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Series 7
BY BRIAN LIBBY

Alfred Hitchcock once said a TV set is like a toaster: You press a button and the same thing pops up every time. Flipping channels these days from Survivor to Temptation Island to Big Brother to The Mole, it's hard to disagree. There's no question reality-based TV shows manipulate, exploit and demean their way to ratings gold. Cut-rate voyeurism for viewers, this is a fad with the stamina of an Energizer bunny.

Set in a banal Connecticut township, Sundance darling Series 7: The Contenders is presented as an all-day marathon of America's favorite reality TV show, where contestants are picked at random and--against their will--pitted in a gun battle to the death.

The reigning Contenders champion is Dawn (Brooke Smith), a scrappy, low-rent diva who's also eight months pregnant. With a 9mm pistol in one hand and a cell phone in the other, Dawn enjoys calling her new foes just to tell them they're going down. Her competitors--spritely nurse Connie (Marylouise Burke), unemployed oaf Tony (Michael Kaycheck), disheveled retiree Franklin (Richard Venture), happy-go-lucky teen Lindsay (Merritt Weaver) and gloomy cancer patient Jeff (Glenn Fitzgerald)--display a mix of fear and enthusiasm: If you have to die, at least it's on television.

Written and directed by former Cops crew member Daniel Minahan, Series 7 is exhaustively precise in re-creating the reality-TV experience. In fact, Minahan's rendition may be too good. True satire is an attack on its subject, and somewhere along the way Series 7 becomes what it assails. Like Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers or the recent 15 Minutes, Minahan's film purports to expose a social vice only to relish the mayhem it finds. You just can't have it both ways, and it's virtually impossible to parody something already so knowingly absurd. Maybe the people on Survivor wouldn't really kill each other, but after watching Series 7 we know very little more about what makes them or the show's creators tick.

Offering puddle-deep insight into America's latest entertainment fad, Minahan can only succeed with the same manner of shock-value circus you'd find on any TV channel. And unlike those shows, it can't even claim to be "real." Truth be told, it's still fun watching this morbid cartoon--just like the shows we all half-heartedly condemn. So go ahead and enjoy Series 7, but don't mistake entertainment for enlightenment. R

Opens Friday, March 30. Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 223-4515. 7 and 8:55 pm Friday-Thursday, March 30-April 5. Additional shows 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday, 1:30, 3:15 and 5 pm Saturday and Sunday.

openings & short runs

Aliens
Sigourney Weaver and a team of space Marines slug it out with a planet full of stomach-bustin' aliens. Game over, man! R

Laurelhurst Theatre, 2735 E Burnside St., 232-5511. Wednesday-Friday, March 28-30. Call for show times. 21 and over only. $3. SHORTrUN

NEW|REVIEW

Battles Without Honor: Japanese Master Kinji Fukasaku
The Northwest Film Center's retrospective of filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku continues with two double features. One of the most gut-wrenching and all-around heartbreaking anti-war films of all time, Fukasaku's Under the Fluttering Military Flag (7 pm Friday, March 30) is an unrivaled masterpiece. Sachiko Hidari plays the widow of a World War II soldier executed for desertion trying to unravel the mystery of her husband's death. As her investigation moves forward, the horror, insanity and indignity of the war unfolds. Moving at a hyper pace that seldom slows down, Modern Yakuza (8:50 pm Friday, March 30) is a raw, depraved and brutally relentless bloodbath. Bunta Sugawara plays a psychotic street thug born on the day Japan surrendered World War II and recruited into the yakuza as a means of controlling and harnessing his violent outbursts. The problem is, Sugawara is a nihilistic madman who cannot and will not be controlled. The result is one of the most violent yakuza films of all time--definitely not for the squeamish.

