Bully
Kids Unincorporated
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
NR | 94 min

Mean kids suck.  But what can we do about them and about the kids who are being meaned on by them? Lee Hirsch & Alicia Dwyer‘s Bully documentary doesn’t have the exact answers, and apparently neither do the schools or the community at large, but what it does have is a deeply moving and beautifully crafted examination of one of the biggest problems facing today’s youth in hallways, playgrounds & school buses across America

While Bully‘s message in wide-ranging, it wisely focuses on a handful of kids by putting their bully-ish problems on eye-opening display/dismay.  One kid has fish-y looking lips (see above photo) and is picked on endlessly for that reason, amongst other things, another is a gay girl growing up in a town where gay doesn’t exist, and another is an African-American girl who was pushed so far that she borrowed her mom’s gun and threatened other students with it (luckily no one got hurt). There are two other kids chronicled, but tragically, their stories are told after the fact by their parents, since they were bullied to the point where they believed that life was no longer worth living (a scene in which one of the parents points out the closet where her son had hung himself is as pretty much as wurst as wurst gets)

These bullied kids can’t defend themselves, and since the schools seem to be at a loss in the helping department (they all lean on the ole ‘kids will be kids’ excuse), it’s pretty much left up to the parents to make a difference.  And a lot of them do, but in most cases, it’s only after tragedy strikes.  Some of the parents aren’t even fully aware that a bully-ish problem even exists for their child.  In the case of the fish-lipped boy, his parents have zero idea at how much gruff their kid goes thru just riding the bus.  At one point it gets so bad that the filmmakers decided to share their footage with his parents and the school.  When we have to have filmmakers blowing whistles in our society, you know we’ve gots bigger issues than juss bullying!!!

moral of the story – our theory goes, if a documentary is released in a movie theater, then it’s probably worth seeing.  Check!  And a new theory – if the Weinstein Bros release a documentary, it’s probably about some burning hot button topic that probably must be seen (or at least they will make you think it is).  Check!  Good for the Bros Weinstein, and for this whole ratings controversy, as it’s bringing well needed attention to a doc that probably otherwise wouldn’t get much attention, other then for people who work for anti-bullying organizations.  If you have kids OR were ever a kid, you should see this.  Spank dog that we no longer have to go thru middle school ever again, let alone ride a school bus.  Too bad zillions of kids have to, YEAR AFTER YEAR!!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Bully pushes its way into select theaters on Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Hunger Games
Hype-Hype Boo-Ray!!!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 142 min

Before we dig not so deep into this ‘review’, here’s a recap of our tweets with our immediate ‘thoughts’ on seeing the ‘movie’ version of Suzanne Collins‘ The Hunger Games

– HUNGER GAMES???? more like BORING LAMES!!!!!!!! 999999real!!

– I love me some bad future movies above all other genres, but that was a not so good bad future movie. the future didn’t look bad enough.  apparently director Gary Ross has never seen a dystopian movie from the 70s

– There’s more excitement contained in 5 minutes of an AMERICAN GLADIATORS episode than there was in 7 hours of HUNGER GAME movieage

- HUNGER GAMES the movie hinges on Jennifer Lawrence‘s ability to emote. she can’t and the movie is thus emotionless

- HUNGER GAMES really needed some vampire baseball action.  [also] needed more boobs, fried chicken and ZODIAC

– things I liked about HUNGER GAMES – Stanley Tucci & his hair’s performance, Wes Bentley‘s devil beard, and the ending cause it meant movie was over

– I wish Katniss volunteered to watch THE BORING LAMES in my place

- I have a bad feeling that parents are going to start naming their kids Katniss and Peeta

– What happens in HUNGER GAMES sequel – Lenny Kravitz opens a salon? Kiefer Sutherland farms berries? Haymitch & Juliette Lewis go on a murder spree?

You are now exiting tweetville, and entering the ‘review’ of the ‘film’

As you can tell, we loved The Hunger Games!!!! NOT!!!!  But we didn’t hate it (PROMISE!).  We just don’t understand the appeal and big deal being made about this movie.  Sure, the books are probably bettererand morerer entertaining, but books are for people who can read, and movies are for people who like their stories wrapped up in 2 hrs so they can see more movies than you can read books.  Anywho, this is not a good movie.  It’s not bad, but it’s not good

Battle Royale, Running Man, blah blah blagg, you’ve heard it before, and again and somethen, but it’s true, The Hunger Games are lesser versions of them.  See those.  Don’t bother with HUNGER TAMED.  Why?  Cause there’s nothing to The Hunger Games movie.  There’s no danger (you know the heroine and her hero-ish friend Josh Hutcherson are gonna live), no drama (unless you’re concerned if bland-o Alexander Ludwig will ever act again), or any sense of anything (it’s like the future in one of them AT&T ‘You Will’ commercials with special FX that look like they were created on a Commodore 64.  no offense to those AT&T commercials, but that was the future according to the early 90s and the last time we checked, the early 90s are over)… and yet, it’s still sorta kinda watchable, even though the Games don’t start until 80+ minutes into it, and about 90 minutes needed to be cut from the whole thing

