New Releases 11/20/09
The Blind Side (PG-13)
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Kathy Bates, Quinton Aaron
Director: John Lee Hancock
A chance encounter on a rainy night completely changes the lives of an overweight orphan and the affluent Memphis family who adopt him so they can remold him into a great football player. Improbable as this sounds, it is the remarkable true story of All-American offensive left tackle, Michael Oher. Filled with sports clichés and studiously avoiding any in-depth investigation into Southern race relations (did I mention the important point that Michael is African American and the family Confederate White?), Sandra Bullock dives headfirst into the role of overly-coiffed Southern Belle, and makes the whole thing work.
3 pieces of football dramady toast

Planet 51 (PG)
Starring the voices of: Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel, Justin Long, Seann William Scott, Gary Oldman, John Cleese
Director: Jorge Blanco
In an obvious attempt to be clever, the filmmakers force an “ET” in reverse plot about an American astronaut getting marooned on a planet inhabited by round-edged green characters a lot like us. Internationally and independently produced, the film is competently animated but the pathetic plot dooms it to kiddy-fare for youngsters who have never had the joy of seeing a Pixar project.
1 and 1/2 piece of insipid toast

The Twilight Saga: New Moon  (PG-13)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Dakota Fanning
Director: Chris Weitz
Because it faithfully follows the plot of the second book in Stephanie Meyers’ series, the two lovers from different tribes (human and vampire) are kept apart for most of this film, and the audience suffers through this lack of cosmic charisma. Werewolves and time travel are added to the mix, and more “rules” about vampire mythology are stretched, but when Bella and Jacob finally get back together, you realize that this is the spark that was missing for over an hour and the sudden appearance of characters played by Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen just make you wonder why the middle part wasn’t just filmed in fast-forward mode.
2 pieces of howling at the moon toast

Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (R)
Starring: Gabourey “Gabbie” Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz
Director: Lee Daniels
Oprah Whinfrey and Tyler Perry are the cheerleaders and producers of this gritty (like gravel made of broken glass) darling of Cannes and Sundance. Precious is an incestuously pregnant again, 16-year-old Harlem mother who manages to survive despite her nonexistent self-esteem, her physically and emotionally abusive parents, and a school that provides a nice place to sleep.
Not for everyone (in fact, not for anyone who goes to the movies strictly for entertainment), this film is strongly acted, frighteningly believable and finally, after dozens of harrowing, “I can’t believe I just saw what I did” scenes, provides a story of transformational redemption.
4 pieces of powerfully and frighteningly realistic toast

NEW ON DVD

Star Trek (PG-13)
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Zoe Soldana, Eric Bana
Director: J.J. Abrams
It is appropriate that a TV writer/director (“Alias,” “Lost”) should take the venerable TV series created by Gene Roddenberry 42 years ago, and successfully bring it back to where no one has gone before—the past. A whole new cast creates 21^st century versions of 20^th century icons Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Scott, Chekov, McCoy and Uhura and the chemistry is quite different this time around. Play-it-by-the-book Spock would detest the fast-fisted Kirk—if he allowed himself to display his emotions. And the USS Enterprise isn’t the shiny plastic toy we grew up with, it’s a well-used battleship with rusty bolts, chipped paint and transporter that still won’t work when they need it. Cool.
4 pieces of reincarnated magic toast

Bruno (R)
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen
Director: Larry Charles
The talented comedian who brought us “Borat” imports another visitor (this time it’s a gay Austrian dude), to trek across America and confound the natives. There are some laugh-out-loud moments, some thoughtful chuckling moments, and some wincing-in-discomfort moments, but Cohen certainly knows how to keep our attention.
3 pieces of choreographed discomfort Toast

Is Anybody There? (PG-13)
Starring: Michael Caine, David Morrissey, Anne-Marie Duff, Bill Milner
Director: John Crowley
The story  (about the ravages of Aging and the wonders of Youth) has been told before (“Harold and Maude” comes to mind), but this time around, it is Michael Caine’s twinkle-eyed, curmudgeon who you love to watch as he effortlessly steals every scene (and he’s competing against a talented ten-year old, and you know how difficult W.C. Fields said that was).
3 pieces of watch it for Michael Caine toast

