Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 2/13/09

Confessions of a Shopaholic (PG)
Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman
Director: P.J. Hogan
Directed by an Australian whose last hit was in 1995, this so-called comedy seems 18 years out of date. The plot involves a young woman whose entire life revolves around buying things “not because she needs them but she loves to shop. In other words, this film has the excesses of “Sex in the City” without the sex (after all “it is a PG movie).
1/2 piece of might work if it were funny toast

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

Friday the 13th (R)
Starring: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Aaron Yoo, Amanda Righetti
Director: Marcus Nispel
A pointless remake of the original classic horror film (there’s no potential Kevin Bacon type to discover in this either)
Gil doesn’t screen or review slasher films

Under the Sea 3D-IMAX (NR)
Director: Howard Hall
As close to snorkeling or scuba diving as you can be without needing to swim, this absolutely beautiful and splendiferous film teaches (and preaches a little) about the undersea wonders in the oceans of the South Pacific with dozens of awe-inspiring moments.
3 and 1/2 pieces of underwater (but not the least bit soggy) toast

Let the Right One In (NA)
Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Oskar is a lonely, 12-year-old Swedish boy whose life changes forever when a pale, young girl named Eli moves next door. At about the same time, a series of bloody, frozen bodies are discovered in trees and under the lake ice. It doesn’t take long for Oskar to think “vampire,” and look at Eli in an entirely different way.
4 pieces of Swedish vampire toast

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VIDEO/DVD

Frozen River (PG-13)
Starring: Misty Upham, Melissa Leo
Director: Courtney Hunt
A brutally honest tale of two women who form an unlikely partnership smuggling illegal immigrants across the Canadian border by driving across the frozen St. Lawrence River. One is a Mohawk Indian, the other an opportunist who sees this as a way to make money to raise her two kids. Leo, who played Detective Kay Howard in “TV’s “Homicide: Life In the Streets,” is worth the price of admission (and an Oscar nomination) by herself.
3 pieces of icy toast

Nights in Rodanthe (PG-13)
Starring: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Scott Glenn, Christopher Meloni
Director: George C Wolfe
Yet another Nicholas Sparks, tearjerker romance is thrust at us with enough scenic sunsets and wave lapping sand dunes to choke even the most jaded of Jhallmark Card buyers. Diane Lane is gorgeous, and almost makes the move worth watching.
2 pieces of you better bring the Kleenex toast

W (PG-13)
Starring: Josh Brolin, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Banks
Director: Oliver Stone
In Oliver Stone’s portrait of the Bush White House. Artfully chosen actors are cast as Bush (Josh Brolin), Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn), Rove (Toby Jones), Powell (Jeffrey Wright), Rice (Thandie Newton), Laura Bush (Elizabeth Banks), and President Bush, Sr. (James Cromwell), and they revel in the chance to play those larger than life characters. This is not Stone’s first foray into Presidential histories (he has already done “J.F.K“, “Nixon,” and “Evita“), but this is the first time a film has been made and released while the President is still in office. You can be sure there will be a firestorm among the pundits and prognosticators of the airways as they predict: A: “It will help elect Obama”, or B: “It’s a cheap shot that people should ignore.”
3 pieces of Stoned history toast