"Girls Rock!" as SIFF gets rolling

The Seattle International Film Festival, running through June 17, is in full swing this weekend at several locations around town. Here's just a taste of some of the films showing through Monday.

Today

"Girls Rock!" 7 p.m. today, Harvard Exit; 1 p.m. Sunday, SIFF Cinema

The most cheerfully raucous movie at SIFF could well be this irresistible documentary from Arne Johnson, about a Portland summer camp that teaches girls (ages 8-18) to be rock musicians. There's plenty of mileage to be gotten from the spectacle of cute little girls rocking out (8-year-old Palace, given a microphone, lets loose a scream that could peel paint off a wall, and then sweetly smiles). But "Girls Rock!" goes further, deftly exploring issues of empowerment, popularity, body image, anger and the enemy that is Britney Spears. Bring your daughters. Johnson and producer Shane King will attend the festival. (89 minutes)

— Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times movie critic

"Golden Door," 7 p.m. today and 4 p.m. Sunday, Egyptian

Winner of multiple awards at last year's Venice International Film Festival, Emmanuele Crialese's immigrant fantasy/drama is gloriously imaginative, with characters swimming in ivory rivers of milk and reveling in a sparkling shower of coins from a night sky. It's loosely the tale of a family journeying from Sicily to the New World about a century ago. Charlotte Gainsbourg, as a mysterious woman who joins the group, raises her determined chin and stares coolly at the future; you know she's ready to face whatever America brings. A unique vision; a strange, lovely film. (120 minutes)

— M.M.

"Gypsy Caravan," 4 p.m. today and 6:30 p.m. Saturday, SIFF Cinema

Jasmine Dellal's enjoyable if repetitive documentary follows four different Gypsy musical groups as they appear for the first time together on a sold-out, six-week American tour. It's a melting-pot road movie, celebrating the styles of musicians from Macedonia, India, Spain and Romania. It also acknowledges the lethal prejudices that wiped out many of their relatives during the Holocaust — and continue to haunt them even when they visit 21st-century California, where strangers find them "scary." Persecution has made them defensive, proud and disciplined, and tied to each other in sometimes surprising ways. Dellal will attend the festival. (111 minutes)

— John Hartl, Special to The Seattle Times

"Paprika," 9:30 p.m. today and 1:15 p.m. Monday, Neptune

A central character in this anime feature commits film-festival heresy by declaring that he doesn't care for movies. He's just a cartoon, of course, and he quickly gets his comeuppance while learning the difference between dreams and reality. That's more than the audience can claim; the script about a doctor who uses a gadget to enter the dreams of her patients seems to make up the rules as it goes along. For fans of "Tokyo Godfathers" director Satoshi Kon, the movie will be a trippy treat, jammed with clever in-jokes, colorful dreamscapes and carnival-like parades that explode into consciousness at the least expected times. (90 minutes)

— J.H.

"Red Road," 9:30 p.m. today and 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Harvard Exit

In Andrea Arnold's moody, hypnotic thriller (a prizewinner at Cannes last year), a young Glasgow widow (Kate Dickie) works as a security guard, spending her days in a cavelike bank of closed-circuit TV screens. One day, she spots a man who represents something dark in her past; slowly, inexorably, the movie focuses in on the two of them as she enacts a shocking plan of revenge. Dickie, her face drawn and resolute, gives an honest, often moving performance, and the movie emerges as a haunting reminder of the depths to which grief can drive us. (100 minutes)

— M.M.

"Sanctuary: Lisa Gerrard," 7 p.m. today, SIFF Cinema (includes film and conversation)

Clive Collier's loose, flickering portrait of Australian-born musician/composer Lisa Gerrard is not a typical documentary — and that's appropriate, because the Australian-born Gerrard is not a typical artist. Her often wordless, haunting songs (their nonverbal quality, she says, "unlocks the imagination") dance on the border between music and sound; Collier shows her in a freeway tunnel, her notes echoing and harmonizing with the cars' hum. Michael Mann ("The Insider"), Niki Caro ("Whale Rider") and Russell Crowe talk about working with her, but the calm, soft-spoken Gerrard dominates, as well she should. Tonight's screening includes an onstage conversation with Gerrard. (90 minutes)

— M.M.