New Releases 11/13/09

2012 (PG-13)
Starring: John Cusack, Chjwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt
Director: Roland Emmerich
If someone hands you an envelope with the date of your death, would you open it? What about the date of the end of the world? Well, the filmmakers want you to think it’s going to be 2012, and to make sure this is universal destruction, they have waves crash over, earthquakes level or volcanoes swallow the Eiffel Tower, the Washington Monument, the Vatican, LA’s freeways and Rio’s statue of Christ. Deciding mankind’s only hope is to build gigantic arks (in China no less), the President, his advisors, scientists, and a failed sci/fi novelist head to find safety on the steppes of Asia.
1 and 1/2 pieces of almost 3-hours long toast
 
 
Pirate Radio  (R)
Starring: Philip S. Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost
Director: , Richard Curtis
Richard Curtis (who directed “Notting Hill,” and Rowan Atkinson’s Black Adder TV series) helms this anarchistic film about the sex, drugs, and rock and roll which shivers the timbers of a fictional Pirate Radio ship churging through international waters and broadcasting thousands of watts of powerful music to Britain in the early 60’s. (Actually, the sex is intermittent—females only board for overnight stays every other week). The soundtrack is great (over 60 songs are showcased), there are four Oscar nominees signed on, and even if the “freedom of the airwaves” banner is hoisted too many times, it’s still fun.
3 pieces of aaarrrrggggh toast
 
 
An Education (PG-13)
Starring: Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike
Director: Lone Scherfig
Newcomer Carey Mulligan gets it just right as she plays an intelligent young woman who must chose between the safe and sane road suggested by school counselors and parents or the seductive lure of jet-setting, do-nothings who fly to Paris for dinner and drinks. Actually, I’ve said too much. This coming of age film, and Mullligan’s performance, should be experienced rather than described.
4 pieces of a star is born toast
 
 
NEW ON DVD
 
UP (PG)
Starring the voices of:  Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer, John Ratzenberger, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo
Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
The curmudgeonly old man is a movie staple. Ed Asner  was great as Mary’scurmudgeonly boss on Mary Tyler Moore’s TV show.  Well Asner is back in all his curmudgeonly glory  in Pixar’s newest film. But the treat for us, ids the Pixar folks use the first part of this animated treasure to explain how the old grouch got to be that way, why he wants to escape in his house, and why he uses helium-filled balloons to do so. By the way, the Boy Scout they show in the TV trailers isn’t officially sanctioned by the BSA, so he is correctly called a “Wilderness Explorer” (but then you’re not supposed to call facial tissues Kleenex unless you attach the trade mark logo).
4 pieces of up, up, and away toast

Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast

New Releases 11/06/09

The Box (PG-13)
Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella
Director: Richard Kelly
The director of 2001’s “Donny Darko,” has disappointed fans ever since, and this updated version of a Richard Matheson short story only hints at greatness. Like a bloated  Twilight Zone episode, a mysterious stranger with a mysterious box offers people a mysterious million dollars if they push the mysterious button in the box. Oh, by the way, when the button is pushed, someon, somewhere else, dies‑mysteriously.
2 pieces of Swiss cheese plotted  toast

Disney’s A Christmas Carol (R)
Starring: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins
Director: Robert Zemeckis
The same director who brought us the “Polar Express” with its creepily animated Tom Hanks, now brings us a creepily animated Jim Carrey, playing most of the parts in a retelling of the Dicken’s holiday classic. But instead of going for the ghostiness of the book, the film has an identity crisis. Set in a Victorian time, it inexplicably propels old Mr. Scrooge through a science fiction style universe to view Christmas Past, Present and Future.
2 1/2 pieces of Walt would not be pleased toast

The Fourth Kind (PG-13)
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Will Patton, Hakeen Kae Kazim
Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi
A slapdash effort that liberally steals ideas from much better films, this story of extraterrestrial abductions from an Alaskan village will only work if you haven’t already seen the ultra low budget thriller, “Paranormal Activity.” (By the way, the marketing ploy that this is “real” is only hoax).
1 and 1/2 piece of digital timers on static cameras ticking down toast

