Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast
New Releases For the Week of 5/04/18
Tully (R)
Starring: Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Mark Duplas, Ron Livingston
Directed by: Jason Reitman
In Tully, the title character (played by Mackenzie Davis) is the night-time nanny which an overwhelmed post-natal mother of three says she doesn’t want or need (but is nonetheless grateful for a full night’s sleep). Oscar-winning screenwriter (for Juno) Diablo Cody collaborates once again with director Jason Reitman and actor Charlize Theron to create a timely tale of what life is really like for American females as they grow through the different stages of life. Everyone involved is at the top of their game, and the result is an instantly identifiable, and very realistic portrait of the inner and outward challenges inherent in the “Super Mom” mythology.
4 pieces of a motherhood’s not all happy smiles and dirty diapers toast
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (NR)
Starring: Grace Jones, Jean-Paul Goude
Directed by: Sophie Fiennes
Grace Jones is the statuesque Jamaican-born singer/entertainer who projected a kitschy androgynous persona in the 80‘s and 90’ on magazine covers and onstage. Turned into a pop icon by photographer/graphic designer lover, Jean-Paul Goude, Jones is now a 60-something grandmother who still commands attention. Sophie Fiennes uses seven years of concert footage, goin’-home visits to Jamaica, and backstage fly-on-the-wall shots to to allow the audience a close-up of Jones today. The result is, just like Jones, magically enigmatic.
3 and 1/2 pieces of a must-see for Grace Jones fans and anyone else who likes to be entertained toast
Oh Lucy! (NR)
Starring: Shinobu Terajime, Josh Hartnett, Shioli Katsuna
Directed by: Atsuko Hiyayanagi
A drone-like Japanese office worker’s only joy is the karaoke-singing at the firm’s frequent retirement parties. So she is resistant to the notion of accompanying her niece to an English-language class. It’s a one-sided, love at first sight encounter when she meets the handsome American teacher. The crush is so strong, that when the instructor returns home, she follows him to Southern California. Once there, she must cope in the classic fish-out-of-water fashion
3 pieces of quirkily reminiscent of Tampopo and A Taxing Woman toast
Bad Samaritan (R)
Starring: Robert Sheehan, David Tennant, Carlito Olivero, Kerry Condon, Jacqueline Byers
Directed by: Dean Devlin
The iPhones and household protection apps should get star billing in this tale of a valet driver who boosts his victims smart-cars to permit burglarizing their homes. This itself is a great movie premise, but the filmmakers had to include a damsel-in-distress literally chained and bridled in one of the homes. So, what’s a decent burglar supposed to do—especially when the house’s smart technology thwarts his attempts to free the damsel? The best parts of Bad Samaritan are the multiple confrontations between the quick with-an-iPhone burglar and the over-the-top fail-safes the wealthy victim has built into his smart house. Sadly the rest of the movie devolves into a predictable, bad-guy, badder guy confrontation with the hapless girl as the “prize.”
2 pieces of there’s an interesting movie about high-tech vulnerability buried amidst the overused gothic storyline toast
Comments? E-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net