So what is good?  Tucci as that giddy Oompa Loompa looking TV announcer (it’s the only creepy cool thing about the entire movie, in a Richard Dawson Running Man awesome kinda way), Donald Sutherland‘s voice (duh), Elizabeth Banks‘ wardrobe (maybe?), the fact that Woody Harrelson is in it so young audiences will know of him for future movie going experiences (although he does better mentor work in Game Change, which also has morerer cutthroat gaming than anything in the con game that is The Hunger Sames), and Isabelle Fuhrman is in it too, although not nearly enuff.  She’s adorable, and was so evil in that movie where she was evil.  She’s not nearly evil enuff here, then again, nothing here is, and that is why we don’t HUNGER for these GAMES.  A movie about kids killing each other should be tense and scary and sinister, not none of the above!!!!

Oh, you wanted to know the plot?  It’s like a bad future America, although it doesn’t seem so bad.  It makes 1984 look like our actual 1984.  Every year there’s this big thing called The Hunger Games where a boy & a girl from each of the 12 districts are selected and compete in a water-downed Running Man Battle Royale so that people will like watch it on TV and not revolt or something.  So our girl in this game is some girl with a really stoopid name – Katniss, and the boy from her district is VelPeeta or something.  They aren’t exactly BFFs.  In some flashback, she was hungry and he threw her some bread in the mud, while it was raining!  OH MY!!!  BREAD!!!  MUD!!!!  RAINING!!!!  Anywho, the two get all like dolled up by make-up artists and get advice from drunk former winners and they be in the big city where trains are fast and it all looks like a shittier CGIier version of Coruscant, and all the people are kinda dressed like Clockwork Orange‘s singing sophisto lady from the TV station.  But before the games begin, the kids get trained in a zero-energy filled training sequence.  Then VelPeeta admits he has a crush on Katnipp, and then the games begin, and within like 2 minutes of the games, like 1/2 the kids are dead, and then the rest of the movie takes place in a forest, which isn’t very futuristic, and then they play cat and mouse games that aren’t amusing to anyone (involved or watching), and then Kattnappp whistles to birds, and then more kids die and then some don’t, then there’s a cave scene, and whatever, and then the games end.  CAN YOU GUESS WHO SURVIVE(s)!?!?!?!?!?!?

moral of the story – this could have been an awesome movie, but the guy who made Pleasantville not as awesome as it could have been does or DON’Ts it again.  this is the same guy who made Seabiscuit, and can’t remember much about it, cept there was a horse and Peter Parker rode it and they both overcame the odds to win the Hunger Games

even this shitty 80s movie about a bad future was more betterer and more evilier and more watchable than The Hunger Games, even though this movie is unwatchable

…But Seriously: this one still photograph has more bad future TV show deathgame beyond bestness than the entireness of the The Hunger Games movie

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit AND No Stinkin Badges

Games is currently running afoul at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

nope, this photo aint from Hunger Games either.  it’s from a real movie where kids gun down each other

21 Jump Street
They Got The Beat, Street
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 109 min

21 Jump Street the movie defied the following odds…

a) its trailer was horrible

b) aside from The Fugitive, Dragnet, The Brady Bunch, The Addams Family and The Untouchables, old TV shows rebooted to feature films suck

c) if it’s the 21st century and Ice Cube is in your movie, it’s probably not funny

How it bypassed all of these roadblocks is kinda a modern day movie miracle.  And on top of all that, it’s the most laugh out loud-able film we’ve seen since Jackass 3-D, but if yer talking actual scripted comedies, then it would be the laughiest riot laugh since 2008’s Step Brothers, but it’s better than Step Brothers, so we’d have to definitely say that 21 Jump Street is the funniest f$%king movie we’ve seen since the 2007 original version of Death At A Funeral!!!!!!  That’s right, yo, it’s taken 5 years to make us laugh that hard again.  You know we’re tough on comedy, but it’s a tough love.  No easy laughs, although we do love slapstick humor, which is kinda the easiest laugh giver of givers.  Anywho, take this paragraph for it’s worth, and that worth is that 21 Jump Street is comedy gold, and will probably end up as one of our favorites of 2012… and it’s only March.  WOW

