Lots of great stuff in the film section this week. Plus, movies = air conditioning (sometimes)!

Sean Nelson says In the Loop is the new Dr. Strangelove:

Iannucci isn't advancing an argument for a superior ideology the way inferior political satires like War, Inc. or Bob Roberts or Bowling for Columbine did. Instead, the film seems to argue that ideology is utterly beside the point—either in terms of its politics or its satire. For the powerful, the only doctrine that has any meaning at all is the one that preserves the power structure.

He interviews director Armando Iannucci HERE.

Jen Graves falls in love with hobbity art legends Herb and Dorothy Vogel in Herb & Dorothy:

Megumi Sasaki's documentary about their lives is a gem: We see them heckling artists like Richard Tuttle about the "rejects" he's made, which they would like to acquire; we see their perplexed relatives in matching blue recliners wondering why the hell these people can't just "live like us"; we see plaid blankets drawn back on artworks in their apartment that they've been protecting from the light for decades (by Sol LeWitt, Richard Artschwager, Andy Goldsworthy); we see their Carl Andre sculpture in a chocolate box.

Charles Mudede discusses Africa then and now, in Soul Power:

There is so much hope in this music, in Ali's rapping, in the faces of the Africans building the stadium or performing in the streets of Kinshasa. But night is falling on this world. Zaire is on the verge of becoming again "one of the dark places of the earth."

Andrew Wright is unimpressed by Funny People, Judd Apatow's attempt at sincerity:

Taken as a sloppy, maudlin, two-and-a-half-hour whole, it paints the picture of a talented filmmaker whose insular self-regard is beginning to attract small planetoids.

I am suitably alarmed by 1969 political thriller Z:

In our Daily Show—dependent modern lives, the coping mechanisms of choice seem to be farce and outsized disbelief (see In the Loop). Z takes on government corruption with eerie uncertainty and shaky paranoia wrapped in sobering blandness: gray suits, filing cabinets, calm threats.

Brendan Kiley could care less about Shrink, but loves Kevin Spacey:

The plot devices are pat and sometimes ridiculous, but Shrink is all about acting and the acting is superb. Spacey unobtrusively fills the film with his usual understated richness. The first time we see Dr. Carter, he’s waking from another bout of self-administered anesthesia—he sits up, lights a joint, and exhales, his baleful, basset-hound eyes glancing upward with the look of a man who knows he’s in trouble.

And in Limited Runs:

Flash Gordon plays in Cal Anderson Park tonight; Cry-Baby is at Central Cinema; NWFF has On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Topaz (plus Herb & Dorothy, above); the Grand Illusion is playing Phase IV, and their late-night is Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam; the Egyptian late-night is Spice World; and Wallingford Meaningful Movies is screening Why Sex? tonight.

Find more showtimes, reviews, and recommendations on our film page, HERE.

Have fun, y'all! And don't forget, Northwest Film Forum could use your help right now.