• The Grand Illusion shiws a lot of movies that no one else does.  This weekend the theater presents the never-released on video Caged Men Plus One Woman, an early 1970s Canadian film about the grim realities of prison.  They’re also presenting the Northwest premiere of Funky Forest: First Contact, a film I’d consider going to see simply for the sake of the title alone.  Funky Forest shows the journey of three socially maladroit brothers on a quest to get with the ladies, told in 21 unique chapters.
• Friday marks the start of SIFF‘s Global Lens series, a project in which they screen a series of films from nations with emerging film cultures.  This year’s films originate in South Africa, China, Croatia, Lebanon, the Phillipines, India, Iran, Indonesia, and Argentina.
• Central Cinema is screening The Devil Wears Prada, the critically acclaimed movie made from the critically acclaimed roman a clef that skewers the fashion industry.  Definitely a great movie to see with a bunch of friends, a pitcher of beer and some fresh, hot pizza.
• One of the best films released in recent years is Pan’s Labyrinth, a lyrical dark fantasy in which a young girl named Ofelia uses a labyrinth garden as her gateway into a magical “otherworld” to escape the brutalities of her “real world” existence living in a military fortification with her gravely ill pregnant mother and her cruel step-father, an army captain engaged in a vicious campaign to destroy the guerilla forces who are in turn bent on bringing down the military in post-civil war Spain. A mysterious faun tasks Ofelia with three challenges to complete in order to achieve what he says is her true destiny.  Though the story is often bleak, it is well constructed and intensely engaging, one of those rare films in which both the “imaginary” and “real” worlds appear as genuine.  Midnight at the Egyptian.
• Snow Angels is a film of love lost and found in a small town, centered on the tribulations besetting three interconnected couples at various life stages.  The excellent cast features Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale, Griffin Dunne, Amy Sedaris, Olivia Thirlby, and Michael Angarano, whom I think is the best young actor in contemporary film.  It opens this weekend at the Harvard Exit.
• Another film about love and interconnected couples opens at the Guild 45th.  Married Life stars Chris Cooper as a man convinced he must murder his wife, played by Patricia Clarkson, to spare her the misery of having to live without him once he leaves her for Kay (Rachel McAdams), unaware that his best friend Richard (Pierce Brosnan) has plans for Kay of his own.
• Gus Van Sant at his best is an extremely capable director who creates stories that are painfully true.  His latest feature, Paranoid Park, opens this weekend at the Neptune, and tells the story of a young skateboarder who unwittingly gets involved with the death of a security guard at the titular Portland park, a makeshift skate park down at the railway yard.
• Some people love him, some people hate him, some people just don’t pay him much attention but Bob Dylan is one of the more important figures in rock’n'roll history and, me, I like him quite a lot.  NWFF is screening The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965.   Director Murray Lerner’s documentary presents some amazing footage of what were truly classic performances by Dylan.  The multi-year span allows the viewer to watch Dylan grow and progress as an artist during a time period crucial to his career.  Also on screen at NWFF is The Killing of John Lennon, Andrew Pillington’s speculative film about what was going on in the mind of Mark Chapman as he first stalked and later murdered John Lennon.

Also, mark your calendars now for the Seattle Jewish Film Festival, kicking off the first week of April.