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'The Movie Hero.' Frame Jobs A selective guide to the ups and downs, ins and outs, of the first week of this year's Cinequest NOTE: The films marked with an asterisk are especially recommended. Also note that most films play more than one day. The capsule description appears under the first screening date. Check next week's Cinequest for a run-down of the second weekend's screenings and special events. During its 13 years of existence, Cinequest has walked a very fine line. It's brought some of the best minds in the movies to this valley: a balance of figures like John Waters, Russ Meyer and Paul Bartel, with beloved popular entertainers like Elmer Bernstein, Robert Wise and Jackie Chan. This year's guests are just as impressive. There's no such thing as the typical Santa Clara Valley person (let the outside world stereotype us as they will), so Cinequest has survived an amazing 13 years probably because it is a sum of diverse parts. More than a festival, it's a nexus of little festivals, including sections on Emerging Mavericks, Documentary Competition, DXD (Digital by Digital) and Global Landscapes, with series specializing in Latino and Pacific Rim works. Does that mean everything at Cinequest is going to be a cut above? Have a look at the below for tips and remember: Every child, no matter how homely, is some mother's precious darling. And every film represents someone's pain, hard work and sleepless nights, no matter what it looks like on the screen. And there's no film so hated that somebody doesn't love it. And ignoramuses hissed La Sacre du Printemps and Carmen when they debuted, too. Of course, they also hissed Princess Daisy, and deservedly so. Richard von Busack Vital Info C1 is Camera One, 366 S. First St., San Jose C3 is Camera 3, South Second Street and San Carlos, San Jose C7 is Camera 7, Pruneyard Shopping Center, 1875 S. Bascom Ave., Campbell REP is the San José Repertory Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose. This is a stage theater that has been wired up for digital film programs. Tickets are $9 for most screenings ($7 for students with valid IDs and seniors), with special events and tributes running $10 to $60. For details, call the festival at 408.295.FEST or check the website at cinequest.org. Full Disclosure: Metro is a sponsor of Cinequest. Critical Mass: Richard von Busack (RvB) Michael S. Gant (MSG) Traci Vogel (TV) Loren Stein (LS) Allie Gottlieb (AG) Gary Singh (GS) Corinne Asturias (CA) Todd Inoue (TI) Jim Aquino (JA) Feb. 27--Opening Night | Feb. 28 | March 1 | March 2 | March 3 | March 4 | March 5 | Quickies | Lively Artists Feb. 27-- Opening Night The Movie Hero 8pm, C3; 8:30pm, C1. Brad T. Gottfred's film satirizes the art of directing as a perhaps delusional act, justified by the prayerful hope that there's an audience out there for every movie made. Blake (Jeremy Sisto of TV's Six Feet Under) lives in Hollywood and has just lost his girlfriend because of his one true love: cinema. Blake believes that an invisible camera is following him, that his "audience" is begging to be entertained. Maybe moviemaking is valid as a metaphor; we all struggle with our dreams. But what's striking is that Blake's frame of reference is limited to the Blockbuster fare: Indiana Jones, James Bond, the Godfather movies. Despite all the reflected glitter of Hollywood, there's no critique of the way Hollywood films shape our expectations. (A gala party follows at Blake's Steakhouse, for $50.) (RvB) Feb. 28 *Every Day God Kisses Us on the Mouth 5:15pm, C7. Kind of a cross between I Stand Alone and The Painted Bird. Dan Condurache plays Dumitru, a bottled-up ex-prisoner who's been in jail since before the fall of the Communists in Romania. On the way home from jail, he wins a Gypsy woman in a card game and rapes her. The woman puts a death curse on him. "Everyone dies," Dumitru says. "There's death, and then there's death," says the Gypsy, spitting on him. When Dumitru and his pet goose get home, the ex-con finds his wife's been raped and impregnated by his fat, hearty brother. Caught between codes--between family loyalty and the importance of protecting his wife's honor--Dumitru goes haywire. He becomes an itinerant butcher and tattoo artist, wandering the blighted countryside. Condurache makes this cursed brute as compelling as the haunted hooligans in film noir. Director Sinsha Dragon's stark, evil but authentically tough narrative shows that no Romanian has to work hard to come up with convincing horror stories. (Also shows March 1, 9:30pm, C7; March 3, 9pm, C1; March 8, 9:30pm, C7.) (RvB) Anarchist Cookbook 7pm, C7. You loved the book, now see the movie! Actually, despite the title, this is a tale of a goof named Puck (Devon Gummersall of My So Called Life). Puck considers himself and his drinking buddies quite a cadre of anarchists. Then one day, a more serious troublemaker--Johnny Black (Dylan Bruno)--upsets the easygoing party pad, urging everyone into the kind of explosive disobedience that no one could call