Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 125, No. 75, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 27, 2007 Page: 2 of 20
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PAGE 2A • POLK COUNTY ENTERPRISE • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2007
'Across the Universe' astral haze of nostalgia
To hell and back forTommy Lee Jones in stirring, emotional 'In the Valley of Elah'
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE - The
oomph-driven theatrical director Julie
(“Uon King”) Taymor can really ride
herd on a film. Now, Taymor ropes,
brands and stampedes the Beatles into
her showbiz corral. In “Across the
Universe,” she and the writers serve
up the fabled tunes and the 1960s
fondly and as deep as a peace decal
in rainbow hews. The result is a kind
of astral haze of newborn nostalgia,
trying to invoke a legendary era as
if it were freshly happening. So, pe-
riod trappings embellish the deathless
tunes, but the actors could fit any cur-
rent musical. This often seems less a
Beatles memory ride than an attempt
to redo “Rent” with a hugely improved
score. Taymor piles and pinwheels the
big rousers with sets, effects, ‘toons.
Joe Cocker’s guest intro of “Come To-
gether” really rocks it open. But Tay-
mor dips characters in cliche mulch.
The psychedelic phase is a rush, man,
yet when Taymor serves up the gassy,
grassy trip to la-la as pure escape, you
might crave a little wake-up acid from
Tom Wolfe. A Revolution Studios re-
lease. Director Julie Taymor. Writers:
Dick Clement, Ian I .a Frenais. Cast:
Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe
Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther
McCoy. Running time: 2 hours, 10
minutes. Rated PG-13. 2 1/2 stars.
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH - The
war, the endless one we’re stuck with,
“comes home” with poignant force in
Raul Haggis’ “In the Valley of Elah."
His last film as director was “Crash,”
and this one could be “Smash-up.”
Trying hard not to smash emotionally
is Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones),
a former military police officer retired,
now driving a gravel truck and living
simply with his wife (Susan Sarandon,
under-seen but ace). He’s proud that his
first son went into the the Army despite
a tragic end, and proud that second son
Michael enlisted and is coming home
safe after harsh duty in Iraq. Michael
returns and then, before discharge,
goes AWOL. As father, and as former
cop. Hank climbs into his pickup to go
find the young soldier. A Vietnam War
veteran. Hank loves the military with
some ambivalence, but is a firm patriot
and the sort of guy who makes up his
motel bed military style and buffs his
shoes daily. Down in this modem val-
ley of Elah, you can’t think editorially
or generically, in cop movie or war
movie terms. What is felt, very per-
sonally, is the need for plain truth to
hell and back and beyond. A Warner
Independent release. Director, writer:
Paul Haggis. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones,
Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon, Ja-
son Patric, Jake McLaughlin. Running
time: 2 hours. Rated R. 4 stars.
RECENT RELEASES
3:10TO YUMA - “3:10 to Yuma” is
a slow train to dumb brutality, a count-
down to the latest, gratuitous death of
the Western. Fifty years ago, Delmer
Daves made a tight, suspenseful film
from Elmore Ixonard’s story (non-ur
ban, pre-fame Leonard, but taut as a
driven nail). Glenn Ford was smoothly
amusing as menacing desperado Ben
Wade, whom hard-luck rancher Dan
Evans (Van Heflin) was paid to escort
perilously to a train, for a date with the
noose. Now, Christian Bale is Evans,
a gnawed but credible variant on He-
flin’s sober, fretful decency. As Wade,
Russell Crowe is less a Ford than a
Humvce on a horse. He’s a sly, teas-
ing sadist who revels in cruelty, but
to make him vaguely human he does
pencil sketches, and his main sidekick
is a vile, trigger-happy psycho (Ben
Foster). The story’s females (Gretchen
Mol, Vinessa Shaw) are marginal soft-
ies in the old Western tradition. But
Evans has a teen son (Lennie Lof-
tin) who thinks dad is weak and has
some sneaking admiration for Wade’s
deadly machismo. The “moral” is how
the boy finally sees Evans as a hero.
A Lionsgate release. Director: James
Mangold. Writer: Halsted Welles,
Michael Brandt, Derek Haas. Cast:
Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Ben
Foster, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol,
Logan Lcrman. Running time: I hour,
55 minutes. Rated R. I 1/2 stars.
SHOOT ‘EM UP - “Shoot ‘F.m Up”
targets the audience and splatters ‘cm,
though some will go down laughing.