"Them" 11:59 p.m. today, Egyptian; 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Neptune

Short, snappy, and scary as hell. Filmmakers David Moreau and Xavier Palud take their audience on a dark chase as murderous creatures stalk a young French couple in their Romanian country house. (Europeans in horror movies, it turns out, are just as boneheaded as Americans when it comes to Not Turning the Lights On.) Based on real events, "Them" is more suspenseful than gory, with a particularly creepy sound design heavy on mind-scraping creaking. Bring someone to grab on to; this one will make you jump. (75 minutes)

— M.M.

"This Is England" 4:30 p.m. today, Harvard Exit

As Combo, a destructive ex-con who adopts any prejudice that suits him at the moment, Stephen Graham gives the kind of scary yet strangely sympathetic performance that transcends arguments about nature vs. nurture. The setting of this provocative drama by Shane Meadows ("TwentyFourSeven") is northern England following the Falklands War, when 11-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) joins an older gang that is transformed by the deeply divisive Combo. At first Shaun sees Combo as a father figure, replacing the parent Shaun loved and lost in the war, but their alliance has nowhere to go. (102 minutes)

— J.H.

Saturday

"Aachi & Ssipak," 11:59 p.m. Saturday, Neptune

In Mike Judge's futuristic satire "Idiocracy," the world is reduced to creatures who speak mostly in monosyllabic, scatological grunts. This energetically stupid South Korean cartoon, which sets new records for the uses of human excrement in a feature-length film, could have been spawned by the same universe. The characters, including an infantile group known as the Diaper Gang, are defined largely by how well and how often they defecate (or don't). "You're the worst actor in this movie," declares one character, who must think he's delivered the ultimate insult. But as these video-game monsters machine-gun each other into oblivion, who's judging the nuances of performances? (90 minutes)

— J.H.

"A Battle of Wits," 6 p.m. Saturday and 3:30 p.m. Monday, Neptune

A refreshingly different Hong Kong historical epic, writer-director Jacob Cheung's 131-minute film takes place in 370 B.C., when the Mozi cult in China was proposing alternatives to warfare. Andy Lau from "Infernal Affairs" is charismatic as the loner hero, who insists on using imagination rather than muscle to stop an army of 100,000 seemingly determined soldiers. From the moment he sends his magic arrow into the sky, instantly shrinking the enemy's confidence, the movie casts a spell, though Cheung doesn't entirely succeed in finding a balance between cast-of-thousands spectacle and the more intimate story he needs to tell. (131 minutes)

— J.H.

"Knocked Up," 7 p.m. Saturday, Egyptian

Let me be the first to say that the B-52s' "Rock Lobster" is an absolutely inspired soundtrack choice for a drunken sex scene. Unfortunately, much of the rest of Judd Apatow's comedy is fairly uninspired. It's the story of a not-very-well-acquainted couple (Katherine Heigl, Seth Rogen) facing an unexpected pregnancy. Like Apatow's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," it has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments (many from Leslie Mann as Heigl's tightly wound sister, a sort of screwball shrew). But also like "Virgin," it's far too long and padded; snip out half an hour and there might be a tight little comedy here. As is, it runs out of steam long before the delivery room. (129 minutes)

— M.M.

"A Life Among Whales," 1 p.m. Saturday, SIFF Cinema; 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Harvard Exit

Bill Haney's brief but remarkably informative documentary is both an educational overview of the plight of a species and a deft portrait of a man blissfully content with his work. Biologist/activist Roger Payne, a calm and friendly presence, speaks of whale "singing" and its closeness to human song; of the practice of whaling ("a festival of machismo brutality"); and of what whales can teach us. The film includes some lovely ocean photography, including a stunning shot of a whale's tail aloft in the sea at sunset, reaching like some curious, immense sculpture. Shows with the short film "Sharks: Stewards of the Reef." (57 minutes)

— M.M.

"Monkey Warfare," 9:45 p.m. Saturday, Egyptian; 2 p.m. Monday, Harvard Exit

Reginald Harkema's would-be comedy about a pair of Toronto ex-radicals (Don McKellar, Tracy Wright) and their cute young drug dealer (Nadia Litz) never gets moving; its characters, for the most part, make pronouncements rather than speak to each other. Harkema interrupts the action with odd musical montages, never letting us get close to the trio; by the time we finally learn what's behind their deadpan nihilism (two of them, anyway; the third remains a cipher), it's too late to care. The ending is abrupt and pointless. Harkema will attend the festival. (75 minutes)

— M.M.

