FILM
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LISTINGS
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J E N N I F E R A N I S T O N
GEM A
“
. A ROMANTIC COMEDY FOR OUR TIME. “
DRAG ME TO HELL D: Sam Raimi;
with Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Adriana Barraza, Chelcie Ross, Reggie Lee. (PG-13, 99 min.)
Fanboys have waited patiently for Raimi to return to the “splatstick� horror genre he more or less invented with the Evil Dead trilogy. Drag Me to Hell never quite hits the psychotronic heights of Evil Dead II – Raimi’s working with a PG-13 rating this time – but, in the interim, the director’s ability to create nerve-racking suspense and jarring shocks has been honed to a razor’s edge. This film moves with the herky-jerky gait of a spook-house trolley car, rocketing along for whole sequences and then punctuating them with shock cuts and tinnitus-inducing Foley cues that’ll have audiences wishing they had borrowed a pair of grandma’s Depends. Raimi co-wrote the script with his brother Ivan in the downtime between Spider-Man films, and the story is as basic a terror tale as they come. Raimi’s pairing of Three Stooges-style physical comedy with moments of pure gross-out schtick creates one of the most satisfying horror films in decades. (05/29/2009) – Marc Savlov ★★★★ Metropolitan
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FOOD, INC. D: Robert Kenner. (PG, 94 min.)
Food, Inc. largely forgoes bombast, but you don’t need graphic depictions of a kill floor to get the drift here, which is, more or less, that the American food industry is pretty much fucked. One imagines that this eye-opening, stomach-queasing doc could have been artlessly done and still been effective – the information within is that vital – but Kenner has produced an engaging, cohesive narrative that informs but never scolds. It even heartbreaks, with explorations of one poverty- and diabetesravaged family’s struggle to eat healthfully and another mother’s congressional battle, sparked by her son’s death from tainted meat. Food, Inc. maintains a nothing-but-the-facts (you supply the indignation) stance until the end, in an unnecessary call-to-arms that nudges the film into agitprop territory. Frankly, the filmmakers aren’t giving the audience enough credit: We get it. We are what we eat. And what we’ve been eating has been engineered, assemblylined, and/or brutalized. How’s that for an appetite suppressant? (06/26/2009) – Kimberley Jones ★★★★■Alamo Drafthouse South, Arbor
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GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST D: Mark Waters; with Matthew
McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Michael Douglas, Breckin Meyer, Lacey Chabert, Robert Forster, Anne Archer, Emma Stone. (PG-13, 100 min.) Ghosts indeed: This romantic comedy by name alone attempts to make funny – not to mention culturally relevant – the kind of swinging-dick misogyny that went out of fashion years ago. Celebrity photographer Connor Mead (McConaughey) is a quantity-over-quality kind of guy. Love, he argues, is nothing more than “magical comfort food for the weak and uneducated,� a sentiment he lifted from his mentor, Uncle Wayne (Douglas), who is the Marley surrogate in this A Christmas Carol reimagining. Wayne ushers Connor through an evening of reflection and reckoning, with the aim of nudging Connor back into the arms of his first love, Jenny (Garner, with negligible screen time). Wayne is a quaint relic – not nearly as amusing as the filmmakers seem to think he is – but harmless enough. Not so with McConaughey’s wolfish Connor. (Also, make-up and wardrobe have done him no favors, with his Easy-Bake tan, attack of the Crest Whitestrips, and tooliteral interpretation of Connor’s oiliness.) (05/01/2009) – Kimberley Jones ★★■Movies 8
S T E V E Z A H N
Karen Durbin, ELLE
! ���H “
JENNIFER ANISTON GIVES THE
BEST PERFORMANCE
HER OF CAREER. “
Dan Jewel, LIFE & STYLE
A T O U C H I N G C O M E D Y
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FRIDAY, JULY 3 RD STARTS !
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HORTON FOOTE TRIBUTE –– JULY 2-3
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) Adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel
THU AT 9; FRI AT 7:15
Tender Mercies (1983)
Screenplay by Horton Foote
THU AT 7; FRI AT 9:50
EPIC OF ISRAEL –– JULY 5
ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS 3D (PG) Fri. & Sat. 10:00 10:30 12:10 12:40 2:20 2:50 4:30 5:00 6:50 7:10 9:00 9:20 11:45 11:55 Sun. - Thu. 10:00 10:30 12:10 12:40 2:20 2:50 4:30 5:00 6:50 7:10 9:00 9:20
Exodus (1960)
PUBLIC ENEMIES (R) Fri. & Sat. 10:10 1:10 4:05 7:00 9:55 11:35 Sun. - Thu. 10:10 1:10 4:05 7:00 9:55
SUN AT 2 & 7
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN � (PG–13) Fri. & Sat. 10:30 11:00 12:30 2:10 2:45 3:45 5:20 7:00 7:15 8:35 10:15 10:25 11:50 Sun. - Thu. 10:30 11:00 12:30 2:10 2:45 3:45 5:20 7:00 7:15 8:35 10:15 10:25
Directed by Otto Preminger
NEWMAN—BOTH SIDES OF THE LAW –– JULY 7-8
Cool Hand Luke (1967) TUE: Pre-show hard-boiled egg eating contest. Prizes awarded!
MY SISTER'S KEEPER (PG–13) Fri. - Thu. 10:00 12:15 2:35 4:55 7:20 9:45
TUE AT 7; WED AT 9:25
THE PROPOSAL (PG–13)Fri. & Sat. 11:35 2:00 4:25 7:00 9:25 11:45
Harper (1966)
UP (PG) Fri. & Sat. 11:30 2:05 4:30 7:25 9:50 11:50
Paul Newman as private eye “Harper�
TUE AT 9:30; WED AT 7
Sun. - Thu. 11:35 2:00 4:25 7:00 9:25
Sun. - Thu. 11:30 2:05 4:30 7:25 9:50
THE HANGOVER (R) Fri. & Sat. 10:05 12:15 2:30 4:45 7:10 9:25 11:50 Sun. - Thu. 10:05 12:15 2:30 4:45 7:10 9:25
a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m JULY 3, 2009 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E 71