Cinema Toast
Published: Wednesday, Aug 29, 2007
By GIL MANSERGH
New releases
RESURRECTING THE CHAMP (PG-13)
Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett.
Directed by Rod Lurie.
Imagine TV’s fictional sportswriter Ray Romano divorced from his wife and trying to keep a relationship with his son by lying about the important people he meets and you’ve got the problem with this movie. Even Samuel L. Jackson’s fine performance as a homeless ex-boxing champ can’t save it and shows instead what it should have been.
2 and 1/2 pieces of could have been a contender toast.
MR. BEAN’S HOLIDAY (PG)
Rowan Atkinson, Emma de Caunes.
Directed by Steve Bendelack.
An acquired taste to begin with, audience surveys indicated that Mr. Bean in his first movie was “mean” and so they’ve softened the edges and turned it into blah. Some funny bits still manage to slip through.
2 pieces of Beans on toast.
THE NANNY DIARIES (PG-13)
Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giammatti.
Directed by Sheri Springer Berman.
New York biased attempt at socioeconomic humor between the fearful and suspicious haves and the earnest but not overly bright have-not they hire as the nanny and then spy on with cameras hidden in the teddy bear.
1 piece of moldy toast.
2 DAYS IN PARIS (R)
Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg, Daniel Bruhl, Albert Delpy, Adan Jodorowsky.
Directed by Julie Delpy.
We do wonder where her “Before Sunrise and “Before Sunset” co-star Ethan Hawke went as Julie Delpy travels to Paris with her fiancé (Adam Goldberg) in an attempt to rekindle their romance (aka sex). Delpy is both behind and in front of the camera for this one.
3 pieces of “are those balloons and condoms necessary?” toast
ROCKET SCIENCE (R)
Reece Thompson, Anna Kendrick, Vincent Piazza, Nicholas D’Agosto, Aaron Yoo.
Directed by Jeffey Blitz.
The director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Spellbound” casts a young Dustin Hoffmanish teen as a bright lad who joins the debate team to be close to a girl even though he stutters terribly and has a brother who torments him about it.
3 pieces of winning toast.
New on video and DVD
THE LIVES OF OTHERS (R)
Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Muehe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme.
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Box office: $11,174,539
Five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German Democratic Republic’s secret police decide that a popular writer must be hiding something (everyone does) so they wiretap his apartment — every inch of it. Fascinating, entertaining and original, this one has a heart, soul and a brain. It’s an Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film.
3 and 1/2 pieces of imaginative toast.
PERFECT STRANGER (PG)
Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, Giovanni Ribisi.
Directed by James Foley.
Box office: $23,705,592
Investigative reporter uncovers evidence that a mega-zillionaire murdered her childhood friend in this boring, listless, hand-held jerk of a movie with a “surprise” ending that wasn’t that surprising the first dozen times you saw it.
1 piece of Berry bad toast.
(Gil Mansergh’s Cinema Toast mini-reviews appear in the Argus-Courier every week. E-mail comments to gilmansergh@comcast.net.)