civil. Essentially, the movie is what would result if Hollywood filmed Cometbus magazine with French Stewart as Aaron. Jordan Susman's film works at treating its subject both seriously and comically. But this debut reiterates its jokes; the extremely strange milieu of Dallas is glossed over; and no one ever suspects Johnny of being the agent provocateur he totally acts like. When a Republican girl (Katharine Towne, daughter of Robert) seduces the malleable Puck, the joke is that anarchists and Bush voters both have the same politics because they both hate the government. Ultimately, this film is every bit as politically sophisticated as Dharma & Greg. (As for the infamous cookbook itself, it's treated with terrified dread, as if it were the Necronomicon.) (Also shows March 3, 9:45pm, C7; March 5, 7:30pm, C7; March 9, 4:15pm, C3.) (RvB) *Black Tape: A Tehran Diary 7:30pm, C1. Fariborz Kamkari's extraordinary Iranian feature purports to consist of raw videotape footage discovered in a garbage can. We begin with the casual banter at a birthday party for a petulant young woman named Goli (Shilan Rahmani). She is a Kurdish refugee married to a much older Iranian Army officer (Parviz Moasese). The scenes, taken with a camcorder the husband has bought as a birthday present, unfold from the point of view of whoever's holding the camera, usually Goli. Haltingly, she collects "evidence" against her husband: he kidnapped and sexually assaulted her when she was 9; he is threatening to deport (or worse) her family members who live in a nearby camp. When Goli learns that she is pregnant, she seeks a terrible vengeance. The film's sense of ratcheting terror and escalating emotional fury is augmented by the home-video direction--full of truncated scenes, variable lighting and wild, unstable angles. Most terrifying of all are the final scenes shot by Goli's young sister through the obscuring folds of her head scarf as Goli stumbles through the rubble of the camp seeking an abortionist. The narrow sliver of sky perfectly symbolizes Goli's diminishing chances for escape in a harsh world. (Also shows March 3, 4: 45pm, C1; March 6, 8:45pm, C3; March 7, 5pm, C1.) (MSG) Expecting 7:30pm, C7. A comedy of errors--and eros--surrounds Steph (Valerie Buhagiar), a pregnant free spirit who wants a home birth with her nearest and dearest in attendance. Steph's control-freak older sister, Anita (Debra McGrath), drinks too much; a ditzy blonde (Barbara Radecki) flirts with Anita's husband; a shy friend with a crush on Steph (a nicely modulated performance by Colin Mochrie of Whose Line Is It Anyway?) tries to capture the chaos on videotape; the midwife has to split; and everyone tries to guess who the father is. Some funny moments--especially the do-it-yourself project that is the "birthing tank"--stand out from the babble of improvised dialogue, a la Henry Jaglom's ensemble films. Sometimes, though, Expecting is too much like labor: bursts of heavy breathing followed by interludes of marking time. (Also shows March 1, 5pm, C7; March 2, 9:30pm, C7.) (MSG) Want 8:30pm, C3. Want revisits a jungle most of us would rather forget: Silicon Valley, 1999. It's easy to make fun of the excesses of that era, even without trying. What's the brilliant idea that main character Trey (Barry Levine) has for a dotcom business? Order your milk and cookies online, and they'll be delivered to you piping hot minutes later. Trey's desire for a successful startup is made more urgent by his hatred of his crappy debugging job and by his insatiable online sex addiction. Director Michael Wohl and cinematographer Robin McLeon have filmed the story in a seasick palette, and the shots of Trey masturbating in front of his computer screen alternate with scenes of his father living on the streets. Cleverly edited, but extremely depressing, Want promises to be the movie that serves as a warning to venture capitalists of the amnesiac future. (Also shows March 2, noon, C3.) (TV) *Hold My Heart 9:15pm, C7. The taut and engrossing story of a man's desperate attempt to reconnect with his daughter, the Norwegian import Hold My Heart follows ex-husband Harald Gran (Jørgen Langhell) as he gives in to his worst impulses and kidnaps his precociously bright and beautiful 7-year-old daughter after she fails to show up for his mother's funeral. On the losing end of a highly charged and bitter divorce, Gran is only allowed to see daughter Lisa (Vera Rudi) once a month under supervision. Lisa, who barely knows her father, fights him furiously until they reach their own kind of rapprochement. The film deftly and sensitively explores the disintegration of a marriage and the poisoned atmosphere that can lead to reckless and enraged acts without regard for consequences. Notwithstanding the mother's real terror at losing her child, Hold My Heart risks a sympathetic portrait of a father who feels profoundly trapped and powerless. (Also shows March 1, 5:15pm, C7; March 3, 5:15pm, C7; March 6, 5pm, C1.) (LS) *The Invisible 10pm, C3. Submitted for your approval: Swedish teenager Nicklas (Thomas