"Monster Camp," 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. Monday, Egyptian

Portland-based director Cullen Hoback's enjoyable documentary follows a group of Northwesterners immersed in the game Nero. It's sort of like Dungeons and Dragons in costumes, but out in the woods over an entire weekend. "Monster Camp" introduces us to several of its cheerful practitioners, letting what first seems odd slowly make sense to the uninitiated. "I think as an adult, one of the best gifts you can give yourself is the permission to go and pretend," says one player. Judging by the numerous smiles in this film (and, surely, in its audience), it's hard to argue. Hoback will attend the festival. (82 minutes)

— M.M.

"Rescue Dawn," 9 p.m. Saturday and 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Neptune

The closest thing to a Hollywood film that Werner Herzog will ever make is this fact-based Vietnam War tale of a harrowing escape from a POW camp by Dieter Dengler, an American (though German-born) soldier. Herzog has told this story before, in Dengler's own words in the documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly"; here, he casts a lean, fast-talking Christian Bale as the cocky pilot. It's a vivid, competent and at times compelling drama, with good work by Bale and a hauntingly fragile Steve Zahn. The music's so lush, it's almost war as opera. (120 minutes)

— M.M.

"Three Minute Masterpieces," 11 a.m. Saturday, SIFF Cinema; admission is free, no ticket or pass required

A special free screening of the winning films in The Seattle Times' Three Minute Masterpiece contest, with most of the filmmakers present. Awards will be presented by co-sponsors SIFF and Seattle Film Institute.

"A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory," 6:30 p.m. Saturday and 9:15 p.m. Sunday, Northwest Film Forum

Yet another aimless "Factory Girl"-style movie about a casualty of Andy Warhol's Factory. Danny Williams, an acclaimed film editor who worked with the Maysles brothers on documentaries, was apparently Warhol's lover before Williams either committed suicide or accidentally drowned. Directed by Esther B. Robinson (Williams' niece), the documentary uses many interviews with friends and relatives to suggest that the Factory was no 1960s commune but a cultish vipers' nest of ambitious lackeys. What's next? Full-length bios of Viva and Paul America? (75 minutes)

— J.H.

Sunday

"Doubletime," 4 p.m. Sunday and 11 a.m. Monday, SIFF Cinema

The ropes whirl and the jumpers fly in Stephanie Johnes' entertaining documentary about the separate but overlapping worlds of competitive jump rope and Double Dutch. If you didn't know that these were two different sports, one predominantly white and one predominantly black, you'll learn much here — and you might just cheer as the two worlds converge at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater (creating, in one coach's words, "a rainbow"). The teen and preteen jumpers are wildly inventive; they can jump even faster than they can talk — which is pretty fast indeed. Johnes will attend the festival. (80 minutes)

— M.M.

"Girls Rock!" 7 p.m. Friday, Harvard Exit; 1 p.m. Sunday, SIFF Cinema. See previous review.

"Golden Door," 7 p.m. Friday, Egyptian; 4 p.m. Sunday, Egyptian. See previous review.

"In the Shadow of the Moon," 1:45 p.m. Sunday, Neptune

An audience prizewinner at this year's Sundance Film Festival, David Sington's first-rate documentary concentrates on stories told by the astronauts who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972. The wide-ranging interviews have plenty of heart and humor, as well as a touch of spirituality. But the film's most overwhelming emotion is nostalgia for a time when an unpopular war had not dampened worldwide enthusiasm for American courage and ingenuity. Sington will attend the screenings. (100 minutes)

— J.H.

"The King of Kong," 6:30 p.m. Sunday and 1:30 p.m. Monday, Egyptian

In this corner: Billy Mitchell — tall, dark-bearded and a tad full of himself. ("No matter what I say, it draws controversy," he says. "Sort of like the abortion issue.") In this corner: Steve Wiebe — a sweet-natured Redmond family man with a dream. They're dueling not in a boxing ring or an Old West saloon but over bragging rights to the all-time Donkey Kong record. Filmmaker Seth Gordon deftly turns this unlikely arcade-game bout into a hilarious and fascinating portrait of a subculture; by its note-perfect surprise ending, you just might feel like cheering. Great fun. Gordon and Wiebe will attend the festival. (79 minutes)

— M.M.

