Aug. 1, 2008 - The Austin Chronicle

CALENDAR COMMUNITY SPORTS ARTS FILM MUSIC |The Hudsucker ProxyThe Hudsucker Proxy (1994) D: Joel Coen; with Tim Robbins,Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman, Charles Durning, John Mahoney.(PG, 111 min.) Retro Replay. This Coen brothers film is a goofy odeto genres and eras gone by. Although it’s a little less “weird” thanmuch of their work, it still retains a mannered and quirky air withperformances that walk a line between realism and understated surreality.(*) @Arbor, Wed., 7:30pm.It’s a spectacle indeed, as the Republicanstarts touting ecological preservation and theDemocrat comes out in favor of bans againstabortion and immigration. Bud is given 10days to recast his vote while a media phalanxparks outside his trailer, the candidatespersonally court him, and TV news personalities(including cameos from, among others,Aaron Brown, Campbell Brown, TuckerCarlson, James Carville, Mary Hart, AriannaHuffington, Larry King, Bill Maher, and ChrisMatthews) weigh in on the unprecedentedsituation. Costner easily plays the ne’erdo-wellBud, but the character and the filmnever develop any forward momentum: All thecharacters continue to hit the same notesover and over. Plus, some side plots – mostnotably, Winningham’s single but immenselydisturbing scene – are irrelevant tangentsto the story. However, the most regrettableaspect of the story is screenwriters Sternand Jason Richman’s failure to acknowledgethe debt they owe to Garson Kanin’s 1939film, The Great Man Votes, one of JohnBarrymore’s last performances, in which heplays an alcoholic widower with two kids, whois personally courted by mayoral candidateswhen it turns out that he is the only registeredvoter in an important precinct. SwingVote may muster a few easy laughs, but thefilm is no contender. – Marjorie BaumgartenBarton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, HillCountry Galleria, CM Round Rock, SouthparkMeadows, Highland, Gateway, Lakeline,Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South, WestgateTHE X-FILES: I WANT TOJump!Jump! (2007) D: Helen Hood Scheer. (NR,85 min.) Austin Film Festival Family Film Series.Competitive jump-roping is the subject of this character-drivendocumentary that follows teens from fiveteams around the U.S. as they prepare to competefor the world championship. @Arbor, Sat., 2pm; free.LISTI NGSBELIEVE D: Chris Carter; with DavidDuchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly,Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner, Callum Keith Rennie, Alex Diakun.(PG-13, 104 min.)There’s something horribly amiss with afilm that feels as though it had been adaptedfrom the anonymous-fan-fiction slush pileand then, midway through, makes you wishthat it were adapted from the anonymousfan-fictionslush pile subheaded “Furries.”But there you go: Mulder (Duchovny) andScully (Anderson) are nothing if not masterand mistress of the painfully engorgedtease. In the 10 years since the first X-Filesfilm and the six since the Fox TV seriesconcluded, reality has caught up with theconspiracy theorizing of series creator ChrisCarter and, in all but the most trivial ways,surpassed even his most speculative fictions.(Indeed, the best example to datearrived last week, when Apollo 14 astronautand probable Spaced fan Dr. Edgar “RightStuff” Mitchell revealed that aliens do exist,there is a huge government cover-up globally,and Whitley Streiber was right all along.True, the revelation arrived during a radiointerview with the UK heavy metal magKerrang!, but consider the source, not thesender, and certainly not Voivod.) Thingshave changed. Former FBI agent Fox Mulder,for instance, has grown a beard and goneunderground, while his former partner, DanaScully, has returned to her initial calling asa pediatric physician. It takes the abductionof another Bureau member and thebloody tears of a psychic, pederastic priest(Scottish comic Connelly) to bring themtogether, but their reunion is less than thrilling,mired for much of the film’s runningtime in a morass of overrequited anti-lust.They’ve become deadly dull, these twoonce-keen buckers of bureaucratic BS, andwatching them interact on screen is akin tohaving your pleasure centers removed byknobby little aliens whose only knowledge ofmankind comes from Jack Webb’s stoicallyunvarying television incarnations. Granted, alast-minute