Prodigious Songcraft Blooms in Sarah Jarosz - The Austin Chronicle

CALENDA R ( COMMUNITY SPORTS ARTS F ILM MUSIC) LIST I N GSTHE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTORPARNASSUS D: Terry Gilliam; with Heath Ledger,Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield, VerneTroyer, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law. (PG-13, 122 min.)Christopher Plummer is delightful as this movie’smaster magician and impresario of the ricketyImaginarium, a traveling road show that featuresa mirrorlike portal into one’s unconscious, but thereal Parnassus here is Gilliam. In what has almostbecome his signature m.o., Gilliam rescues his filmfrom the jaws of disaster – this time when his starHeath Ledger died abruptly midway through filming.Concocting a scenario that almost works seamlessly,three actors – Depp, Farrell, and Law – wereenlisted to play different aspects of Tony, the nameof Ledger’s character who entices people to partwith their money and trip through the Imaginarium.This “continuity snafu” is not what underminesThe Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Instead, theproblem resides with the story itself, or rather, thelack of story. Co-written with Charles McKeown, withwhom Gilliam also wrote Brazil and The Adventuresof Baron Munchausen, the scenario doesn’tcontain much activity beyond the initial setup.(01/08/2010) – Marjorie Baumgarten★★★ Alamo Drafthouse South, Arbor, Barton CreekSquare, Dobie, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown SouthINVICTUS D: Clint Eastwood; with Morgan Freeman, MattDamon, Tony Kgoroge, Julian Lewis Jones, Adjoa Andoh. (PG, 134 min.)Freeman teams up once again with directorEastwood to play South African president and internationalhero Nelson Mandela. The story is basedon John Carlin’s book Playing the Enemy: NelsonMandela and the Game That Made a Nation. Thegame in question is rugby, and the events surroundMandela’s enthusiastic support of the South Africanteam’s attempt to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.Although a fan of the sport, Mandela’s actionswere born of an ulterior motive: that of building apost-apartheid nation. With racial tensions highafter his release from prison and ascension to thepresidency, Mandela saw a means of bridging thefears between his newly powerful black constituencyand the fearful, white old guard. Eastwood’s direction,though typically assured and understated, isnevertheless flabby at times. Yet Invictus remainsinspiring and educational, especially during thispresent time in America in which we are supposedlymuddling our way into a post-racial society.(12/11/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten★★★ Barton Creek Square, GatewayIT’S COMPLICATED D: Nancy Meyers; with MerylStreep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski, Lake Bell, CaitlinFitzgerald, Zoe Kazan, Hunter Parrish. (R, 118 min.)The thing about It’s Complicated is that it’s not… complicated. Writer-director Meyers has cometo specialize in making wish-fulfillment fantasiesfor middle-aged women in which smart, professional,single, Caucasian women of a certain agehave wonderful careers, picture-perfect homes,and love affairs aplenty. In It’s Complicated, Streepplays Jane Adler, a Santa Barbara, Calif., restaurateurwho is 10 years divorced from Jake (Baldwin)when they begin having an affair. Also present inJane’s life is Adam (Martin), the architect who isoverseeing the planned expansion of her alreadyperfect home. Many are the amusing and knowingmoments in this comedy, yet the fabric of Meyers’fantasy is too gossamer to sustain the weightTattooed Under FireTattooed Under Fire (2008) D: NancySchiesari. (NR, 56 min.) AFS Documentary Tour.Soldiers and their custom of getting tattooedpre- and post-deployment is the subject of thisdocumentary by UT film professor and cinematographerSchiesari. From a tattoo parlor outsideFort Hood, the personal stories of thesewarrior marks are revealed by six central characters.See “The Body as Canvas, Readying forLife in a Kill Zone,” p. 40, for an interview withSchiesari, who will be present at the screeningfor a Q&A. @Alamo Ritz, Wednesday, 8:30pm.of their truths. Streep, who is usually so impressive,seems little more than ordinary in this work,and Martin’s unique talents are sadly wasted.Meyers has a good feel for contemporary comedy;it’s reality, however, that slips through her grasp.(12/25/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten★★★■Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, Barton CreekSquare, CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria, CM RoundRock, Southpark Meadows, Gateway, Metropolitan,Tinseltown North, WestgateLEAP YEAR D: Anand Tucker; with Amy Adams, MatthewGoode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow, Noel O’Donovan, Kaitlin Olson.