Screen Listings

CHALK: An AP course in disillusionment.

The 11th Hour

So, bad news for industrialized nations: Not only have we ravaged the planet, created a false bubble of energy resources, and contributed to possibly irreversible climate change—we have also seriously pissed off Leonardo DiCaprio. The cost of these former offenses has yet to be experienced, but if it's anything like the penalty extracted by DiCaprio in The 11th Hour, it's going to be all kinds of unpleasant. The environmental cover boy has assembled a litany of panelists (ranging from Stephen Hawking to, rather inexplicably, Mikhail Gorbachev) to explain in extremely somber tones how the human race has pretty much condemned itself to extinction if we don't clean our rooms right now. On the plus side, the Portland Streetcar makes an appearance as a positive example of sustainable technology. So we may all be dead, but the animals that reclaim the planet are going to get a very nice streetcar. PG. AARON MESH. Fox Tower.

2 Days in Paris

I walked in thinking that I liked Julie Delpy (Before Sunset was my favorite film of 2004). By the time 2 Days in Paris ended—well before then, actually—I had reassessed my opinion: She's an embarrassment. Delpy, in her directorial debut, shows the poise, aplomb and savoir-faire of a typical YouTube auteur. She's made a dumb culture-clash comedy in which a French girl and an American boy visit her parents, which is merely a ragged framework for scoring cheap and easy pseudo-political points. Delpy's palpable smugness makes her as creepy as what she complains about. R. N.P. THOMPSON. Fox Tower.

3:10 to Yuma

In filming this Western duel between Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, director James Mangold is remaking a 1957 Glenn Ford picture of the noble-gunslinger variety, while underlining the ethical choices with extra ink. As Mangold last proved in his Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, he has a deft hand with a cliché, but he doesn't like to leave any untouched. So 3:10 to Yuma may feature two men rushing to make a train, but they have a lot to talk over before they get there. Crowe plays the stagecoach robber Ben Wade as a deadly badman—but a sleek, sophisticated badman, urbane in his manners and fond of drawing birds. He glides through the role. Bale has a rougher time as Dan Evans, the rancher paid to escort Wade. He's hobbled by a stack of psychological burdens, and Bale is too edgy and meticulous an actor not to address every single emotion. But the conflicting performances balance each other out nicely; by the movie's second act, it's a showdown between labor and ease, with Wade starting to see the temptation of doing right. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Moreland, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville..

9 Drawings for Projection

William Kentridge's collection of charcoal animations tells a story of exploitation and loss. The main character is Soho Eckstein, a fictional real-estate mogul in South Africa. The caricature-capitalist Eckstein's rise and fall is cleverly depicted with charcoal: As the African landscape is marred by mining and development, traces of its previous state haunt the drawings. Anything that moves across the screen leaves its trail, suggesting not only that Africans remember the horrors of Apartheid, but the landscape does as well. But 9 Drawings is more than a trite anti-industrialist tale, as Eckstein is complicated by his humility in the defeat of himself and the system that supported him. JIM SANDBERG. NW Film Center, Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Thursday, Sept. 13.

Balls of Fury

It might be argued that Dan Fogler's performance in the sports farce Balls of Fury strikes some sort of blow for diversity, if only by dismantling the stereotype that overweight people are humorous. As the former table-tennis phenom Randy Daytona, Fogler sweats profusely, flops awkwardly and bulges out of his undersized track shorts. But he isn't funny. He's just fat. PG-13. AARON MESH. Broadway, Eastport, Cedar Hills, Cinema 99, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.

Becoming Jane

Jane Austen: The Beginning might more accurately convey the clichéd approach of writers Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams, who reduce the youthful days of the popular author to meet-cute melodrama, the sort of thing that in her novels is barely achieved or described. It's all veddy Hollywood: Austen is played by the gamine American Anne Hathaway, and she wins the heart of James McAvoy's hunky Irish boxer-lawyer with such proto-feminist antics as playing cricket with the boys. For many loyal readers, though, this Jane will still seem too damn nice. PG. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. City Center, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Tigard-Joy.

