Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 3/06/09

Watchmen (R)
Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino
Director: Zack Snyder
In this alternative universe. by 1985, presidential term limits have been abolished and costumed vigilantes patrol the streets. Now imagine that a really murderous bad guy should appear (he’s called The Comedian, and he’s like The Joker after eight trips to Starbucks). But somebody kills The Comedian, so super vigilante Dr. Manhattan (Bill Crudup in motion capture suit and animatronic penis), gathers other superheroes into a cohesive group. Calling themselves “The Watchmen” they vow to avenge The Comedian’s death, hunt down the killer, and wreck havoc on any ordinary folk who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
2 and 1/2 pieces of deserves the R-rating superhero toast

WENDY AND LUCY
Starring: Michelle Williams, Walter Dalton, Will Oldham, Larry Fessenden
Director: Kelly Reichardt
A small movie (but interesting) with a small performance (but outstanding) “this story of woman who heads to Alaska with her dog as her only companion, can easily be thought as the distaff side of Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild“, but is slower and more thoughtful than that film. And the “why” Wendy is heading North is told more in our daily headlines than any backstory the filmmakers could have created.
3 pieces of slow, empty, but worthwhile toast

CHE:THE ARGENTINE
Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Demian Bichir, Santiago Cabrera, Elvira Minguez
Director: Steven Soderbergh
In this sprawling theatrical event, we learn about a man who most of us know as a face on a T-shirt. Unfortunately, the director makes parts of his film about as interesting as a Wikipedia page. What does make us take interest is Benicio Del Toro in the title role. He is intriguing even though we always know he is not really Che, but an actor portraying the icon.
2 and 1/2 pieces of Cuban revolutionary toast

CHE: THE GUERRILLA
Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Carlos Bardem, Demian Bichir, Joaquim de Almeida
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Soderbergh and Del Toro continue to present the iconic Guerrilla figure (the word itself is a diminutive of “Guerra,” the Spanish word for “war”), and this time, it’s interesting. But ultimately it’s not about individuals but about the landscapes and battlegrounds (and camera angles and lighting opportunities) in a downward spiral towards defeat .
3 pieces of better than part one toast

VIDEO/DVD

Australia (PG-13)
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Jack Thompson
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Luhman’s editor Jill Billcock saved his “Moulin Rouge” by a drastic recutting and acquired associate producer status for her editing work on his “Romeo and Juliet,” but she is not included in the credits for this film. Too bad, her firmly controlled scissors might be just what this sprawling, ill-focused epic about Darwin’s invasion by the Japanese in WWII needed. Portions of this film are brilliant, but it is confounded by lush photographs of the wild outback, lusty close-ups of wild romance, overplayed theme music inserted to tell the audience how to react, and a narration by an Aboriginal boy who manages to see things occurring thousands of miles beyond his line of sight. Which is not to say the movie is without magic “reportedly all the women who swam in the bubbling Kimberley waterfalls got pregnant (including the star).
2 pieces of Australian history toast

Beverly Hills Chihuahua (PG)
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Andy Garcia, Jamie Lee Curtis, Plácido Domingo
Director: Raja Gosnell
I don’t like movies about talking dogs, and talking Chihuahuas are possibly the most annoying (because they usually have a Frito Bandito accent). But Drew Barrymore is the voice of this particular little dog, and somehow this piece of froth, with its “Lady and the Tramp” style story, and its parallel universes (human and canine) almost make me change my mind “almost.
2 pieces of doggie biscuit toast