Thighs Wide Shut

Vox Lux
A Star Is Mourn
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 110 min

Brady Corbet (yes, that guy!) aims for the (pop) stars in his second feature Vox Lux, which is part masterful, and part questionable.  All in all, there’s a lot to take in, and a majority of the praiseworthy work belongs to Raffey Cassidy (and to Brady and cinematography by Lol Crawley for all those beautiful New York City building shots!!), who plays our fragile heroine Celeste in younger times, and then later on, when Natalie Portman portrays the older, crustier, unhinged version of Celeste, Raffey plays her daughter.  Confusing, a bit, and especially so when Portman enters the movie and acts like she’s doing one of those ‘silly’ an SNL raps, and a lot of the built up luster turns to bluster, but when the finale concert is staged, and the Sia songs blare, and the Mr Portman Benjamin Millepied dance move groove, they turn the beat around, and everything feels perfectly in sync

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Vox is currently sounding off in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Mary Queen of Scots
I’ve Seen Better Episodes Of The Tudors
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 125 min

The history is interesting and worth telling, but the latest and not so greatest iteration of it – the Josie Rourke directed and Beau Willimon written Mary Queen of Scots – somehow doesn’t give the affairs the royal treatment it deserves 

Not for a lack of trying.  They got black guys and Asian gals and Hispanic dudes playing roles usually reserved for white folk.  That was kinda refreshing!  And you can’t go wrong with Irish tongued Saoirse Ronan giving Mary the upper Scottish lip, while Aussie Margot Robbie goes ‘ugly’ and white face as her cousin rival Elizabeth 

History news flash – the two Queens don’t interact much, and basically never face to face, so for the most part, it’s juss a war of words, and a bunch of dudes with staches and ruff necks endlessly scheming.  And that’s OK, cause it’s like The Tudors, but like a lesser episode  

The main issue I had with the film is how muddled it begins and how middling the middle parts were (too many needless side characters we could care less about), but when the film finally hits its stride in the last act, it’s all class act until Mary gets hers.  Woulda been nice if her head and the movie was screwed on tighter from the get go, before it gets the chop in the end, but hey, history and herstory is told by the victors, and the victorias, however they want to tell it

Verdictgo: low end Jeepers Sorta Kinda Worth A Peepers

Mary gets bloody at a theater near jews and white nationalists this Friday

want to see a better movie about women in power and women empowerment?  seek out the doc ¡Las Sandinistas! – it’s great!!! you’ll learn more about Nicaraguan modern history than you’ve ever known!! and Bernie Sanders is in it!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Favourite
Powdered Go NUTS!
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 121 min

We keep wanting someone to be out next Stanley Kubrick, and while some push and argue for David Fincher or Christopher Nolan to be that guy, I think people are overlooking the work and genius that is Yorgos Lanthimos, as he’s the best heir to the throne!

His Dogtooth was a revelation.  The Lobster wasn’t perfect, but we haven’t escaped its claws either and are still thinking about it years later.  The Killing of a Sacred Deer?  Oh deer!!!!!!!!!!!

And his latest, the first he didn’t have a hand in writing – The Favourite?  It’s like Barry Lyndon trapped in The Overlook Hotel, and that’s a wonderful wonderful wonderful thing.  And if you’ve found Lanthimos’ other work to be way too bleak and hard to handle, this may suit your pansy-self a lot better, you pantsy pansy you!

Corseted Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz deliciously duel each other for the love and attention of Queen Anne (a maddeningly magnificent Olivia Colman).  There is not a single non-tense moment in the film – it’s like watching one long-ass fuse burn and burn and burn, as we wait for the dynamite to explode.  Along the way in this power play, we also get a cadre of powdered up men (Nicholas Hoult, Mr. Taylor Swift, James Smith, and Mark Gatiss) doing their own fun scheming and conniving.  If you have a back in this movie, it will get stabbed.  

Screw Jane Austen – cause Lanthimos’ court jesting is more aligned to my nutty senses and sensibilities!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Favourite compels U in NY/LA today and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Green Book
Opposites React
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 130 min

Need a hug? A good laugh? A reason to feel good about humanity, and how we can overcome our differences to find common ground?  Or how about a chance to smile, like endlessly?  You can have all of this AND MORE by watching the candy-colored Hallmark movie-esque, but always fabulous Green Book – easily one of my favorite movies 2018.

How is this so?  It’s a serious subjected movie directed by There’s Something Dumb and Dumber About Kingpin‘s Peter Farrelly (leaving his brother Bobby at home).  The first act is filled with more New York-Italian stereotypes than if Chef Boyardee and Mama Celeste starred in a Ragu commercial.  Whatdamattawitchu???  Once we leave the stereotypes behind in New Yawk, and meathead Viggo Mortensen starts driving sophisticated musician Mahershala Ali around the deep south, in a time when African-American men know better than to travel down there, does the film’s magic really begin.  And once that magic starts – it never stops, casting some sort of spell on you until it’s time to get up and go home!

Wow – I love this movie.  I really do.  It’s truly a ‘feel-good’ flick, and one we really need right now.  And it’s all true!  Mortensen plays a bouncer named Tony Vallelonga (who later became an actor himself, Tony Lip, with parts in Goodfellas, The Sopranos, Donnie Brasco and a slew of other gangster related movies) who was hired to drive and look after Ali’s classical pianist Don Shirley on his concert tour thru the Dirty South.  The ‘green book’ in the title is an actual guidebook African-Americans would use so they would know where they could stay overnight, as many places were not so friendly with their ‘whites only’ policies.  And while race is always an issue in the film, it doesn’t over-envelope the proceedings like you think it would.  And even when Tony and Don run afoul of locals along the way, it never goes too far, keeping things nice and light.  Light is good.  You want dark, watch Mississippi Burning.  Want a movie where a white guy sells the virtues of fried chicken on a black guy?  Who doesn’t?  This movie is finger-licking AWESOME!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Book opens today in limited release and everywhere next week

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

At Eternity’s Gate
Portrait-Self
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 111 min

What a time to be a Vincent van Gogh fan.  A year ago, we got the cinematic treat of a lifetime that was like walking around, and living and breathing in his paintings!!!  And this year, artist and director Julian Schnabel gives us a cinematic treat of his own with At Eternity’s Gate.  The film shows us what it was like to walk alongside Vincent as he went about creating his brilliant art, while living a most turbulent and troubled life.  Schnabel is somehow able to express Vincent’s pain and process channeled through the steady and unsteady hands and face of Willem Dafoe (maybe too perfect a Vincent!).  More poetry than biopic, Eternity delivers on the tall task of getting into Vinny’s head and expressing how he suffered for his art.  Thank you for suffering Vincent.  And thank you Julian and Willem, for somehow materializing that suffering.  Suffering never looked so beautiful.

Verdictgo: high end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Gate opens today in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…