The Men Who Stare at Goats (R)
Starring: George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey
Director: Grant Heslov
George Clooney plays this like a cross between “Three Kings,” and “Brother Where Art Thou,” which is just about right for an anti-war film about the Military’s top secret “psychic warfare unit” from Jon Ronson’s satirical book. Based on reality, there really were men in the US military convinced they could dissolve storm clouds or walk through walls if they could just run fast enough.
3 pieces no goats were harmed etc. toast

NEW ON DVD

Food Inc. (NR)
Starring: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser
Director: Robert Kenner
Did you ever stop to consider why our Thanksgiving Turkey has such huge breasts, why our tomatoes are fresh year-round, and why our cars sometimes smell like they are running on Orville Redenbacher’s finest corn? Or did you ever wonder how E. Coli made the FBI’s list of mass murderers? The answer is simple—Food Engineering (AKA Agri-Business).  Robert Kenner’s documentary takes us (literally) into the belly of the beast in a series of vignettes that will entrance, infuriate and disgust you in equal measure.
3 pieces truly scary toast

Taking of Pelham 123 (R)
Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, John Turturro, Luis Guzman
Director: Tony Scott
In the original, 1974 movie, the perpetual curmudgeon Walter Matthau played the transit authority policeman whose routine is shattered by the hijacking of a Manhattan-bound train. Led by a British mercenary (Robert Shaw) the bad guys have disabled the so-called dead man switch which is designed to stop the train if the driver dies. In the latest version, Tony Scott directs in his usual pyrotechnic style with John Travolta leading the mercenaries, Denzel Washington as the desk-bound dispatcher stuck as negotiator, and James Gandolfini as the mayor. The final act is just plain unbelievable as Washington transforms into a superhero while the train hurtles faster and faster towards an explosive (and expensive) Coney Island  finale.
2 pieces of popcorn movie toast

New Releases 10/30/09

Michael Jackson’s This Is It (PG)
Starring: Michael Jackson
Director: Kenny Ortega
We’ve seen Fred Astaire and Nat King Cole come back to life through special effects, and I first assumed that this film would be cobbled together out of old film clips and computer generated novelties.  But it’s all real, all new, and all Michael. Over 100 hours of behind the scenes footage was shot during the last four months of the King of Pop’s life, and Kenny Ortega, the director of the stage show being filmed, has respectfully and wisely created a movie that showcases the singer’s talent. No “fat Elvis problem” here. The scenes that are shown are of a fifty-year-old performer still at the top of his game.
3 and 1/2 pieces of memorial toast

Boondock Saint II  (R)
Starring: Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, Billy Connolly, Clifton Collins
Director: Troy Duffy
Ten years ago, a bartender/musician wrote a screenplay about some Boston brothers who single handedly attempt to wipe out the local Mob. Chronicled in the documentary “Overnight,” the filmmaker seemed to be headed for a big score with financing, a director’s chair, and even a promise from investors to buy the bar where he worked and hire him as bartender for life. But like in all fairy tales, there was a frog in the ointment, (or Rumplestiltskin at the spinning wheel, or something else the upsets the proverbial applecart). Even so, the film did eventually get made even though, as the cartoon film critic always says; “It stinks.” This new movie is just as bad as the original and probably worse in that it lacks any humor at all (although it still thinks it’s very, very clever).
1/2 piece of totally amateurish toast

Amreeka (PG)
tarring: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallen, Hiam Abbass, Allia Shawkat
Director: Cherian Dabis
A new director from Columbia Film School has made a fine first feature film. A Palestinian immigrant family faces discrimination and financial difficulties trying to survive in Chicago after 9/11. Going for sit-com style humor instead of gritty reality, there is still some bite in this burger (and I don’t mean the ones from White Castle where the well educated banker mom secretly takes a job to keep her family fed and a roof over their head).
3 pieces of  falafel burger toast

The Damned United(R)
Starring: Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney, Jim Broadbent
Director: Tom Hooper
I’m not sure that our football obsessed culture will respond positively to the inside story of one of Britain’s most famous soccer team controversies. But this isn’t really a story about goals made and lost. It is the story of a single minded individual—a self described childish person who holds a grudge against another powerful and famous man who just happens to manage Emgland’s championship soccer team, Leeds United. And when that powerful man slips and stumbles, the childish one is there to pick up the banner and hold it high—for a short time.  Amazing screenplay by Peter Morgan and highest level of acting by all involved, make this one worth watching
3 and 1/2 pieces of soccer is life toast