The Bourne Ultimatum

The presumed final chapter in Jason Bourne's adventures, The Bourne Ultimatum stands like a giant over the rest of the summer's "threequels." Picking up right where Supremacy left off, Matt Damon is hell-bent on tracking down the government agents who turned him into a monster, which means more globe-trotting, more fast walking, more chases and some truly gnarly fight sequences. Ultimatum is a film just as cold, calculated and exhilarating as its hero, and a helluva way to end blockbuster season. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.

The Brave One

Jodie Foster becomes an urban vigilante. It's comforting to know this can't end with somebody shooting Ronald Reagan. Look for review on WWire at wweek.com. R. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.

Broken English

Broken English begins with the face of its heroine, Nora Wilder, positioned between two glasses of wine. This is a place where Nora finds herself most of the time. But as imagined by director Zoe Cassavetes (yes, the daughter of John) and inhabited by Parker Posey, Nora self-medicates the way real people do: She feels intoxicated because it's better than feeling something worse. She's sipping her way through another party when in bounds Julien (Melvil Poupaud)—lanky, French and possessed with the remarkable ability to make a straw hat look sexy. It's not terribly difficult to imagine where Broken English goes from there, but it's not so easy to predict where Posey goes with her character. She doesn't blossom, coo or unwind. She cracks. And the fissures expose dimensions of acting that Posey has never shown before. R. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.

The Brothers Solomon

I blame Judd Apatow for the existence of The Brothers Solomon, perhaps the shittiest comedy I've seen in years. Apatow has nothing to do with any aspect of this monumentally unfunny film. The man who brought us Knocked Up and Superbad wouldn't touch this stinker—about semi-retarded brothers trying to have a baby—with a 10-foot pole. But get ready for a lot more movies like Solomon: Cinematic parasites suckling at the teat of Apatow's knack for making hilarious gross-out movies with heart. The biggest casualty of Solomon (aside from your wallet) is Will Arnett. Here the brilliant comedian who aptly played Gob on Arrested Development proves he can't make a transition into film with another dreadful movie. Will Forte, who is occasionally funny on Saturday Night Live, screws the pooch doubly as both star and writer of this mess. Hell, nobody's successful here. Certainly not audiences, who will endure the longest 90 minutes in movie history. R. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Lloyd Mall.

Chalk

Halfway through this look into the harried lives of Texas high-school teachers, I was convinced it was too good to be true: The educators were a bit too oblivious to the camera, the ironies were a touch too neat, and how exactly did director Mike Akel get permission to film these unruly students? It looked like another manipulative documentary, and not the first one from producer Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame). But the joke was on me: Chalk is a drama, and by far the most convincing faux-doc I've ever seen. So I tip my hat to a superbly inconspicuous cast: Troy Schremmer is painfully abject as a first-year history teacher, and his wife, Janelle Schremmer, steals the screen as an aggressive, lovelorn gym coach. (It's a good week at the movies for P.E. teachers; see also Billy Bob Thornton as Mr. Woodcock.) Once you catch onto the film's trick (which I guess you just did; sorry), it's infinitely more impressive and slightly less entertaining: The stories lack dramatic resolution, which make them more "authentic," I suppose, but less satisfying. Chalk isn't too true to be good, but it's too loose to be great. PG-13. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre.

The Clouds Are More Beautiful From Above

[FOUR NIGHTS ONLY] Guido van der Werve's abstract, actor-free films are described as "a cross between the work of Bas Jan Ader and the cult classic Harold and Maude." But, you know, without actors. Living Room Theaters. 9 am to 2 pm Wednesday-Sunday, Sept. 12-16.

Dance Party, USA

[TWO NIGHTS ONLY, REVIVAL] Is that the ghost of Gus Van Sant hovering over the beer-soaked table? Yep. It may or may not be a coincidence that Portland-based director Aaron Katz's protagonist is named Gus, but none of the characters would exist without Van Sant and the cinema of languid angst he's been fashioning for the past five years. But Katz offers something that Van Sant has been unwilling to surrender—a story. And it's a good story, about how young Gus (Cole Pennsinger), a vulgar hotshot bragging about his bedroom exploits, gradually admits to being human. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre. 9:15 pm Friday-Saturday, Sept. 14-15.

