Local & Repertory

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ERASERHEAD SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 24.

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The Limey A smart, funny, and hauntingly elliptical 1999 film from Steven Soderbergh. Terence Stamp gives a terrific, intense performance as Wilson, an English career criminal visiting LA to avenge the death of his daughter. Shady record industry mogul Peter Fonda was her boyfriend—so Stamp naturally zeroes in on him. Yet this is no mall-oriented revenge flick; instead, Soderbergh employs jump-cuts, flashbacks, fantasy sequences and remarkable snippets of an entirely different old film to resist our expectations and complicate his hero’s revenge. (R)

Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $63–$68 series, $8 individual, Thu., Dec. 5, 7:30 p.m.

Madoka Magica 3: The Rebellion Story Culled from a recent cartoon series on Japanese television, this theatrical package continues the adventures of pixie heroine Madoka Kaname. Also note that Madoka Magica 1 & 2 will be screened at 1 p.m. Sun. (NR)

Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org, $5-$8, Fri., Dec. 6, 6 & 8:30 p.m.; Sat., Dec. 7, 1, 3:30, 6 & 8:30 p.m.; Sun., Dec. 8, 6 & 8:30 p.m.; Mon., Dec. 9, 9 p.m.

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The Nightmare Before Christmas Every handcrafted frame of this wonderful 1993 stop-motion animation film—with its coffin sled, death’s-head tree ornaments, skeleton reindeer, and spindly patchwork look—bears the touch of Tim Burton’s misfit imagination. He also came up with its kid-friendly, ho-ho-horror story of a Halloween king who decides to restage Christmas according to his ghoulish sensibility. (First step: Kidnap Santa.) Jack Skellington really isn’t a bad sort of fellow; and his impulse to bring yuletide festivity to Halloweentown shows the misfit’s touching desire to finally fit in. The movie is followed at 9:30 p.m. by the surprisingly class-conscious comedy Trading Places, with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd back in 1983. BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $6-$8, Dec. 6-9, 7 p.m.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Also screening at Thornton Place and the Bella Botega in Redmond, this is the spectacularly bad 1964 sci-fi/Yultetide flick that features a young Pia Zadora. However, the original soundtrack will be muted so you can hear this RiffTrax presentation of Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett (aka the old MST3K gang). See FathomEvents.com for price and details. (NR)

Pacific Place, 600 Pine St., Thu., Dec. 5, 8 p.m.

Ongoing

The Armstrong Lie Just as Lance Armstrong once pumped too much EPO into his veins, too much Lance Armstrong has been pumped into media annals to make Alex Gibney’s long-delayed documentary very newsworthy. Armstrong is only interesting when Gibney (and other journalists) here provoke his anger and peevishness, his self-justification. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance

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Blue Is the Warmest Color Abdellatif Kechiche’s three-hour Cannes prize-winner follows Adele (the splendid Adele Exarchopoulos) from high school to womanhood, that span mostly involving her relationship with Emma (Lea Seydoux). Blue’s length allows the sex scenes to take their proper role in Adele’s world: Their duration shows us how much they matter, but they don’t actually take up that much time when folded into the larger dish. (NC-17) ROBERT HORTON Sundance, Harvard Exit

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Dallas Buyers Club Matthew McConaughey’s ornery, emaciated Ron Woodroof contracted HIV in 1985. As Ron desperately bribes and steals a path to off-label meds, then drives to Mexico to smuggle them, Dallas Buyers Club is ultimately more a caper movie than an AIDS story. (R) B.R.M. Harvard Exit, Lincoln Square, Sundance

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Gravity George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are stranded in orbit, menaced by regular bombardments of space debris. For all its technical marvels and breathtaking panoramas reflected in Stone’s visor, Gravity is a very compact and task-oriented picture. It’s both space-age and hugely traditional, though with a modern, self-aware heroine. Alfonso Cuaron directs one of the year’s best films. (PG-13) B.R.M. Lincoln Square, Sundance, Thornton Place, others

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The Great Beauty Paolo Sorrentino’s fantastic account of an aging playboy journalist in Rome follows Jep (the sublime Toni Servillo) through and after the debauch of his 65th birthday party. Disgust—and then perhaps self-disgust—begins to color his perception of a Botox party, the food obsessions of a prominent cardinal, the splatter-art demonstration of a child artist, and the whole “debauched country.” In one of the year’s best movies, Servillo makes Jep a guy living parallel lives in hectic ballrooms and in his head. One of the year’s best. (NR) B.R.M. Varsity

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Nebraska Whether delusional, demented, or duped by a sweepstakes letter promising him $1 million, it really doesn’t matter about the motivations of Woody (the excellent and subdued Bruce Dern). What counts is the willpower of this cotton-haired, ex-alcoholic Montana geezer, joined by his son (Will Forte, surprisingly tender) on their a trek to Nebraska, where Woody expects to get his prize. There is a lifetime of regret and bad parenting to reveal in Alexander Payne’s black-white-movie, which makes it sound more bleak than it is. There’s both comedy and pathos, too, in one of the year’s best pictures. (R) B.R.M. Guild 45th