NEW ON DVD
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (PG)
Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah
Director: Carlos Saldanha
As usual, Scrat, the acorn-loving squirrel, steals the picture—and even more so since he meets an acorn-loving female squirrel. Shot in 3-D, it’s as though the filmmakers figured this was enough of a gimmick to carry the day, but this seems composed of ideas cut from the first two films and then combined with a moralistic (can’t everyone just get along?) message oddly mixed with “intelligent design”pseudoscience.
1 and 1/2 piece of did you know dinosaurs and squirrels lived together? Toast

Whatever Works (PG-13)
Starring: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley
Director: Woody Allen
Woody Allen reverts to formula (he wrote the screenplay about the self-proclaimed “smartest man” falls for a Southern Belle, in the 70’s) and casts Larry David as his neurotic New Yorker alter-ego.  However, David is angrier than Allen, not so klutzy and lovable, and if you like to be yelled at, David is the perfect guy to do it. But, if you don’t see the humor behind all the complaining, then skip this one,  Go rent a Woody Allen classic like “Radio Days,” or  “Broadway Danny Rose,” or “Annie Hall,” or “Sleeper”  instead
2 and 1/2 pieces of Larry David is no Woody Allen toast

I had an engaging and entertaining in-depth interview about the Back to the Future/Crispin Glover  controversy for my Word By Word: Conversations With Writers show which airs from 7:00-8:00 pm Wednesday, November 4th on KRCB 91.1 FM out of Santa Rosa, and streams online at the same time on krcb.org

I’ve also been meeting with him to work out the details for a very special Filmmakers Sampler entitled “The Unscripted Life of Hollywood Actor Jeffrey Weissman”  scheduled for 7:30, November 14th, at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts on Depot Street in downtown Sebastopol.

Hosted by your own Cinema Toast blogger Gil Mansergh, Jeffrey will motivate potential Hollywood wannabes while captivating the audience with his insider’s anecdotes, freeze-frame looks at some of the goofy things which get onscreen in his movies, and a rare look at deleted scenes from his private collection including the rough cut of a short comedy currently in production. As an added attraction, members of the 6^th Street Improv troupe, will use audience suggestions to create a “Whose Line Is It Anyway” style summary of Jeffrey’s unscripted life. It is guaranteed to be an exciting, informative, and entertaining event.

Tickets for the Filmmakers Sampler are $15 available at the door or on www.brownpapertickets.com . For information call (707) 829-4797. Since seating in the SCA Screening Room is limited, I advise you to order your tickets ASAP.

New Releases 10/23/09

Astro Boy (PG)
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Bill Nighy, Freddie Highmore
Director: David Bowers
Looking a lot like the plastic statues that used to stand guard at Bob’s Big Boy hamburger restaurants, the shiny, gee-whiz look of this Japanese super hero  almost makes you forget the truly dark “back story.” A sky city scientist accidentally kills his super-smart son and replaces him with a super strong robot he can’t learn to love, This Astro Boy is coveted by the evil government but escapes by falling to Earth where he joins orphan children raised by a Fagan-like exploiter who probably studied “Oliver” to learn his parenting skills. But that’s what the adults will see. The kids didn’t seem to be upset by any of this.
3 pieces CG animated (but no 3-D) toast

The Vampire’s Assistant  (R)
Starring: Chris Massoglia, John C. Reilly, Ken Watanabe, Salma Hayek
Director: Paul Weitz
This plays like a two hour X-Files episode about a freak-filled sideshow and half-vampires caused by spider bites  (I guess the Spiderman arachnid was already under contract). There are lots of B-list actors with cameos who probably thought this film would be cool on their resume. They were wrong.
1 and 1/2 piece of totally unbelievable toast

