Thighs Wide Shut

Cutie and The Boxer
A Portrait of The Artists As An Old Man & His Old Lady
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 82 min

Ever hear of Neo-Dadist artist Ushio Shinohara? Yeah, me neither, but his work’s been shown in major museums the world over. Oh, he must be some well off dude, right? No, he basically lives from sold painting to sold painting (the artist equivalent of ‘paycheck to paycheck’), with large gaps of time between getting paid, and when they do actually sell, it isn’t nearly enough to live on. But even if this artist never got his due or is unable to pay his dues, he aint ever gonna give up, and is still going strong at age 81, making motorcycle monstrosities and his wall punching paintings. Ahh, so he’s ‘the Boxer’ in Zachary Heinzerling‘s beautifully moving documentary Cutie and the Boxer. So who’s ‘Cutie’? Oh, his doting wife Noriko. She does everything for him, and gets very little in return except for endless regret. But she’s an artist in her own right – Cutie is a semi-biographical semi-comic bookish character she created – but can one family survive two starving artists, especially when one overshadows the other? This question can only be answered by seeing the doc, and that is juss what you should do!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Boxer does the rounds today in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
Ain’t Them Saints Snoozy – THEY IS!!!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
Not Rated | 105 min

One of my least favorite performances of the past six years was Casey Affleck being the coward in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a movie that was 17 hours long, and 77 hours boring.  It didn’t help matters that the flick had the pacing of a snail trapped in a sea of molasses, and that Casey Affleck was doing most of the boring cause he is boring.  He played a shy, quiet guy, who, when talked, mumbled in a twang that made us wished that ears AND cinema were never invented, but we didn’t even have to worry or care about such things cause we fells asleep not caring

Well, IF YOU LOVED CASEY AFFLECK’S KENTUCKY FRIED ACCENT IN THE BORING OF JESSE JAMES BY THE BORING COWARD BORING FORD then you might juss dig David Lowery‘s beautiful but zzzzzzzz-inducing Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which is like that movie if it met Badlands and Bonny & Clyde and any other movie where a couple are outlaws and do stuff in the countryside with amazing cinematography!!  

Casey’s partner in love is Rooney Mara.  Them two did some robbing.  They got caught.  She shot cop Ben Foster.  He went to jail, she didn’t.  She had a baby while he’s in jail.  He wants to see his baby and his baby’s mommmma so he done does breaks out.  Ben Foster has eyes for Rooney.  Hopefully Casey will get back home before Ben Foster puts his mitts all over her, even though he has zero clue that he even has mitts.  This feels like 3929929239 other movies we’ve seen before, but I can’t really think of one to compare it to, cause I don’t feel like thinking much more about it cause I juss fell asleep re-thinking any thoughts I had on this snoozy-q movie

Oh, and Keith Carradine was in this movie and he was good and stuff!  That’zzzzzzzzzzzzzz all folks!

Verdictgo: low low low low low end Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Bodies is cold tomorrow in limited release, and on-demand a week later

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Lovelace
Where They’re Against Her Will, There Is A Way
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 93 min

Poor Linda Lovelace, I mean Boreman – an innocent girl born to overbearing Christian parents, who met the wrong man (Chuck Traynor), which led to 17 days of working in the porn industry, which led to a lifetime of infamy, and pain and suffering.  Even more poorerer – the biopic treatment created in her image, which is trying to change her image from porn star to porn victim, like she tried dones doing herself.  The material is rich (think Star 80, without murder), and so were the performances (Amanda Seyfried, showing range AND her boobs!! + good sleazy work by Peter Sarsgaard & Chris Noth + saddy sadness by an uglified Sharon Stone and a crying Robert Patrick! ), but there’s juss not enuff penetration of who Linda Lovelace/Boreman actually was here to justify you whipping out your cock wallet.  It’s one long tease, with little to show for it.  Linda Lovelace deserved a lot better in life, and in her first cinematic treatment too.  Maybe the other Lovelace movie that Lohan got kicked off of will do what Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s flick didn’t.  Lovelace dicks around the outside of Deep Throat.  You want in? –  juss re-watch Inside Deep Throat

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

Lovelace is loveless currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Elysium
Trading Spaces
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 109 min

Dude, how hugo AND boss was Neill Blomkamp‘s District 9???  SO HUGO!   SO BOSS!!  A smart sci-fi flick that felt fresh and new, and not only won over the nerds, but also the normal peoples, the critics and even the Academy Awards (FOUR NOMINATIONS!!).  So how is Neilllliel Blomkampspopop ever gonna follow something like that up?  No District 10, for now, and the man couldn’t make a Halo movie happen, and he even passed on helming Star Trek.  So he made up Elysium, a tale from the year 2154!!  And he’s got Matt Damon AND Jodie Foster on board, AND A SPACE WORLD THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THOSE CRAZY SEXY COOL NASA’S SPACE COLONY ART THINGS FROM THE 1970S!!!  OMG, HOW IS THIS NOT GOING TO BE THE GREATESTTESTEST MOVIE EVER!???!??!??!

