Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast
NEW RELEASES 8/25/06

Invincible (PG)
Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnear
Directed by: Ericson Core
Fired as a substitute teacher, abandoned by his wife, forced to tend bar to pay the bills, and too small to play varsity football--why not try out for the Philadelphia Eagles? This Disneyesque sports movie with bone crunching close-ups is best suited for those with high enough levels of testosterone that they still dream of future sports glory.
3 pieces of football dreamer's toast

Idlewild (R)
Big Boi, Andre 3000,
Directed by: Bryan Barber
A funeral home and Church/speakeasy/dance hall in 1930's Georgia form the backdrops, while moonshining gangsters, adulterous lovers, and jiving, singing dancers are the characters in this frenetically flawed, but still marvelously creative offspring of the "Cotton Club" and "Moulin Rouge." (Only at the Roxy in Santa Rosa)
2 and 1/2 pieces of talented but undisciplined toast

Material Girls (PG)
Hillary Duff, Haylie Duff, Anjelica Huston, Maria Conchata Alonso
Directed by: Martha Coolidge
Whiny, unlikeable, spoiled brats inherit a cosmetics fortune, spend most of it on clothes and accessories, burn down the house playing dress-up, and then try to use the company's unemployment fund to pay for their excesses. (Doubly disappointing since the director did the classic "Valley Girl" movie).
1 piece of "Bratz worst" toast

Another Gay Movie (NR)
Michael Carbonaro, Jonathan Chase, Mitch Morris, Jonah Blechman, Richard Hatch
Directed by: Todd Stephens
The naked guy from TV's Survivor cameos into this rip-off of the "American Pie"-style movie (this time gay teens want to lose their virginity before graduation). There's about 12 minutes of funny material but the film is over 90 minutes long. (Only at the Rialto in Santa Rosa)
1 and 1/2 pieces of stale apple pie toast

Factotum (R)
Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor
Directed by: Bent Hamer
Perhaps it took a Norwegian director to understand the booze, smoke and vomit marinated talent of cult novelist Charles Bukowski. In this semi-autobiographical account of a writer who, on occasion, writes but mostly drinks his way from one dead-end job to another, there is no beginning, or end, just the middle. Sample scene: Asked why he wants to work at a pickle factory, he answers, "My grandmother used to give me pickles." (Only at the Rialto in Santa Rosa)
3 pieces of Bukowski toast

Beerfest (R)
Eric Stolanske, Paul Soter, Jay Chandrasekhar
Directed by: Jay Chandrasekhar
The Broken Lizard comedy troupe trudges to Germany to scatter the ashes of their brewmeister grandfather and stumble on a secret international beer-drinking contest. Slow to ferment, but with a bubbly finish.
2 pieces of Lizard toast

How to Eat Fried Worms (PG)
Luke Benward, Adam Hicks, Hallie Kate-Eisenberg
Directed by: Bob Dolman
Made from a book loved by fifth-graders for decades, where a bet with a bully sends a weak-stomach lad on a valiant quest to eat 10 worms in one day. (Is this a big deal now with people eating buckets of bugs on TV each week?)The problem is that the kids seem to have been recruited randomly from a casting call for "most unconvincing child actor." Too bad, I like the story.
2 pieces of badly acted, worm-covered toast



NEW on VIDEO & DVD
Poseidon (2006)
Emmy Rossum, Kurt Russell, Joshua Lucas
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen, John Seale
Box Office: $60,655,503
With Wolfgang Peterson at the helm, I expected much, much, more. The 1972 original (the one with Shelly Winters as a former Olympic swimmer) is so bad it's good. This new version is just plain bad.
1 and a 1/2 pieces of disappointment toast

"Screenings"

SNAKES ON A PLANE
by
Gil Mansergh

Hype. The word for this movie is "hype." The title immediately catches the imagination..."Snakes on a Plane,"" "just consider the possibilities. Imagine if the snake pit found by Indiana Jones included the giant creatures from the "Anaconda" movies, and then cram them and fifty passengers into a 200-foot-long aluminum tube 30,000 above the Pacific Ocean during a lightning storm. That's right, they could have named it "Airport '06."

