“The Dictator”

Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Admiral General Aladeen, ruler of the Republic of Wadiya.

“Battleship”

Our planet fights for survival against a superior force.

“What To Expect When You’re Expecting”

Several couples deal with pregnancy.

COMING SOON

“Men in Black 3” – May 25

“Snow White & the Huntsman” – June 1

“Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” – June 8

“Prometheus” – June 8

VIDEO:

“Chronicle”

“New Year’s Eve”

“The Grey”

May 31: Granger Smith with Brian Milson

Visit grahamcentralstationaustin.com online.

Hanover’s – Pflugerville

May 18: Killin’ Time @ 9 p.m., Big Balls (AC/DC tribute band) @ 11:30 p.m.

May 19: One Shot Johnny @ 9:30 p.m.

Visit hanoversaustin.com online.

Red Rooster’s – Pflugerville

May 18: The Haymakers

May 25: EM Cravins

Live music from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Red Rooster’s is at 109 E. Pecan, Pflugerville.

Parades, music, food among annual festival’s highlights

By Rebekah Skelton
Special to the Pflag

Each year since 1976, Deutschen Pfest has offered Pflugerville residents the opportunity to join the rest of the community and load up on bratwurst, jam out to live music and parade that German heritage.

This year’s festival will be no exception. A three-day event, Deutschen Pfest will take place Friday through Sunday at Pfluger Park.

“This is our big spring annual festival,” said Terri Waggoner, public information officer for the City of Pflugerville, who also serves as the publicity chair for the 15-member Deutschen Pfest planning committee. “We want [residents] to come enjoy a day with us in the park, have fun with their family and learn about their community.”

Offering events for every age group and interest, this year’s fête will kick off with a carnival on Friday, accompanied by food, vendors and live music starting at 7 p.m.

Saturday’s festivities will begin at 11 a.m. with a parade down Main Street. The parade incorporates marching bands from local schools, various community organizations and community dignitaries, along with any community members who wish to participate.

“The parade is awesome,” Waggoner said. “To me it’s not a parade if there’s not a marching band coming through. […] But the best part is that anyone and everyone can participate in the parade.”

Saturday’s live music kicks off with Oma and Ompah at 10:30 a.m. and continues throughout the day, ending with headliner Matt Bowlin at 9:30 p.m.

Pflugerville Councilmember and Deutschen Pfest Committee Chair Starlet Sattler said the music is her favorite part of the festival.

“We end up with so many types of music that it keeps you upbeat all day and night,” Sattler said.

The 5K Pfun Run and Walk will take place at 8 a.m. Sunday. The park will open at 11 a.m. and there will be more live music, food, vendors and children’s activities until 5 p.m.

Sattler, who has been involved with Deutschen Pfest since 1997, said the festival has grown to a much larger event than it used to be. What started out as a one-day event held to bring local families together, has turned into a three-day extravaganza.

“Now we […] have people come from all over the place — Dallas, Houston, San Antonio … This year we even have someone coming from Las Vegas,” Sattler said. “So we’ve seen growth outside the community.”

Gate sales show that last year’s attendance was almost 11,500, and nearly $30,000 was raised. All of the money from Deutschen Pfest goes to the city Parks Department. In the past, the department has used the money to buy the stage for the festival and benches for city trails, Waggoner said.

This year’s proceeds will be used to purchase interpretive signage to post along the trails. The signs will identify foliage, give directions, tell about park history and serve as mile markers.

Tickets can be purchased at the gate for $5 on Friday and Sunday and $7 on Saturday. Deutschen Pfest T-shirts are available for $10 – $14 at City Hall, Pflugerville Recreation Center and Pflugerville Pharmacy. Festival-goers receive free entry all three days with the shirt.

Festival attendees will not be able to park in Pfluger Park for the event, but free shuttles will be provided from Pflugerville High School and Brookhollow Elementary School. The shuttle will begin running 30 minutes prior to the park’s opening and for 30 minutes after closing each day.

Although the city had problems with shuttle service at the 2010 Pfirecracker Pfestival, Waggoner said Deutschen Pfest has never had a problem with bussing. She also said that the committee has worked out a system for the shuttles to run more smoothly, so that they aren’t passing each other in several different directions.

“With Deutschen Pfest we don’t have the parking capacity at the park, and we do block off the roads so people don’t park in front of homes,” Waggoner said. “But the shuttle’s free and it’s so easy.”

Waggoner also said that there isn’t a need to park close to the festival grounds because no outside food or drink is permitted, so people won’t be bringing coolers.

For more information about tickets and events, visit the Deutschen Pfest website at pflugervilletx.gov.

Schedule of events:

Hours:

Friday, May 18: 5 p.m. to midnight

Admission is $5 per person.

Saturday, May 19: 10 a.m. to midnight

Admission is $7 per person.

Sunday, May 20: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission is $5 per person.

