New Releases

Opening with a headshot of chef Ferran Adrià sampling a luminescent fish popsicle in the dark, El Bulli: Cooking in Progress immediately lets you know this isn't just another food documentary. The movie returns to Austin after screening at SXSW this year for a run at Violet Crown Cinema.

A pioneer in the molecular gastronomy movement, Adrià is a controversial chef whose legend is based on the extreme re-imagining and deconstruction of food both common and exotic, and whose restaurant was considered the best in the world. While some dishes are as visually sensual as a Georgia O'Keefe painting, some are more remiscent of an Edward Weston photograph, transcending the commonplace. What looks like a peanut in the shell may actually be completely edible, with a salty "shell" enveloping a liquid peanut, or a mojito cocktail contained within sugarcane.

At the beginning of the film, Adrià and his staff are packing up the restaurant at the end of its typical six-month season. But Adrià and his three head chefs are not off for a vacation; instead they head to Barcelona and the laboratory where they meticulously document their experiments to create new dishes. Starting with something as simple as the lowly sweet potato, the chefs painstakingly try different methods to bring out the flavor in a juice form, which will become a meringue.

In jest, I'm calling it "Robot Rocky" to my friends, but Real Steel is the most fun I've had in a theater all year. Call it a movie for 11-year-old boys if you like. It certainly has enough action, but it's a great family film with solid appeal for all ages.

Hugh Jackman is admittedly not at his best here; Charlie Kenton is not Jackman's usual heroic role. However, newcomer Dakota Goyo (who made a brief appearance earlier this summer as a young Thor) will be making a name for himself with Real Steel. The movie is almost entirely one-on-one between the two, and Goyo holds his own against a much older and more seasoned actor.

Evangeline Lilly's Bailey is charming but little more othan an afterthought in this script, present only to provide a little exposition on Charlie's backstory. Kevin Durand rounds out the main cast with an unsurprisingly bad guy named Ricky. It would be refreshing just once to see him play a sympathetic character, but now when he shows up in the credits, I automatically know he'll be showing up as a villain.

I was surprised to see Danny Elfman credited with the score. His muted guitar work was a mighty leap from the direction of familiar (and beloved) pieces like Beetlejuice and Batman. Instead of a circus musicbox chorus, Elfman scored Real Steel with a country sound reminiscent of Gustavo Santaolalla's in Brokeback Mountain. Much of the film is set in Texas (although shot in Michigan), so the feel is appropriate.

Looking for a feel-good film that will restore your faith in American politics? By all means, skip The Ides of March.

George Clooney's latest directorial effort is cynical to the core, a powerfully bitter statement about the sorry state of our political system. Based on the play Farragut North by Beau Willimon (which, in turn, is loosely based on Howard Dean's 2004 Democratic primary campaign), the movie The Ides of March is less the story of one campaign than an indictment of campaigns in general.

Set during the final days of a hotly contested Ohio Democratic presidential primary, The Ides of March centers on Stephen Myers (the currently ubiquitous Ryan Gosling), a young and idealistic press secretary for Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Mike Morris (Clooney). The race is far closer than it should be, and Morris's victory hinges on an endorsement from Ohio Sen. Thompson (Jeffrey Wright), who, of course, would like something in return. It's up to Morris, Myers and campaign manager Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to secure the endorsement without making a deal they find too unpalatable.

All too often, when a movie can be described as sentimental, it's usually not a compliment. Gus Van Sant's latest film Restless however is a welcome reminder that death-themed films needn't rely on the suffocating pedestrian solemnity so common in heartfelt fare.

A solemn young man (Henry Hopper) meets an effervescent young woman (Mia Wasikowska) at a funeral of all places. After a few more chance encounters, the pair finds they both have a fascination with death, but neither obsession is quite what it seems; Enoch is trapped by his past, and Annabel has embraced her future. For a while they have a whimsically sweet present, as they humor each other's morbid fantasies with a faith in one another rarely seen in real life, let alone on the jaded silver screen. But it starts seeming less healthy and more a folie à deux to Annabel's protective sister (Schuyler Fisk), especially after Enoch and Annabel share confidences, and Annabel so easily accepts the existence of Enoch's spectral best friend, Hiroshi (Ryo Kase).

Machine Gun Preacher is violent drama based on the true story of Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), a drug-dealing criminal biker who transformed his life after finding God. Through a series of events, Childers finds redemption from his violent life not only to become a preacher, but to risk his life to establish an orphanage in war-torn Sudan. Butler was so taken with Childers' story that he not only served as an executive producer for the movie but also took a pay cut for the role, which could quite possibly lead to an Oscar nomination.

Machine Gun Preacher opens with a violent night in a remote Sudanese village -- members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) force a young boy to kill his own mother and kidnap any children old enough to hold a gun. The film then shifts to rural Pennsylvania, where Sam Childers prepares for his release from prison, having been incarcerated for drug-related criminal activities.

Childers discovers that while he was away, his wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) has given up her lifestyle of drugs and drinking, as well as her job as an exotic dancer. Her faith in God and participation at a local church has motivated her to provide a healthier atmosphere for herself and her daughter. Childers' disinterest of religion takes a sudden turn when after a rough night of drinking and shooting up, he nearly kills a hitchhiker who has pulled a knife on his biker buddy Donnie (Michael Shannon).