But before you lay down your hard-earned money and set yourself down to munch and sip popcorn and sodas, you probably want to know if it's any good. The answer depends on who you are. The film makers obviously designed this for 16-year old males. The opening shots feature bikini-clad beauties in the Hawaiian surf and an off-road motorcycle sequence down private cane roads. The cyclist (Nathan Phillips) stops to drink a refreshing can of energy drink (while holding the can so the brand name is clearly visible), when a bruised and bloodied man suddenly appears in front of him suspended upside down from a bridge. "Get out of here," the man says. "They'll kill you." But of course, the cyclist hangs around long enough to see all the bad guys as they kill the man with a baseball bat, and then noisily runs away so they know there is a witness. Taken under the wing of FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson), the two board a plane bound for Los Angeles and commandeer the entire first-class section.

The other passengers who come aboard are all generic types--the two young boys traveling alone for the first time, the horny newlyweds, the snotty British git, the germ-obsessed rapper and his video-game addicted bodyguards, the overweight ethnic woman, the mother and her baby, and the ditzy blonde who carries her rat-like dog in her purse. They are herded through the plane by a number of generic flight attendants--the big breasted blonde who unbuttons her uniform shirt before serving drinks, the grey-haired veteran who acts like a mother to all the others, the apparently gay male attendant who has a different outfit for every 100 miles of flight, and the capable, but likable coworker who is retiring after they land in LA.

Got that? The funny thing is that everyone of these characters seems to have been cast because they look like a real (and more famous) actor. They certainly weren't chosen for their acting ability.

So why bother to see this thing? First and foremost is Samuel L. Jackson. The actor listed in the Guinness Book of Records for having appeared in more movies than anyone else, fought for this role. "There's so many things that make this story unique," he recently remarked at a comic book convention, "You've got to find unique ways to take care of the situation." And what about the second reason to see the film? "I didn't have to touch any snakes," Jackson confesses. "I left that to the other guys."

Sunny Mabrey (who plays the blonde flight attendant), is one of Jackson's "other guys." "I never really had a fear of snakes," she said in a press conference. "I had a boyfriend in high school that had a boa constrictor that we fed and played with all the time. My phobia is flying, I hate flying. I hate taking off, but fortunately, our airplane was on a soundstage, so I didn't have to experience that... The situation is so insane...We had a lot of real snakes...There's hundreds, actually. You know, for real. Everything down to like a Gardner Snake to the most poisonous snake in the world. Everything. Then a lot of it was CGI, so I had to scream in a general direction sometimes, and some of it was puppets."

The snakes are on the plane because the murderous bad guys have rigged the cargo hold to release hundreds of venomous reptiles after the airliner is well on its way. The snakes then slither through air ducts and begin attacking the unwary caricatures seated throughout the plane. In true horror movie fashion, where sex kills, the first victims are a couple who enter a restroom together to join the "mile-high-club." As soon as breasts are uncovered, and coupling commences, a snake drops out of the ceiling and and latches on like a hungry baby. We then have a series of tension building near misses as people shuffle their feet or adjust the overhead reading light. until, in an equal opportunity way, it is a male who gets attacked in a restroom. This time, the snake is coiled in the toilet bowl as the man urinates on it. The angry reptile then bites onto the direct source of the annoying liquid (much to the enjoyment of the barely legal audience who shared the theater with me).

The audience is an important part of "Snakes on a Plane." Proudly tied into all the media hype, they add another dimension of enjoyment. The visceral reactions to several gross scenes of venom-caused deaths, their laughing at humorous bits, the cheering for Samuel L. Jackson's already famous line: "I'm tired of these mutha...snakes on this mutha...plane!" help make this B-movie work. So, if you choose to see it, make sure you go after school or on weekends. SSSSSSSSSS!

Comments? E-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net
Hear Gil's "Cinema Toast" radio show 7:35 Thursday mornings on KRSH-FM 95.9

Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast
NEW RELEASES 8/18/06

Snakes on a Plane (R)
Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Keenan Thompson
Directed by: David R. Ellis
Druglord loads a passenger plane with dozens of poison snakes to remove a witness under Federal protection. Every nook and cranny, every hole and panel has a slithering reptile within it ready to strike. Watch in a theater filled with male teens for the best experience.
2 and 1/2 pieces of guilty pleasure toast