(Children age 6 and under enter free each day)

Location:

Pfluger Park

Activities:

• Deutschen Pfest Children’s Parade – Begins at Railroad Avenue and proceeds down Main Street at 10:45 a.m.
• Deutschen Pfest Main Parade – Railroad Avenue to Main Street at 11 a.m.
• 33rd Annual 5K Pfun Run and Walk and Kids 1K – Sunday, May 20 at 8 a.m. Kids 1K begins at 9 a.m.
• Live music each day

Parking/shuttles:

Parking is not permitted in the park. Free parking and shuttles are available at Pflugerville High School (1301 W. Pecan St.) and Brookhollow Elementary School (1200 N. Railroad).

Friday:
Both shuttles: 4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.

Saturday:
Pflugerville High Shuttle: 10 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.
Brookhollow Elementary Shuttle: Noon to 12:30 a.m.

Sunday
Both shuttles: 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Coolers, alcoholic beverages, pets, skateboards and bikes are prohibited in the park.

“Dark Shadows”

A playboy is turned into a vampire and then buried alive, awaking more than 200 years later.

COMING SOON

“The Dictator” (May 16)

“Battleship” (May 18)

“Men in Black 3” (May 25)

“Snow White & the Huntsman” (June 1)

“Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” June 8

“Prometheus” June 8

VIDEO:

“Joyful Noise”

“New Year’s Eve”

May 31: Granger Smith with Brian Milson

Visit grahamcentralstationaustin.com online.

Hanover’s – Pflugerville

May 11: The Space Rockers @ 9:30 p.m.

May 18: Killin’ Time @ 9 p.m., Big Balls (AC/DC tribute band) @ 11:30 p.m.

Visit hanoversaustin.com online.

Red Rooster’s – Pflugerville

May 11: Shuffle up and Deal

May 18: The Haymakers

Live music from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Red Rooster’s is at 109 E. Pecan, Pflugerville.

May 4: Carolyn Wonderland @ 8 p.m., Check One @ 10:30 p.m.

May 5: Stooch Band @ 9 p.m., The Weathermen @ 11 p.m.

May 11: The Space Rockers @ 9:30 p.m.

Visit hanoversaustin.com online.

Red Rooster’s – Pflugerville

May 4: Brewer Nation

May 11: Shuffle up and Deal

Live music from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Red Rooster’s is at 109 E. Pecan, Pflugerville.

‘Marvel’s The Avengers’

Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow answer a call to action.

By Lytton Gilliland
Special to the Pflag

In the year 2075, the world’s most secure prison is a satellite, keeping the worst of the worst quarantined from humanity and each other. As the warden points out, there’s no prisoner-on-prisoner violence because every criminal aboard has a frosty stasis chamber all to himself.

The prison is still an experiment of sorts, though, one that Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace, “Taken”), the president’s daughter and a humanitarian activist, goes to investigate. Not surprisingly, the facility isn’t as secure as it claims to be, and Emilie’s visit triggers a massive breakout. With the inmates now running the prison, it’s just a matter of time before they realize one of their hostages has extraordinary value to the president of the United States and may be their ticket back to Earth.

I’ll let the gravelly and oh-so-serious disembodied voice from the trailer take over for a moment: “There’s only one man who can get her out… Snow. He’s the best there is. But he’s a loose cannon.”

That’s exactly the kind of bad dialogue that people write to spoof movies like this, but in the service of selling “Lockout” it’s delivered straight. And damn if I don’t respect that.

It’s just too bad that dialogue is never actually uttered in the film because I wanted to see the movie that owned those lines. If it’s possible that a film about a raid on a space prison, complete with loony criminals, backstabbing espionage and spaceship gun battles, can be accused of holding back, this is that film.

Snow (Guy Pearce) is the cardboard cut-out, wise-cracking hero people have been tracing around Bruce Willis’s John McClane ever since “Die Hard” redefined action movies in 1988. You’d also be excused for mistaking him for Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) from “Burn Notice,” particularly considering Pearce’s Australian accent has been beaten down into a smooth, featureless Americanized delivery.

Snow is an ex-CIA operative framed for stealing government secrets. He agrees to the dangerous rescue assignment when he learns the one man who could clear his name is also onboard the satellite serving time.

His main opponent in the prison is Alex (Vincent Regan, “300”), a no-nonsense kingpin who quickly attracts an entourage and seizes command of the orbiting facility. Unfortunately, “no-nonsense” also translates to “no personality,” with alternate readings of “no menace” and “no fun.” If we can ponder what is “realistic” in a situation like this without giving ourselves a headache, it makes a bit of sense that the smarter criminal element, someone who might actually be able to figure out how to escape from a prison falling through the vacuum of space, could naturally become the ringleader. But for the sake of the film, it would have been nice if someone had remembered to trace Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber, too.

Alex has a brother, Hydell (Joseph Gilgun), who is supposed to provide the color. He’s a batty fellow, one eye blinded and bleached by the stasis process, preferring to go shirtless so his various tattoos can breathe, and his crazed ramblings are barely intelligible through his thick Irish brogue. Unpredictable though he may be, he’s not very menacing either, except when drooling over Emilie. As “Lockout’s” standard bearer for crazy, Hydell is a disappointment.