Hendegrand) is oppressed by his overbearing mother, who wants him to be a stockbroker, though he secretly plans to go to London to join a writing program. Nicklas tangles with a crazed smash-and-grab robber named Annalie, who walks through the school with her turtleneck over her mouth, like the kid in Bazooka Joe chewing-gum comics. (She's played, convincingly, by the Jodie Fosterish Tuva Novotny.) The would-be poet ends up beaten up by Annalie and her gang, and is killed ... or is he? Directors Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist harmoniously merge a juvenile delinquent tale with a ghost story. (Also shows March 2, 7:30pm, C3; March 4, 9:30pm, C3). (RvB) *The Legend of Dolemite 11pm, C3. See cover story. Double billed with the short Gaydar, by Larry La Fond. (Also shows March 1, 7pm, C3; March 2, 9pm, C7.) March 1 In The Eyes of a Child: Women's Life Collective 12:15pm, C3. This documentary offers a glimpse of an organization in Brazil for women who are victims of domestic abuse. Women who have had tough home lives disclose harsh thoughts (one mother says she sometimes thinks about killing herself and her children) and recount incidences of abuse, reassuring each other during group meetings. Such an important topic deserves all the public recognition it can get. (Also shows March 2, 12:30pm, C7.) (AG) Mary/Mary 12:30pm, C1. Joseph H. Biancaniello's film explores how one person's anxiety can gradually spiral downward and ruin the lives of others. Jon Bernthal plays Manny, a hypochondriac whose paranoid subconscious is represented by two characters in dark suits who dictate his every move. Manny's got a friend and sporadic lover, Mary No. 1 (Amy Lee Drown), but he's forever in search of the ideal fantasy woman, so he dumps her for Mary No. 2 (Melissa Pamperin). Manny also drives his friend Brian (Sean Carrigan), an unsuccessful boxer, to take out his rage by blindly distrusting his own girlfriend, almost to the point of domestic violence. Oh, those failed relationships. Mary/Mary spins a dark web of human anxiety that we can all identify with. (Also shows March 2, 5:15pm, C3; March 5, 9pm, C3; March 7, 7:45pm, C3.) (GS) *Solitude 12:15pm, C7. A broken-down car and the desire to get to an art gallery lead a controlling sister to the doorstep of her alcoholic, suicidal brother while her new artist girlfriend alternates between watching in horror and getting caught up in the dysfunctional family antics. This extremely dark but well-scripted slice of a sibling love-hate relationship unravels over the course of its two-day time frame to depths that will leave you searching for words that exist only in the vocabularies of trained psychotherapists. A naked soundtrack and low-budget lighting add to the film's tension, eased by a pot-smoking gigglefest and a lesbian love scene. Multidimensional performances by all three actors and some funny lines keep co-directors Susan Kraker and Pi Ware's film from drowning in its own sorrow. (March 2, 7pm, C7.) (CA) *Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin 2pm, C3. A brilliant documentary about a brilliant guy nobody knows about. Nancy Kates, Bennett Singer and Sam Pollard's documentary flaunts the remarkable significance of civil rights and human-justice leader Bayard Rustin (1912-87). Rustin was openly gay and unashamed in the '40s. He was a World War II conscientious objector who defied segregation laws. He was a black pacifist who effectively put together the historic 200,000-person march on Washington, D.C., to demand racial justice for black people, the one at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech. The film portrays Rustin as even more ideologically sound than King, who espoused peaceful resistance while surrounding his home with armed guards. It shows Rustin holding his own in debates against black power revolutionaries Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael over the best direction for the civil rights movement. Everyone should see this film; it's more important than whatever you're doing right now. Screens with A Matter of Principle. (Also shows March 2, 4:30pm, C3.) (AG) *The Weather Underground 4:15pm, C3. See review and Q&A. (Also shows March 2, 2pm, C3.) *25 Kids & One Dad 4:30pm, C1. If eight is enough in the family department, then 25 is an insane amount, and such turns out to be the case in this Chinese film about a young chicken farmer who announces to the world that he will be "a father to all orphans" and ends up raising a village full of unwanted, uncared for and troubled kids of all ages. A grown orphan himself, the kindhearted Zhao Ghuan (played by director Huang Hong, a well-known comic actor in China) subsequently wrestles with the realities of raising such a brood, such as sacrificing his romantic relationship, meting out discipline and education and practically losing the farm when a particularly difficult kid nicknamed "Black Egg" causes problems. Beautifully photographed in rural China, with adorable kids and an abundance of equally adorable baby chicks, the film's metaphor of new life