Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
New Releases 9/25/09
Fame (PG)
Starring: Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, Kay Panabaker, Bebe Neuwirth
Director: Kevin Tancharoen
TV’s Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith play a piano teacher and a dance instructor in this “reinvention” of the original Oscar-winning film following the dancers, singers, and actors in the New York High School for the Performing Arts. Unlike the gritty-for-its-time first film, this one has been toned down to attract the “High School Musical” crowd. There are some nice singing and dance sequences but overall it’s pretty dull.
2 pieces of lost its pizzazz toast
Pandorum (R)
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue
Director: Christian Alvart
The press notes say: “Two astronauts awaken in a hyper-sleep chamber aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. It’s pitch black, they are disoriented, and the only sound is a low rumble and creak from the belly of the spacecraft. They can’t remember anything – who are they, what is their mission? The only way out of the chamber is a dark and narrow airshaft.”
Unavailable for preview
Surrogates (PG-13)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Boris Kodjoe
Director: Jonathan Mostow
A seemingly ageless Bruce Willis (with long blonde hair no less) is an FBI agent investigating the murder of a college student in a future where crimes are almost nonexistent. But the blonde Willis is really just a robotic surrogate and the bald, wrinkly old guy who has sex with the beautiful, surrogate wife, is the real detective. Despite an intriguing premise, the lackluster direction and so-so special effects (some of which were done better back in 1973 when Yul Brenner played a cowboy robot in “Westworld”), make this a B-movie at best
2 pieces of we miss “Blade Runner” toast
Bright Star (PG)
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
Director: Jane Campion
Jane Campion’s mastery at directing beautiful scenes and Abbie Cornish’s spirited performance as 18-year-old Fanny Browne are the main reasons to catch this occasionally stolid movie. Browne is the literal girl next door who captures young British poet John Keats attention so much that he writes “I have the feeling as if I were dissolving.” As in all great romantic love stories, Keats literally is dissolving (or at least his lungs are), as tuberculosis ravages his body. So the lovers’ plight is even more tragic.
3 pieces of poetic romance toast
The Baader Meinhof Complex (R)
Starring: Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, Johanna Wokalek, Bruno Ganz
Director: Uli Edel
Confusing to some reviewers, I found his unambiguous look at the anarchistic Red Army Faction in 1970’s Germany compelling. It portrays the single-mindedness of psychopathic true believers who feel that spilling the blood of innocents is a worthwhile price for achieving a greater good. It also has a fantastic performance as Bruno Ganz portrays the head of West Germany’s police forces as a man striving to understand the terrorist’s motivations . This blood-soaked film is filled with “collateral damage,” and is not for everyone, but it raises important questions that need to be addressed in this age of worldwide extremism and instant communication.
3 and 1/2 pieces of thought-provoking toast
NEW ON DVD
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (PG-13)
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Lacey Chabert, Michael Douglas
Director: Mark Waters
For some unknown reason, Matthew McConaughy keeps getting thrust into comedies, and casting him in this unfunny pastiche based on Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” is exceedingly unwise. A class of sixth graders could have written a better script.
1/2 piece of Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas need new agents toast
O’Horten (PG)
Starring: Baard Owe, Espen Skjonberg, Ghita Norby, Bjorn Floberg
Director: Bent Hamer
“I hope we don’t hit a moose tonight,” the 67-year-old train engineer says,” and if you expect this to be a Monty Python movie with “wik” and “also, also, wik” in the titles, the next line cinches it. “The blood on my jacket won’t come out.” But this Norwegian tale seems inspired more by Buster Keaton as the evening of his retirement gently slides from one humorously deadpan vignette to the next.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Norwegian toast