Inspired by the life of notorious Japanese gangster Rikio Ishikawa (Tetsuya Watari), Graveyard of Honor and Humanity (7 pm Saturday, March 31) puts all American gangster movies to shame. Watari is electrifying as the unstoppable, heroin-addicted killer who chows down on the cremated remains of his girlfriend. Fukasaku and Sugawara teamed up again for 1975's grim James Ellroy-esque State Police vs. Organized (8:50 pm Saturday, March 31). Sugawara plays a hardboiled cop whose close friend (Hiroki Matsukata) is a yakuza underboss. Their relationship is indicative of the symbiosis Fukasaku sees in Japan's criminal world and law enforcement--a tenuous balance of corruption and mutual respect that keeps the nation running. But when a hardline cop takes over, vowing to end corruption within the police force and sever all yakuza ties, the balance is disrupted and a Fukasaku massacre ensues. R (DW)

Guild Theatre, 829 SW 9th Ave., 221-1156. $6.50. SHORTrUN

NEW|REVIEW
The Caveman's Valentine
See review.

Fox Tower

NEW|REVIEW
Festival of Animation
Leave it to the Clinton Street Theatre to come up with a program of cartoons this diverse. With a different lineup every night it will be tough to make a decision, so you may just need to concede and go every night. Besides, there's nothing good on television anyway. The Genius of Tex Avery: 1936-1954 (8 pm Friday, March 30) showcases the talents of the man many consider to be the best animated storyteller of all time. The International Sex Cartoon Extravaganza (8 pm Saturday, March 31) pretty much speaks for itself. Relive Saturday-morning cartoons of the '70s with The Groovy Ghoulies & Friends (8 pm Sunday, April 1), a collection of episodes of shows like The New Adventures of Gilligan, The Adventures of Waldo Kitty and, of course, The Groovy Ghoulies. Festival of Silent Animation (8 pm Monday, April 2) provides a rare opportunity to see some of the oldest animated films in existence. Offensive Animation (8 pm Tuesday, April 3)--if the folks at the Clinton Street say it's offensive, you can believe some feathers will get ruffled. NR (DW)

Clinton Street Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899. $6. SHORTrUN

Jazz on Film
The Clinton Street Theatre's series of jazz performances on film concludes with two unique programs. Soundies (8 pm Wednesday, March 28) features a rare collection of short films once shown on the Mills Panoram Company's hybrid movie jukebox. It's the Girls! (8 pm Thursday, March 29) will feature performance footage spanning the '30s to the '60s and includes Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. NR (DW)

Clinton Street Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899. 8 pm Wednesday-Thursday, March 28-29. SHORTrUN

The Marquise of O, The Aviator's Wife
This week's offerings from the Northwest Film Center's two-month Eric Rohmer retrospective mark two new beginnings in the writer-director's decades-long career. A comedy of manners set just after the Napoleonic wars, 1974's The Marquise of O (7 pm Thursday-Friday, March 29-30) is Rohmer's only film in a language other than French, the only film adapted from other material, and his only period piece. Watch for Wim Wenders alum Bruno Ganz. The Aviator's Wife (7 pm Saturday-Sunday, March 31-April 1) is the first entry in Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs series and explores the truly paranoid and moronic behavior to which we've all fallen victim in the name of romance. Neither represents Rohmer's finest work, but this guy on a mediocre day still beats virtually everything screening at a cineplex near you. NR (Brian Libby)

Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave., 221-1156. $6.50. SHORTrUN

Micro Cinema Explosion
A relative newcomer to the experimental-film scene, the Charm Bracelet has quickly become a recognizable name in the world of alternative moving pictures. The group's latest presentation includes experimental film and video, mixed-media installations and musical performances. The showcased work includes that of local artists as well as out-of-towners. NR

Meow Meow, 527 SE Pine St.,
230-2111. 9 pm Sunday, April 1.
$5. All ages. SHORTrUN

NEW|REVIEW NEW|REVIEW

The Price of Milk
An idyllic New Zealand dairy farm, 117 cows, and an agoraphobic canine. Rob (Karl Urban) and Lucinda (Danielle Cormack)--the leading kiwis in this Harry Sinclair film--have the perfect life. They enjoy all the usual of perks of love: baths in the pasture, romantic one-meter drives in the pickup and glorious make-up sex in the milk tank. But when Rob pops the question, Lucinda worries about the spark in their relationship. She seeks advice from a friend and decides to intentionally piss off her always-forgiving beau. When she realizes that trading away all Rob's cows is not the way to marital bliss, we are led through a bizarre story of bargaining and begging for forgiveness. From the opening covers-stealing struggle to the bizarre and recurring appearance of a Maori golf gang, this film is as imaginative as it is inexplicable. Though it looks and sounds majestic (the score is performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra), and the actors have done well with what was only the skeleton of a script, it stumbles over its free associations and dreamlike qualities. You will leave trying to remember what mind-altering substances you took prior to viewing and I will listen for your puzzled laughs. NR (Eric Larson)