Death at a Funeral

In search of the elusive "black comedy," Frank Oz has returned to his native Britain but come up with a screenwriter who by all appearances is a rusty computer running John Cusack 95 (the hairstylist seems happy to oblige). It's a gray comedy consisting of exactly five jokes, as stale as day-old crumpets, repeated ad nauseam. R. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. Fox Tower, City Center, Lake Twin.

Death Sentence

Leave it to James Wan, creator of the Saw series, to turn Brian Garfield's second Death Wish book into a stomach-turning cross between Taxi Driver and a family comedy. After Kevin Bacon's son is randomly butchered (no, really: His throat is slit by a machete) in a gang-initiation rite, the star and the movie both try to decide whether they'll abandon all dignity and unleash the shotgun blasts. They both reach the same decision. Guess which one. R. AARON MESH. Movies on TV.

Delirious

In the opening shot, Michael Pitt, as the homeless Toby, wakes up in a yellow, elongated Dumpster, the color of which matches his straw-like hair. He's been sleeping on top of trash—an ideal emblem for this pitch-perfect satire of losers drowning in the debris of their illusions. After a montage of Toby scavenging in the big city (writer-director Tom DiCillo's camera captures the fear and wonder in Pitt's large blue eyes, the sensitivity mixed with a hustler's survival techniques), he soon falls in with paparazzi photographer Les (Steve Buscemi). This movie tells the truth about a certain breed of freelancer. A media wank who whores for swag, Les cloaks his infantile sleaziness in art: "I got the laser eye...sometimes I see too much." Toby has a happy-to-be-alive glow when Les snaps up head shots of the photogenic scamp; it may be Pitt's best performance to date. As Les' unpaid assistant, Toby accidentally gains entry to the world of celebrity. DiCillo, a master of radically opposing tones, empathizes with Toby's stumble into a kind of heaven—with how much it means to the lad—so that we, too, sense that "into the picture" feeling of being inside after so long outside. Just as knowingly, DiCillo skewers self-important publicists and pop starlets in spot-on send-ups that carry a nasty little zing of authenticity. Not since Ellie Parker has behind-the-scenes bitchiness been this deliciously surveyed. N.P. THOMPSON. Cinema 21. Friday-Thursday, Sept. 14-20.

Descent

Rosario Dawson, plus date rape. Just slip me a roofie now. Not screened for critics. NC-17. Fox Tower.

Dragon Wars: D-War

Yep. It's dragons, warring. Remarkably, not screened for critics. PG-13. Broadway, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.

The Draughtsman's Contract

[REVIVAL] A retrospective of provocative Welshman Peter Greenaway begins with this 1982 puzzler about an artist who requires "intimate hospitality" in exchange for his services. R. Living Room Theaters.

Hairspray

John Waters' indomitable PG cult flick has been made over: First into a pastel-pink Tony-winning Broadway musical in 2002, and now a Hollywood-style song-and-dance buffet packed with more stars than an L.A. plastic surgeon's waiting room. As a remake, Hairspray is a dirty shame. But as a musical, it's a surprisingly good time. PG. KELLY CLARKE. 99 Indoor Twin, Cedar Hills, City Center, Cornelius, Lake Twin, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV.

