R E S T A U R A N T P O L L B A L L O T P . 4 6 - The Austin Chronicle

C ALE N D AR ( COMMUNITY SPORTS ARTS FILM MUSIC) L I S TINGSproved in the Twilight franchise he could brood likea baby Brando or Dean, but here, working with farsuperior material, Pattinson gets to sink his teethinto something more than posturing. His Tyler istwitchy, trigger-tempered, and believably (read: sulkily)21, which might have been insufferable withouthis keen comic delivery of the frequently funnyscript. Still, had Remember Me’s ambitions stalledout with only this relationship, it would have beenmerely a standard, if thoughtfully executed, firstlovestuff. But the film’s scope widens to includethe family dramas that dominate Ally’s and Tyler’slives and bring them closer together as a couple.(03/12/2010) – Kimberley Jones★★★★■MetropolitanREPO MEN D: Miguel Sapochnik; with Jude Law, ForestWhitaker, Alice Braga, Liev Schreiber, Carice van Houten, RZA.(R, 111 min.)Repo Men is the story of Remy (Law) and hispartner Jake (Whitaker), two “repo men” workingfor a massive artificial human-organ conglomerate.In the near future, you can have your failing rock &roll liver replaced with one made of nuts and boltsand such … for a fee, usually around $600,000.Remy and Jake enter the picture when the new youdefaults on the payments. This is high-concept,dystopic sci-fi, and, by all rights, it should work justfine, but no, it doesn’t: Repo Men is a snooze anda half. Law seems to be playing himself playinga variation on his character from Gattaca, whileWhitaker is rehashing bits and pieces of everythingfrom Body Snatchers to Ghost Dog: The Way of theSamurai. Maybe the problem is the obviousness ofthe plot or maybe we’re just jaded to the point ofboredom when it comes to seeing another damndystopia unspooling up there in the darkness.(03/26/2010) – Marc Savlov★★ Gateway, MetropolitanwTHE RUNAWAYS D: Floria Sigismondi;with Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon,Stella Maeve, Alia Shawcat, Scout Taylor-Compton, Riley Keough.(R, 109 min.)The Runaways were real wild ones. And thatgoes double (fuck it, triple) for their Svengali-esquemanager and primal mover/shaker Kim Fowley(Shannon), the crazy-like-a-fox pop-musical madmanforever scheming behind the scenes. Situatednearer to the historical rock & roll record than ithas any right to be, The Runaways nails both theglammy, SoCal temper of the mid-Seventies andthe metallurgic tempering of the first all-girl rockband in America. Sigismondi’s screenplay hews thestory down to the marrow. From a casting angle,Twilight’s Stewart is a dead ringer for the tomboyfrom-helland queer icon Joan Jett, and Fanning’sCherie Currie looks and feels like sunny, SouthernCalifornia doll parts stitched together to forma melancholy femme-bomb just waiting to blow.Shannon’s Fowley is a seriously funny portrayal; thefilm kicks into overdrive every time he appears onscreen. Nevertheless, The Runaways is a fairly standardrock story, albeit from a grittily femme perspective.(03/19/2010)– Marc Savlov★★★ Alamo Drafthouse South, Arbor, TinseltownSouthSHERLOCK HOLMES D: Guy Ritchie; withRobert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, EddieMarsan, Kelly Reilly, James Fox, Hans Matheson, Geraldine James.(PG-13, 128 min.)Ritchie has reinvented the chilly, brainiac characterof Sherlock Holmes as a tortured genius, ladies’man (sort of), and occasional backroom brawler.As played by Downey Jr. (an inspired casting choicethat works in the film’s favor), this incarnation is apost-millennial man of action. With Watson (Law,another spot-on bit of casting) at his side, Holmesuncovers a satanic plot that takes him from thelowliest subterranean hellholes to the highest levelsof Parliament. Ritchie manages to mostly restrainhis more florid directorial flourishes while creatinga CGI London so benighted and soot-heavy youcan practically smell it. This is Downey Jr.’s film allthe way, and while literary traditionalists and BakerZellneroids:Zellner Bros.Short Film CavalcadeZellneroids: Zellner Bros. Short FilmCavalcade Austin’s unrivaled champions of shortfilmmaking have had movies honored with screeningslots at Sundance and a host of other festivals. TheZellners will be in attendance at this screening.@Alamo Ritz, Monday, 7pm.Street Irregulars (of which I am one) may find thisHolmes’ penchant for face-crunching fisticuffs andback-alley chases a sad sop to the action-jadedaudiences of the 21st century, the actor’s moremasculine interpretation of the character is neveranything less than startling, fresh, and altogetherentertaining. (12/25/2009) – Marc Savlov★★★ Movies 8SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE D: Jim FieldSmith; with Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J. Miller, Mike Vogel, NateTorrence, Lindsay Sloane, Kyle Bornheimer, Krysten Ritter.