Thighs Wide Shut

How to Play Football Goofy promo illustration by Hank Porter, 1944

The Post
All The Old News That’s Fit To Reprint
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 115 min

The President is a liar filled with lies!  Newspapers need to speak the truth but are trying to be silenced by the President!  Women are ready to step up and play with the big boys!  The country is under much duress and stress cause of all of this stuff!  Is this 2017????  No, it’s 1971!!!  OMG – HOW TIMELY!!!  OMG – SOMETHINGS NEVER CHANGE!!!  HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF!!!  FAKE NEWS!!  REAL NEWS!!!!!!

Yeah, so, er, um, yeah, so Señor Spielbergo and Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep do their patriotic flaming liberal duty to stick it to today’s man by re-sticking to yesterday’s man in making a lesser All The President’s Men in The Post!  This movie wasn’t HASTE-ly made, and there’s a lot of love and energy and great acting (and mustard brown color) going on, and IT IS ALL SO IMPORTANT, but it’s ultimately a movie about whether a newspaper owner and editor want to green light or red light publishing a story.  That’s it!  That’s the whole movie!  Should we publish this and let the people know the truth???!!!  Or do we play it cool and not publish and therefore not get punished???  WHAT TO DO???  WHAT TO DO???

It’s kinda much ado and to do about nothing.  Look, I agree it’s all IMPORTANT stuff, and I did enjoy watching this movie, but after it ended, I was like, that’s it?  They published a story and that was the entire movie???  Oh, so it’s more about that.  It’s about how Kay Graham came into her own, being the Washington Post‘s owner, and how editor Ben Bradlee always fought the good fight!  Good for them, and for us!  No, seriously!  I grew up on The Washington Post, and it remains my paper!  I LOVE THEM!

But I dunno.  I’m tossed.  It’s a story that needed to be told, but there’s not much storytelling to tell.  It feels like easy material kinda beneath the heavyweight skillsets of Spielbergo and Hanks and Streep.  They could have made the same darn good movie with Brett Ratner, Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl and it would still be important!

Verdictgo: I mean, it’s still a good movie, so Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Post publishes at a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Woody Allen vs the lobster, on the set of 1977’s Annie Hall.  photos by Brian Hamill

Pitch Perfect 3
U.S.Oh No
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 94 min

The Pitch Perfect movies have always been barely movies, and the 3rd outing proved to be the barest of the barely movie-like movies of the lot.  It didn’t have to be this way.  They could have made a fun movie with a loose and fun plot, instead of a 90 minute DJ Khaled infomercial.  They and we all know that the best parts are always going to belong to Rebel Wilson‘s Fat Amy, and they try to play that up and then some in this (hopefully) ‘final’ installment of the franchise.  But it’s all for not.  A backstory about her evil dad John Lithgow?  It holds about as much charm and intrigue as Lithgow’s horrible dingo Australian accent.  Look, flying kicks and explosions was a step in the right direction, but the kicks don’t pack much of a wallop, and the explosions all seem like misfires.  Fat Amy has outgrown her sister Bellas, and in turn, outgrown the movie series.  Dump the Bellas and give Fat Amy her own franchise, and make her dad Mel Gibson, or something ‘edgy’ like that

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Pitch is far from Perfect, at a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Molly’s Game
Deck Stacked Against Her
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 140 min

Aaron Sorkin pulls out all the stops in his slick and fun directorial debut – Molly’s Game, and while there is much to enjoy in the true story of poker pitboss Molly Bloom’s rise and fall, the end result doesn’t come close cinematically to the other films he’s lent his penmanship to – Steve Jobs, Moneyball and The Social Network, but that’s OK, cause it’s hard to hit home runs in both the writing AND directing categories, and especially on one’s first time out behind the lens, and it’s also OK, cause the movie is really good!

Molly Bloom (a confident and chesty Jessica Chastain) is all about rising and falling.  Once on the cusp of skiing at the Winter Olympics, she saw her lifelong medaling dreams dashed in a bad trial run downhill, and so she picked herself up, moved away from the snow to Los Angeles and started over again.  Found work working for a fast-paced prick, who happened to run an underground poker game with Hollywood stars and rich hot shots, and found her new calling running those games.  A big risk for both players and Molly, but the money was just too good to pass up on.  Things go good, then things go bad, but Molly always seems to find her way out on top again, and again… until the FBI comes in to say GAME OVER.  But that’s not where the movie ends – it’s actually the starting point, where Molly tries to fight back at the system with a lawyer (Idris Elba) who sees the good in her, and the evil in the world.  DAMN YOU EVIL WORLD WITH YOUR LAWS AND STUFF!!

That’s nice and all, but it’s actually all the meetings with her lawyer, and courtroom non-drama that drags the film down a bit from being something fantastic.  While the chips are stacked and the cards are dealt, the movie flies, but when it gets bogged down in legal briefs, it seems far from being brief, as it lingers on a little TOO much.  Still, Molly and Sorkin have a winning hand and a winning movie, and Kevin Costner works magic in limited screentime, and you know if there’s a movie about competition and Kevin Costner’s in it – it’s a winner!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Game on Xmas day at a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…