Despite the fact that first-timers James Mather and Stephen St. Leger are both credited as directors and writers, it’s hard not to assume Luc Besson (“The Fifth Element”), with producer, writer, and story credits, is in control. That only adds to the impression that “Lockout” is a half-hearted stab at this material.

In addition to the bland characters, few things in the movie seem like they were thought through, even the things that could have helped beef up the action and suspense. For instance, why do the vast majority of prisoners remain in the cell block, milling aimlessly and picking pointless fights, when there is no apparent restriction on their movement? Wouldn’t it have amped up the intensity if Snow and Emilie actually had to battle their way up and down the hallways of the satellite instead of running through mostly empty corridors?

Beyond that simple example, you’ll rarely see people act in their own self-interest. Alex focuses all attention on securing the one hostage with political value and virtually ignores the ones with practical value; presumably any of them would have known about the exact means of escape that Snow and Emilie seek out. Similarly, it’s not at all clear why the mastermind behind framing Snow allows him to become involved in the rescue; letting everyone associated with the mess fade into obscurity probably would have been best.

But these things all happen for one simple reason: there wouldn’t be a movie, otherwise. I can understand that sometimes you just need an excuse to blow up a futuristic prison. I only ask that you blow it up like you mean it.

One out of four stars. MPAA rating: PG-13

By Lytton Gilliland
Special to the Pflag

“Mirror, Mirror” is doubtlessly a familiar story. Based on the Grimm fairy tale and live-action cousin to Disney’s first feature-length animated film, “Mirror, Mirror” is the story of a raven-haired, fair-skinned young woman ordered to her death by a wicked witch, befriended in the forest by a septet of dwarves, and escorted to her destiny by a charming prince.

This version of the tale is nominally centered on the magic-wielding queen, an understandable choice when she’s played by Julia Roberts. The queen has slowly bled her kingdom dry and desperately desires a favorable marriage – her fifth, I believe ­– to shore up her finances.

She has an open invitation to marry the portly baron (Michael Lerner, “A Serious Man”), but she’s convinced she can do better. Her patience rewards her with Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer, “The Social Network”), perpetually shirtless due to the cunning of a gang of thieving dwarves hiding in the woods, but rich nonetheless.

The only thing that can stand in the queen’s way is her stepdaughter, Snow White (Lily Collins, “The Blind Side”). She’s been shamed and sequestered by the queen her whole life, but upon her 18th birthday Snow decides to assert some control over her life.

The expected story beats follow: a chance meeting with the prince, a spark of love, grim pronouncements from a magic mirror, a one-way trip to her doom in the forest, a non-traditional relationship with seven smallish men, poison apples and a fateful kiss.

Because “Mirror, Mirror” is to be a modern retelling of the fairy tale, there are some unexpected beats, too. The dwarves turn Snow White into a warrior. The queen turns Prince Alcott into a slobbering dog. The mirror turns Nathan Lane, playing the queen’s flunky Brighton, into a cockroach.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those changes. But there’s another aspect of modernization that all too frequently corrupts the entire endeavor, and that’s the self-aware script. First-time writer Melissa Wallack and relative newbie Jason Keller may go on to write some wonderful films in their careers, but they would do well to pretend “Mirror, Mirror” never happened.

We could easily throw a shroud of kindness over this project, telling ourselves that the wildly unbalanced tone and the painful grafting of modern jargon to otherwise stilted dialogue are artifacts of young writers punching up a script to give a star like Roberts the juiciest role possible. But those types of determinations, even if true, are more suited to the autopsy report than to the initial viewing, and the viewing is mostly wretched.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this turn of events, though, because director Tarsem Singh Dhandwar has rarely been one to concern himself with story. He started off as a music video director and graduated to feature films with 2000’s “The Cell,” a two-hour movie with approximately 30 minutes of story to tell. His reason for getting out of bed in the morning is to create striking visuals.

And that is perhaps the biggest disappointment of “Mirror, Mirror.” Outside of an admittedly thrilling sequence in which Snow White and the dwarves fend off two giant marionettes, whirling and thrashing about the forest at the careless and distant bidding of the queen, there is so very little in the film that couldn’t have come from the bargain bin at the fairy tale shop. Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” average though it was, at least knitted interesting character design to a believably warped world. Catherine Hardwicke’s “Red Riding Hood,” awful though it was, at least revamped its fairy tale in a setting that fed into its (misguided) creative impulses.

“Mirror, Mirror” has so little going for it that it’s hard to know what to make of the cast. Roberts seems to be having fun, but it frequently comes at the expense of the film, chewing up the very scenery her lesser costars need to stay grounded. Hammer certainly looks his part and tries his best to turn his scripted lemons into performing lemonade, but he’ll wish he had saved some juice for better projects. Collins makes almost no impression at all, strange for someone filling the role of Snow White; she probably deserves a pass given the film’s other myriad problems.

Later this summer we’ll be treated to “Snow White and the Huntsman,” another take on the tale and just the latest example that Hollywood’s tastes sometimes run in pairs. That film’s director, Rupert Sanders, is helming his first feature. I’m sure he’ll be relieved to find out that the bar has been set so low that his dwarves can surely shimmy over.

One-half out of four stars. MPAA rating: PG