Saw VI (R)
Starring: Costas Mandylor, Mark Rolston, Betsy Russell, Tobin Bell
Director: Kevin Greutert
Gil does not screen or review slasher films
Amelia (PG)
tarring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Virginia Madsen
Director: Mira Nair
Scorcese’s masterwork of depression-age aviation, “The Aviator” set the high bar for others to try to reach. In comparison, this film makes the enigmatic aviatrix Amelia Earhart seem old-fashioned instead of retro. Swank smiles a lot but remains as static as the black and white photos which pop up throughout this disappointment.
2 pieces of never really takes off toast
Coco Before Chanel (R)
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain
Director: Anne Fontaine
Like a collaboration by Dickens and Collette, a Catholic orphan girl grows to be a music hall singer and avoids the inevitable spiral into prostitution by becoming a mistress to a wealthy playboy. On the way, she designs a hat, dons men’s clothing, beds both sexes, and grabs hold of opportunities that come her way as though she had been to the best business school on the continent.
3 pieces of French toast

NEW ON DVD

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (PG-13)
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson
Director: Michael Bay
Humans are merely inconveniences in this computer generated series of more and more complicated (and destructive) robots obliterating everything in their path. Even Egypt’s historic Valley of the Kings isn’t spared (and we thought the Taliban were bad!).
1 and 1/2 piece of boom, bang and crush toast

Cheri (R)
Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates, Rupert Friend, Felicity Jones
Director: Stephen Frears
Two of French novelist Collette’s works were combined to provide the story of a (supposedly) more decadent era—pre-WWI Paris.  But instead of feeling puffed up and entertaining, the result is oddly deflated and quite dull.
1 and 1/2 piece of pretty, but clueless toast

New Releases 10/16/09

Where the Wild Things Are (PG)
Starring: Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener and the voices of Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O’Hara, Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini
Director: Spike Jonze
I was disappointed when I first saw that the monsters in this film were like the old H.R. Puffinstuff puppets, but in the complete version, I grew to like the wild things and then dislike the script. The first third is remarkable—filled with creativity and wonder, but after Max becomes King, and leads his Things into war, each page in Maurice Sendak’s book gets its own battle scene. The result is repetitious.
3 pieces of not quite a wild rumpus toast

Opa! (R)
Starring: Matthew Modine, Richard Griffiths, Agni Scott
Director: Udayan Prasad
This romantic travelogue screened last year at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival, and gave me the opportunity to interview Mathew Modine. He plays an American archeologist who travels to Greece looking for ancient ruins, falls in love with a beautiful tavern owner, and then has to tell her that satellite photos show the ruins are directly under her tavern. What makes it work, is the lush Greek scenery and the genuine chemistry between Modine and Scott.
3 pieces of say “opa!” toast

Law Abiding Citizen (R)
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Viola Davis, Bruce McGill
Director: F. Gary Gray
I guess the filmmakers assume that if you make torture-porn and then add vigilante “justice” because a corrupt prosecutor makes a plea bargain with the bad guys that it will make the distasteful violence have a moral. Ugh.
1/2 piece of torture-porn toast

Stepfather (PG-13)
Starring: Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard
Director: Nelson McCormick
The press notes say: Michael Harding returns home from military school to find his mother  happily in love and living with her new boyfriend, David. As the two men get to know each other, Michael becomes more and more suspicious of the man who is always there with a helpful hand. Could David be hiding a dark side?
Not available for preview

Paranormal Activity (R)
Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat
Director: Oren Peli
In the era when a “small film” has a budget of $15 million, there are genuine chills in this $11,000 horror movie. Following Alfred Hitchcock’s dictate that what the audience imagines is more terrifying than anything onscreen, director Peli cleverly uses a static camera shot of a dark bedroom to ratchet up the suspense as we wonder what is happening out of camera range.
3 pieces of Blair Witch type toast

A Serious Man (R)
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
There are always some in the audience for a Coen Brothers movie who don’t understand the film, and that goes double for this semi-modern day retelling of the Story of Job. It’s set in the Minnesota Suburbs of 1967 and tells the tale of a physics professor who consults three rabbi’s for answers because his life is falling apart. It is also confusing, upsetting, profound and occasionally very, very funny.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Coen Brothers toast