(R, 104 min.)She’s Out of My League wonders what wouldhappen if a regular guy, unremarkable in looks,accomplishments, or ambitions, caught the eye ofa woman who far outpaces him on pretty much anyplane you can fathom. That is the premise and,turns out, the totality of this instantly forgettablecomedy. Kirk (Baruchel) does a kindness for aknockout blonde named Molly (Eve). Sensing she’s,well, out of his league, the sweet but unconfidentKirk doesn’t even try to hit on her, and that, itseems, is the trick to turning her head. The heatgenerated between dull Molly and dweeby Kirk couldhardly warm a titmouse, but Molly and Kirk’s chemistryisn’t priority. This is, first and foremost, a bromanceamong Kirk and his three foul-mouthed andbad-advice-dispensing co-workers (played unmemorablyby Miller, Vogel, and Torrence). They get in theoccasional good riff, but we’ve seen this before.(03/19/2010) – Kimberley Jones★★■MetropolitanwSHUTTER ISLAND D: Martin Scorsese;with Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley,Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, PatriciaClarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, EliasKoteas. (R, 138 min.)As part of his ongoing mission to lovingly recreateand simultaneously pay homage to virtuallyevery known film genre, Scorsese has finally gottenaround to doing a gothic/noir/old-dark-house/horror/mysteryamalgam, and boy howdy, it’s a doozy.The only thing missing is Elisha Cook Jr., and EliasKoteas does such a fine job doing the scar-facedcreepy crawl that you barely notice. Adapted byscreenwriter Laeta Kalogridis from the pulpy novelby Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island is nominally aboutthe search for a missing madwoman (Mortimer),an inmate at the titular insane asylum, by obsessive,anxious, sweaty U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels(DiCaprio) and his somewhat less angsty partner,Chuck Aule (Ruffalo). This is low art done with highstyle from a filmmaker who has always known whichshadows the real monsters are hiding in. It’s pureBedlam, but for genre fans, Scorsese makes it feellike coming home. (02/26/2010) – Marc Savlov★★★★■Gateway, Tinseltown SouthTHE SPY NEXT DOOR D: Brian Levant;with Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, George Lopez, Billy Ray Cyrus,Madeline Carroll, Will Shadley, Magnús Scheving, Alina Foley, LucasTill. (PG, 92 min.)There was a time when the arrival of a newJackie Chan movie was an event to be celebrated,a film to be seen, and its own hybrid art form, combiningincandescent star wattage and impossiblyentertaining physicality – a thing to be marveledover, really. But that was last century, and the Chanwe knew and loved, the Chan who contorted (andfrequently fractured) his lithe, Peking Opera-trainedbody into a spellbinding, often comic, acrobaticexclamation point on the very tip of action cinema,has been missing for years now. Certainly theChan of yore is nowhere to be found in The SpyNext Door, which casts the actor as a deep-coverCIA spook with parenting issues. Spy recycles themost irritating and silly parts of recent Chan filmsand then adds both children and – the end has gotto be nigh, seriously – Billy Ray Cyrus into the mix.Moth-eaten pratfalls are no substitute for actualkickassery. (01/22/2010)– Marc SavlovMovies 8THE WOLFMAN D: Joe Johnston; with Benicio DelToro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, GeraldineChaplin, Art Malik, Malcolm Scates, David Sterne. (R, 102 min.)There’s plenty of doom, gloom, and outrightdespair on hand here but very little genuine humanemotion. Del Toro, as the soon-to-be wolfman, ismiscast. He tries mightily to use his bearish-yetlitheframe to increase the character’s acute mentaland physical anguish, but everything following thecharacter’s return to his ancestral home and hisreunion with his equally dire paterfamilias (Hopkins,unsure whether to ham or howl) feels like a sham.The film looks like Sleepy Hollow, it sounds like abox-office coffin constructed of wooden dialoguewith a Danny Elfman score nailed on, and asUniversal’s most beloved monster franchise afterDracula, it disappoints terrifically. It lacks the effortlesslytragic heart, soul, and humor of Universal’s1941 original, and it does so to such a bizarrelymelodramatic degree that only its well-documentedproduction woes can account for it. Amid the eddiesof blue-tinted CGI fog and a battlefield’s worth ofthe “red stuff,” there are a handful of genuine emotions.(02/12/2010)– Marc Savlov★★ Movies 8also playingALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS:THE SQUEAKQUEL ★ Movies 8THE BLIND SIDE ★★★ Movies 8VALENTINE’S DAY ★ Movies 8Check Film Listings online for full-length reviews,up-to-date showtimes, archives, and more!austinchronicle.com/filma u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m APRIL 9, 2010 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E 81