It isn’t/wasn’t

That sucks.  It really does, cause we expected so much, but still, even if Elysium is no District 10, it’s STILL head and shoulders and thighs above a bunch of other sci-fi bad future garbage movies.  OK, so we tend to say that about plenty movies – finding them good when compared to garbage movies – but we really liked Elysium, but just wish it was the be-all and end-all, instead of a solid-ish poor vs rich on land and in space movie that seemed to rush itself to a conclusion that wasn’t all that conclusive

There are two problems

Problem #1 – there’s no real drama, even though it feels like there’s drama going on in the movie.  In the beginning, you meet Matt Damon as an orphaned boy, and his BFF (grown up as Alice Braga), and he pledges to her that one day they will leave earth and go to Elysium – that place orbiting earth where the rich live far from earth’s ills, and can cure any ills with a super awesome curing future machine!  Well guess what, grown up Matt Damon is stuck on earth with a crappy job and doesn’t seem to be going to Elysium anytime soon.  But guess what, actually, you don’t have to guess – he will get to Elysium and he was also get Alice Braga there too, even if they haven’t really spoken in years.  So basically there’s predetermined destiny, and all we have to do is watch it happen.  Standing in his way of reaching his goal are bounty-ish hunter Sharlto Copley (no more Mr Nice Guy, like he was in D9), and bidness man William Fichtner and his 9-head, and Jodie Foster, who’s like a J Edgar Hoover of space, and she has a really dumb accent, and basically she’s worthless to this movie.  Helping him are Diego Luna and Wagner Moura, and the script.  But there’s gotta be more to it besides juss getting to Elysium, right?  Well, there’s pressing matters that serve as motivation, but who cares

Problem #2 – Elysium itself.  THIS PLACE IS AWESOME, and yet we spend so little time there before things get going.  Why is this place so awesome?  We know it looks awesome, but all we know about it is that rich people live there, there’s a machine that cures stuff, and Jodie Foster is lame there.  By the time Damon and whomever touch down on the space colony, we don’t even really care.  He could have landed at space Disney World and we would have been more jazzed (imagine Space Mountain… IN SPACE!!!).  Wish there was a prequel to Elysium where we saw it being built and how the first rich people settled there and did rich space things, like bang hot chicks… IN SPACE!!!

But still, it’s mos def Blomkamp’s world, and we’d rather live or visit or be scared of his world than live or visit or be scared of other garbage filmmaker’s bad bad future worlds

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Elysium is inter-mostly-stellar at a theater near jews tonight!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Spectacular Now
Collapse Into Now
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 95 min

I wanted it, I got it… for the most part

What did I want?  More movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which are movies more like John Hughes movies, you know, awesome teen movies from the 80s with heart and soul and humor!

What did I get?  Director James Ponsoldt + writers Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber (The 500 Days of Summer dudes)’s cinematic take on Tim Tharp’s novel The Spectacular Now

For the most part?  Ok, so you can’t call your movie Spectacular and be anything but, but Spectacular is not full-on spectacular, but the movie certainly has the elements to be, and is closer to it more than not, and is certainly closer to it than a majority of the garbage teenage movies handed to us over the past decade

So what is this movie?  It’s the story of a popular, funny-mouthy, easy-breezy, Big Gulp with liquor swilling kid named Sutter Keely (Miles Teller).  Sutter has no real direction, unless that direction is headed toward fun.  He’s recently single (not by choice, and of course no one would choose to ever be apart from Brie Larson), and one hungover morning wakes up on the lawn of socially clueless Aimee (Shailene Woodley), and the next week they’re sorta blossoming into item, much to everyone’s surprise, including their own.  She seriously gets into him, but he’s kinda loosy-goosy on her, but he’s that way about everything – like his part-time job at the haberdasher (his boss is Bob Odenkirk, cause why not?), dealing with his stressed-out mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh, cause why not?), and with his future (he’s soon to graduate, but college schmollege?).  Maybe what he needs is a dose of reality, from his poshed-up sister (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), or estranged drunken father (THE Kyle Chandler), or perhaps Aimee can smack some sense into him, and if she can’t, who can????

Where it all ends up isn’t exactly some well-drawn out conclusion, but heck, we fell for Sutter Keely and would follow his hit or miss-adventures wherever they did done do roam!  That Miles Teller as Sutter Keely, I tells yea, that performance feels so mad mad mad real (and kinda reminds us of ourselvesz at that age, hence the attraction), and Woodley’s Aimee – even more more more genuine (she’s quite a talent, and it’s a shame the fanboys hated her out of Spider-Man reboot 2), and their coupling – even more than faux real, it’s like five real/reel!!!  Can we be their third wheel, six reals?  Hmmm, maybe this affair was spectacular after all, just not now.  Maybe then?

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Spectacular is NOW today in NY & LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…