Perhaps it’s a measure of its effectiveness when a movie compels you to exhale through your teeth every 10 minutes, but Beijing Bicycle’s ability to get under your skin has more to do with manipulation than storytelling. Guei (Cui Lin) is a country boy who has just arrived from in the big city; his first job as a courier comes with a spiffy new mountain bike which he’s almost done paying off when it gets stolen. Next, the bike shows up with Jian (Li Bin), a cash-strapped schoolkid whose stepfather’s promises of a new bike have remained empty for years. The two eventually meet, and a seemingly endless cycle commences: Guei retrives the bike under cover of darkness, Jian and his school friends track him down and beat the crap out of him until the bike is retrieved. Repeat (but do not rinse). The fact that Guei continues to stand helpless while his bike is repeatedly taken from him seems more a function of contrivance than character, and eventually, the film’s shamelessness becomes merely irritating. By the time it’s over, your heartstrings will be dangling like limp noodles. --Sam Adams (Ritz Five)

A CHRONICLE OF CORPSES Though A Chronicle of Corpses shows Chestnut Hill writer/director Andrew Repasky McElhinney with a decidedly steadier hand on the tiller than his debut feature Magdalen, that’s as much a cause of the movie’s faults as its successes. The colonial Gothic horror story, set on a decaying island plantation somewhere in the 19th century, gives every sign of being deliberately stilted and affectless, but you can only be so delighted that the film achieves its goals. The 16mm film, shot by McElhinney stalwart Abe Holtz, has moments of striking beauty, particularly within the church which is one of the narrative’s two symbolically overtaxed spaces, the other being the crumbling mansion of a once-prosperous slave-owner. Stalked by a bald-headed killer who emerges from the shadows only long enough to knock off the island’s inhabitants as they progress to their deaths like monologue-spouting lemmings, the film’s cast (including soap vet Marj Dusay) seems more arranged than directed, though fans of Warholian anti-acting and the impassive grotesque will probably have to be pried out of their chairs. Of course, it still leaves plenty of room to anticipate McElhinney’s next step, and the hope that he not only reaches his goals as successfully, but chooses less abstruse ones as well. -- Sam Adams (Ritz Bourse)

(See Sam Adams’ interview with writer/director Andrew Repasky McElhinney on p. 27.)

It should come with a label warning “By Film Geeks for Film Geeks,” but CQ’s fond homage to the golden age of European cinema never sinks into mere apery (though it comes with a caboose-full of trainspottery references). Jeremy Davies stars as an American in Paris, a filmmaker who on the one hand is editing a Barbarella-esque flick with art film aspirations (directed by the volcanically-inclined Gérard Depardieu), and on the other making his own desperately uncommercial (and just plain desperate) ciné-confessional, which mainly consists of shots of him sitting on the toilet and pouring his heart out. Writer/director Roman Coppola shows some of his dad’s flair for style, though not much of his grandiosity -- CQ is deliberately, endearingly ramshackle, from the cardboard sci-fi sets to its vintage off-color tones. CQ has its off-brand moments -- Coppola cousin Jason Schwartzman’s turn as a Mario Bava-esque director is particularly grating -- but despite its style-shifting and self-conscious narrative (both flagrant no-nos for first-time directors), Coppola’s valentine is written in indelible ink. --S.A. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

Inspired by a real, and frequently dramatized, French case, Murderous Maids (Les Blessures Assassinés) returns to the scene of the 1933 crime, where sisters Christine and Léa Papin murdered and mutilated the two woman of the household where they were employed as maids. Director Jean-Pierre Denis offers an explanation that relies on pathology rather than sociology; after the young Christine is involved in a fight at her convent school, the bloodlust in her eyes is palpable. As the adult Christine, Sylvie Testud veers from domestic obedience to feral intensity, the latter of which most frequently comes into play when she’s separated from her sister Léa (Julie-Marie Parmentier), or in conflict with her mother. (It’s not surprising Jacques Lacan used the Papins as a case study.) As their relationship becomes more intense (and eventually sexual), Christine’s derangement grows, and Testud looks more and more as if there’s just enough blood pumping through her to keep her on her feet. Denis resists drawing any kind of moral from the case, though clearly poverty and the cruelty of the Papins’ employers played a part. In Testud, though, we see something animal, beyond reason or correction, and a glimpse of that is all we need. --S.A. (Ritz Bourse)

Keep that funk alive. Between NBA commercials, Snoop videos, and the recently increased visibility of Bootsy Collins and George Clinton, the funk seems to be everywhere, including the Net, where Undercover Brother, the animated series, has been holding it down at urbanentertainment.com. The titular hero spends his time kung-fu fighting, afro-picking and generally delighting the ladies; recently he kicked Eminem’s ass. Now comes the big screen version, written by the series creator and novelist John Ridley and Michael McCullers, directed by Malcolm D. Lee and starring Eddie Griffin in a wide wig, porkchop sideburns and skinny leather pants. The plot operates on the Austin Powers/Charlie’s Angels level of satire, but brings a welcome socio-political edge that fart and t&a jokes tend to squash. Even better, it’s funny. UB joins the underground B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. -- including Aunjanue Ellis as Sistah Girl, hilarious Dave Chappelle as Conspiracy Brother, Chi McBride as the Chief, and Doogie Howser as their eager intern -- in order to fight The Man, by way of The Man’s minion (Chris Kattan), who just can’t help but dance when he hears Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair.” UB “passes” in the white world by learning details of past Friends episodes, tangles with she-devil Denise Richards (they rightfully butcher “Ebony & Ivory” at a karaoke bar), gets on the Love Train and, above all else, protects his funky ’fro. --C.F. (AMC Andorra;