Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
New Releases 1/19/07

Pan’s Labyrinth (R)
Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu, , Doug Jones, Adriana Gil, Ivana Baquero
Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro
Escaping from her sadistic stepfather as he revels in the savagery of rampant Fascism, a 10-year-old-girl consumed by fairy tales is offered an escape to a timeless underground realm. But she knows that traditional Fairy Tales (the pre-Disney ones), are full of savage evil and slimy things bumping in the night. Del Toro lets a faun who may be Pan be our guide. Terrifyingly original but not for everyone. Fantastic, Goyaesque moviemaking leads down psychological chasms that many will want to (and therefore should), avoid.
4 pieces of original toast

Letters From Iwo Jima (R)
Ken Watanabe, Shido Nakamura, Tsuyoshi Ihara
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Archeologists excavating the 18 miles of tunnels on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, discovered a cache of letters written by soldiers who would die before they could be mailed. Eastwood directs with artistic dignity as we share the last days, hours and minutes of these warriors final battle. (at the Roxy in Santa Rosa)
3 and 1/2 pieces of Eastwood-Zen toast

Last year’s Top Toasts
by
Gil Mansergh
The nominees for this year’s Oscars are still unknown as I write this week’s column, but either I’m getting picky, or the quality of movies has slipped. I rate movies by “pieces of toast” on my “Cinema Toast” radio show, and there were only a few truly great (4 pieces of toast) and really good (3 and 1/2 pieces of toast) films last year. In retrospect, they seem to clump together in the following categories:

Royal Biographies
The Queen (PG-13)
Immediately following the death of ex-Princess Diana, the Queen mum seems unconcerned. “It’s a private matter,” she tells Tony Blair, but soon, events take center stage. The film and the star (Helen Mirren) are Oscar-worthy.
4 pieces of Oscar quality toast

The Last King of Scotland (R)
“Am I not a kind man?’” Idi Amin once asked when he ladled soup for a UN worker he had imprisoned for 9 months. Forest Whitaker has captured the mercurial evil of this madman in an Oscar-worthy performance.
4 pieces of 15-minutes of fame toast

Concerts Extrordinaire
* Neil Young: Heart of Gold (PG)
Four days before an operation to repair a potentially fatal brain aneurysm, Neil Young heads to Nashville for a concert blending old songs and new with friends and family. Gives “Old Man Take a Look at Your Life” a whole new meaning. Masterful concert footage makes this worth owning
4 pieces of golden toast

* Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (R)
Witty, honest, and very funny comedian Dave Chappelle wanders the back roads of his Ohio hometown handing out golden tickets for his Brooklyn block party where Lauren Hill takes the stage with the Fugees, and rap, funk and hip-hop make beautiful music together. A sleeper that delivers on several levels.
3 and 1/2 pieces of a’chapelle toast

Animated Worlds
* Cars (G)
It takes a minute to realize that there are cars, not people, in the stands during the race for the Piston Cup, but you quickly accept the premise and delight in everything that follows–superb animation, artistic incomparability, a strong story, marvelously talented voices and Pixar’s American sensibility. Works best if you’ve actually been to an auto race, traveled Route 66, and stopped for gas, repairs or a bite to eat in a timeless town like Radiator Springs.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Pixar toast

Charlotte’s Web (G)
The book still retains a charm that a movie can’t capture. But having said that, this film is top notch. Sort of Babe-like, sort of Nature channel-like and sort of Advertising Age-like. ( I never have understood why people got so excited about Wilbur the pig and were nonplused by a spider who can write words).
3 and 1/2 pieces of spidery toast

Superheroes
*Superman Returns (PG-13)
The Man of Steel has been away and things are not as they used to be. Lois Lane has a son and a loving husband, Lex Luthor has just been released from jail, the crystals are stolen from The Fortress of Solitude, and the actors are new and improved (Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor is much more dedicated to villainy than the glib-talking Gene Hackman was). More romance, more complicated personalities, plenty of great action sequences, tongue-in-cheek humor, and worthy homages to Richard Donner and John Williams.
3 and 1/2 pieces of super toast

* Fearless (PG-13)
Advertised as Jet Li’s last martial arts film, it also attempts to instill the audience with a sense of the power for good inherent in wushu (which translates to “stop war”). Like Li’s “Unleashed” where evil was redeemed by good, audiences may not grasp the peaceful message wrapped around the masterful fight sequences
3 and 1/2 pieces of wushu toast

Real-Life Heroes
* United 93 (PG-13)
Paul Greengrass’ raw, powerful, realistic, unflinching, passionate, and intensely humane recreation of the final minutes onboard United Airlines’ Flight 93 (and in the control towers and command centers) on that fateful 9/11 morning.
4 pieces of heroic toast

* World Trade Center (PG-13)
The other bookend to place beside Paul Greengrass’ “United 93” as we try to process the terror of 9/11 before and after the airplanes crashed. Director Oliver Stone treads carefully in the precarious rubble of emotions that still effect all of us by following a respectful and courageous script by Andrea Berloff.
3 and 1/2 pieces of emotional toast

Children’s Pageants
* Akeelah and the Bee (PG)
Finally a spelling-bee movie that understands it’s not about memorizing arcane words or focusing on the spellers’ nervously contorted faces, it’s about the concept that “Knowledge is power.” Right on.
3 and 1/2 pieces of knowledge is power toast

* Little Miss Sunshine (R)
When their seven-year-old gets a chance to compete in a California beauty pageant, her cash-challenged family climbs into a rusting VW van for a cross-country odyssey. The ensemble cast manages to make their kooky characters believable and endearing as each take turns stealing scenes which include a some drugs, some sex and some rockin’ and rollin’.
3 and 1/2 pieces of are-we-there-yet? toast

It’s Magic
* The Prestige (PG-13)
Christopher Nolan, the same director who loves to tell stories backwards and forwards (”Memento,” and “Batman Begins“), warns us “watch carefully” as the action begins. Set in the time when the rivalry of stage magicians was front page news, former partners (Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman) try to best each other with increasingly difficult tricks (made deadly by the revenge-seeking magicians sabotaging each others props).
3 and 1/2 pieces of trick-filled toast

* The Illusionist (PG-13)
In Neil Burger’s film, “Eisenheim the Illusionist” (Edward Norton) begins giving performances at a Viennese theater. He is a masterful showman, bringing the audience to its feet, or eliciting a collective sigh of relief or an exclamation of delight. And although he makes objects float in thin air and and makes an orange tree with edible oranges appear from nowhere, his most impressive feats occur when he is seated, alone, on an empty stage.
3 and 1/2 pieces of tricky toast

In a Class By Itself
* Thank You For Smoking (NR)
Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, an unrepentant lobbyist for “Big Tobacco” in Jason Reitman’s premiere film “Thank You For Smoking.” Narrating the film, Naylor labels himself as the guy in college who could pick up any girl and sailed through classes using his ability to glibly argue either side of an issue. As the champion of farmers (of tobacco), free enterprise (tobacco companies), and just plain folks (smokers), “Freedom of choice” is Naylor’s mantra.
Did I mention that the movie is a satire? Not only that, it’s an intelligent and very funny satire.
4 pieces of satirical toast

* Available on video/DVD

Comments? e-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net