9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Black Dynamite
Thoroughly silly and enjoyable for film geeks who know the old '70s blaxploitation canon, Black Dynamite suffers from the Grindhouse paradox. As Quentin Tarantino discovered, not everyone outside his immediate circle of friends actually cares that much about lovingly reviving cinematic curios of the past. And Tarantino spent a lot more to achieve his little-seen tribute. Black Dynamite would've worked better as part of a Grindhouse triple bill, and there certainly would've been more dialogue to fill the dead spots. Co-writer and star Michael Jai White treats this material deadpan straight, meaning that he and co-writer/director Scott Sanders recreate the stilted lines, stiff acting, cheap lighting, and leaps of plot logic that plagued the poor sons of Shaft. Grindhouse was expensive cheap; Black Dynamite is cheap cheap. And for those expecting a Zucker/Wayans brothers–style spoof, the gags don't come nearly fast enough. That said, I, a total film geek, giggled all the way through. Though the hugely buff White, as the kung fu–kickin', multiple-lady-lovin' ex-CIA agent Black Dynamite, is no Leslie Nielsen, he has his moments. When a ghetto lovely says that he never flirts or smiles, he responds from beneath clenched jaw and fixed, immobile moustache: "I am smiling." (R) BRIAN MILLER Also: Midnight Sat., June 6.
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9:30 p.m., SIFF Cinema
Four Boxes
The Blair Witch Project meets YouTube. Four Boxes pushes its cleverness one box too far, but it had me thoroughly entertained for the first three. Filmed in voyeuristic, surveillance-camera style, this effective little thriller is well-timed to the mortgage meltdown and foreclosure market. Trevor (Justin Kirk) and junior partner Rob (Sam Rosen) clean out repo properties for the bank, selling the abandoned contents on eBay while they take residence in the vacant homes for a few days. At one such distressed cul de sac property (and we mean really distressed, where two suicides took place), the two find cryptic clues that riches could've been hidden on the premises by the insane former owner. While they hunt, quarrel, and toke up, Rob watches the weirdness on the "Four Boxes" Web site, which bears a certain resemblance to what we in the audience are watching, too. Coincidence? "Not everything is a Stephen King book," insists Rob, whose fiancée (Terryn Westbrook), who happens to be Trevor's ex, joins them on the increasingly paranoid treasure hunt. So there's also a romantic triangle within this Rubik's Cube of a haunted house. First-time filmmakers Wyatt McDill and Megan Huber do get drawn into the abyss of self-reflexive cinema, with snuff films, Hitchcock, and Webcasts swirling in the mix. Four Boxes doesn't earn its conclusion, but it puts a nice technological spin on suburban horror and the fear of the new economy. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Also: 1:30 p.m. Sun., June 7.
12 a.m., Egyptian
PICK: Grace
How bad do you want that baby? Do you really, really, really want a child? Birth and horror belong together, dating past Rosemary's Baby and into folklore. But Paul Solet then adds New Age philosophy, veganism, and aggressive feminism to the mix—eliciting laughs and gasps in equal measure. Three strong women are at odds in Grace: pregnant Madeleine (Jordan Ladd), her meddling, baby-crazed mother-in-law (Gabrielle Rose), and the imperious naturopathic doctor (Samantha Ferris) determined to keep men out of the birthing room. (And out of the bedroom, if you know what I mean.) Against the advice of her male doctors (boo! hiss!) Madeleine carries her high-risk pregnancy to term, calling her miracle baby Grace. And yes, Grace turns out to be something of a problem child. "You don't understand," the mother insists, "She's special! She needs special food!" The mother-in-law and her hired physicians disagree. The naturopath is more sympathetic, but her professional judgment may be clouded by a certain past, ahem, with Madeleine. Surely destined for midnight-movie status and a long life on DVD, Grace should probably be avoided by pregnant women. But for guys about to become fathers, it supplies a valuable message: See, this is what you leave behind. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Also: Pacific Place, 9:30 p.m. Sat., June 6.
Saturday, June 6
11 a.m., Egyptian
Hard on the heels of the acclaimed Gomorrah, Italian corruption gets a much quieter but equally vigorous workout in Paolo Sorrentino's highly stylized portrait of the country's most enduring political leader, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. Teflon doesn't begin to describe the Christian Democrat who led one after another of Italy's rapid succession of administrations and survived a major bribery and corruption investigation, while opponents and former allies dropped mysteriously dead around him. Il Divo plays like an elegantly ritualized black comedy, with Sorrentino deploying every formal tool in his arsenal to disrupt facile interpretations of Andreotti's strategically opaque character. Toni Servillo plays Andreotti with brilliant restraint as a physically disconnected man whose curling ears and still, round-shouldered gait hilariously—and pathetically—recall the desiccated food critic Anton Ego from Ratatouille. We learn that Andreotti was a cultured wit with a gift—like this movie—for aphoristic quotation; that he suffered from debilitating headaches; that, in his way, he loved his wife, who loved him back in hers. His solitary nocturnal strolls, surrounded by burly blokes with machine guns, offer one of the movie's few clues to the price he paid for his obsessive lockhold on power. Aside from an imaginary "confession" in which he grows momentarily unhinged, Andreotti remains a properly unknowable monument on his country's shadowy, shady political landscape. (NR) ELLA TAYLOR Also: Cinerama, 9:15 p.m. Sat., June 13.