Clive Owen is Smith, the deadly gun-
man who lives in an under-zone of
New York, likes dogs, has a rat as but-
■ NS l‘l If 'll KOI Kl I SV III MIDI II til \SI K
‘ACROSS THE UNIVERSE’ - Eddie Izzard is featured in
‘Across the Universe,’ a love story set in the turbulent ‘60s.
WEATHER
'"1." ■ -',1: ; *■' '
Polk County and vicinity
(Provided through the courtesy of the National Weather Service
station in Livingston.) These are the figures for the 24-hour periods
ending at 6 a.m.
POLK COUNTY AND VICINITY-20% chance of rain until I
p.m. High of 89 and low of 71.
DATE
Thursday, Sept.
Friday, Sept.
Saturday, Sept.
Sunday, Sept.
Monday, Sept.
Tuesday, Sept.
HIGH
LOW
RAIN
91
69
0
87
64
0
86
58
0
92
57
0
91
59
.0
88
65
.0
89
65
.10
19
20
21
22
23
24
Wednesday, Sept. 25
(Rainfall figures obtained form the National Weather Service station
at KETX.)
Total rainfall for 2002................................................................56.83
Total rainfall for 2003................................................................41.96
Total rainfall for 2004................................................................63.23
Total rainfall for 2005................................................................37.35
Total rainfall for 2006 ................................................................58.00
Total rainfall for 2007................................................................26.68
Rainfall for week ending. Sept. 12.................................................0.0
ler, can turn on a dime’s shadow and
eats carrots to keep his trigger-happy
eyesight sharp. Owen smartens up a
lot of idiocy. No need to seek for psy-
chic tissue (motivation, etc.), but there
are many ruptured and flying body
parts. Owen gels tortured by grinning
creep Paul Giamatti in a way that ri-
vals the screws put to Robert Mitchum
by Raymond Burr in "His Kind of
Woman.” Owen’s kind of gal is Mon-
ica Bellucci. “Shoot” is a pinballing
gore spree with cackling dialogue and
frank divulgence of its core source in
old Warner Bros, cartoons. The movie
is sporty with love for its rampages,
never more than when Bellucci has
a screaming orgasm while, in a lusty
pivot, Owen also mows down a squad
of assassins. A New Line Cinema re-
lease. Director, writer: Michael Da-
vis. Cast: Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti,
Monica Bellucci, Greg Bryk. Running
time: I hour, 22 minutes. Rated R. 2
stars.
2 DAYS IN PARIS - "2 Days in
Paris” packs a lot in. At moments, you
might wish Julie Delpy had spent a
few days taking some stuff out. Delpy
wrote, directed, edited, composed
and stars as Marion, a photographer
despite her retinal birth scar. But she
lives verbally, often with sex as use-
ful syntax. Even more photo-snap-
pish is lover Jack (Adam Goldberg),
50% ■ W
Jewelry Sale!!
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Tues. - Sat.
137 Old Mill Ctr.
(in building with
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FAIN ^THEATRE
Latest
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who jammed their visit to Venice into
his tourist camera. On a brief stop in
Paris, visiting Marion’s parents before
the couple return home to New York,
Jack finds his lens is no refuge. She
and Jack keep meeting her ex-lovers,
who often carry a torch for her (Delpy,
though age candid and gutsy as always,
didn’t shrink her ego for this). Delpy
wrote cleverly, flicking zings with
ease through a free spillage of seem-
ingly caught life. And some comedy
even pivots as both pro-French and
anti-French. But Jack remains a cari-
catural New Yorker, a brainy hunk de-
fined by phobias. Frisky and compul-
sively Parisian, "2 Days” builds to the
showdown of verbal overspill. Jack is
scarcely heard, overruled by Marion’s
fretful, wise, forgiving voice-over. But,
of course, it’s “a Julie Delpy film.” A
Samuel Goldwyn Films release. Di-
rector, writer: Julie Delpy. Cast: Julie
Delpy. Adam Goldberg, Daniel Bruhl,
Marie Pillet, Albert Delpy, Alexandre
Nahon. Running time: I hour, 48 min-
utes. Rated R. 2 1/2 stars.
THE NANNY DIARIES - At 22
years old, Scarlett Johansson has al-
ready played everything from a high
school outcast (“Ghost World”) to a
seductive vixen ("Match Point”). But
in “The Nanny Diaries,” she crosses
into totally new territory: super cute.