Fox Tower

Silence of the Lambs
Just in case you saw Hannibal and haven't realized how bad a film it really is, its Oscar-winning predecessor is playing at the Hollywood. Jonathan Demme's 1991 Silence of the Lambs, starring Jodie Foster as an FBI agent tracking a serial killer, is B-movie fare gone legitimate. Anthony Hopkins hams it up as Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, but he's not nearly as ridiculous as he is in this year's sequel. R (DW)

Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-4215. Friday-Thursday, March 30-April 5. Call for ticket prices and show times. SHORTrUN

NEW|REVIEW

Someone Like You
This is the frankly dull tale of a single girl (Ashley Judd) looking for love while working as a guest-booker for a struggling daytime television talk show. She meets the perfect guy (Greg Kinnear), who turns out to be a snake. She then becomes roommates with a most imperfect guy (Hugh Jackman), a womanizer who is revealed to secretly believe in monogamy and true love; it just took her to bring it out. In the meantime, there's much fourth-rate quasi-feminist/Iron John pseudo-intellectualizing and generalizing about issues of gender, sex and romance, all of which is boring, middlebrow and mindlessly insulting to both men and women. Ellen Barkin and Marisa Tomei show signs of life in supporting parts, but Judd, Kinnear and Jackman are zombies. If you somehow find yourself exposed to this toxicity, be sure to pay your cable bill; it's going to take a lot of Sex and the City reruns to wash away Someone Like You's bitter triteness. PG-13 (Christopher McQuain)

Opens Friday, March 30. Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, 82nd Ave., Broadway, Movies on TV, City Center, Vancouver Plaza, Cinema 99, Division Street, Tigard Cinema, Hilltop, Century 16, Oak Grove

NEW|REVIEW

Spy Kids
It's easy to imagine that a movie called Spy Kids would offer little more than annoyingly "cute" kid stars and an excuse to eat two boxes of Milk Duds in the dark. Not so. Writer-director Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Desperado) has crafted a fun film with likable heroes and a sense of humor that should appeal to both adults and children. Meet Ingrid and Gregario Cortez (Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas), masters of disguise-turned-parents who square off against insidious TV wizard Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming). But when Ingrid and Gregario are captured by Floop, who will save the day? Enter the other half of the Cortez nuclear family--children Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara). Watch them brave their way through a magical land of wacky villains--human-sized thumbs, brainless child robots, and a man who sprouts multiple heads--as they try to rescue their parents, save the world and maybe conquer a few warts in the meantime. Where else can you get all of that in less than two hours? So pack up your scuba gear and strap on your Jet Pack. To quote a kid in the audience, "It is so cool!" PG (Becky Zeien)

Opens Friday, March 30. Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Vancouver Plaza, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Westgate, Hilltop, Clackamas Town Center, St. Johns, Lake Twin, Century 16, Oak Grove, Joy

Tomcats
Comedy about "a group of freewheeling, sex-fueled singles buddies." Sounds like a great date film. Check back next week for the review. R

Opens Friday, March 30. Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Cinema, 82nd Ave, Movies on TV, City Center, Vancouver Plaza, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Tigard Cinema, Westgate, Hilltop, Century 16, Oak Grove

The Widow of St. Pierre
Patrice Leconte's films turn on the edge of a blade. After scissors (The Hairdresser's Husband) and knives (Girl on the Bridge), why not the guillotine? On a barren French island circa 1849, a murderer earns his community's reverence while awaiting execution. The ensuing chasm between law and justice will seem familiar to American voters. As for Leconte fans, the whimsy may be gone, but burning romance and devotion to outsiders remain. Starring familiar Francophone players Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, The Widow of St. Pierre is another visually majestic, heart-rending (albeit over-earnest) story of love and loss from one of France's most dependable magicians. R (Brian Libby)

Opens Friday, March 30. Fox Tower.

