Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
There’s some good movies in the pipeline (The Iron Lady, Pariah, A Separation), but they aren’t available locally.
Instead, catch these 3 and ½ and 4 pieces of toast films
held over for the week of 12/30/11
The Adventures of Tintin (PG)
Steven Spielberg’s first animated film uses the classic Belgian comic books created by Herge’ and enjoys making movies again.
4 pieces of Tintin triumphant toast
The Artist (PG-13)
Michel Hazanavicius silently beguiles and entertains with a tale of a 1920’s film star caught in the rapidly evolving technology of a world obsessed with celebrities and technological innovations.
3 and 1/2 pieces of mostly silent toast
The Descendants (R)
A melancholic George Clooney grapples with grief and anger and love and duty as the patriarch of a Hawaiian family whose wife is in a coma. Yet, it’s a comedy.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Oscar-bound toast
My Week With Marilyn (R)
Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe personified in a story set in the summer of 1956 during the filming of “The Princess and the Showgirl.”
3 and 1/2 pieces of an Oscar nod to Michelle Williams toast
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (R)
David Fincher manages to turn what could have been a tepid, Hollywood remake into something icily Scandinavian, and the result is astoundingly true to Steig Larson’s mega-bestselling novel.
3 and 1/2 pieces of iced leather and tattoos toast
Hugo (PG)
Martin Scorcese’s loving adaptation of Brian Selznick’s children’s book is the 3-D tale of an orphaned boy who lives in the walls of a Parisian train station at the turn of the last century.
3 and 1/2 pieces of more enjoyable in 2-D toast
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (PG-13)
Filming with IMAX cameras, Brad Bird has managed to bring his Pixar perfectionism with him, and direct his mega-star to turn off the “cruise-control” and actually do something more than flashing his dimples.
4 pieces of holiday action movie toast
The Muppets (PG)
Starring Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo and Miss Piggy, this feature-length movie captures the humor, joy, laughter and love that propelled the TV-show and the first Muppet Movie to greatness.
4 pieces of it’s not easy being green toast
Shame (NC-17)
The Michael Fassbender character is all about sex as power, sex as a commodity, sex without love, sex male or female, sex bought and paid for—and the childhood experiences with his promiscuous, exhibitionist sister that established the parameters of this addiction.
3 and 1/2 pieces of not for most movie-goers toast
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (PG-13)
Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law swap quick-witted one-liners during slo-mo shootings and explosions, with Holmes fueled by “a diet of coffee, tobacco and coca leaves.”
3 and 1/2 pieces of post-elementary toast
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (R)
John LeCarre’s secret agent George Smiley is plucked from retirement to ferret moles from their dens. His methods are dull, interesting, methodical, and completely absorbing.
3 and 1/2 pieces of chess played with grey and gray pieces toast
Young Adult (R)
Charlize Theron plays a caustic, amoral, former prom queen turned YA novelist who returns home to steal her High School boyfriend away from a happy marriage.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Charlize Theron toast
NEW ON DVD
Apollo 18 (R)
Starring: Lloyd Owen, Warren Christie
Directed by: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego
Conspiracy theorists should love this one (they still think Capricorn One was based on reality). The idea is that a super secret NASA mission returned to the moon’s surface and discovered a murderous secret—which you have to see the long hidden video-tapes (aka this movie) to discover.
1 and 1/2 pieces of Blair Witch-type moon stuff toast
Final Destination 5 (R)
Starring: Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Nicholas D’Agosto, Arlen Escarpeta
Directed by: Steven Quale
The fickle finger of fate continues to select and then brutally dispatch random victims in a series of Rube Goldberg style mishaps that turn deadly. But this latest in the series lacks the pacing, timing, and black humor of the set-ups in the earlier films. The result is flat and lackluster. Of course it’s hard to have a believable bridge collapsing sequence a week after the fantastic destruction on the Golden Gate Bridge in The Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
1 piece of quickly forgotten toast
1 piece of quickly forgotten toast