Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
New Releases 7/17/09
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (PG)
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Michael Gambon
Coinciding with the release of the latest chapter in this franchise, the men’s magazine “Maxim” boasts a pictorial feature entitled “The Girls of Harry Potter.” And there, in a nutshell is what’s both right and wrong with this film. Ten years have gone by since we first met the owl-eyed, boy wizard, and the actors portraying the supposedly high school aged students, are long past getting carded at a nightclub. Saddled with a PG rating, these decidedly post-pubescent youngsters are forced to act younger than they are. But worst of all, we are left with a Harry Potter movie without any real villain to confront (unless, of course, it’s those pesky hormones).
3 pieces of place-holding Toast
The Hurt Locker (R)
Films about recent wars have traditionally been box office poison, but although this movie is set in 2004 Iraq, it is really about the boredom and terror of all wars (at least since the invention of gunpowder). The film opens with a bomb-sniffing robot and then shifts to the three members of Bravo Company who have volunteered and trained to disarm the IEDs which increasingly dot the landscape. The three are the quintessential nice guy, the somber professional, and the adrenaline-fueled alpha male—a composite entity made better by its variety. The actors who portray these characters and the director and script which guide them, never miss a step (both literally and figuratively) and the result is a level of filmmaking only seen once or twice in a decade.
4 pieces of must see toast
NEW ON DVD
Grey Gardens (NR)
A 1975 “life is stranger than fiction” documentary told the tale of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie who lived in a dilapidated East Hamptons mansion with 56 cats, a million fleas, and an occasional dog or two. The city fathers condemned their home and all seemed lost, until a couple of relatives (including a certain Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis) poured in some big bucks and saved the day. In 2008, HBO films made a movie version of the story starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as the Beales. It includes flashbacks to Little Edie’s life as a young woman and uncannily realistic reenactments of scenes from the original documentary, and It’s first rate
3 and 1/2 pieces of gothic reality toast
Break (R)
Starring: Sarah Thompson, Chad Everett, Mackenzie Firgens, Michael Madsen, David Carradine
This Quentin Tarantino rip off managed to snag some name-brand actors who probably fired their agents after this film was made. Ugly, and sloppily made, it lacks true grindhouse grittiness as film school artifice trumps any real artistry. The parody fight sequences in “Bowfinger” were more professional (and they were funny too). The saddest thing is that this is David Carradine’s epitaph film.
1 piece of blood soaked, fetishistic, badly made toast
Thanks for the post! Very cool.
by Debt Relief