New York, I Love You
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Shia LaBeouf, Natalie Portman, Blake Lively
Director: Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Jiang Wen, Shekhar Kapur, Joshua Marston, Mira Nair, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner, Randall Balsmeyer
It’s pretty easy to spot the short pieces directed by actors who want to direct and those made by proven directors in this composite of eleven stories about the Big Apple. The result is like a glossy magazine assembled by star-struck staff when the real editors are on vacation.
2 pieces of only 50% of this works toast
NEW ON DVD

Land of the Lost (PG-13)
Starring: Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Anna Friel, Jorma Taccone
Director: Brad Silberling
Said to have cost over 100 million dollars, none of the money shows up onscreen. This parody of the cheesy “Land of the Lost” TV series is sleezy, humorless and just plain gosh awful bad (but not bad enough to make it good).  Farrell should have worked with Todd Phillips again instead of signing on for this one.
1/2 piece of bassackwards time travel toast

Every Little Step (PG-13)
Director: James D. Stern, Adam Del Deo
Two stories in different times and places are told in this fascinating behind-the-scenes look at “A Chorus Line.” The first part seems like a cable channel version of how the 1974 musical took shape, and it makes the mistake of using clips from  Richard Attenborough’s seriously flawed movie version to tell the tale. But the second half, in which the documentary makers got permission to actually film the auditions of the almost 3000 people trying out for the 26 parts inthe 2006 Broadway revival, is marvelous, simply marvelous. The only criticism is that except for a few emotional people, we never really get to know any of the dancers very well—perhaps there were just too many of them.
3 pieces of Broadway hoofers toast

New Releases 10/09/09
Couples Retreat (PG-13)
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Kristen Bell, Jason Bateman, Malin Akerman
Director: Peter Billingsley
The concept sounds good—four Midwest couples head to a tropical island to work on their marriage and have fun in paradise. But the reality fizzles, as time after time, what should have been fun (and funny) just bombs.
1 piece of soggy toast

Stark Raving Black (R)
Starring: Lewis Black
The grumpy comic vents his spleen in a concert movie filmed in Detroit a few months ago. Flushed from  his success on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Black performed for the troops in USO shows in Iraq and Afghanistan.  On film he says: “I think it’s very odd that we went in my lifetime from Bob Hope to me.”
3 pieces of Black isn’t exactly beautiful toast

From Mexico With Love (PG-13)
Starring: Kuno Becker, Bruce McGill, Alex Nesic, Steven Bauer, Danay Garcia, Stephen Lang
Director: Jim Nickerson
It’s hard to find the “With Love” part of this film in the description from the press notes: “Hector, an amateur boxer earns money  to buy his sick mother’s medication through fighting at local bars. A wealthy rancher, Big Al,  has his henchmen beat up Hector and leave him to die in the desert. Fighting for his life, Hector finds himself homeless on the streets of Mexico. But after finding out his mother is dead, Hector seeks to settle the score between him and Big Al.”
Unavailable for preview

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (R)
tarring: Matt Czuchry, Geoff Stults, Jesse Bradford, Keri Lynn Pratt
Director: Bob Gosse
I don’t know if Hell has beer, but this move could be added to one of the eternal tortures. With Todd Phillips’ “The Hangover” setting the standard for gross-out humor in a bachelor party movie,  this scat-filled mess just isn’t worth the price of a free ticket.
1/2 piece of terrible toast

The Boys Are Back (R)
Starring: Clive Owen, Laura Fraser, Nicholas Macanulty, Julia Blake
Director: Scott Hicks
Clive Owen is great playing against type as Joe Warr, a suddenly single dad who raises his two boys seemingly without any rules. Grandma, the single mom from the younger boy’s school, and just about everyone who gets in the front door has ideas on how Joe should act as a parent, but the three guys need to learn from their mistakes themselves.
3 pieces of parenthood can be messy toast
NEW ON DVD

Year One (PG-14)
Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross
Director: Harold Ramis
Everyone involved in this pile of dung-flavored mush knows how to make a good movie, so it baffles me as to why this supposedly funny spoof is so lame. It’s like they took the absolute worst parts of a Mel Brooks Bible Epic, and threw them away in favor of something completely lacking in humor.
1 and 1/2 piece of dumb and dumberer toast

