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film The Darjeeling Limited With all due respect to the disarming whimsy of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, this railroad romp is Wes Anderson’s most rewarding and heartfelt effort since Rushmore. The pacing is pokey at times, and some of the eccentricity feels forced. But Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman have terrific chem istry as a bedraggled trio of brothers who rehash their dysfunctional family history while traveling across India by train. The set designs are charming, and Anderson veterans Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston have amusing cameos. Opens Oct. 12. B + —Stephen Blair Dedication Henry Roth (Billy Crudup) is a children’s book author whose best-selling character, Marty the Beaver, was inspired by a visit to a porno theater. He’s a chronically single, OCD mess of a manchild who spends his free time watching Japanese monster movies and pushing away anyone who gets too close to him. But when his best friend and surrogate father figure (Tom Wilkinson) dies of a brain tumor, Roth is forced to overcome his social phobias to join forces (and, ultimately, torsos) with a beautiful and empathic young illustrator (played with surprising appeal by Mandy Moore). Poor puffy-faced Dianne Wiest fares worse as Moore’s hysterical mother. B- —Tony Le Tigre Eastern Promises Two years after their triumphant collaboration on A History of Violence, maverick director David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen have teamed up to concoct one of the most accomplished and bru tal mob movies in recent memory. The entire cast is impeccable, with Naomi Watts as a Lindon mid wife who unwittingly entangles herself in a Russian crime syndicate. Mortensen hits a career high as the menacing yet sympathetic Nikolai, showing jaw-dropping dedication to his craft by extinguish ing cigarettes on his tongue and fighting a bloody brawl in the buff. Steven Knight, an Oscar nomi nee for Dirty Pretty Things, wrote the intricate screenplay. A —SB The Game Plan Andy Fickman (She’s the Man) directs charming Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as NFL quarterhack Joe Kingman, who has the perfect game plan to win the championship till he runs into a little problem: his 7-year-old daughter from a previous relation ship (wonderfully played by Madison Pettis). His perfect bachelor life will now undergo a lot of changes. This funny and witty Disney film offers classic, clean-cut family entertainment. B + —Yvonne P. Behrens H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Chances are you are familiar with H.P. Lovecraft’s works, a combination of fantasy, horror and science fiction from the early 1900s. Writing in a time of immense scientif ic discoveries, Lovecraft spun tales of cosmic horrors, tentacled uncaring gods, aggressive alien forms and species from under the sea. The H.P. Lovecraft Festival, now in its 12th year, showcases the far-reaching influence of his writing through cinematic interpretations and scholarly contemplation. After watching Sean Penn directs Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild, an films such as John Carpenter’s classic The Thing to the recent Cthulhu (a gay spin on that touches on culture clashes, forensic revela Lovecraft’s short story “The Shadow Over Inns- tions, kidnapping, religious doctrine and the self mouth”), you’ll be one step closer to understand perpetuation of hate. FBI Special Agent Ronald ing all the talk of Outer versus Elder gods, the Fleury (Jamie Foxx) quickly assembles art elite Great Old Ones and colors from outer space. team (Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason There’s even a Mall of Cthulhu where you can Bateman) to fly to the Middle East and find who purchase your very own cuddly Azathoth. Once was behind that attack. A well-executed action you’re ready to join the cult, be sure you’re able to film with a political twist. B chant Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl —YPB fhtagn— just don’t drink the green Kool-Aid. The H.P. Lovecraft Festival runs through Safe Oct. 7 at Hollywood Theatre. For more informa It might seem paradoxical that the finest film tion visit www.hplfilmfestival.com. in queer cinema-maestro Todd Haynes’ impressive —Anahel Ramirez oeuvre is one that scarcely mentions queers at all. But it is difficult to imagine Safe coming from the Into the Wild imagination of anyone who had not had Haynes’ • Sean Penn finally hits his stride as a director with experiences as a queer activist during some fairly this thoroughly engrossing biopic about a recent col dark times for the cause. (Before moving to lege graduate (Emile Hirsch, delivering a remarkable Portland, he was involved in ACT UP at the performance reminiscent of River Phoenix) who height of the oppressive Reagan years, the time sells all of his possessions and drops out of society to during which Safe is set.) roam across the continent, meeting a string of rich The film recounts the mysterious misfortune of ly drawn characters along the way. On the surface it Carol White (frequent Haynes collaborator would seem that the outspoken liberal filmmaker has Julianne Mtxtre, in her first leading role), an upper steered clear of politics here, but in reality his middle-class housewife living in a vast McMansion protagonist’s inner/outer journey makes a radically outside Los Angeles. Carol unquestioningly, even anti-American statement: Put simply, the best things numbly, adheres to a typical routine for one of her in life are not things. A + role and class—picking up dry cleaning, serving —Jim Radosta dinner to her ad-exec husband and stepchild, going to aerobics class, obsessing over interior decoration, The Kingdom etc., all of which we see in remarkably restrained, Inspired by a 2003 compound bombing in beautifully composed, almost real-time sequences Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, director Peter Berg (Friday at the film’s beginning—until she gradually but Night Lights) transforms that incident into a story inexorably begins to fall ill. Discover Paradise! State-of-the-art VIDEO ARCADE 100 channels of all new releases New DVDs starting at $4.99 72-hour rentals Toys, novelties, magazines and more excellent adventure partially filmed in Oregon. As her apparently undiagnosable malady worsens, and the best health care that her plenti ful resources can afford fail to assist her, she comes across a flier for a New-Agey rural retreat for the “environmentally ill." An impending state of irresoluble crisis in her health compels her to set off for an indefinite stay at this retreat, where the residents are subtly coaxed into a kind of magical thinking that makes them culpable in their illnesses. Haynes’ brilliant concept is matched by his clearly preternatural understanding of the medium. Every visual and aural aspect of the film, along with Moore’s superlatively intelligent perform ance, perfectly evokes for the viewer the blank serenity of Carol White’s life: This is a woman with only the most tenuous, vague sense of who she is. Her illness is never explained, because it is not really the film’s point; rather, Safe is about the problem of identity (a recurring theme in Haynes’ work) and the ways in which something physiolog ical like an illness might come to be understood and incorporated as part of one’s identity, and even be made to seem like a moral issue. Safe movingly revivifies the meaning of the activist slogan “silence=death” (which could be simply but correctly stated as the film’s thesis) by illustrating it in a most unlikely yet powerful way—a way that, subversively, implicates the most apparently immune, “normal” part of society. Screens 7 p.m. Oct. 6 as part of the Northwest Film Center’s Eco-Sicko series. Schedule permitting, Haynes will introduce the film. A + —Christopher McQuam © Artists Auditions II Finalists Christian Rex van Minnen, CO October 2 31, 2007 OperiiiMi !(.'<• I ot.'vur Paradise Video Friday, October 5th, 4 p m Upscale Adult Video Store 503.255.9414 ““ BRIAN MARKI FINE ART 8 FRAMING www brianmarki com
