Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 9/19/08

My Best Friend’s Girl (R)
Starring: Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs, Alec Baldwin
Director: Howard Deutch
Will Dane Cook be the jinx of yet another film. with this comedy about the man who other guys send in to have devastating dates with their former girlfriends (hopefully sending them back to the old, familiar guy with way fewer issues)? Things don’t look good. The studio isn’t showing it to critics.
Unavailable for preview

Ghost Town (PG-13)
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Téa Leoni, Greg Kinnear, Billy Campbell
Director: David Koepp
Ricky Gervais is best know for creating the hapless, ssarcastic boss in the British TV series “The Office,” and at his core, there is an astringent quality to the guy “even after he dies. He was dead for 7 minutes, and now that he is alive again, he can “see dead people.” One of these ghosts wears a tuxedo and another guy wears nothing and the movie fails in letting us know why they are dressed this way. But no matter. It’s a welcome relief from the financial pages.
3 pieces of ghostly toast

Lakeview Terrace (PG-13)
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, Kerry Washington, Jay Hernandez
Director: Neil LaBute
When an interracial couple move into their suburban dream home it isn’t the adjustable rate mortgage that is the problem “it’s the racist neighbor who actively objects to miscegenation and makes life a living Hell for the newcomers. Oh, did I mention the guy is an African American, and an LA cop? What starts off as realistic paranoia quickly escalates to a violent Hollywoodized confrontation and disappoints us all. Even Samuel L. Jackson’s charisma can’t save the ending.
1 and 1/2 pieces of needlessly violent ending toast

Igor (G)
Starring the Voices of: John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Jennifer Coolidge,
Director: Tony Leondis
When a movie is filled with Trivial Pursuit-style references, the audience has to know those references to be funny. This generation has been raised with Quasimodo as their Hunchback, and has no idea who Igor is or who employs him. So what could have been an interesting fable about an unfair caste system is instead just plain confusing and really quite dull. The voice talent tries hard, the visuals are ornate (often too ornate) but the script “well They should have listened to John Lassiter’s comments about how important a script is to an animated project. Oh by the way, the story is supposed to be about Dr. Frankenstein’s hunchbacked helper who gets to compete in the annual mad-science fair when his boss dies and can’t be reanimated. But it doesn’t matter what it was supposed to be, because it’s not worth seeing.
1 piece of seriously botched toast

I Served the King of England ( (R)
Starring: Ivan Barnev, Oldøich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Marian Labuda
Director: Jirí Menzel
The director of “Closely Watched Trains” returns with an oddly light pastry of a tale involving a Czech waiter who dreams of owning hotels in Prague until history (in the form of the Nazis) changes everything. It takes a while to get used to everyone slapping the poor fellow on the back of the head, but unlike a 3-stooges comedy, it’s not played for laughs, it’s to show where he stands in the pecking order of life. Of course, all the lovely women he beds might make up for things, but even that gets repetitious, so the director spices things up with dream sequences and flashbacks and other Menzallian slight-of-hand. It certainly keeps your attention.
3 pieces of Czech toast

NEW On DVD

By fate or design, a plethora of “skip it” films have been released on DVD this week. This includes “Speed Racer,” 88 Minutes,” “The Love Guru,” “Made of Honor,” “Babysitter,” and “Scooby Doo and the Goblin King,” Ouch!

The Unforseen (R)
Starring: Robert Redford, Willie Nelson, Ann Richards, Wendell Berry
Director: Laura Dunne
If I tell you this is a documentary about the consequences of rampant urbanization in Austin, Texas, you probably won’t want to see it, so I won’t tell you that. Instead, I suggest that you visit this amazingly beautiful, emotionally gripping tale about the collision of past and future with the likes of Willie Nelson, Robert Redford, Wendell Barry, Ann Richards as the Barton Springs Recreation Area becomes the stand-in for Mother Earth.
3 and 1/2 pieces of even-handed toast