deus ex machina involving malfunctioninghydraulics on a snowplow and aravening, two-headed Canis Maximus injectssome snarly fun into the otherwise intolerablywindy proceedings, but it’s not enough tomerit belief in anything other than Carter’sconspiratorial irrelevance. – Marc SavlovAlamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, Barton CreekSquare, CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria,CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows, Highland,Gateway, Lakeline, Metropolitan, TinseltownNorth, Westgate74 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E AUGUST 1, 2008 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o mNo Man’s LandNo Man’s Land (2001) D: Danis Tanovic; with BrankoDjuric, Rene Bitorajac, Filip Sovagovic, Simon Callow, KatrinCartlidge. (R, 98 min.) European Movie Night: Life UnderCommunist Rule. This bleak anti-war comedy won the Oscarfor Best Foreign Film of 2001. The movie will be introducedby Vera Labriola, who is from the Czech Republic and hasspent a majority of her life under Communist rule. (*) @Spicewood Springs Branch Library, Wed., 6pm; free.first runs*Full-length reviews available onlineat austinchronicle.com. Dates at end ofreviews indicate original publication date.THE DARK KNIGHT D: Christopher Nolan; withChristian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart,Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman. (PG-13, 152 min.)Sacrifices must be made, because that’s whatheroes do. Or so goes the nihilistic logic behind TheDark Knight, a grim little parable on the wages of sinand the high cost of redemption. It’s impossible toview Nolan’s extravagantly dour film through anythingbut the prism of Ledger’s death. His Joker is the sortof convoluted, densely layered characterization thatgets nominated for awards come Oscar time. It’s apity, then, that when taken as a whole, this two-and-ahalfhour film is such a stuffy downer. It’s jam-packedwith flawlessly designed set-pieces and skulduggery,sure, but it’s also shrouded in grim portent, overlaidwith a filigree of despair, and, for good measure,covered in a patina of dire consequence. In short, it’sa Batman for the new age of anxiety. There’s somethingintangible missing from this Dark Knight. For allits thrum and thunder, Nolan’s film feels chilly and illat ease. (07/18/2008)– Marc SavlovAlamo Ritz, Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek,Alamo Drafthouse South, Alamo Drafthouse Village,Barton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, Hill CountryGalleria, CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows, Dobie,Highland, Gateway, Lakeline, Tinseltown North,Tinseltown South, Westgate, IMAX Theatre ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OFTHE WORLD D: Werner Herzog. (G, 99 min.)Herzog, contemporary cinema’s most consistentlylyrical examiner of the (in)human condition, returnsto the documentary form in yet another wonderfullyimprobable locale: Antarctica, the literal bottomof the world. In the past, the director has scaledthe heights of Machu Picchu (Aguirre: The Wrath ofGod), macheted a path through the Brazilian rainforest with a steamship and “best fiend” Kinski intow (Fitzcarraldo), and abandoned the Earth altogetherin favor of a space-y Brad Dourif (The WildBlue Yonder). Here, Herzog travels to a place wherecompasses are useless, the climate is negative70 degrees Fahrenheit and white all over, and acommunity of misanthropic misfits not unlike himselflounge around watching an endless series ofdoomsday movies on DVD. Herzog also seeks theblank, unknowable chaos of nature in the raw, and,toward that end, he explores both above and belowthe frozen Ross Sea, with visually stunning results.