole movie! – is routinely conceived on every level, from the Celtic-themed (not again) music to the fart jokes. Plucky, rebellious teen hero Jim (voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) joins an intergalactic schooner expedition to find a lost treasure. Also on board are a prim but tomboyish English captain (Emma Thompson), a wacky cyborg (Martin Short), a goofy scientist (David Hyde Pierce), and a scurvy cook (Brian Cook as the Long John Silver figure) who provides our hero with a needed father substitute while harboring treacherous secrets. The novelty here is a mix of traditional animation with 3-D computer graphics. But they don't blend well, and the result is actually rather ugly. Worse, however, is the generic nature of the characters, situations, slapstick, action, humor, and "heartwarming" content. Drop the kids off at the multiplex; you won't want to accompany them this time around. (1:35) Empire, Century Plaza, Century 20, Kabuki, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Tully Handsome, corn-fed hunk Tully Coates (Anson Mount) has come to a crossroads: should he keep playing the role of the town heartthrob and tarnish his reputation with the local stripper, or should he settle down with freckled nice girl Ella (Julianne Nicholson) and risk a broken heart? Meanwhile, back at the ranch (literally), a mysterious debt threatens both the foreclosure of his father's farm and to open the door to a closet full of familial skeletons. It's tempting to think that director-screenwriter Hilary Birmingham derived her film from watching overlaid transmissions of Petticoat Junction and Peyton Place as a kid, which would explain the small-town landscape of swimming holes and Tastee Freezes, where soap operatics lurk around every hay-strewn corner. Mount certainly has the looks and homegrown charm to essay such a guileless backwoods gigolo role, but everything else about this indie melodrama can't seem to rise above a feeling of freeze-dried familiarity. (1:42) Galaxy, Oaks. (Fear)

*24 Hour Party People Manchester-based label Factory gave the world Joy Division, the Happy Mondays, and the seeds of rave culture via its sister club Hacienda and was renowned as much for its owners' bad business sense and drug-fueled burnout as for its stark, minimalist sound. 24 Hour Party People seems destined to cement the collective's rightful place in the pantheon, but any notion of genuflection or pedestal polishing quickly gets pissed on. Laden with one of the cinema's most unreliable narrators in the form of Factory impresario Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) and brimming with pop art detritus filmmaking (punky Super 8 comfortably cuddles with druggy D.V.), the film is less concerned with facts than with Factory's mythos as a beautiful supernova failure. Director Michael Winterbottom (Wonderland) incorporates Lester-like giddiness, deconstructive asides, and even actual participants from the era (keep an eye out for Mark E. Smith and Howard DeVoto) to correct the film when it "gets it wrong," still, any glitches are overrun by the film's gleeful willingness to jettison narrative and biopic concerns in order to hook viewers on a feeling. (1:57) Four Star. (Fear) Rep picks

*'Bo-Dacious B-Movies,' 'Kung Fu Kult Klassics,' and 'Saturday Midnights for Maniacs' This week: Gone in 60 Seconds (the 1974 original) meets the redneck mayhem of Six-Pack Annie (Wed/4); Crippled Kung Fu Boxer and Blood Stained Tradewinds fill the kung fu quotient (Thurs/5); and the fit hits the motherfuckin' shan in 1976's Day of the Animals (Sat/7). Four Star.

*The General For a long time this was considered Buster Keaton's greatest film, perhaps because it was widely available before home video, or maybe because the grand historical-reenactive scale – so unusual for humble comedy – still impressed decades later. Now it's easy to see Sherlock Jr. as more ingenious, Steamboat Bill Jr. and several others as funnier. Of course, this slapstick Civil War epic is still pretty genius. Codirected with Clyde Bruckman, the 1927 silent has Keaton rescuing a moving train from enemy spies, a sustained climax which takes up much of the film. Many moments here are so physically perilous and beautiful that you may be too amazed to laugh until a beat or two later. Which only means, of course, that you can never see this (or any other of the prime 1920s Keaton films) too many times. (1:15) Jezebels Joint. (Harvey)