Aug. 16-23, 2006

Ali Farka Touré: Springing From the Roots This hour-long 2000 French documentary honors the late Malian musical icon, who died this past March. Interviews and musical clips alternate to help form a profile of both the influential bandleader and the broader musical traditions of the Niger region that he helped influence. (NR) Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 206-267-5380. $5-$8. 7 and 8:30 p.m. Wed. Aug. 16-Thurs. Aug. 17.

Bend It Like Beckham In this 2003 crowd pleaser, Jess (Parminder Nagra) just wants to be a soccer star. Her idol, David Beckham, is the star footballer who can famously arc the ball around opposing players. That bending effect is an inspired metaphor for just what Jess must do: get around her traditional parents' expectations to score her dream, and just maybe her handsome Irish coach (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) in the bargain. There is not one surprise in Gurinder Chadha's movie (which she also co-wrote), and the filmmaking is utterly pedestrian on a technical level, but so what? You'll be on your feet rooting for Jess to win all her goals. (PG-13) TIM APPELO Fremont Outdoor Movies, N. 35th St. and Phinney Ave. N., 206-781-4230. $5. 7:30 p.m. (doors open); show at dusk. Sat. Aug. 19.

Big Fish A traveling salesman with an oversized Alabama accent that somehow makes everything more outrageously fable-like, Ed (Albert Finney) claims to have once battled a giant catfish for his wife's wedding ring. The 2003 Fish mostly consists of Ed's deathbed flashbacks to his considerably embellished life story, told while his son (Billy Crudup) annoyingly rolls his eyes in annoyance. In all the scenes with young Ed, Ewan McGregor is all aw-shucks playing the dewy youth who grows up to be Finney. What should've made Fish ideal for director Tim Burton is the endless opportunity here for dreamlike eye-candy fantasy with a scary undercurrent. Fish is a shaggy-dog story that snaps its leash and barks in any and all directions, at random. (PG-13) TIM APPELO 4000 California Ave. S.W. (West Seattle), 425-445-5672. Free. Dusk. Sat. Aug. 19.

Cobra Verde SEE REVIEW, PAGE TK. (NR)

The Day My God Died Of course, this 2003 documentary is about a worthy and disturbing cause (Nepalese and Indian girls kidnapped into sex slavery). But, God! It's got Winona Ryder as "the voice of the children," making it an instant classic of the drop-your-jaw-in-horror variety. Sample lines: "I am a free spirit, under a free sky. The sky is my family. The stars are my friends." On the plus side, local photographer Jeff Speigner will show how relief efforts have helped other sexually exploited young women to recover in a Thai orphanage. The screening benefits that program, House of Joy, and the Maiti Nepal organization, which helps former Bombay brothel workers. (NR) 911 Media Arts Center, 402 Ninth Ave. N., 206-682-6552. $20. 7 p.m. Thurs. Aug. 17.

Election/Sideways Reese Witherspoon created a new kind of screen monster in the 1999 adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel. Her scheming, high-achieving, brown-nosing pupil destroys the life of her dweebish teacher (Matthew Broderick, ever the ambivalent victim) and anyone foolish enough to stand in her way. She's a comic marvel of ambition so fierce and concentrated that it becomes a kind of poison seeping into the soil around her. Seattle native Jim Taylor co-scripted the film with director Alexander Payne. (R) Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 206-523-3935. $5-$7.50. Fri. Aug. 18-Thurs. Aug. 24. Then it's a special wine-tasting evening featuring Taylor and Payne's Oscar-winning Sideways (2004) to benefit the GI. Most still feel that Paul Giamatti was robbed of the acting Oscar that year; certainly he and Thomas Haden Church make a memorable pair as they tear through the California wine country, trying desperately to drown the discontents of midlife. You can bet pinots will be served before the screening (at 8 p.m.). As Giamatti says, "If anyone orders merlot, I'm leaving." 21 and over. $30 (individual), $50 (couple). 7 p.m. Mon. Aug. 21.

Fund-raiser/Documentary Screening Florida congressional candidate Clint Curtis, formerly a software engineer, will screen his film about being asked in 2000 to reprogram vote-counting machines to flip votes into the Republican column. Or so he claims in Murder? Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story. Here's your chance to meet and talk with the filmmaker, and support his neophyte campaign. (NR) Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 First Ave., 206-228-9890. $25 (suggested). 7 p.m. Thurs. Aug. 17.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Spielberg's third leg of the Indiana Jones trilogy doesn't quite match the first, but the interplay between Sean Connery (as Indy Sr.) and Harrison Ford is awfully fun to watch. It's a first-rate popcorn movie, with Nazis we love to hate, a big improvement over Temple of Doom. Denholm Elliot also helps to class up the non-action sequences, and the late River Phoenix does nothing but action stuff during the film's nifty opening sequence, a sad reminder of what might've been. Yet the film also reminds us that a fourth Indiana Jones script is in the works, which Spielberg hopes to shoot before Ford needs a walker to perform his stunts. (PG-13) Majestic Bay, 2044 N.W. Market St., 206-781-2229. $6-$9.50. Midnight, Fri. Aug. 18-Sat. Aug. 19.

Karma Two nuns venture out from Nepal's remote Mustang Valley (where ethnic Tibetans predominate), looking for the reincarnation of their recently deceased abbess. At the same time, in Tsering Rhitar's road movie, they're on a detective mission to learn whether or not a benefactor of their Buddhist order has criminal ties—if so, they'd have to return the money. The screening benefits the Home Away From Home charity, which subsidizes school holidays for Tibetan students during their long boarding school terms in Mussoorie, India. (NR) Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 206-686-6684. $10. 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. Sat. Aug. 19-Sun. Aug. 20.