Yi Yi
Clocking in at just under three hours, Yi Yi is a vast epic about one Taiwanese family's quest for spiritual purpose in the modern world. Bookended by a wedding and a funeral, the film finds young and old in crisis; a wife tongue-tied by melancholy, a husband struggling to preserve integrity and children walking a tightrope between curiosity and peril. Director Edward Yang finds new significance in old truths: the immutability of unrequited love, the hypocrisy success often demands, and the elusive meaning in our daily routines. Yang doesn't answer all of Yi Yi's questions, but he phrases them with unmistakable eloquence. NR (Brian Libby)

Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 223-4515. 7 pm Wednesday-Thursday, March 28-29. $6. SHORTrUN

now showing

Before Night Falls
Before Night Falls is a portrait of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas. Based on Arenas' memoirs, the film shows his amazing life in a surreal series of events as his identity as writer and homosexual man unfold under Fidel Castro's reign. Javier Bardem got a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Arenas; rarely has acting been so convincing in its subtlety and so sublime in its passion. R (Seyta Selter)

KOIN Center

The Brothers
Writer-director Gary Hardwick's film The Brothers is seen as an antithesis to Waiting to Exhale; some critics are calling it Refusing to Exhale. Morris Chestnut, D.L. Hughley, Bill Bellamy and Shemar Moore star as lifelong friends caught in the battle of the sexes. Chestnut leads the ensemble cast as Jackson Smith, a successful doctor with an intense fear of commitment. His friends aren't in much better positions: Bellamy is the consummate playa complete with jilted lovers who terrorize him, Moore thinks he's ready to get married, and Hughley, who is married, can't get his wife to get freaky in bed. While the story of black male bonding isn't especially new--films like The Wood and The Best Man are Hollywood's flava du jour, having replaced 'hood films--The Brothers feels fresh. The four leading actors generate enough chemistry to carry the film on their own, but the supporting performances by actresses Tatayana Ali, Gabrielle Union, and Jenifer Lewis as Chestnut's mother give the picture well-rounded dimension. Hardwick's direction falls flat at times, but his script is funny, insightful and raunchy. R (DW)

Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, 82nd Ave., Movies on TV, Vancouver Plaza, Division Street, Tigard Cinema, Century 16, City Center

Cast Away
On an uncharted desert isle, FedEx agent Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is marooned with no phone, no light, no motorcar--not a single luxury. PG-13 (Brian Libby)

Movies on TV, Evergreen Parkway, Cinema 99, Vancouver Plaza, Washington Square

Chocolat
Based on Joanne Harris' novel and set in a circa-1950s rural French village bound by strict religious conformity, Chocolat stars Juliette Binoche as Vianne, an audacious newcomer who arrives during the fasting period of Lent to open a decadent chocolate shop. With a sly, knowing smile to match her ravishing beauty, Binoche is a tour guide who makes familiar scenery new again. PG-13 (Brian Libby)

Lloyd Cinemas, Movies on TV, Tigard, City Center, Century 16, Wilsonville, Fox Tower, Oak Grove, Moreland

Chunhyang
A prostitute's daughter and governor's son are married, driven apart by duty and class, then forced to battle to save not just love but their lives. Narrated from the present day by a traditional Pansori singer (imagine Louis Armstrong chanting in Korean) before a live audience, Chunhyang walks a tightrope between sober self-awareness and fairy-tale magic. R (Brian Libby)

KOIN Center

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Based on the fourth part of Wang Du Lu's epic novel, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a dreamlike tale of honor and revenge--two staples of kung-fu flicks--and, less traditionally, unconsummated love. Choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping's fight sequences are among the best martial-arts battles ever filmed. Yeoh and Chow are amazing. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon may not be the best kung-fu movie of all time, but it is the most beautiful, emotional and mature. PG-13 (DW)

Fox Tower, Lloyd Cinema, City Center, Division Street, Tigard Cinema, Century 16, Evergreen Parkway, Wilsonville, 82nd Avenue, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Milwaukie