only gets sappy in a few places, and mostly delivers on its mission to prove that there's more value in our similarities than our differences as human beings. (Also shows March 6, 9:15pm, REP; March 7, 3pm, C1; March 8, 4:45pm, C3.) (CA) Expecting 5pm, C7. See Feb. 28. *Hold My Heart 5:15pm, C7. See Feb. 28. *The Legend of Dolemite 7pm, C3. See Feb. 28. Lovers and Leavers 7pm, C7. Thirtysomething Iris (Minna Kaapkylä) is a Finnish bookstore clerk looking for love in all the wrong places. With some coaching from her girlfriend, Iris embarks on a series of very amusing bad dates (clueless males being pretty much the same the world over). Eventually, she finds her soul mate, a budding director who can match her movie quote for movie quote (from Gilda to Taxi Driver). A brief burst of happiness dissolves into the inevitable breakup, and Iris struggles with conflicting urges: make herself over to win Marko back, sleep with her best friend's husband, learn to love herself. A very long stretch later, Iris finally exhibits some much overdue self-esteem, by which time all the early comic promise of Aku Louhimies' film has drained away. (Also shows March 3, 4:30pm, C3; March 4, 9:15pm, C1; March 6, 12:15pm, REP.) (MSG) Oysters at Nam Kee's 7:15pm, C3. A group of petty thieves in Amsterdam live out their slacker lives until one of them, Berry, hooks up with a beautiful exotic dancer, Thera. The duo have plenty of sex, eat oysters (guess where) and rip off locals to fund a world tour to exotic locales. Everything is fine and dandy with the new Bonnie and Clyde until a stay at the John and Yoko suite reveals some deep secrets and the duo acrimoniously split. Berry ain't going out like that and tries to screw up Thera's life, and by extension, his. Director Pollo de Pimental shoots his way out of plot holes with camera work that owes a lot to cologne commercials and NYPD Blue. It's stylistically slick, starring two actors (Egbert-Jan Weeber and Katja Schuurman) who heat up the screen. Their tragic chemistry is reminiscent of Christopher and Adriana in The Sopranos and worth watching. There are a couple of graphic sex scenes, so don't bring the impressionable ones. (Also shows March 2, 3pm, C3; March 7, 12:15pm, REP; March 9, 4:30pm, C1.) (TI) Winning Girls Through Psychic Mind Control 7:15pm, C7. Devon Sharpe (Bronson Pinchot) and Samuel Menendez (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) haunt the seedy underbelly of lounge life, sending up mediocre jazz sets and shaking the cockroaches off in the morning. Until, that is, sex-obsessed Samuel tests out a hypnosis tape called--you guessed it--Winning Girls Through Psychic Mind Control and finds himself able to channel some spirits that refer to themselves collectively as "The Conductor." Devon decides to take Samuel on the road as a spiritualist magic act. Things go swimmingly until the Conductor decides to deconstruct Devon's personal life. It's difficult to tell who, exactly, is narrating this broken-mirror tale, but the writing is clever, and Santiago-Hudson is especially (ha) mesmerizing. If only the director had done a little more conducting of his own, the film might rise beyond the limited realm of quirkiness for the sake of quirkiness. (Also shows March 2, 4:30pm, C7; March 4, 5:15pm, REP; March 8, 12:15pm, C7.) (TV) Intentions 9pm, C3. Luane Beck's adaptation of her play (first performed at SJSU), shot on good-looking mini-DV. A married professor named Renee (Katherine Lee) is seduced by her lesbian student Eve (Deidre Kotch), whom she recruits for a play (SJSU provides the locations). The leads aren't the usual stereotypical figures in a coming-out drama. Renee is slightly conservative, staying in her uncomfortable marriage for the sake of her two children. She also frets over the bad example her house-husband, Geoff (Tom Darci), is setting for the kids. The last third doesn't work so smoothly; the confrontation between the jealous husband and the lovers could have used a rewrite. It seems as though six months' worth of discussion and healing takes place in the course of about three days. When the married woman comes up with a line like "I'm going upstairs to tell our kids that it takes two people to make a marriage fail" (every marriage?), Intentions starts to lose some of its earlier sharpness. Suddenly Renee becomes the smartest and most sinned-against character in the film, when previously she was as honestly confused as anyone else would be in this painful real-life situation. Also stars Maria Biber-Ferro, sassy as Eve's persistent old girlfriend, and Ted D'Augustino as Eve's chum, a wellspring of smart but unsolicited advice. Shows with (Also shows March 3, 9pm, C7.) (RvB) Vampires Anonymous 9:15pm, C7. After wrestling Metro's other pop-vamp addict to the ground for the chance to review this film, my Vampires Anonymous experience turned out badly. The film follows a repentant vampire from the moment that he eats his girlfriend--and realizes he has a problem--through his vampire-relocation placement in hicksville and his struggle to gain