Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
New 11/05/10
Due Date (R)
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan
Director: Todd Phillips
The setup is that two opposites get thrown off a flight to LA and have to find their way from Atlanta in time for the birth of a son. But the reason is unimportant, since it’s all a set up for a sophomoric, mean-spirited, so-called comedy which only shows what a masterpiece “John Hughes’ “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” really was. Oh, did I mention the masturbating dog that rides along with them?
1 and 1/2 pieces of skip it toast
Megamind (PG)
Starring: Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross
Director: Tom McGrath, Cameron Hood, Kyle Jefferson
The masterminds behind this 3-D animated tale have stolen huge chunks of much better films (“The Incredibles,” “Despicable Me,” “Superman” “Mars Attacks,” etc.) and then added endless hours of animated faces moving their lips in synch as they share one-liners with another animated faces with all of them using the voices of some easily recognizable actors. Oh yes, this is done in 3-D too, so a lots of things fly off the screen and head straight for your noggin. It’s OK if it rains hard and you need a movie for something to do with your kids.
2 and 1/2 pieces of not truly objectionable toast
For Colored Girls (R )
Starring: Kimberly Elise, Oprah Winfrey, Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine
Director: Tyler Perry
There is a video available of the Obie-winning stage play starring Patti LeBelle and Alfre Woodard “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” and it is interesting to compare the raw honesty of that poetic tour-de-force with Tyler Perry’s shorter-titled reinterpretation. Ntozake Shange’s poems simply set the stage for set pieces about seven African American women in a Harlem rooming house trying to survive despite absent fathers and husbands, rape, poverty, welfare, AIDS, drugs, alcohol, religion, and child abuse (including throwing an infant out a window). But what we get is a muddled, unsatisfying mess with a fake happy ending designed to evoke Tawanda, but reminding us instead of Tyler Perry cross-dressing as Madea
1 and 1/2 pieces of Enuf toast
Buried (R)
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Samantha Mathis
Director: Rodrigo Cortés
People who suffer from claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces), are warned to avoid this unpleasant but well made movie about a man who wakes up buried underground. With only a Zippo lighter and cellphone for light, we eventually see and then hear why this man is trapped six-feet-under. After this film is done, you will never be able to think about the US military-industrial complex and the wars in Iraq in the same way
3 and 1/3 pieces of confined terror toast
Inside Job (PG-13)
Narrated by: Matt Damon
Director: Charles Ferguson
It doesn’t matter if learning about derivatives intrigues your or bores you to death, this entertaining (yes I mean that) analysis of the economic meltdown stacked with charts, graphs, and mega amounts of information is still fueled with a passionate anger and ability to turn over some rocks and let whatever comes to light scurry for cover or turn around and baldly say “So what, We win.”
3 1/2 pieces of economics with a passion toast
NEW ON DVD
Toy Story 3 (G)
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles
Director: Lee Unkrich
For all the toys boxed up in attics, stuffed into old suitcases in the hall closet or donated to charity, this one’s for you. It’s been fifteen years since Pixar made cinematic history with “Toy Story,” and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Andy, the little boy in that film is off to college and packing up Woody and Buzz Lightyear and the other favorites in his toy chest. Through a series of events, the toys end up as the low-on-the totem-pole newcomers in a day care center and are confined to the toddler’s room where the tots don’t play well with toys designed for older kids. In no time at all, an escape plot is hatched and the toys plan to return to the safe retirement of Andy’s place. Artful, ambitious, beautiful, enthralling, and that Pixar trademark “a great story well told”make this the best film of 2010.
4 pieces of this ain’t no ordinary sequel toast