March 27, 2009 - The Austin Chronicle

C ALE N D AR ( COMMUNITY SPORTS ARTS FILM MUSIC) L I STI NGSLunafest 2009Lunafest 2009 Reel Women. The nationally touring festival ofaward-winning films is produced by Luna Bar and sponsored locallyby Reel Women and the Jewish Community Association of Austin’sWomen’s Division. This eighth edition includes 10 short films madeby, for, and about women. They embody a wide range of topics dealingwith what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. One ofthe films in this year’s collection is by UT student Nazanin Shirazi."Big Girl"All proceeds benefit Reel Women’s membership and education programs and the Breast Cancer Fund. @DellJewish Community Center, Sunday, 2pm; $10.They Killed Sister DorothyThey Killed Sister Dorothy (2008) D: Daniel Junge. (NR,93 min.) Screen Door Film: Texas Cinema Series. Last year’s winnerof SXSW’s Best Documentary award recounts the details of themurder in the Brazil rainforest of the 73-year-old nun and activistDorothy Stang, a champion of indigenous workers and environmentalists.Sister Dorothy’s brother, David Stang, will be in attendanceto provide an update on his sister’s murder trial and conduct a Q&A.@Ragsdale Center, Jones Auditorium (at St. Edward’s University),Friday, 7pm; free.the comedian appears reasonably adept yet hardlycapable of the surprising gracefulness of a fat comicmaster such as Jackie Gleason. The plot has Blartproving his mettle when robbers hijack the mall andhe becomes the city cops’ eyes and ears on theinside. Director Carr adds nothing to the overall mixwith his rudimentary point-and-shoot visual strategy.(01/23/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten★ CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria, SouthparkMeadows, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown SouthTHE PINK PANTHER 2 D: HaraldZwart; with Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer,Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, Yuki Matsuzaki, Aishwarya RaiBachchan, John Cleese, Lily Tomlin. (PG, 92 min.)I don’t care how many pieces he’s written for TheNew Yorker, how often he’s been honored by theKennedy Center, or how many times he’s hostedSaturday Night Live; Steve Martin is going to haveto answer to a higher power for The Pink Panther 2.There’s only so much mileage you can get out of aguy falling down stairs and speaking in a ridiculousFrench accent before the gag runs dry, and PeterSellers pretty much got it all. Clouseau is his ownodd blend of klutzy and sophisticated, constantly fallingass-backward into forensic revelations while strenuouslymaintaining his sense of deductive superiorityand Gallic haughtiness. Which, again, was funny 40years ago, when Peter Sellers was the guy doing allthe falling and maintaining, but Martin has sucked allthe wit out of Clouseau, all the carefully consideredcomic delusion, and turned him into a blockheadedclown. (02/13/2009)– Josh Rosenblatt★ Hill Country GalleriaRACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIND: Andy Fickman; with Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino,AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Ciarán Hinds, GarryMarshall. (PG, 99 min.)This third Witch Mountain outing is essentially thesame stop ’n’ go chase film as its predecessors, butall things considered, it’s not half-bad. Dwayne “Don’tCall Me the Rock” Johnson, who appears to be followingIce Cube’s lead in his lateral career move fromnarcissistic, violent cartoon character to goofy, familyfriendlycartoon character, is spot-on as Jack Bruno,a self-doubting former racer and current Vegas cabbiewho, with an assist from discredited but still, like,totally hot astrophysicist Dr. Alex Friedman (Gugino)saves the planet and the tweenage ETs (Robb andLudwig, dialogue-coached, it would seem, by StephenHawking). Edited with zero tolerance for boredom andfeaturing a typical Disney self-empowerment morality,this race is entertaining and patently inoffensivematinee fare for kids 12 and younger and their adultoverlords. (03/20/2009)– Marc Savlov★★★■Barton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, HillCountry Galleria, CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows,Highland, Gateway, Lakeline, Metropolitan, TinseltownNorth, WestgatewTHE READER D: Stephen Daldry; with RalphFiennes, Kate Winslet, David Kross, Bruno Ganz, LenaOlin. (R, 123 min.)The question at the heart of The Reader is whathave we learned (and forgotten) from history’s bloodybackwash? Luckily for The Reader, the angelic Ganz,as a sage professor of law, is on hand to nudge thequestion of wartime culpability to the fore. But that’snot what’s most remarkable about The Reader, it’s justwhat’s most intellectually chewy. The real red meat ofDaldry’s film is the May-December romance betweena weary-looking, sexually rapacious streetcar tickettaker(Winslet, shockingly good throughout) in postwarBerlin and the sickly young schoolboy (an enthusiastic,excellent Kross) on whom she initially takes pity andthen seduces, ravenously and to his great delight.One day she’s gone, with no explanation, and the boygrows into a promising young law student and, later,into a sorrowful-seeming Fiennes. Daldry, working froma superior script by David Hare, has crafted a filmabout guilt, love, and history and how the three skeinscreate human beings or, alternately, human monsters.