Halloween

As he did in The Devil's Rejects, rocker-turned-director Rob Zombie seeks to evoke sympathy for a stone-cold killer in Halloween. The ninth film in the series—a partial remake of John Carpenter's original masterpiece—chronicles iconic boogeyman Michael Myers' descent into madness as a child. Zombie goes all psychoanalytical on Michael's ass, dissecting the 9-year-old's reasons for slaughtering his family, and in the aftermath we watch him go through the mental health system. Zombie does little to the story except add a lot more "fucks" to the script, a lot more fucking on camera and an increased amount of violence, gore and nudity. As a new entry, he succeeds in creating a background for an iconic killer. Trouble is, old-school Michael's lack of motivation for killing added to the terror. Zombie presents him as a scared little kid with mommy issues. R. AP KRYZA. Eastport, Cinema 99, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sandy, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

From pipsqueak to full-blown hero, Harry Potter's cinematic self has seen young actor Daniel Radcliffe mature from cute kid to Tiger Beat hunk, and Radcliffe's skills have improved with his character's magical abilities. Here, Harry faces multiple challenges, not the least of which is the funny feeling in his pants when he locks eyes with Cho Chang (Katie Leung). PG-13. AP KRYZA. City Center, Evergreen, Forest, Lloyd Center.

The Hottest State

Mark Webber gives a knockout portrayal of a man in love and lust as William, a honey-toned, ostentatiously seedy young actor who establishes his Texas roots by parading around lower Manhattan in Western gear. Smitten with Sarah (Catalina Sandino Moreno), whom he romances at a bar with Star Trek jokes, William is a cherubic bundle of carnal energy; he gazes into his mirror, reciting lines from Tennessee Williams' Camino Real. In Ethan Hawke's adaptation of his own 1996 novel, it's William who's more of a sexualized object than Sarah. Strutting shirtless across the screen, his caramel-colored chest hair in an upswept frenzy, Webber resembles wild game, or a teddy bear gone feral. When the radiant Moreno wears a silver silk veil over her dark mane, she could be Cleopatra. The movie proceeds in sultry, unhurried rhythms: There's nothing prefab in Hawke's directorial approach or in his off-kilter wit. It's also worth seeing for Christopher Norr's wide-angle cinematography, which creates such a vivid sense of place that the New York and Mexico locations become characters in themselves. Composer Jesse Harris's hypnotically beautiful score, which opens with Willie Nelson singing the jazzy ballad "Always Seem to Get Things Wrong," likewise entwines into the fabric of Hawke's spare storytelling. For all the sharp dialogue, one of the most searing exchanges occurs between two half-brothers staring at each other on opposite sides of a screen door, standing wordlessly yet speaking volumes. R. N.P. THOMPSON. Fox Tower.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

Rest easy, gay people. That movie where Adam Sandler and Kevin James get married is not just some tasteless exercise in homophobia. Far from it. It's also an exercise in xenophobia, misogyny and relentless contempt for people with a functioning sense of humor. PG-13. AARON MESH. Eastport, Vancouver Plaza.

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

[THREE NIGHTS ONLY] This documentary study of Jack Smith—the godfather of performance art and an early influence on Andy Warhol and John Waters—is dynamic, colorful and weird. Mary Jordan, who also served as writer and producer, directs this exquisite exposé by balancing narrative and inquiry. In erotic overtones and exotic textures, this film recounts the controversial filmmaking that Smith undertook, which was more wildly provocative and groundbreaking than any John Waters film or Sissyboy performance. WAYNE BUND. NW Film Center, Whitsell Auditorium. 7 and 9 pm Friday, Sept. 14. 7:15 and 9:15 pm Saturday, Sept. 15. 7 pm Sunday, Sept. 16.

Kamp Katrina

[ONE WEEK ONLY] Ashley Sabin and David Redmon's documentary follows a New Orleans couple as they convert the backyard of their relatively unscathed Upper 9th Ward home into an improvised tent city in the earliest days following Hurricane Katrina. The so-called "Kamp Katrina" becomes home to an eclectic, ragtag cast of the Big Easy's most downtrodden displaced white people, including a prophetic man who believes he's dating Joan of Arc and a scruffy woman who randomly eats her own prosthetic eyeball. The backyard camp out begins with a sense of camaraderie, hope and promise: A safe refuge in a desperate city going partially mad. But Zion crumbles faster than you can say "FEMA blows," and a depressing spiral of alcoholism, drugs, theft and spousal abuse effectively tears the kampers apart. Part bizarro step-child of reality television, part pop-sociological study, "Kamp Katrina" is no masterpiece, like Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke—but it's still a powerful story that shows altruism in post-Katrina New Orleans was and is far more complicated than just lending a helping hand. LANCE KRAMER. Clinton Street Theater. Friday-Thursday, Sept. 14-20.

