Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
Films Opening 11/15/13
Great acting fuels both Dallas Buyers Club and Kill Your Darlings
Dallas Buyers Club (R)
Starring: Matthew McConaughy, Jared Leto, Jeenifer Garner, Steve Zahn Griffin Dunne
Directed by: Jean-MarcVallee
A Texas electrician and rodeo cowboy discovers he has AIDS in 1985, and is given 30 days left to live. Experimenting with alternative therapies across the border, he begins bringing untested, “life-saving” drugs in from Mexico with the help of an unexpected ally—an HIV-positive transexual. Outstandingly gritty performances by all involved but especially McConaughy and Leto.
3 pieces of gritty and well-acted toast
The Best Man Holiday (R)
Starring: Morris Chestnut, Taye Diggs, Regina Hall, Terence Howard, Nia Long
Directed by: Malcom D. Lee
Well past college age, the folk who populated the 1999 rom-com The Best Man are back to show that their “groove thang” still works in a Christmas-themed reunion. The result is occasionally funny but schizophrenic with its mixture of Christian values and raunchy sex jokes.
2 and 1/2 pieces of can’t seem to figure out who is the audience toast
Kill Your Darlings (?)
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Ben Foster, Jack Huston, Elizabeth Olsen, Dabne DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Directed by: John Krokidas
Despite warnings from his mother, Allen Ginsberg quickly ended up hanging around with the wrong crowd at Columbia University—a crowd that included William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Lucien Carr. Fueled by hormones, booze and drugs, these future founders of the “Beat Generation” become embroiled in the stabbing death of a stalker who had been pursuing Carr sexually since he was 14. Capturing the spirit of the early 50’s, the young men whose names we now recognize were still just a bunch of college kids back then.
3 pieces of artists in the making plus a dead body toast
SPECIAL MEET THE FILMMAKERS EVENT !
1:00 pm, Sunday, November 24th at Summerfield Cinemas
Anyone who loves visiting Point Reyes National Seashore, and the Golden Gate Recreation Area will enjoy meeting some of the Rebels With a Cause—that unlikely amalgam of dreamers and doers who managed to save a large chunk of the California coast from developers. Documentary filmmakers Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto will be on hand to discuss their award-winning film
NEW DVD RELEASES
Prince Avalanche (R)
Starring: Paul Rudd, Emile Hirsch, Lance LeGault,
Directed by: David Gordon Green
This Indy was an audience favorite at film festivals, and it’s easy to see why. Based on a Scandinavian short story, we follow two guys wandering through a blackened Texas landscape where a forest grew just one season earlier. Now, there’s just the two guys, the long-haul trucker who encounters the pair, and an old woman sifting through the ashes of her homestead. Metaphors abound, and just in case you don’t get this, one character intones: “Past tense—Everything’s past tense now.”
3 pieces of blackened Indy toast
Frances Ha (R)
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Patrick Heusinger, Adam Driver, Michael Zegan
Directed By: Noah Baumbach
What happens when a 20-something who has been raised all her life winning awards and accolades for her outstanding work and performances in ball games, dance recitals, and Mother’s Day card-making, suddenly realizes she’s aging up? If she’s Frances Ha, she remains cocksure, ambitious and very competitive in her quest to become a famous dancer, while realizing she may finally need to get a day job to cover her expenses. In the end, this is a New York indie about a distinctive young woman who keeps her joie-de-vivre despite the clock ticking. Filmed in B&W, it feels like those exuberant 60‘s New Wave films from France—but in a good way.
3 pieces of Greta Gerwig toast
Blackfish (PG-13)
Directed By: Gabriella Cowperthwaite
Orcas are commonly known as killer whales for a reason, so the headline-grabbing stories of the multi-ton carnivore occasionally killing their human trainers shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. But it does. In this documentary expose, we learn that marine parks like Sea World sell more stuffed toys when families believe Orcas are cuddly friendly creatures who like swimming around and around in a little cement swimming pool instead of a seal devouring killing machine roaming free in the world’s oceans. We also learn (surprise ,surprise) that captivity greatly reduces the life-span of Orcas, and even more quickly (based on the graphic video footage) reduces the lifespans of their trainers.
3 pieces of killer whales aren’t toy-like toast
Turbo (PG)
Starring the voices of: Paul Giamatti, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Pena, Luis Guzman, Michelle Rodriguez, Ryan Reynolds
Directed By: David Soren
Think of this as Ratatouille with snails. Instead of wanting to be a chef, this particular animated character (a snail), wants to be a racer. When a freak accident turns our hero into a lightning-fast mollusk, the hijinks begin— and slowly edge forward at the speed of—well, at a snail’s pace.
1 and 1/2 pieces of the one joke is played too often toast
Man of Steel (PG-13)
Starring: Henry Cavil, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe
Directed By: Zack Snyder
As a kid, when I heard “Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman,” I’d run to the TV set and know I was going to have a good time. Sadly, this latest version is a downer, and the so-called Man of Steel, seems to care little about “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” Instead we have a petulant, globalized (i.e. less American and easier to market abroad) fellow whose secret identity is only sort-of secret (Lois Lane knows!). In the end, it’s pretty boring and generic.
1 and 1/2 pieces of more like pewter toast