(12/26/2008) – Marc Savlov★★★★■ArborREVOLUTIONARY ROAD D: SamMendes; with Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, KathyBates, Michael Shannon, Kathryn Hahn, David Harbour,Dylan Baker, Zoe Kazan, Richard Easton. (R, 119 min.)I suppose you could call Revolutionary Road amovie about the killing effects of the suburbs –something director Mendes previously explored inhis debut film, American Beauty – but that would bea facile reduction of a film that aims, far more cuttingly,to sandblast the myth of “specialness” – thatvery American idea that we are all destined for greatness.A seductive opening scene introduces Frank(DiCaprio) and April (Winslet), before they’ve marriedand moved to Revolutionary Road. The film thencuts to a half-decade later: The Wheelers are expertbrawlers by now, both of them chafing at the expectationsof their gender roles. There’s an airlessnessto Mendes’ picture that doesn’t leave much roomfor error. One slight bobble from the (admittedly verygood) leads, and the illusion crumbles. Not a bobblein sight, though, from bit player Shannon, who stealsthe whole picture in two short, shattering scenes.(01/09/2009) – Kimberley Jones★★★ ArborwSLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE D: DannyBoyle, Loveleen Tandan; with Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor,Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Irrfan Khan, Ankur Vikal.(R, 120 min.)Slumdog Millionaire is a mad, thrilling, and perverselyluminous film. It may be drenched in thesaffron and violet palettes of its Mumbai setting,but it plays like a classic Hollywood rags-to-richeslove story, albeit one with Bollywood roots and a fullyglobalized desire to survive, succeed, live, and lovewithin the teeming megalopolis formerly known asBombay. It’s a natural fit for Boyle and director ofphotography Anthony Dod Mantle. Mumbai is nothingif not giddy chaos incarnate. Patel, in his featuredebut, is the “slumdog” of the title, a reed-thin youngstriver named Jamal Malik. Jamal has managed tosurvive the crushing poverty and daily tragedies ofhis birthplace and has somehow landed himself onthe Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.It’s a doozy of a story that piles on the traditionalHolly- and Bollywood melodrama but never shiesaway or strays too far from the Ganges and theghetto. (12/12/2008)– Marc Savlov★★★★ Alamo Ritz, Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek,Barton Creek Square, Movies 8SPIKE & MIKE’S SICK &TWISTED FESTIVAL OFANIMATION 2009 D: Various. (NR, 90 min.)Not reviewed at press time. This tasteless-andproud-of-itcartoon collection presents its annualextravaganza. (02/27/2009) – Marjorie BaumgartenAlamo Drafthouse Lake Creek84 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E MARCH 27, 2009 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o mSTREET FIGHTER: THE LEGENDOF CHUN-LI D: Andrzej Bartkowiak; with KristinKreuk, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough, Robin Shou, MoonBloodgood, Josie Ho, Taboo, Michael Clarke Duncan.(PG-13, 96 min.)Based, in name only, on the classic Capcom videogame, this kinda-sorta sequel to 1994’s Jean-ClaudeWATCHMEN Van Damme-meets-Kylie Minogue kick-fest is set inD: Zack Snyder; with Billy Crudup,Bangkok – one of the few cities in the world whereMalin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley,you can aim your camera at a lint ball in the gutter Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino.and end up with a neon-streaked, hyper-saturated, (R, 161 min.)dead sexy action-adventure film. So it boggles themind that The Legend of Chun-Li is as vapid and dull While scrupulously faithful in nearly every regardas it is. The film is jaggedly edited, poorly paced, (save the ending) to writer Alan Moore and artistand, above all, as underwhelming (if less cartoonish) Dave Gibbons’ landmark DC Comics series (whicha martial arts movie as its predecessor. Althoughdirector Bartkowiak has previous experience helmingvideo-game-inspired crap action films (Doom),the former director of photography’s latest is ladenwith godawful dialogue (and worse line readings), alame vendetta plot, and a witless and scattershotnarrative. Smallville’s Kreuk is easy on the eyes andmemory as Chun-Li, a Hong Kong concert pianist whotransforms herself into a two-fisted killing machine.