Accepted (PG-13)
Justin Long, Adam Hirshman, Lewis Black
Directed by: Steve Pink
Rejected by every college he applied to, a likeable lad transforms a former psychiatric hospital into a fake college and starts accepting other students for classes like "bikini-watching," and "walking about and thinking about stuff."
2 and 1/2 pieces of "PCU"-style toast


Little Miss Sunshine (R)
Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Steve Carrell, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin
Directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
When their seven-year-old gets a chance to compete in a California beauty pageant, her cash-challenged family climbs into a rusting VW van for a cross-country odyssey. The ensemble cast manages to make their kooky characters believable and endearing as each take turns stealing scenes which include a some drugs, some sex and some rockin' and rollin'.
3 and 1/2 pieces of are-we-there-yet? toast

Quincinera (R)
Emily Rios, Chalo Gonzalaz, Jesse Garcia, Davild W. Ross
Directed by: Richard Glatzeer, Wash Westmoreland
Pregnant before her 15th birthday, (although she claims she is a virgin), a young girl is ostracized by her father and moves in with her gay uncle and cousin in this Sundance audience favorite. Showing at the Rialto in Santa Rosa.
3 pieces of Latina toast


NEW on VIDEO & DVD

RV (PG-13)
Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines
Directed By: Barry Sonnefield
Box Office: $71,164,588
"National Lampoon Family Vacation" style retread only in an RV with sewage tank problems where everyone and everything ends up covered in brown gunk (when, of course, it would be blue because of the sanitizing liquid).
1 and 1/2 pieces of poopie toast

Hoot (PG)
Brie Larson, Logan Lerman
Directed by: Wil Sheiner
Box Office: $8,080,116
It's kids and an owl versus land developers and bulldozers in this tepid afterschool special style lecture.
1 and 1/2 pieces of pablum toast

Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast + Screenings
NEW RELEASES 8/11/06

World Trade Center (PG-13)
Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Stephen Dorff, Michael Shannon
Directed by: Oliver Stone
The other bookend to place beside Paul Greengrass' "United 93" as we try to process the terror of 9/11 before and after the airplanes crashed. Stone treads carefully in the precarious rubble of emotions that still effect all of us by following a respectful and courageous script by Andrea Berloff. In a real-life twist, the identity of the former marine (called Sergeant Karnes in the movie) who helped save the last survivors has only been discovered this week.
3 pieces of emotional toast


Step Up (PG-13)
Tim Allen, Courtney Cox, Rip Torn, Chevy Chase
Directed by: Peter Hewitt
Uninspired entry in a recent spate of films ("The Incredibles," "Sky High," "My Super ex-Girlfriend," "Superhero,") about super heroes trying to live live normal, suburban lives. Sorry, but Tim Allen isn't in the same league as Kurt Russell.
2 pieces of copy cat toast



Step Up (PG-13)
Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan
Directed by: Anne Fletcher
Using intercuts straight out of "Flashdance," and plot devices from "Save the Last Dance," the film makers actually make us try to guess if the self-taught dancer from the wrong side of the tracks will partner up with the privileged ballerina attending Baltimore's Maryland School of the Arts. Duh!
2 and 1/2 pieces of stand-in's-do-the-dancing toast


Little Miss Sunshine (R)
Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Steve Carrell, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin
Directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
When their seven-year-old gets a chance to compete in a California beauty pageant, her cash-challenged family climbs into a rusting VW van for a cross-country odyssey. The ensemble cast manages to make their kooky characters believable and endearing as each take turns stealing scenes which include a some drugs, some sex and some rockin' and rollin'. (Showing at the Rialto in Santa Rosa)
3 and 1/2 pieces of are-we-there-yet? toast


NEW on VIDEO & DVD

Inside Man (R)
Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Christopher Plummer, Jodie Foster
Directed by Spike Lee
Box Office: $88,439,515
Four painters enter a bank lobby and surprise, they aren't painters, but they're not robbers either--or are they. Owen's the bad guy, Washington the hostage negotiator and Foster's in it for all she can get for her boss, the bank's owner (Plummer).
3 pieces of feisty toast


CSA: The Confederate States of America (NA)
Evemariii Johnson, Rupert Pate, Larry J. Peterson
Directed by Kevin Willmott
Box Office: $388,578
WARNING, This movie is a satire! A fake TV documentary pretends the South won the Civil War and shows Ken Burns style clips of Abe Lincoln dying in obscurity in Montreal, the CSA almost joining with Hitler to fight the USA and Elvis seeking refuge in the North. Interspersed with commercials for the Slave Shopping Network, and Confederated Life Insurance, this low-budget comedy is rough in places but it gets you thinking.
3 and 1/2 pieces of what-if toast

