Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 10/26/07

Dan In Real Life (PG-13)
Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche
Directed by: Peter Hodges
Despite plot devices that seem stolen from TV sitcoms, Steve Carrell’s portrayal of a widower with three young daughters makes you care for what’s going on.
3 pieces of feel-good toast

Lars and the Real Girl (R)
Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Kelli Garner, Paul Schneider
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
In lesser hands, the idea of a full sized, Japanese love doll becoming someone’s girlfriend and everyone in town going along with it and welcoming her to their church when she is introduced as a “mssionary from Brazil” couldn’t have worked. But with a script by “Six Feet Under” alumnus Nancy Oliver, taut direction and deadpan delivery by Ryan Goslling, it works.
3 pieces of improbable toast

Reservation Road (R)
Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, Mira Sorvino, Elle Fanning
Directed by: Terry George
You should feel something for the mother and father of the girl killed by the hit and run driver, you should feel something for the driver too, but they keep showing us their dark, petty side and all we see the Oscar-directed over-acting for what it is.
2 pieces of missed the mark toast

NEW ON VIDEO/DVD

Meet the Robinsons (PG-13)
Voices of Angela Bassett, Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry, Wesley Singerman, Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson
Directed by: Stephen J. Anderson
Box Office: $97,690,955
Once again, 3-D is reinvented for a new generation, and technologically, the results are Gee Whiz fine. But to make a good movie, you need a strong script. Parts of this tale of a twelve-year-old boy searching for his birth mother work, but others seem snatched from another film entirely and inserted here just to have some additional Gee Whiz effects. John Lasseter, who taught me the value of writing a strong script before filming a frame, should have praticed what he preached at Pixar. Instead, he added “gags” to try and make this story work.
2 and 1/2 pieces of Gee Whiz toast

Mr. Brooks (R)
Kevin Costner, Willliam Hurt, Demi Moore
Directed by: Bruce A. Adams
Box Office: $28,424,648
Who would ever suspect that the, community sprited, CEO of a cardboard box factory could be serial killer? Well the Demi Moore police inspector gets it wrong (at first) but the “devil-on-his shoulder best friend (William Hurt) never doubts Kevin Costner can be truly evil. But with this level of acting, do we really need all that blood?
2 and 1/2 pieces of why isn’t this a better package toast

O Amor Natural (NR)
Directed by: Heddy Honigmann
You’ll have to search out this Brazilian documentary based on a simple premise “have older residents in Rie de Janeiro read the erotic poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade aloud and then talk about how it makes them feel. Even though the surprisingly candid interviews are conducted in subtitled Portugese, the sometimes bawdy, sometimes wistful, often humorous and occassionaly very profound musings are fascinating.
3 and 1/2 pieces of poetry comes alive toast