(07/18/2008) – Marc Savlov Arbor THE FALL D: Tarsem Singh; with Lee Pace, CatincaUntaru, Justine Waddell, Julian Bleach. (R, 117 min.)The Fall is a visually stunning but ultimatelymournful movie that is both richly layered with “onceupon a time” fairy-tale subtext and dense withthickets of moral and motivational ambiguity. Did Imention The Fall is also a period picture? And hasanimated sequences, waterborne pachyderms, anda drolly humorous imagining of a monkey-conversantCharles Darwin? This rapturous fever dream of afilm is a vibrant, vital, hopelessly romantic but intellectuallyobtuse game of blind man’s chess betweenthe director and himself (and perhaps, occasionally,the viewer). Tarsem (the music video director whosedebut feature was The Cell and who prefers to beknown by his first name alone) has discovered thesecretive, magical underpinnings of the narrativeform. Two parallel stories eventually flow into andthen collide with each other. Tarsem has found ahome for his endlessly unique visions, and (wouldn’tyou know?) it’s beyond artifice and stealing towardart. (Ends Tuesday.) (05/30/2008) – Marc SavlovDobieHANCOCK D: Peter Berg; with Will Smith, CharlizeTheron, Jason Bateman, Jae Head, Johnny Galecki. (PG-13, 92 min.)From its opening shot of recalcitrant superheroJohn Hancock (Smith) sleeping off a permanent hangoveron a Los Angeles bench to its raggedy, barelyexplicable backstory, Hancock is a godforsakenmess. With its tied-in-a-bow, patently dull outcomeand yawny midsection, it makes Smith’s 1990 sitcombreakthrough, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, lookpositively transgressive by comparison. Berg strainstoward some sort of message, but unless the messageis that with great power comes vast amountsof booze and self-loathing – a superheroic subtextalready delivered with far more pathos, thrills, andhumor by Iron Man earlier this summer – thenHancock misses its target by a mile and leaves youto wonder about its protagonist’s obsession witheagles; whether or not he’s a god, an angel, or analien; and why on earth anyone would want to wastea summer matinee afternoon with such vacuouscineplex junk. To quote Philly’s former Freshest, “Yohomes, smell ya later.” (07/04/2008) – Marc SavlovAlamo Drafthouse South, Alamo DrafthouseVillage, Barton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, HillCountry Galleria, CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows,Highland, Gateway, Lakeline, Millennium, TinseltownNorth, Tinseltown South, Westgate HELLBOY II: THE GOLDENARMY D: Guillermo del Toro; with Ron Perlman, Selma Blair,Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Luke Goss. (PG-13, 110 min.)It’s not perfect – thank Satan! – but Hellboy II: TheGolden Army is by far the most splendidly imaginativeand creatively uncorked piece of fantastic cinemasince the director’s Pan’s Labyrinth netted an Oscartrifecta in 2007. Given the success of that film,del Toro’s budget is considerably larger this time,allowing him to indulge his genius for the freakish– Hellboy II is a visually breathtaking bestiary ofeverything that ever lurked under your childhood bed– while fleshing out the “big red one” and his pals atthe Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.Co-scripted with wild abandon and plenty of heart bydel Toro and the comic book’s creator, Mike Mignola,this second Hellboy film outing finds the stogiechompin’,pussycat-lovin’, Tecate-swillin’ hell spawndefending an unsympathetic-as-ever mankind. There’smuch here for longtime fans and Hellboy newcomersto enjoy, although del Toro’s film occasionally suffersfrom there being almost too much to keep up with.(07/11/2008) – Marc SavlovAlamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, AlamoDrafthouse South, Barton Creek Square, CM CedarPark, Hill Country Galleria, CM Round Rock, SouthparkMeadows, Highland, Gateway, Tinseltown North,Tinseltown South, Westgate INDIANA JONES AND THEKINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLD: Steven Spielberg; with Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf,Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent. (PG-13, 124 min.)This fourth installment is a fine, rollicking, lightningpacedreturn to form, overflowing with outlandishlyentertaining action set-pieces that fall only somewhatshort of eliciting the “holy cow!” monogram-matineepanache of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Booted from his tenuredposition as professor of archaeological studies atYale in a McCarthy-esque twist, Dr. Indiana Jones (Ford,in fine fettle) is soon back in the thick of it, teamingup with a Harley-riding Dean/Brando teen rebel namedMutt (LaBeouf) to track down the crystalline cranium ofthe title. The smart, if somewhat overcrowded, script byDavid Koepp makes allowances for both Ford and hischaracter’s advancing maturity while sacrificing none ofthe series’ innate innocence. Quite a feat, that, consideringthat before the plot even really begins, we’re treat-