‘Cinema Toast’ Is An Odd, Absurd Pandemic-Era Diversion [Review]
One of the more interesting pandemic-era film narratives to emerge, Jeff Baena’s Showtime series “Cinema Toast,” reconditions classic film footage from the public domain, overlaying new dialogue and situations to create new hybrid shorts, landing somewhere between “Mystery Science 3000” and the early 2000s show “MXC.” Produced by The Duplass Brothers, and featuring a host of famous indie directors – including Baena, Alex Ross Perry, David Lowery, Kris Rey, Aubrey Plaza, among others – “Cinema Toast” is fascinating, but oftentimes hit or miss, as each episode wildly careens through interests, genres, and even forms with decidedly mixed results and no episode-to-episode continuity.