Imagine That (PG)
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Thomas Haden Church, Nicole Ari Parker, Ronny Cox, Martin Sheen, Yara Shahidi
Director: Karey Kirkpatrick
If you believe that you can be a good parent by spending “quality time” in a frenetic, twice as fast as the speed limit, mad dash to school to get your kid there on time, then this is the movie for you. For the rest of us, forget Eddie Murphy in this film, (which is about 80% of screen time), you’ve seen him do his schtick before, but young newcomer Yara Shahidi (and her future-predicting blanket) is fresh and Thomas Haden Church rocks as a politically incorrect (but funny), Native American financial guru.
1 and 1/2 pieces of mostly stale toast

New Releases 10/03/09

Whip It (PG-13)
Starring: Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig,  Drew Barrymore
Director: Drew Barrymore
I first saw the Bay Bombers when I was a cub scout, and for some reason that experience, with all its bruising, bone cracking tumbles, jumps and “crack-the-whips, has stuck with me. I am pleased to say, that the multi-talented Drew Barrymore has created a marvelously empowering film about the tattooed and rough-and-tumble world of Roller Derby that is as fast and slick as the wheels on these women’s feet.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Hurl Scouts toast

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 3-D double feature (G)
Starring the voices of: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Joan Cusack
Director: John Lasseter Lee Unkrich
As a build up to the release of “Toy Story 3,” Pixar’s first two stories about Woody the cowboy, Buzz Lightyear the astronaut, Jessie the cowgirl, Rex the dinosaur, Hamm the piggy bank, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky the dog, and the villainous Stinky Pete are available in Disney 3-D as a specially released double bill. Don’t miss it.
4 pieces of Pixar toast

Zombieland (R)
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
Director: Ruben Fleischer
This energetic melding of a zombie movie and college-aged romance is refreshingly entertaining. The set up is that the world has been taken over by zombies, and two male survivors (including Woody Harrelson as a wryly amusing man who doesn’t want to know people’s names so he has everyone identify themselves by where their destinations), meet up with two female con-artists with terrifyingly funny results.
3 and 1/2 pieces of reinvented genre toast

Capitalism: A Love Story (NR)
Director: Michael Moore
In interviews, Michael Moore admits that this film was paid for by the very corporations he attacks because “they understand that I get people who would never go to a documentary out to the Cineplex to be entertained and even become a little indignant.” And that, in a nutshell, is what is accomplished in this 20-years-later bookend to “Roger and Me.” But perhaps the most interesting bit is a replay of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s state of the union address where he proposed a “second Bill of Rights, including the right to work, the right to a pension and the right to health care!
3 pieces Michael Moore toast

Invention of Lying (PG-13)
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Louis C.K.
Director: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson
Tom Waites sings that “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed-man is king,” and it makes me think that Ricky Gervais got the idea for this movie by wondering if a liar would be king in a land where everyone tells the truth. Acknowledging that some parts of this comedy are left unfulfilled, the fact is that the timing of the actors involved is spot-on, and the section where religion is invented by that single liar telling his ill mother that life continues on after you die, is one of those subversive movie scenes which should become iconic.
3 pieces of pretty funny (and I’m not lying) toast

NEW ON DVD

Monsters vs. Aliens (PG-13)
Starring the voices of : Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Seth Rogen
Director: Conrad Vernon, Rob Letter
If you remember classics like: “The Creature from the Black Lagoon,”  “The Blob,”  “The Fly,” and “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” (which I admit my best friend and I traveled all the way to South San Francisco to see in the faint hope that The Woman would outgrow her clothing quickly enough for the teenage boys in the audience to see something they might not see elsewhere). Thankfully, the filmmakers of this animated extravaganza must have similar fond memories, for when The Woman (from Modesto no less) begins to grow larger and larger, her dress stays small  (in an acceptable PG way of course). All in all, it’s quite fun, with many jokes the kiddies will miss but will cause goofy grins to appear on the faces of the taller people in the audience.
3 and 1/2 pieces of 3-dimensional fun toast

