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. (PG-13, 113 min.) free of her provincial surroundings and enter the world at large. It’s a story about her education in the Whitacre (Damon), a scientist and high-level executive Om Puri. (NR, 148 min., subtitled) Intelligence is insulted at every turn in this date university of life, an impartial proving ground that who exposes price-fixing in international agribusiness. Not reviewed at press time. This new Bollywood movie from former “swingers” Vaughn and Favreau, seduces many into its fold but whose revolving door Ultimately, the film cares nothing about the evils of cor- musical centers on two childhood friends who follow who now write themselves roles as middle-aged is just as likely to hit you on the ass on the way out. porate price-fixing nor the exposure of bad guys; it func- separate paths to careers in music. (10/30/2009) men grown flabby in both body and spirit. Vaughn With a steady but subtle hand, Scherfig directs the tions not as a whodunit but, rather, a whydunit. Damon – Marjorie Baumgarten also produces and, as the film’s top-lined star, plays drama, which is based on a memoir by Lynn Barber is rock solid as the pudgy, toupé-wearing informant, as Tinseltown South the only happily married man in this story’s quartet and adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby. Crowning is Lynskey as his loving wife. The film also represents a of couples who attend a weeklong couples retreat. An Education is the central performance of Mulligan return to more audience-friendly fare after Soderbergh’s Random sequences follow in succession: a badly as 16-year-old Jenny: In this breakthrough role, the recent forays into more theoretical filmmaking with Che LOVE HAPPENS D: Brandon Camp; with Jennifer choreographed shark attack, a massage that requires actress stuns us with a range that goes from dim- and The Girlfriend Experience. Maybe Soderbergh felt Aniston, Aaron Eckhart, Dan Fogler, Martin Sheen, John Carroll a self-serve happy ending, ridiculous therapy sessions, pled schoolgirl to oh-so-sophisticated teen to Audrey as though he already did a straight-ahead version of Lynch, Judy Greer, Frances Conroy. (PG-13, 107 min.) this story with Erin Brockovich and therefore decided a Fabio look-alike yoga instructor (Ponce) who provides Hepburn look-alike to disillusioned-but-wiser adult. Love Happens? It depends on your definition of the requisite homophobic sight gags, and a renegade (11/13/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten to revamp the tune in the key of Richard Lester. (09/18/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten “love.” And “happens.” There isn’t much of either in excursion to the singles side of the resort where, ★★★★ Arbor, Metropolitan this predictable, putzy drama about a self-help guru ★★★ Movies 8 magically, everything resolves. Logic and credibility are who specializes in grief counseling even though he defied at almost every opportunity. Even so, some of himself has hardly recovered from his wife’s acci- this might have worked if the script was, say, funny. dental death three years prior. While at a weeklong The scenery looks good enough to be a screensaver, Kyle Henry: Early seminar in Seattle, the place of his wife’s death, as one of the characters exclaims, and of course, the Burke (Eckhart) meets Eloise (Aniston), a local flo- background offers an endless array of scantily clad Documentaries rist who takes a shine to him. Eckhart – so blond! hardbodies. (10/09/2009) – Marjorie Baumgarten so square-jawed! – could have been a Fifties mati- Kyle Henry: Early Documentaries D: Kyle Henry. (NR, Gateway, Tinseltown South nee idol, but he only pops when he’s sharpened by 106 min.) SVT Micro-Cinema. The 10th-anniversary screening of Henry’s University Inc. (54 min.), about the corporatization of cunning or menace (Thank You for Smoking, In the DISNEY’S A CHRISTMAS CAROL the University of Texas, screens at 7pm, followed by talkbacks Company of Men); here, playing a deeply literal char- D: Robert Zemeckis; with Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Cary during which John Pierson will join Henry for a discussion about acter, he’s a soggy bore. Aniston, in the far smaller role, overplays her screen time. Writer/director Elwes, Robin Wright Penn, Bob Hoskins, Daryl Sabara. (PG, 96 min.) the fate of repertory and theatrical film in the ensuing years on Sunday, and Caroline O’Connor of the Texas State Employees Camp (of the drip-dry Kevin Costner drama Dragonfly The initial “gee, whillikers” reaction to Zemeckis’ Union will join Henry on Monday. At 9pm, Henry’s film American – similarly dead-wife-obsessed) and his co-writer motion-capture rendition of the Dickens classic Cowboy (52 min.), about gay rodeo champ Gene Mikulenka, Mike Thompson clumsily introduce ideas then drop eventually turns to “bah, humbug” as the film’s will screen and is sponsored by aGLIFF. See “Goodbye to All University Inc. them entirely. (09/25/2009) – Kimberley Jones technological novelty gives way to narrative mundan- That,” p.51, for more on the event. @Salvage Vanguard Theater, ★ Movies 8 ity. So absent is any emotional content that it’s as Sunday-Monday, 7pm.

78 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E NOVEMBER 20, 2009 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m