Mel Gibson's Future
by
Gil Mansergh

In case you haven't heard, when the the actor/director Mel Gibson was recently arrested for drunk driving, the police report indicated that he made anti-Semitic remarks to the Jewish arresting officer. Gibson has since apologized, but the controversy surrounding the remarks has launched a firestorm of speculation about Gibson's future. Peter Bart, editor-in-chief of Daily Variety predicted: "The critics will forever kill him. Sectors of the audience will shun his work. His credibility as a filmmaker has been seriously compromised."

In the golden days of Hollywood, incidents like this would have been quickly hushed up by the studio public relations departments, but now, with paparazzi lurking behind every potted plant, all bets are off. As has been noted by many others, Hollywood stars are the closest we Americans come to having royalty. We love to read about their antics, their falls from grace, their getting caught (both literally and figuratively) with their pants down. But it is unlikely that we will we be catching up on Mel Gibson a couple decades from now on a "Whatever Happened To?" TV program?

The reason is simple "Money talks. Two years ago, Gibson produced and directed "The Passion of the Christ," which included steotyped portrayals of Jews viewed by many as being anti-Semitic. Gibson never apologized for these scenes, and the movie became the decade's biggest moneymaker. James Ullmer, who has a company which tracks the "star power" of actors and directors says: "He's kind of untouchable because he has more money than Midas and can make any kind of movie he wants to make. He's never going to keep his mouth shut, and he's got enormous self-sustaining power. But it's not like he'll never need Hollywood again. He will still need distributors."

Some pundits have compared Gibson's remarks to those which "ruined Marlon Brando's career." Hailed by many as America's greatest film actor, Brando was chastised for uttering these anti-Semitic remarks on an April, 1996 "Larry King Live" TV show. "Hollywood is run by Jews; it is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of -- of people who are suffering. Because they've exploited -- we have seen the [other stereotyped minorities], we've seen everything but we never saw the [slang word for Jew]. Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the wagons around."

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League immediately demanded an apology: "Mr. Brando should know that what he said is utterly false, extremely offensive and plays into the hands of anti-Semites and bigots. His comments raise the centuries-old canard of Jewish control and conspiracy." Biographers note that the films Brando made after the interview, (such as "The Island of Dr. Moreau," and "The Score"), were advertised and distributed poorly, and so performed badly at the box office.

Other celebrities who lost audience favor because of their off-screen activities are also cited. Biographies of Charles Lindbergh and Errol Flynn detail how public knowledge of their "anti-semitic" views, helped destroy their career opportunities.
But when you look more closely at these clebrities things aren't quite so simple.
For example, the seemingly black-and-white remarks Marlon Brando made to Larry King become quite grey when you consider the following tale related by Louie Kemp in the August 2005 edition of "Jewish Magazine."
"Marlon also told me with great emotion that his success in theater and movies was largely due to the Jewish people in New York who befriended and taught him. He warmly mentioned Stella Adler, the legendary acting coach who both taught Marlon his craft and housed him with her family while he was getting on his feet as an actor. He was also especially proud of the fact that he could converse in Yiddish, having learned it while living with her family.
"One of my visits to Los Angeles coincided with Passover...Marlon called me that very day and invited me out to dinner. I graciously declined, explaining that it was Passover and I was going to a seder. Marlon became audibly excited over the phone and said, "Passover -- I've always wanted to attend a seder. Can I come with?" He had made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
[Years later I got a call] "We had kept in touch through the trials and tribulations he was going through with his family. "Louie Kemp," he said, "I've been thinking about you. Twenty years ago you took me to a seder. I want you to know that I still think about it to this very day. In fact, I was thinking about it today and that's why I called you."
"He continued to thank me and tell me of the special spiritual impact it had on him and how much he identified with a people freeing themselves from bondage and uniting to celebrate and remember that freedom.
"He told me he was sending his three youngest children to a Jewish day school in Los Angeles. When I asked him why, he said, "Louie, don't you know that the Jewish schools are the best?" I could almost hear him smiling over the phone."