The King of Kong

Seth Gordon's riotously funny documentary follows Steve Wiebe, a milquetoast science teacher from Washington and a prodigy of Donkey Kong. When Wiebe videotapes his finest performance—the highest score ever—and submits it to record-keepers, in comes the Donkey Kong Devil. It's former record-holder Billy Mitchell, who sets the wheels turning against Wiebe. Sporting a goofy beard-ponytail and an American-flag necktie, Mitchell looks like Chuck Norris' wussy brother. And, like Mighty Chuck, Mitchell can smell fear. It's all a blast, and a true David-and-Goliath story. Only this time, Goliath is a sociopathic grownup version of the geekiest kid in high school, and the results are far funnier. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Fox Tower.

Labyrinth

[REVIVAL] In 1986, riding high on 10 years of Muppet production, Jim Henson had an acid flashback. And oh, what an acid dream Labyrinth is. Henson's celebration of monsters and talking door-knockers finds jailbait Jennifer Connelly whisked to the Goblin Kingdom to rescue her baby brother. She must navigate a living labyrinth to confront the Goblin King, encountering all manner of friend and foe. But the strangest thing on a screen full of Muppets is human Muppet David Bowie, whose androgynous Goblin King Jareth prances across the screen, aided by an army of monsters and extremely tight pants, making his the most prominently featured cock-and-balls in a children's movie. PG. AP KRYZA. Hollywood Theatre.

Lights in the Dusk

Nobody loves you when you're down and out in Helsinki. That's the example set by Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen), the graveyard-shift security guard who shuffles through Lights in the Dusk. Koistinen wanders through a cityscape that looks like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks drawn with a box of Crayolas. He lives, in other words, in an Aki Kaurismäki movie. This is the third film in what the Finnish director has dubbed his "Loser Trilogy," and Koistinen may be Kaurismäki's biggest loser yet—quite a feat, considering the hero of 2002's The Man Without a Past suffered from amnesia and lived in a Dumpster. Koistinen's descent eventually leads him to prison, and after he serves his time, someone asks what it was like. "You couldn't get out," he says. The line is a deadpan joke, of course, but Kaurismäki lets it ferment, until it begins to sound like the epitaph on Koistinen's life. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.

The Lives of Others

Gerd Wiesler (the late Ulrich Muhe) is ordered to spy on a theatrical couple, and the once-robotic Stasi operative is tested beyond imagining. R. BECKY OHLSEN. Living Room Theaters.

Mr. Bean's Holiday

Where the original Rowan Atkinson movie put a plastic bag over its own head, Mr. Bean's Holiday is surprisingly good. At its core, it's a simple, standard road movie—after Bean wins a trip to the Cannes Film Festival at a church raffle, Holiday follows the super-flexible, tweed-wearing goofball's roundabout journey from dreary London to the glitzy French Riviera. PG. LANCE KRAMER. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville.

Mr. Woodcock

Expectations should always be kept low for a movie with a dick joke in its title, but this one is nearly agreeable. That's entirely thanks to Billy Bob Thornton as the titular gym teacher, a sadistic old coot who torments young John Farley and then decides to marry the boy's mother (Susan Sarandon) once he's grown up (Seann William Scott). None of this sounds the slightest bit promising, but there's a perverse pleasure in watching Thornton tighten his caustic persona down to an angry fist: His Woodcock contains no emotion except disdain. Scott, meanwhile, borrows John Krasinski's haircut and about one-tenth of his charm. Director Craig Gillespie's initial product was supposedly retooled by David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) and the movie's tone veers from the broadly farcical to something more grim; whoever was responsible for a late, wicked gag with a hospital gurney deserves grudging respect. PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard.