control over addiction via sheep as a human-blood alternative. The film is slow and plodding. Even Vampire Anonymous' theft of the vampirism-as-disease concept and redneck trash jokes from fine TV lore--namely Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Dukes of Hazzard--don't save it. At least Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs) gives a giggle-worthy peripheral performance as a mobster/program mentor with a beard. (Also shows March 4, 9:30pm, C7; March 8, 11:30pm, REP.) (AG) *Every Day God Kisses Us on the Mouth 9:30pm, C7. See Feb. 28. March 2 Real Time 11am, C7. Lee Miller, a professor at Sunnyvale's Cogswell Polytechnical College, and a handful of his students made this film about teaching juvenile-hall prisoners how to make movies. The result is well-paced and interesting. The problem is that the film is such a cheerleader for the California Youth Authority's O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility that it raises suspicion. It's hard to believe that the state's facility for the worst youth criminals is really as perfect as the participating inmates (who were hand-picked by an O.H. staff member) and the prison employees would have us believe. Nevertheless, Real Time is worth watching, and it does seem as if learning to create movies has had a great impact on the inmates. On March 6 at 7pm at the Pruneyard Barnes & Noble in Campbell, there will be a meet-the-filmmakers event at which a number of local youth outreach groups will be present. (Also shows March 7, 4pm, C3.) (AG) Want Noon, C3. See Feb. 28. In The Eyes of a Child: Women's Life Collective 12:30pm, C7. See March 1. *Con Man 2:15pm, C7. This real-life tale surpasses Catch Me If You Can as an explanation of the mind of a compulsive impersonator; it's more entertaining, too. This Gatsbyan chameleon's name was James Arthur Hogue, a.k.a. Riivke James Huntsman, a.k.a. Alexi Indris-Santana. At one point, Hogue posed as a Palo Alto High student, in 1985, gathering distinction as a track star. He was a good enough long-distance runner to keep up with ex-Olympic team Kenyans who were his teammates at the University of Wyoming. Hogue's biggest feat was getting himself into Princeton under an assumed name. When he was found out, the university took the kind of revenge you'd expect a hive of the power elite to take. After Hogue served his jail time for "wrongful impersonation," he was tracked down to the middle of nowhere by intrepid director Jesse Moss. Co-stars Jason Cole, ex-writer for The Palo Alto Times-Tribune, who--in a creepy moment--suspects Moss of being yet another one of Hogue's disguises. (Also shows March 3, 7:15pm, C7; March 4, 5:30pm, C7.) (RvB) Oysters at Nam Kee's 3pm, C3. See March 1. *Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin 4:30pm, C3. See March 1. Winning Girls Through Psychic Mind Control 4:30pm, C7. See March 1. Mr. Rookie 4:30pm, C1. Bored salaryman and ex-major leaguer Ohara Koji (Kazushige Nagashima) aspires to be the closer for the Hanshin Tigers professional baseball team. He wears a mask to conceal his identity from his fans, his wife and son, his employer and a nosy reporter. The mask and his killer split-finger fastball (which he arrogantly telegraphs to batters before striking them out) become hot topics, and soon the absent-minded and obedient employee by day turns into baseball sensation Mr. Rookie by night. The movie takes a couple of wacky turns as Ohara-san dodges a cute reporter close to cracking the story and his company unwittingly chooses Mr. Rookie as a spokesperson. Director Satoshi Isaka weaves these kooky plot lines together into a humorous sports flick with more twists than a Randy Johnson slider. The movie, filmed on location inside and outside Osaka's Koshien stadium, also captures the quirkiness of Japanese baseball fandom with chants, balloons and clappers. Good clean fun. (Also shows March 4, 7pm, C7; March 9, 4:30pm, C7.) (TI) Mary/Mary 5:15pm, C3. See March 1. *Bitter Sweat 6:45pm, C3. Here we have the saddest movie ever made in Spanish with English subtitles. It's a workers' rights film based at a tuna-cleaning plant in Puerto Rico that's laying off workers on its road to closure. The story focuses on a group of women with various big personal issues who are desperate to keep their smelly, doomed jobs at the plant. Oddly, Bitter Sweat turns into a murder mystery about halfway through. An ensemble cast of compelling actors sustains the film's intrigue despite a slow pace, overkill length (120 min.) and out-of-place psychedelic moments. (Also shows March 5, 4:30pm, C7; March 9, 10am, C3.) (AG) *Solitude 7pm, C7. See March 1. *The Invisible 7:30pm, C3. See Feb. 28. *The Legend of Dolemite 9pm, C7. See Feb. 28. Crazy Jones 9:15pm, C3. Promising epigraph: "It's a troublesome world / All the people who are in it / Are troubled with troubles almost every minute / You ought to be thankful, a whole heaping lot / For the places and people you're lucky you're not."