Enemy at the Gates
Telling the true story of World War II sniper Vassily Zaitsev in the battle of Stalingrad--from a Soviet perspective--Enemy at the Gates is held afloat by great actors. Jude Law carefully and competently plays Zaitsev, and Ed Harris makes a cold, mean Major Konig, Zaitsev's German nemesis. The story is worthy of the big screen, but it's not told well enough here to be monumental or even captivating. Although undoubtedly appealing to Jude Law lovers and World War II buffs (a wide population, mostly in the first category), Enemy at the Gates unfortunately continues director Jean-Jacques Annaud's recent tradition of cinematic atrocity (Seven Years in Tibet) rather than his previous brilliance (The Name of the Rose). While Bob Hoskins hacks away painfully at the part of Krushchev, Joseph Fiennes delivers a surprisingly strong performance as Zaitsev's friend and military reporter, Danilov. This film may be worth a viewing, but don't expect it to be the great war epic it purports to be--despite its $85 million production cost. R (Seyta Selter)

Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Cinema, 82nd Avenue, Broadway, Movies on TV, City Center, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Tigard Cinema, Hilltop, Century 16, Oak Grove

Exit Wounds
Criticizing a Steven Seagal film is like doing a restaurant review of Burger King--what's the point? Seagal films are for people who generally like self-explanatory titles--Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Out for Justice--and who aren't looking for high art in film. Following that train of thought, Exit Wounds, with its somewhat cryptic title, is probably the closest thing to arthouse cinema Seagal will ever pump out. He plays Orin Boyd, an overzealous cop who attracts violence like dookie draws flies. For his supercop activities, Orin is demoted and transferred to a corrupt precinct, where he begins to investigate the activity of dope dealer Latrell Walker (rapper-turned-"actor" DMX). Of course, nothing is quite what it seems--especially not Latrell--and in a series of plot twists that someone in Hollywood must have considered "high concept," Orin and Latrell team up to battle the forces of evil. We can all sleep more easily at night. Not a particularly bad film--especially considering it's Steven Seagal--Exit Wounds is mediocrity at its finest. R (DW)

Evergreen Parkway, Sherwood, Lloyd Cinemas, 82nd Avenue, Movies on TV, City Center, Vancouver Plaza, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Tigard Cinemas, Hilltop, Century 16, Oak Grove, St. Johns

Faithless
When Susan Sontag called Ingmar Bergman "the Fellini of the North" in her 1966 essay on his landmark film Persona, she hardly meant it as a compliment to either filmmaker. But those who've always known that Bergman's singular appeal centers on the voyeuristic/vicarious pleasure of seeing petty human strife bathed in the glory of his stinging, antiseptic philosophizing should flock at once to Faithless, the new film written by Bergman and directed by his perennial star, Liv Ullmann. Faithless's Bergmanian conflict occurs in the life of a young Swedish woman named Marianne (Lena Endre), an actress who commits rationalized adultery with her husband's best friend (Krister Henrikkson), leading to the eventual dissolution of her family. There's no moralizing; Bergman simply uses Marianne's act to bring out human nature at its most cruel and paradoxical in all three points of the love triangle. As in many Bergman stories, the unsung victim of adult neurosis is a helpless child; Isabelle (Michelle Gylemo), Marianne's daughter, hovers around the periphery, surreptitiously witnessing her father, her mother and her mother's new lover menace each other and degrade themselves for the fleeting, inevitable reasons of pride, sex and discontent. The problems are not so much resolved as followed, tortuously and exhaustively, to their bitter ends. Faithless has some strikes against it, not the least of which is a superfluous autobiographical meta-plot involving a retired film director (guess who?) hashing out Faithless's story with the character of Marianne. Still, like much from Bergman's vast and often underrated body of work, it's successful as a privileged, cathartic view of a humanity that, though its efforts at finding peace and happiness are futile and self-defeating, possesses a peculiarly inconsolable dignity. NR (Christopher McQuain)

KOIN Center

Finding Forrester
Rob Brown stars as Jamal Wallace, a Bronx teenager who excels in basketball and, as test scores indicate, may be smarter than he's letting on. Sean Connery plays William Forrester, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who penned one great novel before going into seclusion. Through a series of events that could be trite--but isn't--the two become friends, and William evolves into Jamal's mentor. R (DW)