The Nanny Diaries

Scarlet Johansson's au pair story could have been a decent film, had it stuck to the bare-boned, shrewd voice that only makes a dozen or so short-lived appearances. It has a perceptive underlying plot—a nanny's case study of the elite lives of mothers living on the frothy Upper East Side who neither work nor rear their children, and the servants who consequently raise their prep-school tots amid pastel Nantucket summers and required bedtime readings from The Wall Street Journal. The problem with Diaries is that, like Johansson's character Annie, the movie is stuck between accepting reality and remaining innocent and dreamy. PG-13. ELIANNA BAR-EL. Broadway, Cedar Hills, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Sherwood.

No End in Sight

Charles Ferguson's documentary lays out the history of blinkered ideologues plummeting into a desert nightmare. Sober and measured, the movie plays as a prosecutorial brief against the Bush administration—and the first cinematic document of the Iraq occupation worth the time it takes to watch. Ferguson does not waste film with hysterical nattering about blood and oil. Instead, he charts the precise coordinates of each misstep. AARON MESH. Fox Tower.

Once

A winsome romance about a street musician trying to finish a demo tape, Once has the same ratio of irritation and appeal as a first album by any lachrymose singer-songwriter: You can condemn it for being histrionic and self-pitying, but you'll have to do so with a lump in your throat. R. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre, Fox Tower.

Paprika

The latest anime contribution from Satoshi Kon (Tokyo Godfathers) concerns a dream-sharing headset called the DC Mini, which looks like an iPod gone very, very sinister, and is mostly a pretext for a movie about dreams within movies within dreams. It's all rather disturbing, yet it's hard to resist joining the mad party. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.

Ratatouille

Brad Bird's story of a foodie rat's rise in Paris' culinary world is not just the best animated film this year, it's the best animated film to come out of the U.S. since Bird's last effort, The Incredibles. The story of a rat named Remy (Patton Oswalt) who finds himself secretly spicing up bland food in a Paris eatery is aimed at kids, but it's loaded with so much madcap humor that adults won't be able to resist. G. AP KRYZA. 99 Indoor Twin, Cedar Hills, Forest, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza.

Rocket Science

The second movie from director Jeffrey Blitz (his first, the documentary Spellbound, was an intricate examination of the National Spelling Bee), Rocket Science shows the same familiarity with the rituals of adolescent competition, from memorization drills to makeshift podiums. It is a measure of the movie's earnest tone that the hero's goal is to join the school debate team, and that this aspiration is never treated as a joke. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower.

Rush Hour 3

The nadir of director Brett Ratner's opus comes after Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan have an argument: The strains of Elton John's "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" waft onto the soundtrack as Tucker purchases mu shu pork and Chan orders fried chicken. It's a sad, sad situation. And it's getting more and more absurd. PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Sandy, Vancouver Plaza.

Shoot 'Em Up

Director Michael Davis has designed his blood sport to play as a live-action, hyper-violent cartoon—Chuck Jones with an arsenal—which means that Clive Owen has been cast as Bugs Bunny. The movie does not lack for such echoes. Nine months after midwifing the rebirth of humanity in Children of Men, Owen begins Shoot 'Em Up by delivering another baby in tricky circumstances—this time trading bullets with murderous ruffians led by Paul Giamatti. Minutes after cutting the umbilical cord with a well-aimed shot, Owen is back in the world of good-hearted whores and amoral alleyways he last prowled in Sin City, proving his worth by killing a whole lot of people. The movie exists for its action scenes, which are stylized, ridiculous and memorable. In fact, the movie would be a frivolous, kinky classic but for one insurmountable problem: It moves too fast for its own good. To describe Shoot 'Em Up in its own terms (Davis has a real weakness for guns-as-penises jokes), the movie is one continuous premature ejaculation. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard.

ShowBusiness

This formulaic documentary puts a new spin on the recent spate of "several teams in a competition" documentaries. This time, the competitors are the creative teams behind the four most anticipated Broadway musicals of the 2003 theater season, and they're all after the Tony Award for Best Musical. The parts they're meant to play are clear from the start: Wicked is the big-money safe bet, Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change is the high-art underdog, Avenue Q is the little show that could, and Boy George's Rosie O'Donnell-backed vanity production, Taboo, is the bad guy. Nicely directed and edited, if heavily derivative of other works in the genre. BEN WATERHOUSE. Living Room Theaters.