--Dr. Seuss. If only director Joe Aaron had tempered his own whimsy with some of the good doctor's saltier qualities. A Tourette's syndrome case named Finn (played by Aaron) is approaching his 40th birthday and getting ready to kill himself. Then he falls in chaste love with Syd (Francesca Catalano), the 13-year-old down the street. This girl wears wisdom beyond her years, just like the fluorescent-green Dynel wig she wears. What follows is a blend of Ted Demme's culty Beautiful Girls with a lot--and I mean a lot--of Harold and Maude. The hint of pedophilia is somehow less shameful than the ending, which is completely without shame. (Also shows March 3, 3pm, C3; March 6, 5pm, C3.) (RvB) Expecting 9:30pm, C7. See Feb. 28. March 3 Crazy Jones 3pm, C3. See March 2. Lovers and Leavers 4:30pm, C3. See March 1. *Black Tape: A Tehran Diary 4:45pm, C1. See Feb. 28. Clown in' Kabul 5pm, C3. Clowns from around the world invade the hospitals of Kabul to prove that laughter just might be an excellent medicine. Initially, the scene is gruesome--charred infants, body casts and a plethora of amputees--but the clowns prevail and somehow manage to elicit joy and amusement from the most suffering of people. Kids who've known nothing but war, poverty and destruction are still somehow able to laugh and express a love of life. There's not a whole lot of dialogue here, but to see clowns rampaging through the bombed-out paths of Kabul with children running after them is downright moving. Look for the balloons. (Also shows March 4, 7:30pm, C3.) (GS) *Hold My Heart 5:15pm, C7. See Feb. 28. Trinity 7:15pm, C3. Criminal mastermind or innocent clone? Doctor Clerval (Tom McCamus) isn't telling, and the doubt gnaws at his captors, Brach (Stephen Moyer) and Schiller (Lucy Akhurst), who have been sent to investigate a genetic experiment gone very bad. In a series of maddeningly elliptical interrogations, we learn that Schiller herself suffered at the hands of Clerval and his efforts to create a race of perfect beings; meanwhile, Brach harbors a few shameful secrets of his own. Gary Boulton-Brown's film touches on some intriguing ideas about the abuses of personal and scientific power, but Trinity takes too long getting to its core revelations, and the stripped-down futuristic sets wear on the eyes. This might have worked better trimmed to about an hour, like an episode of the Canadian Outer Limits. (March 4, 7:15pm, C7; March 6, 2:45pm, REP.) (MSG) *Con Man 7:15pm, C7. See March 2. *Every Day God Kisses Us on the Mouth 9pm, C1. See Feb. 28. Judgment Call 9pm, C7. Atmospheric crime short set in Santa Cruz, concerning Jim (Kai Olivier), who wakes up beaten and hungover on a beach. In flashback, we see how he got that way. This short film holds a few surprises, including a payoff perhaps borrowed from Guy de Maupassantís best-known story. Certainly, itís the most serious film yet by San Joseís most dedicated independent filmmaker, Shawn Flanigan. Superior acting by Shirley Bennett as a sick-of-it-all homicide detective. Shows with main feature Intentions. (RvB) *Intentions 9pm, C7. See March 1. Anarchist Cookbook 9:45pm, C7. See Feb. 28. March 4 The Reunion 5pm, C1. Even in Sweden, it seems, the class reunion is a traumatic event. Thirty-six-year-old Magnus Edkvist, respectable insurance adjuster, scoffs when he gets his invite. "Where do these people find the energy?" he asks his unresponsive wife. But Edkvist begins to be haunted by lost opportunities--most agonizingly, his first love, Hillevi--and decides to attend the event on the chance Hillevi will be there. She is, and after some initial awkwardness, they discover they still share feelings. In Hollywood, the director would yell, "Cut!" just about here, but The Reunion (Klassfesten) is Swedish, so instead director/screenwriter Mans Herngren goes existential. Magnus gets bad news from a psychic, wavers about leaving his wife, rents another house and then lets it go. It takes a while for Magnus' real problem to surface, and by that time you may not care what happens to this self-obsessed Hamlet. There is a reward for sticking it out, however, and in the end The Reunion brings together a world of heart-sticking characters and even an epiphany or two. Some great acting and great music (David Bowie) round out the picture. (Also shows March 5, 9pm, C1; March 7, 2pm, C7.) (TV) I'm the Father 5pm, C7. An evenhanded and realistic examination of a modern marriage that self-destructs under the weight of unmet expectations. Marco Krieger (Sebastian Blomberg) is loving but immature, an unreliable father who is self-absorbed in his newly successful career. His wife, Melanie (Maria Schrader), who is deeply drawn to her husband despite her feelings of emotional abandonment, is slowly unraveling with loneliness and hurt. When she finally walks out the door with their sensitive 6-year-old son, Benny, Marco is overwhelmed with the enormity of what he has lost and takes desperate measures to reclaim his son. It's a morality tale that's all too common: when parents do battle over children, it's the children who are hurt the most. (Also shows March 5, 9:30pm, C7; March 7, 4:45pm, C7.) (LS) Winning