Thighs Wide Shut

Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Injustice Is Served, Then Swerved
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 132 min

If The Help met Forrest Gump it would look a lot like Lee Daniels‘s The Butler – an overly eager to please & overly sentimental look at an actual dude who actually butled at The White House through EIGHT administrations, and how the civil rights era unfolded before his (in the form of Forest Whitaker), all those the Presidents’ (John Cusack with a pointy nose! Alan Rickman with a squint! Liev Schreiber on the shitter! Robin Williams being serious! and James Marsden being AMAZINGS AS JFucK!!!!!!) and society’s eyes, with plenty of artistic licences to spare  

The film covers a LOT of ground, and tries to shove every last bit o’ black history into it (who knew that the fictionalized version of the butler’s son – played by David Oyelowo - was involved and attended EVERY single movement & event ever – the Greensboro sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, MLK’ assassination, Blank Panther meetings, anti-Apartheid rallies, the recording sessions for Michael Jackson’s Thriller), but what it didn’t need to do is waste too much time on the butler’s home life, which it did, which was a waste, which means there’s WAY too much Oprah Winfrey in this movie, and all she does is drink, then play around, then doesn’t, then complains about her butler husband not being around, then happy to have him around, and then meeting Jane Fonda and then whatever dot net  

Still, the movie does what it sets out to do, even if it feels like a whitewashed wikipedia version of the Civil Rights era (strange that white guy - Danny Strong – scripted such an African-American story).  Anywho, props de leon go out to the butler’s butler pals Cuba Gooding Jr, Lenny Kravitz and Colman Domingo who SERVE the film well, even if the film is a lil tooooo self-serving

My Father and The Man In Black
Saul Good vs Evil
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 87 min

You know the man who was the Man in Black’s right hand man, right?  Of course you don’t, and neither did his son.  Well, now it’s time to introduce you to Canadian Jew Saul Holiff, who did so much more than manage Johnny Cash for 17 years.  He basically had to play the role of father-figure adult, trying to keep the childish Cash from crashing and burning, all while trying to keep himself from doing the same.  Unfortunately, Holiff wasn’t much of any actual father figure to his own son, and the director of this marvelously melancholy doc, Jonathan Holiff 

Saul Holiff killed himself in 2004, leaving his son searching for answers.  Who was my father, and why did he not care and love me?  Jonathan’s journey of paternal discovery led him to his father’s storage locker, filled with Cash mementos and audio diaries.  In his father’s own words, archival photos and footage + Unsolved Mysteries-like recreations, My Father and The Man In Black reveals Saul’s story and motivations and regrets (there are MANY), and Johnny’s too, and even a dash of June Carter Cash‘s, and it’s all 182893929 times more interesting and useful than whatever that garbage Walk The Line movie is was.  It’s true cause I said so  

In the end, we get a loving portrait of an unknown who should be known, and Jonathan gets a clearer picture of a man of gray, who was in the shadow of the Man in Black, and the only thing missing from this can’t miss doc is Harry Chapin’s ‘Cats In The Cradle’ playing over the end credits

‘When you coming home, dad?’

‘I don’t know when, But we’ll get together then. You know we’ll have a good time then.’

:(

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Black is right in NY/LA today and elsewhere elsewhen + on iTunes & Amazon September 10

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Our Nixon
Nixon Business With Pleasure
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 84 min

watch this clip

what is this??? Richard Nixon spraying nasty personal opinions that the public was never suppose to hear, from his INFAMOUS(ly stupid) secret White House audio tapes, paired with glorious Super 8 footage that was shot by one of his three right-hand men – Nixon Chief of Staff HR ‘Bob’ Haldeman, Chief Domestic Adviser John Ehrlichman and Deputy Assistant Dwight Chapin.  All three would end up being collaterally damaged casualties from the Watergate scandal. Someone had to take the fall, right? From 1969 to 1973 these gents shot over 500 reels of Super 8 footage. Co-directors/producers Penny Lane and Brian L Frye tell the Nixon presidency story thru this footage and his own dumb words. The result is not only an important historical audiovisual record, but a beyond fascinating eye and ear opening paranoid snapshot of such a time and such a place and such a person, which all juss keeps on getting more fascinating as the years pass. Whomever Nixon it is, make sure you make Our Nixon yours, even if it’s just for 84 minutes

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Nixon aired on CNN and opens tomorrow in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Short Term 12
Foster The People
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 96 min

Never really thought much about foster kids, or where foster kids live when foster kids aren’t in foster homes.  Destin Cretton did me AND you a favor, and then some!  He expanded his 2008 short film Short Term 12 (a short term home for… foster kids!) into a 2013 feature length gem, loaded with beautiful performances by anyone who appears on-screen.  Mucho mucho love goes out to Brie Larson, who finally gets to show off her stuff, when all she’s really shown before in past work is how adorable she is.  Well, she’s still super adorable here, but she does a lot less smiling, cause there’s not a lot to smile about.  As the supervisor for a bunch of at-risk foster kids (standout work by Kaitlyn Dever and newcomer Keith Stanfield), she’s trying her best to keep their hopes up, when there’s not really much hope to be kept up on.  Helping is her tender boyfriend John Gallagher Jr (the un-hatable Jim Halpert guy from Newsroom), and the two know what they’re doing, being products of dysfunctional and foster childhoods themselves, and if they can make something of themselves, then dangit, they’ll make something of these foster kids.  And dangit, you should see this.  And dangit, Brie Larson is such a cutie-pie McGee.  And dangit, why aren’t I Mr Brie Larson?  DANGIT!!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Term is endeared today in NY & LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Stories We Tell
In The Name of The Mother
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
PG-13 | 108 min

Sarah Polley is awesomes.  She’s an actress, and also a director.  She directed my 5th favorite movie of 2007 – Away From Her!  That movie was about holding onto to loved ones before they are taken from us, both mentally and physically.  Her latest movie – Stories We Tell – is kinda a movie, but more like a documentary, but not exactly a documentary, and it’s about holding onto loved ones who have been taken from us, only physically, but not mentally.  The person gone is her most beloved & wild mother Diane Polley.  She’s been dead for 23 years and apparently left behind a lot of stories to tell, so Sarah approached all who loved her to tell her story cause her mom can’t tell her own story.  The stories end up being BEYOND revealing, and as the tangled web that is Diane Polley slowly untangles, not only will Sarah’s perception of her mom change, but the perception of herself too.  And shiz is CRAY CRAYYYY.  It’s not fair to say how or why or what or who (or when?), but it’s fair to say that if you skip this film, you’re skipping one of the year’s best.  A true revelation, naked and bare, for all to see and share.  Do Tell

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Stories are still tolds in very limited release, and soon on discs & streaming

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…