One Hal of a Weekend

The Northwest Film Forum's been showing The Girl from Monday for a week now, but for tomorrow night's screening at 8pm, director Hal Hartley will be in attendance to introduce his latest work and hold a post-film Q&A. Since Hartley's veritable indie film royalty, this is a big geeky deal. The Girl from Monday has been dubbed a "fake sci-fi movie," but it's also a dark dystopian satire, a vision of the future where humans are traded like stocks, their value determined by sexual experiences. Sounds like a hoot. The film's showing sans Hartley through May 4th daily at 7pm and 9pm.

If you prefer your corporate dystopia rooted in reality, the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room opens tomorrow at both the Egyptian and the Guild 45th. Director Alex Gibney does a great job of whittling the scandal down to understandable terms, while displaying some of the best movie villians in recent history. Gibney previously directed The Trials of Henry Kissinger and claimed that, comparatively, on the continuum of evil, the Enron guys ain't that bad. Still, come to this film eager to hiss and boo.

Also opening this weekend (at the Harvard Exit) is Palindromes, the latest from creepy-brilliant auteur Todd Solondz. Solondz describes it as the "saddest of his funny films," and like the rest of his oeuvre, Palindromes features comedy and pathos side by side. The film's main gimmick: our protagonist Aviva, a thirteen-year-old girl desperate to be a mother, is played by eight actors of various colors, shapes, and sizes (including an androgynous boy and a particularly haggard Jennifer Jason Leigh). Drawing from sources like Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels, Huckleberry Finn, and The Night of the Hunter, Solondz has fashioned one seriously jacked-up fable.

However, this weekend the smart money's on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The junior-high kid in Seattlest has been waiting for this film our whole life (and recently re-read the book, just to be safe). If you're half as intelligent as a mouse or dolphin, you'll get your tix early. Make sure to bring a towel.

And for the last time, please don't go see XXX: State of Union. We know, we know, Ice Cube was pretty good on The Daily Show earlier this week, but once more we implore you to avoid this "film" like the plague. Let's never speak of this travesty again.