Hello, everyone! Happy day after T-giving! Here is an idea for something to do today that is not sleeping or bickering: Why not smuggle a turkey leg and a thermos of gravy into a movie theater and watch a movie? Mmmmm, gravy! Smear some on your neighbor!

Opening today:

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The obvious choice this weekend is Milk, the mostly-devastating-but-maybe-slightly-hope-inducing Harvey Milk biopic. David Schmader and Eli Sanders double-teamed this review: Schmader on the filmmaking ("the lion's share of credit for Milk's success belongs to star Sean Penn, whose devotion to the film helped secure its production, and whose performance in the title role is a major accomplishment: quietly amazing, simultaneously lived-in and spontaneous, his best ever"), and Sanders on the politics ("watching Milk in the afterglow of those Prop 8 protests, one is likely to experience an odd kind of political flashback, with the onscreen protest scenes from a decades-distant history triggering memories of real-life protest scenes from the very recent past").

Bonus! James Franco:
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Then there's a bunch of shit that you should not see. You should, however, read the reviews, if hilarity is what you are into. This week's film section (Milk aside) is particularly hilarious.

Paul Constant on Transporter 3:

In 2005, Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier suggested that the main character of the Transporter series, Frank Martin (Jason Statham), is gay. Homophobic action-movie fans nearly wet their little pink panties over the suggestion—many pointing out that Martin made out with a woman in the first film, as though gay men have never swapped spit with ladies under duress. With the third installment of the series, the sexuality question is beaten to death: Freckly Ukrainian sexpot/plot device Valentina (Natalya Rudakova, beautiful and occasionally lifelike) outright asks Martin if he's "the gay," and he categorically denies it.

Jen Graves on Four Christmases:

After I saw Four Christmases, I went home, put on red boxing gloves, and punched the posts that hold up my house very hard. I really did do this. I could not help it. I predict other children of divorced parents who are not picture-perfect will do this also. Why must heartwarming Christmas movies be satanic? Why must they be my personal kryptonite?

And David Schmader on Breakfast with Scot:

In Breakfast with Scot, an all-but-married couple of "straight-acting" gay guys—one actively closeted, the other just discreet—are granted temporary custody of a nephew, a 12-year-old boy whose mother has died. This boy looks like Miranda July, dresses like Mrs. Roper, and introduces himself with the statement "I only like musicals." This is Scot, and Scot is a budding flaming homosexual, or maybe a robot programmed to act like one, built by someone who read about homosexuality in an encyclopedia.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Mrs. Roper!

I have no idea what I wrote about in Concessions this week:
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This movie might as well be Paul Hogan making love to a kangaroo, wearing a shirt that says: "CRIKEY! MY OTHER CAR IS A WITCHETTY GRUB," while the Crocodile Hunter's widow goes, "G'day, billabong! Joey wombat platypus marsupial. Walkabout! Men at Work, g'day! Crikey, Outback Steakhouse! Country? Continent? Both! Fuck you!" The end.

And in Limited Runs, you've got:

High school election documentary Frontrunners at the Northwest Film Forum. Says Paul Constant:

There aren’t a whole lot of dirty dealings or Machiavellian plots here; basically, if you were expecting a real-life Election, you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, it’s an interesting portrait of three gifted students in an incredibly competitive situation. Each is a different type of nerd (the socially awkward arrogant bastard, the hardworking cheerleader, and the laid-back big man on campus) and each of them wears the stress in a different way. The actual election is anticlimactic, but by the time it happens, you’re already invested in these geeks. You expect election drama and you get a clear-eyed high school documentary. It’s not a bad tradeoff.

Over at the Grand Illusion, there's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Steel of Fire Warriors 2010 A.D., which is a sci-fi epic made by a bunch of local comedians using a video camera and some cardboard and string, and is totally fucking funny.

Central Cinema has The Princess Bride and In Search Of.
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SIFF Cinema has Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress, and the Tangerine.

And the Egyptian late-night is Across the Universe.

And lucky for you, there's still time (STILL TIME!) to see the absolutely fucking amazing Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One in. You should go see it. Go see it!

And have a great weekend. TURKEY LEG!