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (PG)
Starring: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith
Director: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath
The animated creatures that escaped from New York’s zoo and hightailed it to an island off the coast of Africa star in a new film, and along the way, they have grown fur which ruffles in the breezes  (thanks to improved CG techniques).  Other than that, it’s pretty much the same old Dreamworks schtick—mildly amusing fare that’s safe for the whole family.  But the plot is based on the concept that sounds like it was “borrowed” from Disney’s “The Lion King”—for when they land on the African continent, Alex the lion discovers he is the long lost son of the aging king.
2 and 1/2 pieces of second-string animation toast

New Releases 9/25/09

Fame (PG)
Starring: Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, Kay Panabaker, Bebe Neuwirth
Director: Kevin Tancharoen
TV’s Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith play a piano teacher and a dance instructor in this “reinvention” of the original Oscar-winning film following the dancers, singers, and actors in the New York High School for the Performing Arts. Unlike the gritty-for-its-time first film, this one has been toned down to attract the “High School Musical” crowd. There are some nice singing and dance sequences but overall it’s pretty dull.
2 pieces of lost its pizzazz toast

Pandorum (R)
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue
Director: Christian Alvart
The press notes say: “Two astronauts awaken in a hyper-sleep chamber aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. It’s pitch black, they are disoriented, and the only sound is a low rumble and creak from the belly of the spacecraft. They can’t remember anything – who are they, what is their mission? The only way out of the chamber is a dark and narrow airshaft.”
Unavailable for preview

Surrogates (PG-13)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Boris Kodjoe
Director: Jonathan Mostow
A seemingly ageless Bruce Willis (with long blonde hair no less) is an FBI agent investigating the murder of a college student in a future where crimes are almost nonexistent. But the blonde Willis is really just a robotic surrogate and the bald, wrinkly old guy who has sex with the beautiful, surrogate wife, is the real detective. Despite an intriguing premise, the lackluster direction and so-so special effects (some of which were done better back in 1973 when Yul Brenner played a cowboy robot in “Westworld”), make this a B-movie at best
2 pieces of we miss “Blade Runner” toast

Bright Star (PG)
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
Director: Jane Campion
Jane Campion’s mastery at directing beautiful scenes and Abbie Cornish’s spirited performance as 18-year-old Fanny Browne are the main reasons to catch this occasionally stolid movie. Browne is the literal girl next door who captures young British poet John Keats attention so much that he writes “I have the feeling as if I were dissolving.” As in all great romantic love stories, Keats literally is dissolving (or at least his lungs are), as tuberculosis ravages his body. So the lovers’ plight is even more tragic.
3 pieces of poetic romance toast

The Baader Meinhof Complex (R)
Starring: Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, Johanna Wokalek, Bruno Ganz
Director: Uli Edel
Confusing to some reviewers, I found his unambiguous look at the anarchistic Red Army Faction in 1970’s Germany compelling. It portrays the single-mindedness of psychopathic true believers who feel that spilling the blood of innocents is a worthwhile price for achieving a greater good. It also has a fantastic performance as Bruno Ganz portrays the  head of West Germany’s police forces as a man striving to understand the terrorist’s motivations . This blood-soaked film is filled with “collateral damage,” and is not for everyone, but it raises important questions that need to be addressed in this age of worldwide extremism and instant communication.
3 and 1/2 pieces of thought-provoking toast
NEW ON DVD

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (PG-13)
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Lacey Chabert, Michael Douglas
Director: Mark Waters
For some unknown reason, Matthew McConaughy keeps getting thrust into comedies, and casting him in this unfunny pastiche based on Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” is exceedingly unwise. A class of sixth graders could have written a better script.
1/2 piece of Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas need new agents toast

O’Horten (PG)
Starring: Baard Owe, Espen Skjonberg, Ghita Norby, Bjorn Floberg
Director: Bent Hamer
“I hope we don’t hit a moose tonight,” the 67-year-old train engineer says,” and if you expect this to be a Monty Python movie with “wik” and “also, also, wik” in the titles, the next line cinches it. “The blood on my jacket won’t come out.” But this Norwegian tale seems inspired more by Buster Keaton as the evening of his retirement gently slides from one humorously deadpan vignette to the next.
3 and 1/2 pieces of Norwegian toast