Lloyd Mall, Kiggins, Washington Square

Get Over It
Awkward basketball player Berke (Ben Foster) gets dumped by his dreamy girlfriend, Allison (Melissa Sagemiller), and she goes for sleazy ex-boy-band star Striker (Shane West). Super-sweet Kelly (Kirsten Dunst) tutors Berke to perform in fascist drama queen Martin Short's school musical so he can win Allison back with his atrocious singing and acting. But with all the late-night tutorials, kind words and a knockout body, Kelly makes a prime rebound candidate. Predictability at its worst, Get Over It's lame plot tries to be original with Shakespearean fantasies, a campy intro and Sisqó--who should stick to music. PG (Seyta Selter)

Cinema 99, Clackamas Town Center, Westgate, Vancouver Plaza

Hannibal
With the success of Silence of the Lambs, some sort of follow-up was all but inevitable. Picking up 10 years after Silence left off, Hannibal finds Clarice Starling (now played by Julianne Moore) as a hard-edged FBI agent still haunted by the escaped serial killer Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). The good doctor has been living a charmed life in Italy, while the horrifically disfigured Mason Verger--the only victim to survive one of Lecter's attacks--plots his revenge. Devoid of character, tension or anything that might even be mistaken for entertainment, the film leaves Hopkins and Moore little to work with in terms of script or story. Thanks to Ridley Scott's tepid, meandering direction, Hannibal emerges as the most pointless sequel since Stayin' Alive--which was a better film. R (DW)

Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Cinema 99, Division Street

Heartbreakers
With outfits cut even lower than their script standards, Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt play a mother-daughter team of con artists who specialize in weaseling men out of their money. Their victims include Ray Liotta, who peddles his Goodfellas persona like a Blue Light Special, and Gene Hackman, a once-great actor whose performance here screams, "I have a mortgage to pay off." But the biggest con going in Heartbreakers is on those foolish enough to give two hours and nine bucks to this hackneyed, crude, snide, insipid, unfunny, overlong waste of celluloid. Another sad testament to the desperation that besets starring-role-hungry middle-aged actresses, Weaver was better off having aliens pop out of her stomach, which is exactly how this movie feels. PG-13 (Brian Libby)

Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Cinemas, Broadway, Movies on TV, City Center, Vancouver Plaza, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Tigard Cinemas, Hilltop, Clackamas Town Center, Century 16

The House of Mirth
Based on the turn-of-the-(last)-century novel by Edith Wharton and marking Gillian Anderson's first unhampered star turn, Terence Davies' The House of Mirth is worth seeing twice--once for the tragic, well-played (not to mention juicy) melodrama on its surface, and again to take in the film's sublime pacing, adept compositions and subtle indictments, delicately woven throughout, of the blatant classism and sexism of the time. Like the best of Merchant-Ivory, House of Mirth speaks fluently in florid, period-piece tongues--meticulous costume design and art direction, with corsets aplenty and painstakingly re-created interiors--while sinking its surprisingly sharp teeth into the ridiculous unfairness underpinning American society of yesteryear. This unsentimental, relevant film is a true class act. PG (Christopher McQuain)

KOIN Center

In the Mood for Love
Set in 1962 Hong Kong, director Wong Kar-Wai's latest film stars frequent collaborators Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung as next-door neighbors who discover that their spouses (whom we never see) are cheating with each other. Amid rumors and innuendo, the two betrayed souls find solace in each other's company. In the Mood for Love is not a story so much as a dreamy, kaleidoscopic collection of images that transmit more than the characters can ever express. It's like watching an old home movie: You know that the self-conscious and restrained way these people carry themselves only veils their true feelings. In rendering the optimism and constraint of early '60s Hong Kong, Wong once again relies on subtle moves and vivid hues in a steady flow of striking images borne in brief flashes: cigarette smoke wafting through an empty office; a good cry seen through a beveled shower door. Like a great musician, the director knows it's what's not said that matters most. And more than ever, his film stops to ponder the silence. PG (Brian Libby)