Girls Through Psychic Mind Control 5:15pm, REP. See March 1. *Con Man 5:30pm, C7. See March 2. Mr. Rookie 7pm, C7. See March 2. Trinity 7:15pm, C7. See March 3. Clown in' Kabul 7:30m, C3. See March 3. Lovers and Leavers 9:15pm, C1. See March 1. *The Invisible 9:30pm, C3. See Feb. 28. Vampires Anonymous 9:30pm, C7. See March 1. March 5 *Bitter Sweat 4:30pm, C7. See March 2. *Hukkle 5:30pm, C7. A pastoral, but a sinister one. Hungarian director Györgi Pálfi's almost dialogue-free film follows a rash of crimes occurring in the middle of a radiant summer in a sweet but grimy village. But these outrages aren't the subject of the movie; rather, they lurk in the margins of the story. Pálfi recalls Caro and Jeunet's early films, like Delicatessen, in the way he tours the secrets of these fields and streams, noting the understandable wariness of the wild animals and the dumb satisfaction of the domestic ones. He also notes the hardness and avariciousness of the people lucky enough to live in the country, such as the father of the family who insists on the old-country custom of dining first while his family watches. The center of the story is an old man who sits mutely observing all the world go past (he has the hiccups; "hukkle" means hiccup in Hungarian). The film is often comic, as when we catch the look of ineffable happiness of a farmer and his wife as they watch their hogs copulate. But the film transcends mere pictorial qualities when it sinks into the near-buried sins and the bones beneath the skin. WARNING: I don't think it's bourgeois to note that it looks very much as if the filmmakers poisoned a cat to make their movie. I'd love to be proven wrong on this point. (Also shows March 6, 5:15pm, C7; March 8, 1pm, C1; March 9, noon, C3.) (RvB) New Guy 7pm, C7. Bilge Ebiri's black comedy about the incremental horrors of the average workplace, starts off as fast and funny as the unjustly underrated Office Space. Nervous new employee Gregg (Kelly Miler) finds himself assigned to the desk of a former drone who snapped and committed murder with an industrial-strength stapler. Gregg finds porno faxes in his filing cabinet, dodges a radio-controlled toy car operated by the pointy-haired boss's son, endures the sinister jokes of his co-workers and, finally, indignity of indignities, finds himself locked into the building overnight because no one in personnel has bothered to get him a key card. At this point, Ebiri starts to strain too hard, escalating an astute slice of wage slavery into an overheated absurdist nightmare that doesn't know when to quit. Still, anybody who has endured the fax machine that never works will cringe appreciatively. (Also shows March 6, 9:15pm, C7; March 7, 11:30pm, C3.) (MSG) *Song of the Stork 7:15pm, REP. They were soldiers once--and young. Directors Jonathan Foo and Nguyen Phan Quang Binh tell of the other side of the Vietnam war in this ambitious mix of fact and re-creation. Interview subjects include Tran Van Thuy, a front-line photographer for the Viet Cong, the American Wayne Karlin, a Marine who has gone back to Vietnam to tour the battlegrounds, and masseur (and former secret agent) Doung Quang Voung. The dramatic re-enactment is, it has to be said, often pretty standard war-movie stuff, though with a Buddhist flavor to it. However, the film broadens to take in different fronts. It includes a memoir of a women who worked as a guide on the Ho Chih Minh trail, a day with the civilians caught in the bombing of Hanoi and even a bit of nostalgic romance in Saigon between the daughter of a ARVN colonel and a North Vietnamese agent. About the only part that was hard for this American to take was the bombing of a soldier's nightclub and brothel; the incinerated bar girls weren't soldiers, and the film doesn't pause to mourn them. Song of the Stork answers Godard's bitter question from In Praise of Love: "Who remembers the bravery of the Vietnamese?" That bravery is not forgotten. (Also shows March 6, 9pm, C1.) (RvB) Anarchist Cookbook 7:30pm, C7. See Feb. 28. Mary/Mary 9pm, C3. See March 1. The Reunion 9pm, C1. See March 4. I'm the Father 9:30pm, C7. See March 4. Quickies Shorts Series 2: Joyride: Comedies Light, Dark And Deceptive Publication Guaranteed is Oren Kaplan's made-in-San-Francisco piece based on the advice career coaches give the directionless: "Just imagine you're composing your own obituary--what will it say? "One budding writing named Smiley Pieleg is ready to kill to see his name in print, and kill he does. Little Dickie: Hurray for Canada's Anita McGee, who comes out in favor of the little-penised. They are slurred as "Princess Tiny-Meat"; they are pestered by spam-hawking dick-gro trouser-snake-oil salesmen ("DON'T WAIT TILL SHE LEAVES YOU!!!"); they are suckered into to buying oversized Ford trucks. But in McGee's Sergio Leone parody, the underendowed find a voice to sing with. The King is Russell B. McKenzie's elaborate story of the reincarnation of Elvis going to Hollywood to save his maw-maw's favorite TV show, America's Craziest Home Movies. This one makes