So what makes an anti-Semite? Does Mel Gibson's tirade about "Jews being the cause of all wars," qualify? Or need we consider the fact that Gibson's 85-year-old father has repeatedly said in radio and TV interviews that: "The holocaust is mostly fiction...Jews are out to create one world religion and one world government" [through a conspiracy] involving Jewish bankers, the US Federal Reserve and the Vatican, among others."

Perhaps it's time for a definition of what is meant by anti-Semitism. A. Scott Berg, who won the Puliltzer Prize for his Lindbergh biography, once told me on a drive from the Monterey airport, "I don't believe Charles Lindbergh was an anti-Semite. I don't believe he hated Jews. I think he was guilty of that other, more genteel kind of anti-Semitism, which is in some ways more insidious, because it is covert. [He believed Jews] were different from the rest of Americans. He believed they controlled the media and the government in this country. He believed they had their own agenda that was different from the American agenda. And that's just -- that's just anti-Semitism, neat and clean."

Comments? E-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net
Hear Gil's Cinema Toast radio show 7:35 Thursday mornings on KRSH-FM, 95.9

Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast
NEW RELEASES 8/4/06
Not rated because I don't go to horror movies
The Descent (R)
Natalie Mendoza, Shauna McDonald
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Things go horribly wrong to an all female group of spelunkers the minute they descend below ground and that's before they meet the flesh-eating, subterranean monsters. Adrenaline junkies, claustrophobes and those who like soiling their trousers should get their money's worth.

pieces of journalistically-challenged toast
The Night Listener (R)
Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Bobby Canavale, Joe Morton, Rory Culkin, Sandra Oh
Directed by: Patrick Stetner
Robin Williams plays an Amisted Maupin-like writer who conquers depression after the break up of a ten year relationship, by tracking down a story of child abuse that may (or may not) be true. Toni Collette shines as the (allegedly) abused boy's blind stepmother.

No toast--unavailable for preview
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (NR)
Will Farrelll, Sasha BAron Cohen
directed by Adam McKay
Based upon the short clips I've seen, parts of this NASCAR Nation demographic comedy, are funny--but just as many are not. Needs more of the improvisational gems that made "Anchorman" so good.

3 pieces of biographical toast
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (NR)
Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Beth Orton, Jarvis Cocker, Martha Wainwright, U2
Directed by: Llian Lunson
Since bursting onto the music scene in 1967, Canadian born Leonard Cohen has inspired generation after generation with his unique gravelled-whisky voice and his haunting music hasbolstered many a movie ("Everybody Knows" ( in "Exotica," and "Pump up the Volume," "Suzanne" (in "Breaking the Waves"), "Sisters of Mercy" in "McCabe and Mrs Miller", "Hallelujah" (in "Shrek"), and three songs, "The Future," "Waiting for the Miracle," and "Anthum," in "Natural Born Killers"). Director Lian Lunson documents a series of candid interviews with many of the singers who have recorded the over 1000 covers of Cohen's songs.
Opening at Santa Rosa's Rialto Theater

2 pieces of mis-directed toast
The Oh in Ohio (R)
Parker Posey, Danny DeVito, Mischa Barton, Paul Rudd, Miranda Bailey, Keith David
Directed by; none listed
A supposedly happily married woman has never had an orgasm and searches for one with Danny Devito? Could have, should have been much better than its is.
Opening at Santa Rosa's Rialto Theater for One Week Only!


NEW on VIDEO & DVD
3 pieces of political comic book toast
V For Vendetta (2006)
Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea
Directed by James McTeigue
Box Office: $70,453,614
This comic book inspired tale assumes the validity of terrorist acts as a revolutionary tool. Admire the sculptured mask and the way Hugo Weaving can still express emotion while wearing it. and enjoy the nihilism of it all. NOTE: Those who don't wish to see Bush's Administration compared to Nazi Germany had best steer clear.

2 pieces of fur covered toast
The Shaggy Dog (2006)
Tim Allen, Kristin Davis, Robert Downey
Directed by Brian Robbins
Box Office: $61,039,681
Tim Allen is the man in the fur this time around and the only thing the original Shaggy Dog films had that this one lacks is originality. This time, the animal transformation is the result of a genetic infection which can (and does) spread to everything from a warm-blooded mammal (i.e. a human) human to a cold-blooded reptile (i.e. a king cobra). Science? Who needs science?