"A Life Among Whales," 1 p.m. Saturday, SIFF Cinema; 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Harvard Exit. See previous review.

"Manufactured Landscapes," 7 p.m. Sunday, Harvard Exit

Where does our industrial waste go? What happens to computer screens and parts? As Jennifer Baichwal's stimulating Canadian documentary illustrates, much of it ends up in China, where it's methodically recycled into the country's already-contaminated air and water. In the most chilling sequence, eager Chinese teenagers use their bare hands to salvage oil from a tanker; the job is considered too dangerous for older folks. Reminiscent of Al Gore's slide-and-lecture show, "An Inconvenient Truth," Baichwal's film takes a more abstract and poetic approach to the pollution of Mother Earth. The opening tracking shot, filmed at a giant factory, is a stunner. Baichwal will attend the festival. (90 minutes)

— J.H.

"Once," 6:30 p.m. Sunday, SIFF Cinema

John Carney's Irish mini-musical is a gentle, sweet love story; its characters and tunes weave an irresistible spell. He (Glen Hansard) is a weary-eyed street musician coping with a broken heart; she (Marketa Irglova) is a waifish Czech immigrant with a voice sent from the angels. They make music together, recording songs that just may change their lives — and then, just like that, the movie ends, on a scene and note so perfect that you'll smile to think of it days later. An audience award winner at Sundance, and a real charmer, not to be missed. (86 minutes)

— M.M.

"On the Road with Judas," 6:30 p.m. Sunday and 4:15 p.m. Monday, Northwest Film Forum

Reminiscent of "American Splendor" re-imagined by Charlie Kaufman, but not as much fun as that might be. J.J. Lask's film, based on his book, zips from real life (albeit, a false version of real life) to fiction (ditto) and back again in its tale of a young man who leads a secret life as a computer thief. The idea's interesting but the characters aren't; it's an often-confusing experiment that feels flat. "The movie's never as good as the book," observes a very prescient waitress early on. I haven't read the book, but I imagine she's right. Lask will attend the festival. (100 minutes)

— M.M.

"Rescue Dawn," 9 p.m. Saturday and 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Neptune. See previous review.

"Severance," 11:59 p.m. Sunday and 11 a.m. Monday, Neptune

Christopher Smith's sometimes scary, often silly German-British horror film includes the required amount of gore for a teen thriller, but it's also got a political subtext that may intrigue adults. The chief target is the military-industrial complex, and the botched job they've made of fighting terrorists. As arms dealers gather in the European woods for a team-building retreat, they're told about the lunatics and war criminals who once lived there, and soon they're being gruesomely picked off, one by one. Danny Dyer, from Helen Mirren's "Prime Suspect," heads a capable cast. (95 minutes)

— J.H.

"Them," 11:59 p.m. Friday, Egyptian; 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Neptune. See previous review.

"A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory," 6:30 p.m. Saturday and 9:15 p.m. Sunday, Northwest Film Forum. See previous review.

Monday

"A Battle of Wits," 6 p.m. Saturday and 3:30 p.m. Monday, Neptune. See previous review.

"Doubletime," 4 p.m. Sunday and 11 a.m. Monday, SIFF Cinema. See previous review.

"The King of Kong," 6:30 p.m. Sunday and 1:30 p.m. Monday, Egyptian. See previous review.

"Monkey Warfare," 9:45 p.m. Saturday, Egyptian; 2 p.m. Monday, Harvard Exit. See previous review.

"Monster Camp," 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. Monday, Egyptian. See previous review.

"On the Road with Judas," 6:30 p.m. Sunday and 4:15 p.m. Monday, Northwest Film Forum. See previous review.

"Paprika," 9:30 p.m. Friday and 1:15 p.m. Monday, Neptune. See previous review.

"Severance," 11:59 p.m. Sunday and 11 a.m. Monday, Neptune. See previous review.