friends right away with its opening shot of Glendale or somewhere playing Memphis ("This was back when Memphis looked a lot like California," the narrator explains). With a team of buddies playing the Jordanaires, "Elrus" saves the day, promising a full-length sequel. Maybe a new version of Stay Away Joe? (Feb. 28, 4:15pm, C3; March 4, 9:30pm, C3; March 5, 9:30pm, REP.) (RvB) Shorts Series 4: Crossing Borders So many movies have been made about the careers of cops, lawyers and doctors, that I've always wondered about the less glamorous and really unknown professions, like the guy with the pleasant task of tending to a prizefighter's facial gashes, or the "cutman," as he's known in boxing lingo. Beautifully photographed by cinematographer Andrij Parekh, Yon Motskin's The Cutman follows an aging cutman (Jack McCormack) who wouldn't be out of place in a Michael Mann movie. Like those brooding, introverted Mann heroes, the cutman lives by an unspoken code in which his life is his job, and without it, he's nothing. With only 27 minutes to tell its weighty existentialist story, The Cutman accomplishes plenty with minimal dialogue, zero sentiment and lots of narrative craft. The other two highlights of this program are both comic gems about infidelity: Simon Ellis' Telling Lies, which cleverly uses flashing text on the screen to transcribe what's not being said during the phone conversations of a guy trying to conceal an affair, and Martin Jones' At Dawning, which shows what '70s starlet Jenny Agutter (Logan's Run) has been up to lately. She plays a married woman whose 4am attempt to quietly flee from a one-night stand's Notting Hill flat is interrupted by a klutz (Yvan Attal) attempting suicide. (Shows March 2, 4pm, C7; March 3, 5pm, C7; March 5, 9pm; C7.) (JA) Shorts Series 5: Portable Shorts The two most intriguing selections in this program are both thought-provoking--and stop-motion animated. The clever German short Rocks follows a pair of rocks on a hill as they sit and watch civilization develop around them. It's Koyaanisqatsi with a Pixaresque sense of humor. Philosophy student-turned-animator Nirvan Mullick's eerie, wordless stunner The Box Man, about a man who lives in a box, is loosely based on a 1974 novel of the same name by existentialist Woman in the Dunes author Kobo Abe. The other five shorts are live-action entries, one of which is locally made (Los Gatos-based Cary Cremidas directed the handsomely shot '30s period piece The Sundial Field, about a roadside sundial maker who pines for his lost love). (Shows Feb. 28, 9:30pm, C7; March 3, 7:30pm, C7; March 8, 4:30pm, C7.) (JA) Lively Artists Lupe Ontiveros Hattie McDaniels, who cornered the market on maid roles during Hollywood's most segregated days, told a reporter in the 1960s, "I had a choice between playing a maid and being one." Though she's played maids more than a few times, Lupe Ontiveros never had to worry about McDaniels' dilemma. Schooled in her native Texas as a social worker, she toiled for 15 years in that unimaginably tough trade. As an actress, Ontiveros has been a living thread right through the middle of Latino film. She's appeared in Zoot Suit, Selena, El Norte, Mi Familia and the TV version of La Pastorela. She's settling into the new era of the comfortable Chicano date movie (Luminarias, Real Women Have Curves). Ontiveros' role in the Jack Nicholson movie As Good as It Gets is her most popular part. Lately, she has been drawn into avant-garde movies like Chuck and Buck and Todd Solonz's Storytelling. In Storytelling, her best role, Ontiveros' Conseula is a maid with a difference. She's a war-scarred Salvadoran hectored by a whining kid so convinced of his inner sensitivity that he doesn't realize what a pig he's being. In her subtle reactions to the child's goading, we got a glimpse of what Ontiveros is capable of. In the meantime, she's a reliable and much-loved portrayer of aunts and grandmas whose comforting plumpness and outward sweetness hide the toughness of a bulldog. (March 5, 7pm, C1. Includes a screening of Real Women Have Curves.) (RvB) James Woods The star of everything from Salvador to Ghosts of Mississippi talks about his career. (March 1, 7pm, Fairmont Hotel, San Jose.) Stephen Frears A chance to learn a few tips and enjoy some anecdotes from the director of High Fidelity and The Grifters. (March 4, 7:30pm, REP.) William H. Macy Fargo star William H. Macy talks about acting. (March 7, 9pm, Fourth Street Garage, Fourth and San Fernando streets, San Jose.) Val Kilmer Will he discuss The Island of Dr. Moreau? or stick to The Doors and True Romance? (March 9, 1pm, Fairmont Hotel, 170 S. Market St., San Jose.) Burning Men Lee Harvey, the genius behind the Burning Man Festival, appears with Paul Barnett, director of the new documentary Confessions of a Burning Man, about the annual celebration in the desert. (March 7, 7pm, Barnes & Noble, Pruneyard Shopping Center, 1875 S. Bascom Ave., Campbell.) Send a letter to the editor about this story to letters@metronews.com. [ Silicon Valley | Metroactive Home | Archives ]