(PG, 97 min.)Brit director Tucker’s film is a soulless, Lifetime-liteflibbertigibbet of a movie. Leap Year is a desperatelyunfunny depiction of a Boston society-girl wannabewho, blanching and distressed in the face of yetanother nonproposal from her cardiologist beau(Scott), secretly follows the ungroom in question to YeAuld Eire with plans to ensnare him on the titular date(according some arcane leprechaunic lore, it’s doablein Dublin). Anna (Adams) is coiffed and costumed toresemble an uptown cross between The Quiet Man-eraMaureen O’Hara and vintage Nicole Kidman, but thecharacter is ill-flavored with a sort of ugly-Americanperkiness that sets your nerves on edge and makesyou wonder in all seriousness if Tucker isn’t employingsome sort of wickedly dry, highly unsubtle culturalcritique on both the U.S. and Ireland. Leap Year is aperfect template for romcom mediocrity, from its cookie-cutterscript to the stupendously absent electricitybetween Adams and her coy Irish rover boy (Goode).(01/08/2010) – Marc SavlovBarton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, Hill CountryGalleria, CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows,Highland, Gateway, Tinseltown North, TinseltownSouth, WestgateJames Brown: Live atthe Boston Garden, 1968James Brown: Live at the Boston Garden,1968 (2004) (NR, 80 min.) Music Monday. This isthe famous James Brown concert that was broadcaston WGBH in Boston, on April 5, less than 24 hoursafter the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.As violence was breaking out across America, BostonMayor Kevin White was considering canceling all publicevents, including the James Brown concert. Butthe “hardest working man in show business” keptthe date, dedicated the show to King, and electrifiedthe audience. WGBH broadcast the show live at themayor’s urging, to encourage people to stay homeand watch TV instead of roam the streets and riot.@Alamo Ritz, Monday 9:40pm.THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATSD: Grant Heslov; with George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges,Kevin Spacey, Stephen Lang, Robert Patrick, Waleed Zuaiter, StephenRoot. (R, 93 min.)All goats aside, this is one odd duck. A title cardreads, “More of this is true than you would believe,”but it’s impossible to tell what’s factual in this fictionalizedtake on Jon Ronson’s book about Army experimentsin the paranormal because it all sounds sodeeply ludicrous. It’s never uninteresting – but neverentirely successful, either. Reeling from his wife’sinfidelity, journalist Bob Wilton (McGregor) leaveshis podunk paper in Ann Arbor, Mich., for Iraq, andbumps into the story of a lifetime, packaged neatlyin the mustachioed frame of Clooney’s Lyn Cassady,psychic spy. This is Heslov’s first time directing, afterco-writing and producing with Clooney Good Night,and Good Luck., and there are too many tiny blundersto call his debut a triumph. Still, there is Clooney’sdeceptively layered performance, some startling bitsof laugh-out-loud absurdity, and the not-at-all-negligiblepleasure to be had in a cockeyed point of view.(11/06/2009) – Kimberley Jones★★★ Movies 8NINE D: Rob Marshall; with Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard,Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, SophiaLoren, Fergie, Ricky Tognazzi. (PG-13, 118 min.)For a film director whom we’re told is creativelyblocked, Guido Contini (Day-Lewis) has a rich panoramaof images cascading about his brain. Mostof his images are of the women in his life dancingabout elaborate stages in corsets. Marshall hasgathered an impressive stable of on- and off-screentalent but never gets these various pieces to jell.It’s a bold move to film a musical with cast memberswho, apart from Fergie and Cotillard, are notknown to possess any singing or dancing skills.Each musical number gives the appearance ofhaving been doctored to within an inch of its lifewith crazy pans, cuts, differing film stocks, jewelbedeckedcostumes, and eye-catching movementsconstantly grabbing our focus. Day-Lewis also performsand dances two numbers obligingly, but thechinks in this great actor’s performance arsenalshow. Also, much of the film’s music is instantlyforgettable. (12/25/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten★★ ArborNINJA ASSASSIN D: James McTeigue; with Rain,Naomie Harris, Ben Miles, Rick Yune. (R, 99 min.)Pitched somewhere between a preadolescentboy’s fantasy world of nunchaku and shuriken (orfighting sticks and throwing stars) and a wildlyoff-kilter exercise in homoerotic beefcakery, thisastonishingly crappy slo-mo gorefest proves onceand for all that McTeigue wasn’t the man responsiblefor the excellent V for Vendetta and that the writer/producer Wachowski brothers were. I’m not surethere’s anybody at the helm of Ninja Assassin, whichjust flat-out sucks rice dumplings, beginning withits generic title on down to its preposterously dumbview of the ups and downs and, you know, bulletavoidancetechniques of your average contemporaryninja. That would be ginchy Korean pop-lite star Rainwho plays Raizo, abducted as a child by the not evenvaguely mysterious Ozuno Clan, and thereafter raisedto be, like, totally unkillable and way superbuff. Theconvoluted and really, really