In “The Nanny Diaries,” Johansson
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Sales: 936-328-0132J
Lake Area
Real Estate
Guide
Coming
Oct. 14
in the
Polk County
Enterprise
•San Jacinto
News-Times
•Area Businesses
To Advertise
Call
(936) 327-4357
stars as Annie, an adorable-but-con-
fused college graduate who can’t fig-
ure out what to do with her future. Too
afraid to follow her heart toward an-
thropology and too stubborn to go into
finance as her mom wants, she instead
takcs.a job working as a nannyfor One
of Manhattan’s richest families. The
movie was adapted from a book - the
memoirs of real-life nannies Emma
McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus - and
follows the story almost too closely.
Perhaps the most revealing discover-
ies about this Upper East Side lifestyle
in ‘The Nanny Diaries” are the eccen-
tricities of those people making all that
money. So even though ‘The Nanny
Diaries” suffers from being too cutesy,
it is a rare chance to have this super-
star Hollywood actress feel like your
best friend. If only for a few hours,
anyway. A Weinstein Co. release. Di-
rector: Shari Springer Berman, Rob-
ert Pulcini. Writers: Shari Springer
Berman, Robert Pulcini (screenplay);
Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus
(novel). Cast: Scarlett Johansson, latu-
ra Linney, Paul Giamatti, Alicia Keys,
Chris Evans, Donna Murphy, Cady
Huffman. Running time: I hour, 47
minutes. Rated I^Cj-13.2 stars.
ROCKET SCIENCE - “Rocker Sci-
ence” is about a New Jersey teen named
Hal (not Hugh) Hefner who considers
clear speech “not like rocket science"
- if only he could get the phrase out
of his mouth fluently. The small inside
joke is that the movie is from Jeffrey
Blitz, who made the widely seen indie
documentary “Spellbound,” about kids
who know very big words but spell
them ve ry s-l-o-w-l-y. Hal is more
like Halt. His stuttering speech lurches
and jolts from one verbal pothole to
the next. The excellent Reece Thomp-
son plays Hal so earnestly that his shy,
gentle frustration with not being fluent
becomes more affectingly serious than
Blitz’s tone and tactics can serve. Hal
is surrounded by the fixated: a broken
pair of sad sitcom parents; a pushy
brother far more sullenly alienated
than himself; a school debating hero
Hal idolizes (big Nicholas D’Agosto),
whose speed-talk brilliance trips him
into an existential value crisis; and
that boy’s fierce rival in competition,
acted by Anna Kendrick as a sly vari-
ant on Reese Witherspoon in “Elec-
tion.” Toss in idiotic speech therapists,
and a loyal (to Hal) Korean kid ap-
parently named for Charlton Heston.
And repeat jokes about Hal trying to
order pizza. A Picturehouse Entertain-
ment release. Director, writer: Jeffrey
Blitz. Cast: Reece Thompson, Anna
Kendrick, Nicholas D’Agosto, Margo
Marti ndale. Running time: I hour, 41
minutes. Rated R. 2 stars.
RATINGS
4 S1ARS - Excellent.
3 STARS - Worthy.
2 STARS - Mixed'.
I STAR - Poor.
0 Forget It (a dog.)
Capsules from movie reviews writ-
ten by David Elliott, film critic for The
San Diego Union-Tribune.
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2.5 miles north of Rye on Hwy. 146
TO®3)
All Your Beverage Needs Outlet
Wholesale Distributor To Clubs
Wines, Beers, Liquor, Kegs Available On
Request, ATM - Texas Lottery
Open 10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. - Monday-Saturday
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ir* jar jar a'
VFW Post 8568
PRESENTS
Saturday, September 29th
OPEN DANCE - Latino DJ
7 pm Free Dance Lessons
8 00 pm -12:00 am *S5 00 Per Person Donation
Do Not Have To Be A Member To Attend
Located On U.S Flwy. 59 North • Livingston
Wednesday - Friday 7 pm Sunday - 6 pm
Everyone Welcome
Canteen Open/Pool
Wednesday - Sunday 2 p.m.
Members & Guests Welcome
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Reddell, Valerie. Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 125, No. 75, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 27, 2007, newspaper, September 27, 2007; Livingston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth787937/m1/2/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Livingston Municipal Library.