Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 6/19/09

The Proposal (PG-13)
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Malin Akerman, Craig T. Nelson, Betty White
Director: Anne Fletcher
It can only be assumed that the filmmakers imagine the audience for this farce about a shrewish Canadian-born book editor to be 4th graders who laugh at falling-down sight gags, and Grandma’s bare body parts. But since they are too young to legally buy tickets, I advise all others that not only is Massachusetts a feeble stand in for Sitka, Alaska (don’t ask), but Bullock and Reynolds are only marginally better than Bullock and Shatner in “Miss Congeniality” (if you don’t already know, don’t bother to find out).
1 and 1/2 pieces of stale toast

Year One (PG-14)
Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross
Director: Harold Ramis
Everyone involved in this pile of dung-flavored mush knows how to make a good movie, so it baffles me as to why this supposedly funny spoof is so lame. It’s like they took the absolute worst parts of a Mel Brooks Bible Epic, and threw them away in favor of something completely lacking in humor.
1 and 1/2 piece of dumb and dumberer toast

Food Inc. (NR)
Starring: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser
Director: Robert Kenner
Did you ever stop to consider why our Thanksgiving Turkey has such huge breasts, why our tomatoes are fresh year-round, and why our cars sometimes smell like they are running on Orville Redenbacher’s finest corn? Or did you ever wonder how E. Coli made the FBI’s list of mass murderers? The answer is simple “Food Engineering (AKA Agri-Business). Robert Kenner’s documentary takes us (literally) into the belly of the beast in a series of vignettes that will entrance, infuriate and disgust you in equal measure.
3 pieces truly scary toast

Away We Go (R)
Starring: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Sam Mendes
This is a movie that fails when it tries to hard to be funny, but works pretty good when it just lets things happen. The idea is that when two newly pregnant thirty-somethings learn that the grandparents-to-be are moving to Europe a month before the due date, the couple decides to fake a road trip across North America to decide where, and even with who, they want their child to grow up. On the way, they find out what kind of parents they don’t want to be.
2 and 1/2 pieces of has it’s moments toast

NEW ON DVD

The International (R)
Starring: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Brian F. O’Byrne
Director: Tom Tykwer
This “Bourne” wannabe has the Guggenheim Museum as its star (instead of Clive Owen, whose name is on the credits). The plot is as understandable as those TV pundits trying to describe the current financial crisis, with the added spice of international terrorists financed by a corrupt European bank (instead of greedy American ones? ). It’s still OK, but with fewer plot twists and better directing, it could have been really good.
2 and 1/2 pieces of it’s just OK toast