Romantic comedies are a staple of the Hollywood moviemaking machine, and for good reason: people like to laugh and to enjoy a love story, an often unbeatable combination. Romantic comedies are also notoriously cheap to churn out, which explains why a retread with careworn tropes and outdated mores like What's Your Number? gets released.

Vacuous Ally Darling (Anna Faris) puts more effort in smoothing her unmussed hair and accentuating her already ample bust before her boyfriend rouses from bed than she does anything else in her life. But when she finds herself reading a women's glamrag article about the number of men the average woman sleeps with, she starts contemplating how many men she's bedded and to her horror realizes she's a slut, at least according to the magazine. Her insecurities go into overdrive as her sister's wedding approaches.

Cue the lothario Colin (Chris Evans) who lives across the hall, who first tantalizes us with obscured frontal nudity, then suddenly reveals he just happens to have the sleuthing skills to help Ally track down her exes so she doesn't sleep with one more guy and doom her to never marrying.

Violence is an infectious disease, epidemiologist Gary Slutkin tells us early in The Interrupters. Using a disease control model that curtail epidemics by disrupting their spread, CeaseFire employs "violence interrupters" (their actual job title) in various Chicago communities. The interrupters themselves are all too familiar with the consequences of violence, and coupling street cred and relationship building they help stop escalating tensions with the goal of reducing violence on all levels.

Director Steve James follows three of the interrupters over the course of a year as they cajole, counsel and educate the communities they serve, offering alternatives that have significantly decreased violence. Unsurprisingly, it's not an easy job, but the interrupters aren't trying to apply a dressing to an open wound any more than they are sanctimonious do-gooders. Each one, whether profiled or not, has learned consequences of a violent lifestyle in the neighborhoods they serve, giving them common ground. The vibrant Ameena fiercely supports those she helps. Cobe takes a more subtle approach, although equally determined. Eddie is quiet, unassuming and still coming to grips with his own past.

The title of 50/50 refers to the survival odds of the film's protagonist, who is fighting a rare form of cancer. But 50/50 also could refer to the odds that with a great cast and some genuinely poignant and funny moments, the movie can survive its entirely formulaic storyline.

Sadly, it doesn't. Despite the best efforts of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick and Anjelica Huston to rise above the predictable material, 50/50 amounts to little more than a mildly funny and entertaining but unoriginal take on a life-or-death struggle with disease.

50/50 is the story of 27-year-old Adam (Gordon-Levitt), a public radio producer whose chronic back pain leads to a diagnosis of a rare spinal tumor. Facing months of chemotherapy followed by a risky operation, Adam relies on his struggling artist girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and oversexed friend Kyle (Rogen) for everything from emotional support to transportation. When she learns of the diagnosis, Adam's mother, Diane (Huston), shifts into full maternal mode immediately, not trusting Rachael to tend to Adam's needs.

Sports movies ought not to be talky. We could argue that Moneyball isn't really a sports movie -- it happens to take place in the world of sports, but its true focus is the growing battle between science and tradition. Even so, a movie with so much baseball in it ought to have a little more zip.

Fortunately, the talkiness is often snappy dialogue, well-written by Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian. The movie's dialogue seems to be written for a lighter-toned movie than the occasionally sluggish Moneyball, based on real-life people and events.

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is the general manager of the Oakland A's, a major-league baseball team trying to compete successfully with teams that have far larger budgets. It's impossible for Beane to attract top-drawer players with third-tier salaries. He needs to find another way to improve his team, and believes he has the answer after meeting Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). Brand, a disciple of Bill James, believes that he can use a certain set of statistics to find the players who will bring them the most runs ... and many of those players are bargains because they look funny when they pitch, or get most of their runs on walks.

I have really mixed feelings about Dolphin Tale, which opens today in Austin theaters. On the one hand, it's relatively entertaining, has a couple of nice messages at its core, and it has some great actors in it. On the other hand, it is tailored and finessed within an inch of its life to win the affections of the audience. It does so by delivering trite-and-not-too-serious conflict, a fat handful of plot threads that weave together into a tidy narrative, and a deluge of boy-on-dolphin underwater footage that could easily be repurposed into a mesmerizing screensaver. Not that anyone but your local office products store has screensavers anymore, but you know what I mean.

To describe the plot fully would require several paragraphs and a score card. I'm pretty sure my 5-year-old daughter didn't catch all of it, but she waited patiently for the grownups to stop talking so the movie could get back to the kids and dolphins.

It boils down to this: Sawyer (Nathan Gamble) has trouble focusing at school, what with his daddy-abandonment issues and his college-aged cousin headed for a tour in the Middle East. Plans to catch up on his studies in summer school go awry when he finds himself rescuing a beached dolphin (eventually named Winter) and becomes The Only Person Who Can Inspire In It The Will To Live as it convalesces at the local aquarium.

The cast fills out with not one but two wrinkly voices of wisdom (Morgan Freeman and Kris Kristofferson), hot middle-aged mom Ashley Judd, aquarium brat Hazel (the adorable Cozi Zuehlsdorff, who is the best thing about the movie), and her dad Dr. Haskett (Harry Connick, Jr.), who is trying to save the dolphin and the down-on-its-luck aquarium at the same time.