'Slaughterhouse-Five'

The film version of Kurt Vonnegut's novel manages to keep much of the book's tricky tone of wistful absurdism alternating with abject horror. For World War II vet Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks), time has collapsed, so that at any moment, he may segue from his dull suburban present to his captive future (captured by aliens and exhibited as a zoo specimen) to his horrific wartime past as a survivor of the firebombing of Dresden (which Vonnegut himself endured as a POW). For all its goofy sci-fi trappings, the movie captures the veteran's sense that he's always on the verge of reliving the most terrifying moments of his life.