lousy storyline has sexyInterpol agent Mika Coretti (Harris) digging up connectionsbetween international assassinations andthe Ozunus. (11/27/2009)– Marc SavlovMovies 8PLANET 51 D: Jorge Blanco; with the voices of DwayneJohnson, Jessica Biel, Justin Long, Gary Oldman. (PG, 91 min.)Planet 51 is innocuous to the point of distraction.While the CG animation is colorful and vibrant, thestory is little more than a compilation of sciencefictionclichés. Planet 51’s main gag is the reversal ofthe ancient (by Hollywood standards, anyway) genreconvention of society’s fear of alien invasion. Here, it’sthe green-skinned, droopily antennaed aliens who areterrified of a lone human spaceman (Johnson), whocrash-lands into their world. In a sop to Hollywood’sgolden age of science-fiction filmmaking, the wholeplanet closely parallels Fifties Americana, right downto the Happy Days slang and the monster-moviematinees playing at the local movie theatre. I couldgo on and on about Planet 51’s multitude of directreferences to its sci-fi antecendents, but the bottomline is that Planet 51, while expertly executed animationwiseand passably entertaining for very young kids(less so for their parents), is still as dull as the hull onRocketship X-M. (11/20/2009) – Marc Savlov★ Movies 8PRECIOUS: BASED ON THEw NOVEL ‘PUSH’ BY SAPPHIRED: Lee Daniels; with Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton,Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz. (R, 109 min.)Much like its title protagonist Precious – a sexually,emotionally, and physically abused 16-year-oldAfrican-American girl who is functionally illiterate,morbidly obese, and pregnant with her second childfathered by her own father – this film is a roughhewnentity with unlikely odds for success. Yet boththe character and the movie overcome their handicapsto become the kind of success stories thatthe American mythmaking machinery loves to love.Claireece Precious Jones (Sidibe) and her mother,Mary (Mo’Nique), are women we rarely notice. Butinstead of looking the other way, this movie and thepopular book on which it is based place them frontand center. Newcomer Sidibe is a real find and notjust a looming presence and narrative device. Danielshas also done a marvelous job of casting famousfriends of his and getting heart-stirring, strippeddownperformances from them all. Despite achievingsuch a remarkably raw and naturalistic tone, Danielsups the ante with extreme melodramatic touches.(11/20/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten★★★ MetropolitanTHE PRINCESS ANDw THE FROG D: Ron Clements, John Musker; withthe voices of Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jennifer Cody, Jim Cummings, Peter Bartlett, JohnGoodman, Jenifer Lewis, Terrence Howard, Oprah Winfrey. (G, 97 min.)The Disney 2-D animators, who have been losingface, of late, to their CG and 3-D brethren, here stagea bold, vibrant, and altogether bloodless coup on allthings Pixar, and whaddaya know? They win. (For now,anyway.) Set in Twenties-era New Orleans, this umpteenthversion of what was originally a Brothers Grimmfairy tale makes the Crescent City a major characterin and of itself while dusting off the old story ofgirl-meets-frog and tricking it up with all manner ofraucous, jazzy hoodoo, voodoo, and bayou panache.Directors Clements and Musker are the guys behindAladdin and The Little Mermaid, and they employ theirkeen senses of story, pacing, and killer comic rhythmto support a new twist (several, actually) on an oldamphibian. Also, the film features a nearly all African-American cast. It’s Disney’s best traditionally animatedouting in ages. (12/11/2009) – Marc Savlov★★★★■Barton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, HillCountry Galleria, CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows,Gateway, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South, WestgateTHE ROAD D: John Hillcoat; with Viggo Mortensen, KodiSmit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall. (R, 119 min.)Cormac McCarthy’s novel, by any standard, isno one’s idea of a giddy, fun, summer beach read.It’s the story of a father and son (credited as“Man” and “Boy”) wandering through a blightedAmerican wasteland beset by some (unnamed)catastrophe. Cannibalism, rape, and worse arethe order of the day, but McCarthy’s unswervinghumanity sees the novel through to a conclusionthat is no less wrenching for the rusty sliver ofhope it offers. Director Hillcoat proves an inspiredchoice to helm this film adaptation, and his renderingof McCarthy’s words can’t be faulted for itsvisual replication of the author’s grim picture ofmankind’s final days. Mortensen, viewed either asa patriarchal Christ figure or simply as a devotedfather, works minor miracles in what is essentiallya one-note role. Who knew there were so manyfacial expressions approximating unrelentingdespair? (11/27/2009)– Marc Savlov★★★ Tinseltown South66 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E JANUARY 15, 2010 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m