Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
NEW RELEASES 10/6/06

NOTE: Three Oscar-worthy films open nationally on Friday, but you will have to wait a week for a Sonoma County venue for Forrest Whitaker’s searing portrait of Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland,” and another week for Helen Mirren’s touching depiction of Britain’s Elizabeth II in “The Queen.” They are worth the wait.

The Departed (R)
Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, Ray Winstone Marc Wahlberg
Directed by: Martin Scorcese
Nobody does inside gangsterland movies better and the deep-cover moles and bad cops add flavor to the mix. This one’s set in Boston where a talented ensemble of young actors do some of their best work as they try to figure out who is watching who, who is with ‘em or against ‘em, why a much bragged about three-way with Jack and two females got filmed and immediately cut, and who is gonna be dead next?
4 pieces of Scorcese in Boston toast

Employee of the Month (PG-13)
Jessica Simpson, Dane Cook, Dax Shepard
Directed by: Greg Coolidge
Their photos are boldly posted on wall in the big box store staff lounge, but there has to be more to these people than the fact they stayed at the job long enough to be placed in a frame. No matter, the “hot” new cashier (the studio’s label, not mine) is rumored to only date EoMs, so this month, the award may offer something besides a parking space close to the front door.
Not available for preview

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
Gil doesn’t screen slasher films.

Keeping Mum (R)
Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith,Patrick Swayze
Directed by: Niall Johnson
A clueless vicar and his bored wife find ways to cope with the slow pace of life in a small British town, but when Grace, their housekeeper, serves some troubling news with the tea, we suddenly find ourselves in an ultra-dark comedy. (At the Rialto in Santa Rosa)
3 pieces of Earl Gray toast

Al Franken: God Spoke (NR)
Al Franken, Sean Hannity, Henry Kissinger, Michael Moore, Bill O’Reilly
Directed by: Nicholas Doob
The documentarians who did “The War Room,” followed this former Saturday Night Live comedian for two years to record his sporadically amusing public feuding with Right Wing pundits. The result is like a SNL skit “funny in tiny bits, boring in the larger sections where it goes on too long because nobody knows when to say “cut.” (At the Rialto in Santa Rosa)
2 pieces of 15-minutes of fame toast

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (PG)
Ken Takakura, Qiu Lin, Li Jiamin, Shinobu Terajima, Kiichi Nakai
Directed by: Zhang Yimou
When he learns his son is ill, a Japanese fisherman who hasn’t seen his boy in a decade, visits and tries to mend fences, but the son refuse to see his father. The daughter-in-law suggests a way for the two to connect, but it involves a long and complex journey to the Chinese countryside. In Chinese with English Subtitles (At the Rialto in Santa Rosa)
3 pieces of poignant toast.

The US vs John Lennon (PG-13)
John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Walter Cronkite, Noam Chomsky, Tom Smothers
Directed by: David Leaf, Jon Scheinfeld
John Dean (of Nixon fame) makes it clear that the antiwar polemics of this former Beatle warranted the all-out FBI investigation that resulted in a file cabinet full of information but at least he sounds apologetic. In Contrast, G. Gordon Liddy still maintains that the investigation was in the strategic interest of the US. This documentary (made with strong editorial input from Yoko Ono), has a tendency to anoint Lennon with saintliness and ignore any seamy pstuff, but it clearly displays the dangers of a paranoid and secretive government. (At the 3rd Street Cinema 6 in Santa Rosa)
3 pieces of then-and-now toast.

NEW on VIDEO & DVD

Thank You For Smoking (NR)
Aaron Eckhart, Robert Duvall, Katie Holmes, William H. Macy, Sam Elliott, Chad Lowe
Directed by Jason Reitman
Box Office: $24,627,629
Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, an unrepentant lobbyist for “Big Tobacco.” Nick and his fellow “Merchants of Death” ” (the self-dubbed MOD Squad) ” gather weekly to drink, commiserate and swap strategies. Maria Bello shills for Alcohol while David Koechner is the verbal gunslinger for Firearms. None of the three feel that what they do is unseemly, unethical or immoral. In the voice over, Naylor cites what he calls “the yuppie Nuremberg defense, ‘I just need to pay the mortgage’.”
Did I mention that the movie is a satire? Not only that, it’s an intelligent and very funny satire.
3 and 1/2 pieces of satirical toast