Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 6/27/08

WALL-E (G)
Starring: Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, Ben Burtt, Sigourney Weaver, John Ratzenberger
Director: Andrew Stanton
The people from Pixar have created an amazing fable about a little waste recycling robot who falls in love after only 800 years of hard work. The fututristic earth with all the overweight people gorging themselves for no other reason than they can, is mind boggling and the first half hour, without any dialogue except an occasion whirr or gurgle, is awe-inspring. And the cockroach? Well, the people who managed to make a rat appealing, do the same thing with the very same kind of bug that Raid insecticide likes to send to boot hill.
4 pieces of Pixar has another winner toast

Wanted (R)
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Thomas Kretschmann, Common
Director: Timbor Bekmambetov
The director of Russia’s “Night Watch” series has transported Mark Millar’s series of graphic novels onto the big screen. McAvoy continues to amaze us with his varied roles-this time he’s an apathetic nobody transformed into a highly trained assassin. Morgan Freeman interprets obscure messages that appear on the Loom of Fate while carefully avoiding any references to underpants with a similar name, But forget the pretentiousness of the plot . A good summer action movie needs action. Loaded with action and lots of blood, “Wanted” delivers and manages to show off most of Angelina Jolie’s tattooed epidermis in the process.
3 and 1/2 pieces of explosive toast

Jellyfish (NR)
Starring: Sarah Adler, Nikol Leidman, Gera Sandler, Noa Knoller, Ma-nenita De Latorre
Director: Shira Geffen, Etgar Keret
In a collection of interconnected short stories, we drop in on the lives of three Tel Aviv women, The poor wedding caterer rescues a little girl who she finds at the beach, a newlywed whose husband begins to be interested in a much older woman, and a Fillipino guest worker who takes care of senior citizens.
3 and 1/2 pieces of jellyfish are transparent but have stingers too toast

Mongol (R)
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Honglei Sun, Khulan Chuluun, Odnyam Odsuren, Aliy A
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Exquisitely photographed, this Russian import tells how Genghis Khan’s conquered the Steppes by adding a soap opera plot. The battle scenes seem confusing to me (the director should have studied “Lord of the Rings“) and lakes of fake blood are spilled but it holds your attention the way “Lawrence of Arabia” or “Doctor Zhivago” did “by the magnetism and magnificence of the landscape.
3 pieces of horseback riding toast

New on Video/DVD

In Bruges (PG-13)
Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clemence Poesy, Jordan Prentice, Jérémie Rénier
Director: Martin McDonagh
Reminiscent of films like “Lucky Number Slevin,” this involves Irish tourists traveling in Belgium who also happen to be hitmen hiding out after a brutal encounter in London. Profanely funny at times, brutally sadistic at other times this sardonic black comedy/drama worked for me.
3 and 1/2 pieces of sardonic comedy toast

The Spiderwick Chronicles (NA)
Starring: Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, Joan Plowright, David Strathairn, Seth Rogen, Martin Short
Directed by: Mark Waters
Based on a series of popular YA novels, this has latchkey kids, clueless parents, nightmare-inducing goblins and action sequences as terrifying as the raptor attacks in “Jurrasic Park“.
GRANDPA ALERT: Truly terrifying for younger children.
3 and 1/2 pieces of scary fairy tale toast.

Definitely, Maybe (PG-13)
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Derek Luke, Abigail Breslin, Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks
Director: Adam Brooks
Children of divorce often feel that they were a cause of the breakup or that they can figure out a way to patch things up. This ten-year-old girl pesters her dad for more and more information about how he and her mother met, fell in love, and decided to marry. Once again, Abigail Breslin plays a youngster as old (or even older) than the adults in her family.
3 pieces of realistic romance toast.

Persepolis (R)
2007 Academy Award Nominated Animated Feature Length
Voices of: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve
Directed by: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
Graphic novels and underground comic books inspired this electrifying, heartfelt, and original portrait of a spunky 9-year-old Iranian girl who surmounts countless obstacles to grow into a wise young adult. Using a stark, spare animated style, the filmmakers adroitly create an animated adventure that is both a coming-of-age story, and an illustrated history lesson.
3 and 1/2 pieces of decidedly not Disney animated toast