Credit all involved, from the directors (hot buttery action from bottom to top by Phil Lord & Chris Miller), to the writers (Michael Bacall, who just gave us the crizzazzy Project X, with help from Jonah Hill, giving us the winkiest eye wink that will make you want to wink right back) and to the actors (Hill again, in silly straight man skinny mode, plus playing against type Channing Tatum, playing against type, and the aforementioned usually unfunny Ice Cube being funny, and Rob Riggle, who is also usually not funny also being funny, and Chris Parnell, who is criminally funny, being criminally funny, and it’s a crime in general that he doesn’t work more, cause he’s one of SNL’s best alumnuts, EVER, and a guy who looks exactly like a mini-James Franco cause he is a mini-James Franco, cause he is James Franco’s brother Dave Franco + some slices of Ellie Kemper & Nick Offerman, and finally Brie Larson, who you’ll instantly fall in love with, if you weren’t already, and who’s future’s so bright that she’d put Ray-Ban out of bidness)

So what more do you need to know?  Plot?  There is one.  A very decent enuff one that supports the rest of the funny bidness from becoming udder malarkey bidness

moral of the story – they made a movie out of a TV show that didn’t need a movie, and even if it’s barely sorta like the TV show, it’s better than the TV show, and better than any TV show that was turned into a movie since The Brady Bunch!  BAM!!!!

Fanning Over Dakota: Jess Weixler is fine and all, but we recommend you upgrade to the similiarish looking…

Dakota Johnson

and know who she is?

DON JOHNSON AND MELANIE GRIFFITH’S KID!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

21 Jumps into a theater near jews today!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Kid With A Bike
(Le gamin au vélo)
Spoked Up
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 87 min

Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne‘s (aka as the Dardenne Brothers) The Kid With A Bike is about a kid… with a… bike!!  THAT’S RIGHT!!!  But this aint no ordinary kid, but this is an ordinary bike!!  The kid is Cyril (Thomas Doret) and his missing bike is the last link he has to his father (Jérémie Renier), who recently left him to make money and love elsewhere.  The kid starts off in search of his MIA bike, but really he’s searching for his father.  After randomly tightly hugging a random stranger (Cécile De France), this random stranger randomly decides to help the kid reunite with his bike, and his father.  The reunion with his bike goes well.  The reunion with his father… not so much.  Sad.  But this random lady is very nice and decides to take the kid under her wings, but the kid is troublesome and gets into some big troubles, but the lady is so so very very nice nice and caring that she stands by him thru thick and thin and thickish thinish.  Good for her.  Better for him.  Indifference for the bike

moral of the story – Bike is a sweet little movie about a boy and his bike and the random lady who helped the boy get back on his bike, and get his life bike back together.  If you hate this movie, you hate humanity, and probably hate bikes.  Don’t hate on humanity, and don’t hate on bikes

O Brothers: here’s a list of 20 sets of brother directors.  totally wished me & my bro were directors, instead of him being a lawyer and me being a master of thighs.  oh well

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Bike cycles into select theaters this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

btw, the best kid with a bike ever is Paperboy, and btw, you should never 5get who stole Little Mac’s bike

Project X
X Marks The Spot, OF FUN!!!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 88 min

Ever seen Can’t Hardly Wait?  Hopefully not, but if you did, Nima Nourizadeh‘s Project X is like Can’t Hardly Wait, cept it’s awesome and has hactual bare boobs, and gnomes, and fire, and water, and water on boobs, but not fire on boobs, and dorks we sorta care about (Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper and Jonathan Daniel Brown, who is our new hero.  Not only did he go on a fake date with Whitney Port, but he also played a fake nerd in a porn [watch NSFNess]!!!).  And it’s got stuff, and fun, and a dog, and a midget, and a moon bounce, and it will remind you why high school was so awesome and how America’s got teen spirit like no other country, and did we mention watery boobs yet?

Kirby Your Enthusiasm Galore: Kirby Bliss Blanton & Nichole Bloom is be OK and all, but we’d prefer to invite these girls to our pants party…

Anna Sophia Berglund

Alexis Knapp aka Alexis Merizalde

this woulda been an endless list of hotties, cept 98% of them party goers aren’t listed on IMDb

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

also, we forgot to review…

Chronicle
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility Fun!!!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 84 min

This movie is similar to Project X – three unknownish actors (although you totes know who Dane DeHaan is if you were a fan of In Treatment) battle endless hand-held camera action, and a budget the size of your penis.  Also, like X, it’s awesome, and does more with less than you do with your tiny penis.  But these three cats aint just party animals, theys gots super super powers and it’s more super powerful than anything goings on in one of those other big budget superhero movies we’ve seen in like the past like 5 years like.  like 9reals yo!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

X + Chron are currently awesome at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

oh, and a special shout out to Brady Hender and Nick Nervies, who deserve there own Project X spin-off, Project XI

make it happen Hollywürst!!!