Harmony and Me Kyle Henry: Early Documentaries
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CALENDAR ( COMMUNITY SPORTS ARTS FILM MUSIC) LISTINGS though Dickens’ ultimate cautionary tale is a mere D: Olatunde Osunsanmi; afterthought onto which Zemeckis can drape his THE FOURTH KIND THE INVENTION OF LYING with Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Will Patton, Hakeem Kae-Kazim. w D: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson; with Gervais, live-action/computer-animated visual hybrid that he has now used on his third sequential movie (PG-13, 98 min.) Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., John Hodgman, (following Beowulf and The Polar Express). Scrooge The Fourth Kind is a pseudo-mockumentary that Tina Fey, Christopher Guest, Jeffrey Tambor, Nathan Corddry, Jason (Carrey) is still the same miserly old coot we know echoes both The Blair Witch Project and The X-Files. Bateman. (PG-13, 100 min.) him to be, but instead of the transformative effect As a film, it’s a canny little goof of a thing, chock-full The Invention of Lying, Gervais’ first feature of Scrooge’s glimpses into his past, present, and of alien-abduction theorizing and purportedly based on film as a co-writer and co-director, is engaging and future, this film emphasizes the phantasmic ele- actual events and persons which are incorporated into clever, if inconclusive. Gervais’ real accomplish- ments of the ghosts and the pliable mechanics they its weirdly effective hodgepodge of a structure. The ment, oft-overlooked, is as an actor, in how he can use to show Scrooge such privileged viewpoints aliens in The Fourth Kind don’t come in peace, and embody characters on a sliding scale of unlikabil- of his life. Carrey, never a slouch when it comes they’re more interested in torturing our nether regions ity and bring humanity to them again and again. to his output, plays all three ghosts in addition to than they are in meeting our leader. Jovovich “plays” Dr. His Invention of Lying character, Mark Bellison, is Harmony and Me Scrooge. The actor sheds his usual silliness and Abigail Tyler (she also plays herself at the film’s begin- a self-described “chubby little loser,” an opinion adopts more of the tone and breeding of a British ning and ending). She is a psychiatrist in Nome, Alaska, he knows all about because in this alternate uni- Harmony and Me (2009) D: Bob Byington; thespian. (11/06/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten who notices a trend in her patients – and then in her verse, lies don’t exist and the truth is delivered with Justin Rice, Kevin Corrigan, Pat Healy, Kristen ★★ Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, Alamo Drafthouse own home – when various locals begin telling her about regularly. Newly unemployed and snubbed by the Tucker, Alex Karpovsky. (NR, 75 min.) Range Life Village, CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria, CM Round visitations by giant owls in the night. This is a strange woman of his dreams, Anna (Garner), for being Entertainment: Fall Tour. A vaguely employed tech Rock, Southpark Meadows, Highland, Gateway, IMAX movie (it feels like a lost episode of the old Leonard a less-than-ideal “genetic partner,” Mark is star- worker ambles between piano lessons, a funeral, Theatre, Lakeline, Metropolitan, Tinseltown North, Nimoy chestnut In Search of …) about strange people ing into the abyss when he discovers, quite by and even his own coma while turning every con- doing strange things. (11/06/2009) – Marc Savlov accident, the world’s first lie. Although the film is versation into a forum for his heartbreak over a Westgate ★★ CM Cedar Park, CM Round Rock, Southpark very funny, there’s nothing particularly incendiary, woman. The lead role of Harmony is played by Meadows, Lakeline, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown especially not when the romantic subplot shifts to Bishop Allen frontman Rice, and Bob Schneider also DISTRICT 9 D: Neill Blomkamp; with Sharlto plays a part. For more, see “Things Are What You South, Westgate the forefront. If anything, The Invention of Lying is w Copley, Jason Cope, David James, Vanessa Haywood, too soft for the satirical promise of its premise. Make Them,” Oct. 23. @Dobie, Saturday, 9:30pm. Eugene Khumbayiwa. (R, 113 min.) (10/09/2009) – Kimberley Jones GOOD HAIR D: Jeff Stilson. (PG-13, 95 min.) District 9 is a wrenching, riveting, occasionally w ★★★ Movies 8 violent, often heartbreaking, and, above all, socially Hair is personal. It’s also political. And it can conscious science-fiction film featuring seamlessly be exceedingly expensive to maintain, especially if CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE you’re among the millions of African-American women LAW ABIDING CITIZEN D: F. Gary Gray; with integrated CGI effects alongside flat-out perfect per- Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Regina Hall, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, formances from its flesh-and-blood actors, and, best (and, in far fewer numbers, men) who have their hair VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT D: Paul Weitz; with straightened in a salon or auxiliaried with a weave. Leslie Bibb, Michael Irby. (R, 108 min.) John C. Reilly, Chris Massoglia, Josh Hutcherson, Salma Hayek, Patrick of all, it’s a love story. Produced by Peter Jackson Chris Rock produced and co-wrote this documentary What to make of a film that opens with a brutal Fugit, Willem Dafoe, Ken Watanabe, Ray Stevenson. (PG-13, 108 min.) and directed by Blomkamp, much of District 9 is shot in a documentary, “you are here” style, and exploration of black hair and the booming industry home invasion which leaves a mother and child Cirque du Freak is fun compared to the dour googly where you are is Johannesburg, a metropolis over that caters to it. The reedy comedian also appears on dead and then uses that ghastly jumping-off point eyes of Twilight, its chief rival in the young adult book which hovers a dead alien spacecraft of immense camera, affably interrogating everybody from Hollywood and all its circumlocutions – legal, moral, and mor- series-to-film vampires stories. It’s got bite but it’s proportions. Its crew and occupants – thousands of actresses to sketchy weave salesmen and the banter- tal – as an assiduous flaying of the criminal justice not afraid to laugh at itself or the conventions of the them – have been packed into the sprawling refugee ing clientele of a New York barbershop. Rock feigns like system? Sounds promising so far, but Law Abiding genre. Massoglia and Hutcherson play best friends camp of the title. I’m hesitant to say more about the he’s impartial here, but it’s pretty obvious he’s aghast Citizen ends on an even grimmer note, stuck fast Darren and Steve, and they mirror and complete each specifics of District 9 because so many of this film’s at the toxic chemicals required to straighten black hair between righteous indignation at our bankrupt other: Darren is the straight-A cream puff, while Steve wonders are best experienced firsthand. Suffice it – the look of which is repeatedly referred to by women system of jurisprudence and our (presumed) need dreams of cutting class and being a vampire. He gets to say that Blomkamp and his entire cast and crew in the film as “natural”; the examination of that para- for heroes. Butler turns a perfectly respectable, his chance, sort of, when the mysterious Cirque du have created an instant genre classic that tran- doxical logic could fill another 90 minutes alone. Still, even riveting performance as the dead family’s Freak blows into town and resident vampire Larten scends the term “science fiction” and engages not Rock never hectors; he makes his point, as befitting a husband and father, who seeks a nominal form Crepsley (Reilly, hamming it up with gusto) ends up only the mind but the heart as well. It’s magnificent. crack comedian, in quick barbs and cutaway looks to of justice via fast-rising D.A.’s assistant Nick Rice half-vamping Darren. There’s plenty more going on in (08/14/2009) – Marc Savlov the camera. (10/23/2009) – Kimberley Jones (Foxx). What he instead receives is a quick-and- this artfully directed and fancifully acted anti-Twilight ★★★★ Tinseltown South ★★★★■Tinseltown South dirty lesson in the painful subtleties and Faustian opening salvo, but suffice it to say that Weitz’s film backroom dealings of the Philadelphia courts. Foxx is simply the far more inventive and engrossing teen- D: Steven Soderbergh; with has a thankless role here subbing for the entire vamp flick. Its concerns are similar – love, death, fam- AN EDUCATION D: Lone Scherfig; with THE INFORMANT! justice system, and his main mode of expression Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Melanie Lynskey, Thomas F. ily – but The Vampire’s Assistant tackles them with a w Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Cara is steely determination and precious little else. calculatedly fresh eye. (10/23/2009) – Marc Savlov Seymour, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Olivia Williams, Emma Wilson, Ann Dowd. (R, 108 min.) (10/16/2009) – Marc Savlov ★★★ Metropolitan Thompson. (PG-13, 95 min.) Although The Informant!’s screenplay (by Scott Z. ★★ CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows, Gateway, Everything about Scherfig’s coming-of-age story Burns) is based on the identically titled autobiogra- Metropolitan, Tinseltown North about a girl in the London suburb of Twickenham phy of a real-life whistle-blower, the movie’s addition COUPLES RETREAT D: Peter Billingsley; with Vince of an exclamation point to its title is revealing. That Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Malin Akerman, in 1961 is spot-on. The film tells a wonderfully LONDON DREAMS D: Vipul Shah; with Salman nuanced story about a teenager’s longing to break bit of punctuation tells us everything about the tone, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell, Kali Hawk, Jean Reno, Peter Serafinowicz, attitude, and perspective of this comedy about Mark Khan, Ajay Devgn, Asin Amrutlal, Rannvijay Singh, Brinda Parekh, Carlos Ponce, John Michael Higgins, Ken Jeong.