Simple Actions & Aberrant Behaviors

The short-film program curated by Pablo de Ocampo spotlights self-flagellation and a dude talking to a flower. Also there's a Madonna song. TBA: Bring the kids! NW Film Center, Whitsell Auditorium. 4 pm Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 15-16.

The Simpsons Movie

Nationwide Groening veneration makes it harder to see The Simpsons Movie for what it is: a mediocre film based on an obsolete television show. Actually, the movie is very funny, if only in sporadic bursts. PG-13. AARON MESH. Movies on TV, Tigard.

Stardust

Describing Claire Danes as a movie star has, until now, been something of a stretch. But in this clamorous adaptation of a Neil Gaiman fantasy novel, Danes plays, well...a star, a luminous orb that is lassoed to earth complete with a creamy dress and blond locks. This doesn't make any sense, but it's in keeping with the generally preposterous tone of Stardust. PG-13. AARON MESH. 99 West Drive-In, Broadway, Cedar Hills, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Sandy.

SNDAY MRNING XPREZ: International Vibrations

[ONE DAY ONLY] Cartune Xprez presents shorts from animators including Ola Vaseljeva and Takashi Murata. All your favorites, basically. Living Room Theaters. 11 am Sunday, Sept. 16.

Steal a Pencil for Me

[TWO DAYS ONLY] Michèle Ohayon directs an entry in that most dubious of genres: The uplifting Holocaust documentary. But this one comes with a twist. "I'm a very special Holocaust survivor," says Jack Polak as the movie opens. "I was in the camps with my wife and my girlfriend." He grins. "And believe me, it wasn't easy." The entanglements recalled here—a loveless marriage and an illicit romance lasting from Amsterdam to Bergen-Belsen—add a human untidiness to often rote and placating filmmaking from Ohayon. Steal a Pencil isn't exactly Primo Levi; it's designed less as a meditation on the 20th century's great cataclysm and more as an epistolary love story. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre. Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 15-16.

Sunshine

Danny Boyle's grim space thriller follows a crew of astronauts trying to reignite our dying sun with a bomb in the year 2057. Handily enough, this will save the human race from extinction. R. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. Fox Tower, Cornelius.

Superbad

Seth Rogen has co-written an entire movie about two high-school seniors trying to buy alcohol in the firm hope that underage drinking will lead directly to underage sex. It ranks among the funniest movies ever made. Rogen and producer Judd Apatow are not just superbad themselves; they are the cause of superbadness in others. Their beneficiaries include director Greg Mottola and the actors Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, playing the unpopular guys who seek booze and babes at least in part to distract themselves from the fear of losing their friendship after graduation. R. AARON MESH. 99 West Drive-In, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinemagic, Cinema 99, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.

This is England

Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), the Yorkshire 12-year-old who makes dangerous new friends in Shane Meadows' movie, has a blunt, perplexed face; he looks like he might grow up to be Ricky Gervais. But other people want Shaun to become like them: The affable skinhead Woody (Joe Gilgun) takes him under his wing, and then Combo (Stephen Graham, best known as the hapless Tommy in Snatch) emerges from prison and offers himself as a less benign father figure.AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.

Transformers

It doesn't matter that the Autobots and the Decepticons look like they were designed by Frank Gehry. It doesn't matter that the relationship between Shia LaBeouf and Bumblebee borrows liberally from the plot of E.T. None of it matters. PG-13. AARON MESH. Division, Movies on TV, Wilsonville.

War

What is it good for? Well, it's good for the paychecks of Jet Li and Jason Statham. Not screened for critics. R. Eastport.

A Zed & Two Noughts

[REVIVAL] Peter Greenaway's 1985 film contains amputation, cannibalism and a car accident caused by a rare swan. It's complicated. R. Living Room Theaters.