Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 1/11/08

There Will be Blood (R)
Daniel Day-Lewis, Mary Elizabeth Barrett, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier,
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Daniel Day Lewis is inspired as the greed-driven prospector Daniel
Plainview who hits it rich in the western oilfields. This is a
three-part drama “the almost dialogue-free opening at a played-out
silver mine “the oil-speculator swindling his way across California
oilfields, and the epilogue in the hauntingly empty 1927 Hollywood
mansion. There are echoes of “Citizen Kane,” and “Giant,” and of the town in Eastwood’s “The Unforgiven,” yet Anderson has created something new and fresh as well.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Oil-drenched toast

The Bucket List (PG-13)
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.
2 pieces of soggy toast.

First Sunday (PG-13)
Ice Cube, Katt Williams
Director: David E. Talbert
The premise is that a good hearted dad can’t get a decent job because of his felony rap sheet, so he has to find “creative” ways to make money and pay the bills including robbing the church collection box on the same evening as the Board meeting and choir practice. The result is a series of skits about ghetto life “some of which work well, others which don’t.
1 and 1/2 pieces more misses than hits toast.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (PG-13)
John Rhys-Davies, Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Leelee Sobieski, Burt Reynolds, Ron Perlman
Directed by: Uwe Boll
Wholesome family man, evil sorcerer, beautiful wife, devilish minions, dethroned king, fierce battles of good vs evil and downright spectacular special effects.
3 pieces of Medieval toast

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A Vegie Tales Movie (G)
Director: Mike Naworocki
Why would you want to see a group of armless vegetables playing pirates when it says right in the title that they don’t do anything. Answer, you have little folk who are familiar with these cartoon veggies from TV and it’s a rainy weekend so…you might as well take them to a “G” rated cartoon. Relax, there’s just enough tongue-in-cheek humor to amuse the accompanying adults.
2 and 1/2 pieces of you could have had a V-8 toast.

NEW VIDEO DVDs

3:10 to Yuma (R)
Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol
Directed by James Mangold
Box Office: $53,574,088
Way back in 1957 an Elmore Leonard short story was transformed by Delmer Daves into a minor classic starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. It also felt a lot like “High Noon.” with a ticking clock and a dastardly gang coming to town to seek and destroy. But now, this is a modern western (i.e.. post Eastwoods’s “The Unforgiven”), so it’s violent and gritty to the point of feeling like a piece of coarse sandpaper left to bake on a Tucson rooftop in the middle of a Summer heat wave!
3 pieces of black hats, white hats and dirty, dusty gray hats toast

Sunshine (R)
Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Box Office: $3,376,207
Ranging from the introspective certainty of Kubrick’s “2001“, to the purposeful ambiguity of “Solaris,” to something similar to James Cameron’s “Abyss” and finally reverting to the film maker’s own horror film roots, this sci-fi adventure has something to please or offend those who love the genre.
3 pieces of sunburned toast.