C ALE N D AR ( COMMUNITY SPORTS ARTS FILM MUSIC) L I S TINGS

The Sand Pebbles The Sand Pebbles (1966) D: Robert Wise; with Steve McQueen, The Last Mistress Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, , Mako. (NR, 179 min.) Summer Film Classics: Eastern Epic. Nominated for eight Oscars, this war film features one of McQueen’s very best performances as a cynical sailor on a Navy gunboat in China. Made in 1966, the film is chock-full of pointed Vietnam parallels and verbal assaults on imperial- ism. Restored print. @Paramount, Sat., 7pm, Sun., 2:45pm.

still manages to be surprisingly unsucky. Then again, who doesn’t love an animated, anthropomor- TELL NO ONE D: Guillaume Canet; with phized-chimpanzee-starring, sci-fi romantic comedy? wFrançois Cluzet, Marie-Josée Croze, André Dussollier, (07/25/2008) – Marc Savlov Kristin Scott Thomas, François Berléand, Nathalie Baye, Jean )))OLakeline, Metropolitan, Tinseltown North Rochefort. (NR, 125 min., subtitled) French director Canet’s Tell No One has everything STEP BROTHERS D: Adam McKay; with a great personal-paranoia/persecution movie needs: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard a citizen-hero who refuses to capitulate to unseen Jenkins, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn. (R, 100 min.) and malevolent powers that are out to destroy him; love and desperation as motivating forces; random Will Ferrell’s newest is a lot like Will Ferrell’s old- violence; at least one top-notch foot chase; and a est, which is to say it feels like an old-school (no soundtrack that features both Otis Redding and Jeff pun intended) Saturday Night Live skit amped up on Buckley. The film’s hero is Alexandre Beck (Cluzet), a heaping helping of sugar-infused Count Suckula whose wife, Margot, vanishes one night and is pre- breakfast meth. It’s all over the place, and it will sumed murdered. Flash forward to the eighth anni- make you laugh when you least expect it, but maybe versary of her disappearance, and Alex receives an not so much when you do. Ferrell and Reilly play anonymous video message that suggests everything Brennan and Dale, slacker layabouts with the hyper- he knows about that horrible night may be wrong. ›competitive temperaments of 12-year-olds, who reluc- From that moment, Tell No One is a great ball of tantly become stepbrothers when Brennan’s mom unrelenting energy, but by the time Alex starts stum- (Steenburgen) marries Dale’s dad (Jenkins). Hilarity bling into answers, chances are you won’t even really tale world – with its quartet of teenage friends SEX AND THE CITY D: Michael Patrick ensues, obstacles are overcome, and life lessons of care to know what they are, because the thrill of Tell standing on the border between womanhood and King; with , Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, the socially inept variety bubble up all over the place No One isn’t in the knowing; it’s in the not knowing. w giggling girlishness; its chiseled, bland princes; its like magic mushrooms after a rainstorm. But Ferrell (08/01/2008) – Josh Rosenblatt Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, Jennifer Hudson. (R, 142 min.) seaside palaces; its dead parents; its occasional and Reilly’s infantilism grows wearying for those of ))))OArbor I’m not the first to make the comparison – that the wicked (or at least catty) witches and stepsisters; us who’ve had our fill of dick jokes and child-men run women of Sex and the City make for a special kind of and, of course, its magical jeans – the lesson to amok. Step Brothers has comic fuel to burn, some superhero in American pop-culture iconography. Carrie, be learned is that love and friendship conquer of it unashamedly non sequitur and stupid-brilliant, WALL-E D: Andrew Stanton; with Fred Willard; Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha may be larger than all. Picking up three years after the events of but it still feels like a post-Talladega flameout. with the voices of Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, life, their pocketbooks and professional highlights the first Traveling Pants movie, 2 finds its four (07/25/2008) – Marc Savlov w John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver. (G, 97 a distant fantasy for most of the fan base, but take heroines scattered about following their freshman ))  Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, Alamo Drafthouse away the tights, and they’re muddling through just year in college. But The Sisterhood of the Traveling Village, Barton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, Hill min.) like the rest of us. Longtime creative force King (who Pants 2 isn’t interested in depth, and it doesn’t Country Galleria, CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows, What would Stanley Kubrick – or for that matter, wrote and directed) has crafted a feature that stands trust what it has; its only interest is in achieving Gateway, Metropolitan, Tinseltown North, Westgate Arthur C. Clarke or even Isaac Asimov – have made on its own (typically stilettoed) feet, while holding fast the absolute peak level of female camaraderie, of ’s WALL-E? It’s the story of the last function- to the series’ singular mix of the giddily ribald and nostalgic sentimentality, and emotional catharsis. ing robot, who leads a lonely existence cleaning up brutally confessional. We pick up several years after (08/08/2008) – Josh Rosenblatt SWING VOTE D: Joshua Michael Stern; with an ecologically devastated Earth, some 700 years the series’ finale, and the women, individually, have )))OBarton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, Hill Kevin