Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 6/13/08

The Incredible Hulk (PG-13)
Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth
Director: Louis Leterrier
California’s current governor was on the short list to play the muscle-bound green monster in the original 1977 TV movie, but the part went instead to his “Pumping Iron” co-star Lou Ferrigno (because Lou is 3 inches taller). With the former “Courtship of Eddie’s Father” sitcom star Bill Bixby playing the mild mannered part of the Jeckyll and Hyde style duo, the movie proved so popular that it launched a weekly series that lasted three years. Ferrigno voices the computer-generated Hulk in the latest movie version, and the life-long “Incredible Hulk” comic book fan Edward Norton not only stars, he rewrote the script to better suit his desire for authenticity and build up the girlfriend role (played by Liv Tyler).
3 pieces of mean green fighting machine toast

The Happening (R)
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Imagine “An Inconvenient Truth” with an entirely different kind of gore, as the planet fights back and a couple running for safety in the Keystone State, end up doing do the Pennsylvania polka sidestepping all the crashed automobiles and brutally maimed corpses after formerly ordinary citizens run amok because of a mutated toxic element. It might have worked as an old half-hour “Twilight Zone” where (because of limited budgets) most of the most horrible things are left to your imagination. No such luck here. The first 10 minutes alone ranks 9.5 on the “gore-meter.”
1 and 1/2 pieces of Shyamalan gone amok toast

The Fall (R)
Starring: Lee Pace, Justine Waddell, Daniel Caltagirone, Leo Bill
Director: Tarsem
In 1915, a little girl befriends a stuntman in an LA hospital and he begins to weave fanciful stories that become increasingly more bizarre and vengeful. The result is some times lyrical and other times the stuff of nightmares. When Tarsam’s film “The Cell” debuted, I said the film was flawed but the drector had potential. He still has, but there’s too much of his Art Center College of Design training here and not enough of “storytelling 101.”
2 pieces of visually stunning but flawed toast

Standard Operating Procedure (R)
Starring:Joshua Feinman, Zhubin Rahbar, Merry Grissom, Cyrus King
Directed by: Errol Morris
Master documentarian Errol Morris uses a few simple snapshots taken by some ordinary soldiers to look beyond what we seem to see. Morris contends that the photos (of some other soldiers grinning and giving thumbs-up poses while naked, bound and bag-shrouded prisoners cower in obscene poses), misdirects our attention from all of the clues and information in the background. But when we take time to examine these clues and crack the secret codes, it is like watching “Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Case of Abu Ghraib” and the result is terrifyingly engaging. One caution “documentary filmmakers are clever manipulators of images and words “watch carefully to be sure you know what is “real” and what is “restaged.”
3 pieces of let’s call it what it really is toast

New on Video/DVD

The Bucket List (PG-13)
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson_
Director: Rob Reiner
A tepid script and suspension of disbelief doom this “what shall we do with the last few months of life since one of us is astonishingly rich?” pairing of two great actors, and despite stints at skydiving, and race car driving and visits to the Great Wall of China, it never rises above the tearjerker status. Of course Morgan Freeman is always worth watching so at home you can fast forward the predictible parts.
2 pieces of grumpy old men dying toast

Jumper (PG-13)
Starring: Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, Michael Rooker, AnnaSophia Robb, Max Thierot
Director: Doug Liman
Steven Gould’s popular sci-fi novels feature time traveling “jumpers” but the filmmakers should have studied the old “Quantum Leap” TV show to learn how to keep the audience guessing and wanting more. Instead, it comes across as a travelogue with Hayden Christiansen woodenly sleepwalking throughout.
1 piece of starts OK then repeatedly falls flat toast

The Other Boleyn Girl (PG-13)
Starring: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana
Director: Justin Chadwick
Adapted from Philippa Gregory’s 2002 novel, the interesting subject of two sisters put before a womanizing King Henry VIII by their power-hungry father and uncle, unfortunately plays like an afternoon soap opera, complete with places where you think there will be commercial interruptions._
1 and 1/2 piece “I’m ‘enery the eighth I am” toast