Fox Tower

The Mexican
Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts must be the most bankable combo since chocolate and peanut butter--but if their first movie together is any indication, these are not two great tastes that taste great together. Part screwball comedy, part mob parody, part action flick, The Mexican is named for a cursed ancient gun, which reluctant Mafia lackey Jerry (Pitt) has gone south of the border to retrieve. His girlfriend Samantha (Roberts) is fed up with Jerry's criminal ways, and storms off squealing psycho-babble. But when Jerry's jaunt becomes a murderous wild goose chase, a hoodlum-for-hire (The Sopranos' James Gandolfini) kidnaps Samantha to hasten his return. Ensuing plot twists are too numerous to mention, and they bring a grab bag of wildly conflicting moods. Despite some funny and even tender moments, the script ventures everywhere and achieves little--but flails around long enough to keep Pitt and Roberts apart for virtually the entire movie. When they finally unite after two long hours to kiss, make up and vanquish villains, one's appetite for this superstar movie marriage has long since gone south of the border. R (Brian Libby)

Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Cinema, Movies on TV, Vancouver Plaza, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Tigard Cinema, Hilltop, Century 16, Westgate, Broadway, Milwaukie

O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Imagine the movie executive who's pitched an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey told as a Depression-era prison escape comedy in the Deep South. Any right-minded producer would laugh at the absurd idea--unless it's from Joel and Ethan Coen. Instead of oozing condescension, a common Coen sin, O Brother is endearing. Irony can be corrosive or affectionate; the Coens have slowly learned to suppress their smugness and show a little more heart. PG-13 (Brian Libby)

Fox Tower, Tigard Cinema, Evergreen Parkway, Century 16, City Center

Pollock
Ed Harris stars and makes his feature-directing debut as famed Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock. It's hard to say which is better: Harris' performance--an Oscar-nominated turn that finds the actor at the top of his game--or his direction, which is packed with emotion and creative energy. R (DW)

Fox Tower, City Center, Lake Twin

Recess: School's Out
School's out, and cool prankster T.J. Detweiler is ditched for the summer after fourth grade when his friends go to summer camp in this expanded episode of the television cartoon series Recess. Bored, lonely and hanging out in a tree (to the tune of "One Is the Loneliest Number," of course), T.J. notices a curious green glow pulsating from the "deserted" school gym and uncovers an evil plot by a band of anti-recess thugs to put an end to summer break--the biggest recess of them all--forever! G (Seyta Selter)

Lloyd Mall, Vancouver Plaza, Westgate, Milwaukie

Say It Isn't So
Gilly Noble (Chris Klein) is a lonely dog catcher looking for the right woman. Gilly's soulmate, Jo Wingfield (Heather Graham), turns up in, of all places, a beauty salon, where she accidentally cuts off his ear. Next thing you know they are in love and in a nonstop shag-a-thon. But wait! It turns out the adopted Gilly is really Heather's long-lost brother! Produced by the Farrelly Brothers (There's Something About Mary), Say It Isn't So has so many funny moments you can count them on the thumbs on your left foot. Not since Taboo III--the sequel to the porn classic Taboo--has the topic of incest been handled so tastefully. Of course, the Farrelly Brothers would know that incest is such a funny topic--right up there with pedophilia. I'm so happy that director J.B. Rogers has decided to share his vision with the world. Maybe next time Rogers can make a comedy about infanticide. R (DW)

Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, City Center, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Washington Square, Clackamas Town Center, Century 16, Oak Grove

See Spot Run
Reasons Not to Have Children, No. 47: You never, ever want to sit by uncomfortably as the little moron cackles like a maniac because David Arquette is shrieking to the heavens, "I'm covered in ca-ca!" That's right: See Spot Run has arrived, and children everywhere, because of their susceptibility to advertising, pressure from their rotten peer group, or their own stunted sense of humor, will be begging, browbeating and otherwise forcing beleaguered parents to let them see it. Arquette plays a slovenly postal worker surrounded by characters cobbled together from other stupid film comedies: a flatulent dog who's also an FBI agent (don't ask); the dumb mobsters hunting the dog; a child so precocious and "cute" you just wanna shake him like an English nanny would; a fat black guy who breakdances and a career woman/single mother whose slutty wardrobe and bimbo-cliché persona make Ally McBeal look like Judge Judy. The film's creators are apparently counting on the laughs to come from ceaseless excrement jokes and the characters' supposed loss of dignity they never had in the first place. It is, of course, unbearable beyond words, but on the upside, you need look no further to find the lowest common denominator. PG (Christopher McQuain)