Costner, Madeline Carroll, Paula Patton, Kelsey after the last human being abandoned the dying undergone seismic change. It goes without saying that Country Galleria, CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows, Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, Stanley Tucci, planet. When, without warning, a vessel lands in any one woman’s triumph or sorrow is felt collectively, Highland, Gateway, Lakeline, Metropolitan, Tinseltown George Lopez, Judge Reinhold, Mare Winningham. (PG-13, his back yard and deposits EVE (Knight), a female and keenly. That, of course, has been Sex and the North, Westgate robot who has been sent to discover if any life has City’s abiding m.o.: that this is a love affair, primarily, 120 min.) blossomed on the home world, WALL-E (Burtt) is between women. (05/30/2008) – Kimberley Jones Costner’s comedy is fueled by the balloting deba- immediately smitten. While the film eventually takes ))))  Movies 8, Tinseltown South SPACE CHIMPS D: Kirk De Micco; with cle of the 2004 presidential election and the prox- both the ’droids off-world, the story remains focused the voices of Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Patrick imity of the 2008 vote. That may make Swing Vote on their blossoming romance. This is Pixar’s finest SINGH IS KINNG D: Anees Bazmee; with Warburton, , Stanley Tucci, Kristin Chenoweth. timely, but that doesn’t make it good. When ne’er-do- and most emotionally powerful film yet, by turns sad, (G, 81 min.) well Bud Johnson (Costner) passes out drunk and his hilarious, exciting, and, ultimately, hopeful. Those Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Om Puri, Javed Jaffrey, Neha precocious young daughter Molly (Carroll) attempts past science-fictioneers Kubrick, Clarke, and Asimov Dhupia. (NR, 135 min., subtitled) With an insipidly generic title like Space Chimps, ›to cast his vote in his place, a voting-machine glitch would’ve loved it, I think, and I’d wager my first edi- you might expect some sort of The Three Stooges Not reviewed at press time. In this new Hindi- leads to a national dead heat. Bud is given 10 days tion of The Martian Chronicles that Ray Bradbury, too, meets Planet of the Apes meets Bob Ray’s Ape Sh!t to recast his vote while a media phalanx parks out- will recognize a kindred soul in WALL-E’s life-affirming language film, a Sikh named Happy Singh acciden- gambit – anything but the frequently laugh-out-loud tally becomes king of the Australian underworld. side his trailer and the two candidates personally quest for love. (06/27/2008) – Marc Savlov snarkiness of this uneven but far from awful take court him. Swing Vote takes absurdity to a whole new ))))  Alamo Drafthouse South, Barton Creek (08/08/2008) – Marjorie Baumgarten on, um, chimps in space. Tolerable G-rated films of Tinseltown South dimension with the impossibility of the very situa- Square, CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria, CM Round the non-Pixar variety which actually offer up some tion that puts the plot in motion. The film’s humor is Rock, Gateway, Lakeline, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown ›intelligent criticism of the status quo and more cynical and its plot development stagnant – until, of South, Westgate THE SISTERHOOD OF THE than two chuckles per act are generally as rare as course, a third-act redemption comes along to sal- life on Mars is presumed to be, but 20th Century vage the ideals of democracy. Swing Vote may muster ›TRAVELING PANTS 2 D: ; Fox’s Space Chimps is endearingly ridiculous and a few easy laughs, but the film is no contender. WANTED D: Timur Bekmambetov; with James with , America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Alexis frequently smart. This story of a jaded, selfish, (08/01/2008) – Marjorie Baumgarten McAvoy, , , Terence Stamp, Bledel, Jesse Williams. (PG-13, 117 min.) but ultimately heroic circus chimp (Samberg), who ))OBarton Creek Square, CM Cedar Park, CM Round is plucked from obscurity by NASA and sent into Thomas Kretschmann, Common, Kristen Hager. (R, 110 min.) Rock, Gateway, Tinseltown North The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 pushes, space alongside a pair of real chimp astronauts, If Maxim magazine ever decides to branch out into prods, pounds, and kneads your emotions like so has its share of deep-core cinematic clichés but filmmaking, Wanted is just the kind of ear-throttling much pizza dough. In author Ann Brashares’ fairy- ›Diabolique The Killing Diabolique (1955) D: Henri-Georges Clouzot; with Simone Signoret, The Killing (1956) D: Stanley Kubrick; with Sterling Hayden, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse. (NR, 114 min.) Summer Film Classics: Fear Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Vince Edwards, Coleen Gray.› (NR, 85 Factors. Although it’s been remade a couple of times, no version comes min.) Stanley Kubrick Retrospective. Kubrick’s second feature film close to replicating the tension and psychological thrills of this French is a dandy heist and double-cross story told in overlapping time original. It’s the story of a distasteful schoolmaster who is murdered by sequences with dialogue by Jim Thompson punching up Kubrick’s both his wife and mistress. (Double bill: Knife in the Water.) @Paramount, script. The film also features Lucien Ballard’s crisp cinematography Thu., 8/14, 9pm, Fri., 7pm. and hallmark performances by Hayden, Windsor, and Cook. @Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, Sun., 7:30pm.

86 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E AUGUST 15, 2008 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m