Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
New Releases For the Week of 9/08/17
IT (R)
Starring: Bill Skarsgard, Sohia Lillis, Jaeden Liberher, Finn Wolfhard, Jeremy Ray Taylor
Directed by: Andres (Andy) Mushietcti
The “Killer Clown” returns to haunt the nightmares of a new generation. Stephen King’s 1986 novel was made into a 1989 cult-classic miniseries (starring Tim Curry as the sewer-dwelling, shape-shifting, clown). Andre Muschietti’s new movie draws heavily on the miniseries—but only the parts featuring the protagonists as kids (their grown-up counterparts will appear in IT Part Two). The director treats the film as a one-trick-pony by setting up and repeating the same child at risk in a dark, creepy place over and over again. He does include the important bits like a boy dying from having his arm torn off, a marauding squad of physically abused at home bullies, a group of victims (aka The Losers Club) and the girl repeatedly raped by her father. In the interest of avoiding an NC-17 rating, despite the sanitized version in the original movie script, the book’s pre-adolescent group sex scene (initiated by the girl) was never filmed.
2 pieces of if you are triggered by childhood nightmares, stay far, far away from IT toast
Home Again (R)
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Jon Rudnitsky, Candice Bergen, Pico Alexander, Nat Wolff, Michael Sheen
Director: Hallie Myers-Shier
This is one of those “made-by-a-filmmaker’s-child” fantasy movies where a recently separated mother of two relocates from New York to LA with plenty of cash and plenty of free time. The kids miss their dad and fomer home and aspire to “fit in” at their new school. Then mom drinks too much at a party and invites three poor (but handsome) aspiring filmmakers to live in her guest cottage. (Doesn’t everyone have a guest cottage?) She flirts with all three, and the guys wisely try to get the kids in their corner. Then (surprise, surprise), the husband and dad flies to LA complete with his winning smile, Welsh accent, and easy-to-like manner. Oh dear. What’s a girl with multiple suitors to do? ANSWER: See Ginger Rogers’ 1941 comedy Tom, Dick and Harry)
2 pieces of a fantasy presented like it was reality (when it obviously isn’t) toast
Trip to Spain (NR)
Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Marta Barrio
Directed by: Michael Winterbottom
The caricatures of themselves played by British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon continue their third My Dinner With Andre-style travel trips they started in England, then relocated to France and, in this film, Spain. Shots of spectacular scenery are broken up with wine-fueled conversations between the two men. Middle-aged, one man is a besotted new father, the other (in the words of Henry Higgins) “a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so.” Their dry-witted conversations sparkle with life and are punctuated with spot-on impersonations of famous people. In other words, this is a film which will be appreciated by those who enjoy this sort of thing.
3 and 1/2 pieces of droll conversationalists toast
I Am the Blues (NR)
Starring: Bobby Rush, Henry Lynn, Bobby Gray, Bud Spires
Directed by: Daniel Cross
A musical treat not to be missed, the focus of this Delta Blues documentary is Robby Rush (who finally won a Grammy this year at the age of 83). The “international dean of the Blues” jawbones some stories of the old days, sings, plays and writes some music, and jams alongside other legends from the juke joints labelled “the chitlin circuit.”
3 and 1/2 pieces of toe-tappin’ toast
Whose Streets? (R)
Directed by: Sabaah Folyan, Damon Davis
This documentary takes an unflinching, semi-balanced second look at the 16 months following the seige of Ferguson, Missouri after police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed Black teen named Michael Brown. Its all here—more “real” than the clips we’ve seen on TV—the focus is a series of brutally honest, searingly emotional first-person interviews with people who lived what was happening—and share what they witnessed in vivid detail.
3 and 1/2 pieces of history is powerful toast
Menashe (NR)
Starring: Menashe Lustig, Ruben Niborski, Yoel Weisshaus
Directed by: Joshua Weinstein
Presented in sub-titled Yiddish, this film tells the simple (yet complicated) tale of a rumpled, recently widowed father who must live apart from his beloved pre-teen son because the Hebraic tradition dictates that boys must be raised in two-parent families. The solution is for Menashe to remarry, but as the catastrophic arranged meeting with an eligible woman proves, Menashe is completely uninterested in marrying again. Compounding everything is that the brother-in-law tasked with raising the boy is a by-the-book prig who despises Menashe’s “aimless” life and everything it stands for.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Yiddish dramady toast