Sherwood, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Vancouver Plaza, Cinema 99, Division Street, Wilsonville, Westgate, Clackamas Town Center, Oak Grove

State and Main
Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Joseph Turner White, a successful playwright who is having his first screenplay, The Old Mill, turned into a movie. It was scheduled to be shot on location in New Hampshire, but a mishap involving star Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin)--who has a weakness for high-school girls--has forced the production to relocate to the tiny town of Waterford, Vt. The film crew descends on the Vermont hamlet, wreaking havoc and destruction. Writer-director David Mamet's characters may seem over-the-top parodies, but there is something strangely true-to-life about all of them. R (DW)

KOIN Center

Traffic
Director Steven Soderbergh is back with the most ambitious effort of his career. Based on a BBC miniseries, Traffic intersects several stories in portraying the violence, waste and hypocrisy of the North American drug trade. The director draws great performances (particularly from Benicio Del Toro and Miguel Ferrer) and then frames them with stunning precision. R (Brian Libby)

Sherwood, Westgate, Lloyd Cinema, Division Street, Century 16, Movies on TV, Tigard Cinema, KOIN Center, Hilltop, Clackamas Town Center, Milwaukie, City Center

The Wedding Planner
Jennifer Lopez plays a wedding planner who has given up on love to help orchestrate it for others. Matthew McConaughey is the handsome doctor who rescues her from a freak accident. All the right twists in fate bring goofy predicaments upon the characters, and in the end, à la musical chairs, everyone has found the right seat. PG-13 (Bronwyn Nettles)

Washington Square, Mount Hood

You Can Count on Me
Sammy (Laura Linney) and Terry (Mark Ruffalo) are an orphaned sister and brother. Sammy has grown up to single motherhood; Terry has drifted around. When he returns home, Terry's way of living comes into conflict with Sammy's world. Writer Kenneth Lonergan captures the complexity of family relationships, showing that just because things don't go as planned doesn't mean it's a bad ending--that's just the way life is. R (DW)

KOIN Center

Tape Worm
by SEYTA SELTER
sselter@wweek.com

The Snake Pit
(1948, classics)

This nuthouse drama stars a weepy Olivia de Havilland as the unstable Mrs. Virginia Cunningham. With a sudden case of extreme disorientation and memory loss mysteriously triggered by the date May 12, she's admitted to a mental ward. A sinister secret seems to be hidden in the shadows of Mrs. Cunningham's vacant eyes. The character development is interesting (if not melodramatic) as her illness is explored, but more fascinating is the skewed portrayal of the 1940s psychiatric institution. Historically inaccurate, the optimistic, almost friendly view of nuthouse life is at best humanistic propaganda; the film's emphasis on psychoanalysis and humane treatment are in direct opposition to the actual state of such places before much-later institutional reforms (although there is one disturbing shock-treatment scene). Imagine--if possible--a cross between Girl Interrupted, Memento and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. NR

Con Air
(1997, action)

This Jerry Bruckheimer-spewed action-packed joyride involves a gang of convicts hijacking an airplane (get it, con air? Ha ha!). The plot doesn't even matter. The whole fiasco is a typical and terrible cliché-ridden piece of Hollywood trash, but what makes it great is that the main actors are all aware of this fact and play the whole thing so tongue-in-cheek that it evolves into a masterpiece of deliberate overacting. The pairing of Nicolas Cage as a golden-hearted and courageous felon (his last truly funny role) and John Malkovich as vicious timebomb Cyrus the Virus is rounded out by hilariously pseudo-serious performances by John Cusack and Steve Buscemi. R

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Crow: The Salvation (March 20)--Beating a dead horse, or in this case a dead Brandon Lee, this latest sequel arrives on video sans theatrical release.

Rugrats in Paris: The Movie (March 27)--John Lithgow and Susan Sarandon go cartoon!

Winning London (March 27)--Expanding their post-Full House empire of exploitation, wonder twin troll-dolls Mary Kate and Ashley do London.