(03/06/2009) – Marc Savlov/Movies 8wTAKEN D: Pierre Morel; with Liam Neeson, MaggieGrace, Famke Janssen, Holly Valance, Leland Orser, JonGries, David Warshofsky. (PG-13, 94 min.)Taken begins with an act of violence against anAmerican. Ninety minutes and dozens of fights,chases, and explosions later, it ends with a sheikassassinated, at least 50 people murdered, acouple of swarthy foreigners tortured, and Francepretty well knocked about. Call it the last cinematicgasp of the Bush era, with a Hollywood hero evenBill O’Reilly could love. Bryan (Neeson) is a a formerU.S. spy who goes on a vigilante rampage when hisdaughter (Grace) is kidnapped by a gang of Albaniansex traffickers after she goes to Paris to attend aU2 concert (which should be a lesson to teenagerseverywhere). It’s a brilliantly devious setup,conceived by co-writers Luc Besson and RobertMark Kamen, who know that moviegoers will give awide ethical berth to any father fighting to save hisdaughter’s life, while kicking feeble notions such asplausibility and morality out the window as they go.(02/06/2009) – Josh Rosenblatt★★★★■Alamo Drafthouse Village, Barton CreekSquare, CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria, CM RoundRock, Southpark Meadows, Lakeline, Metropolitan,Tinseltown North, WestgateTYLER PERRY’S MADEA GOESTO JAIL D: Tyler Perry; with Perry, Derek Luke,Keshia Knight Pulliam, David Mann, Tamela J. Mann, IonOverman, RonReaco Lee, Viola Davis. (PG-13, 103 min.)I can honestly say I’ve never been more confusedin a theatre than I was while watching TylerPerry’s Madea Goes to Jail. And not because Madeadoesn’t actually go to jail until the film is almostover (though also that); I just couldn’t find a wayto reconcile the comic absurdity of Mable “Madea”Simmons (Perry) – the sassy, crass, belligerent,bawdy, self-righteous, over-the-top, I-can’t-believe-shejust-said-thatcenter of the Perry multimedia empire(with outposts on television and Broadway) – withthe maudlin melodrama of Candace Washington, atwentysomething drug addict and streetwalker playedby Pulliam (The Cosby Show’s Rudy, another image Icouldn’t quite get my head around), who is a lifelongvictim of sexual and emotional violence. It’s as ifPerry took Big Momma’s House, slapped it togetherwith The Accused, closed his eyes, and prayed forcoherence. Taken separately, the two parts of Madeawould probably make for fine, if unremarkable, movies.(02/27/2009)– Josh Rosenblatt★★ CM Round Rock, Metropolitan, Millennium,Tinseltown Northran from 1986 to ’87 before being collected into asingle-volume graphic novel), the film itself is bizarrelycold and uninvolving. Snyder’s film is as meaty anadaptation of this meta-comic as we’re ever likelyto see, but it never quite clicks, and I think thathas everything to do with both the medium and thecontemporary world we live in. Simply put, Watchmenthe comic is, as it turns out, unfilmable, and so whatwe’re left with are the comic panels made mobile,the dialogue spoken aloud, but none of the visceralpunch that comes from discovering the comic firsthand.Watchmen is beautifully designed, stoicallypaced in the finest film-noir tradition, and awash inarresting imagery, but it never manages to make theexquisite emotional connection the comic so handilydoes. (03/06/2009)– Marc Savlov★★★■Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, Alamo DrafthouseSouth, Alamo Drafthouse Village, Barton Creek Square,CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria, CM Round Rock,Southpark Meadows, Dobie, Highland, Gateway,Metropolitan, Tinseltown North, WestgatewTHE WRESTLER D: Darren Aronofsky; withMickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, MarkMargolis, Todd Barry, Wass Stevens, Judah Friedlander,Ernest Miller. (R, 109 min.)In the latest from Aronofsky, Rourke rips his tatteredname out from the dustbin of history with hisportrayal of Randy “the Ram” Robinson, an agingprofessional wrestler (and fellow dustbin inhabitant).Those looking for a grand discourse on the sufferingnobility of the aging pseudo-athlete in modern,youth-obsessed America will probably go away disappointed.Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert Siegelare less interested in tragedy than they are the intimacythat develops between men engaged in closecontactbattle and the contrivances needed to makethat contact look as “real” as possible. Together theycreate innumerable fascinating moments that havethe air of documentary truth. But let’s be honest: Thestory of the waning athlete, the stripper he loves,and the daughter he left behind is an old one, and ifThe Wrestler is ever in danger of slipping into sentimentality,it’s here. Thankfully, whenever the risk ofcliché arises, Aronofsky takes us back into the ring.(01/09/2009) – Josh Rosenblatt★★★★■ArborCheck Film Listings online for full-length reviews,up-to-date showtimes, archives, and more!austinchronicle.com/film