movies this week: bad boogie

Austin is just about caught up now on all those acclaimed movies that y’all on the Left and Right coasts got to see last year. Like the rest of the country, we’re also getting the doggy films of winter, which no one quite knows what to do with, but which might appeal to some people as an alternative to all those highbrow Oscar flicks. Bad Education or Boogeyman … the choice is yours.
If you’re not planning to watch football or football-related advertising this weekend, there are still plenty of good movies out in theaters for you to catch.
(Personally, I like to go to a nice restaurant during the Superbowl, somewhere with no TV sets. Those places are usually pretty empty while everyone is crowded around the TV at parties. It’s a great time to enjoy the places I normally like but usually find a bit noisy and/or crowded.)

New movies in Austin this week:
Bad Education—Almodovar. Mmmm. Finally. I haven’t seen an Almodovar movie since All About My Mother, which was too melodramatic and not funny enough for me. And I only saw it because I had a free pass. I miss the days of Law of Desire and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and even Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. However, many consider Bad Education to be one of Almodovar’s best, so perhaps I’ll give him another chance. Hey, Gael Garcia Bernal is in it. Mmmmm.
Boogeyman—Is this a joke? A horror movie called Boogeyman? Aw geez, and Lucy Lawless is in it. Poor Lucy. Wait a second, if it’s got Lucy Lawless in it, and Emily Deschanel (Zooey’s sister, yes), who was also in Spider-Man 2,, with music by Joseph LoDuca … I was right, it’s produced by Ghost House Pictures, Sam Raimi’s new horror-film production company, which also brought us the US version of The Grudge. That still doesn’t mean I want to see it. I miss Xena.
The Wedding Date—The kind of movie that gives the term “romantic comedy” a bad name. Frank Capra must be turning in his grave. Debra Messing hires escort Dermot Mulroney to be her date to her sister’s wedding so no one will realize she’s a Single Girl, because of course single women at weddings are just plain pathetic, especially if their ex-boyfriends are there. Eccch. I do not see one appealing thing about this movie. If I want to see a cute movie with “wedding” in the title, it will have ABBA music and Toni Collette.
And if you think I am being needlessly unkind to a movie I haven’t seen, I invite you to read the Austin Chronicle’s review of this movie, which proves I’m not nearly nasty enough.
Notable events/revivals in Austin:
All the President’s Men—Playing at the Harry Ransom Center on Sat. 2/5 at 2 pm. Free movie to commemorate the opening of the Woodward and Bernstein Paper’s exhibit at HRC. Too bad they’re not showing Dick as well.
Blow-Up: Short Studies of Celebrity Obsession—Playing at Alamo Downtown on Tues. 2/8.
DiG!—Playing at Alamo Village at 9:45 pm all week. Documentary from 2004 that follows two bands, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols and studies the relationships between the bands’ founders.
Kinsey—Playing at the Paramount on Thurs. 2/17 and Sun. 2/20. I’m not sure why the Paramount is showing Kinsey but I haven’t seen it yet and want to, so I won’t argue.
(Oh, I see now. They’re showing a lot of the lesser-seen Oscar nominees this month. They’re also showing Maria Full of Grace and Being Julia later in February. Very nice. Thank you.)
Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation 2005—Playing at Alamo Downtown almost nightly through Feb. 14.
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie—Playing at Alamo Downtown on Sat. mornings 2/12 and 2/19, and Wed. night 2/16. You know you want to.
At home, I still haven’t seen Gunga Din or The Cooler. A fun weekend awaits. I won’t even mention the number of movie reviews I still need to write, because it’s downright embarrassing. I really have seen Sideways and Million Dollar Baby, not that you’d know that.
And a last-minute addition: This might be a good weekend to rent Baaadasssss! or Bubba Ho-Tep … or perhaps Cotton Comes to Harlem or one of Spike Lee’s films in which the late Ossie Davis has a role. Mr. Davis just died, in the middle of acting in a film at age 87. After hearing Melvin and Mario Van Peebles laud him so generously on the Baaadasssss! commentary track, I am feeling especially sad.
Also, John Vernon died this week. He was in many, many films (Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josey Wales) but most of us will likely remember him as Dean Vernon Wormer in Animal House. I keep humming the theme to Animal House, which then reminds me that Elmer Bernstein is dead, too. I think I need a good dose of SpongeBob.