Flight of The Conchords
The Heath at The McKittrick Hotel
June 1st

THEY BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Well, the never really went away – juss got all big and Hollywooded, but no matter how many riches and fames they’ve accumulated, they will always be good ole Bret and Jemaine, or good ole Jemaine and Bret (depending on how you like to order your favorite Kiwis) of Flight of the Conchords  

After a 3 year break from touring, the boys are about to embark on a big tour, and so they needed to fine tune their roadshow before showing the road, and set up a 5 night residency at the Heath.  For some reason I skipped out on their last tour, so it has been 7 years since I last saw them live, but now I got to see them in a venue that only served 200, and all 200 of us were well served

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Sure, B & J sounded a little raw and undisciplined – starting and stopping and restarting tunes new and old, constantly being out of rhythm with one another, but luckily these two can fill dead air and stage hiccups with endless witty stage banter, like Jemaine asking the audience if they actually paid money to see this show [we all happily did].  But none of us cared how unvarnished the presentation was – cause we were all there to laugh with them, and at them (no one does self-deprecating humor like them), and so we did

They tried out 5 to 6 new/newish songs (see setlist below), and while these newbies don’t seem destined top anything they’ve created before, they were good enuff for everyone to sit thru AND thoroughly enjoy.  Most times you don’t want to hear any band play any new stuff, but most bands aren’t this one and that’s both a good thing AND a bad thing.  And the old stuff?  Still AWESOME, after all these years!  Even a song like ‘Bowie’, which was a once a creative lark, is now a song of soulful passion – a valentine to a man they and we love(d), who once fell to earth, but is now back in the stars, forever orbiting in greatness

Maybe one day someone will write a song about how great the Flight of the Conchords are.  That would be some mighty meta stuff there – meta world peace yo!

Setlist – Chips and Dips^ / The Seagull^ / Foux du Fafa / F**k on the Ceiling^ / The Ballad of Stana^ / Father and Son^ / Think About It / Business Time / Bowie / Shady Rachel^

Encore – The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)

^ not sure of the actual song title – as the songs were new or never released

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The Lobster
Super Hurry Animals
Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 118 min

In a sorta near future, if you aren’t paired up with a significant other, you will be turned into an animal – of your choice, naturally.  Mustached Colin Farrell was recently dumped by his wife and so he needs to partner up, or animal on out for the rest of his life.  He goes to this seaside hotel run by Olivia Colman (still one of the best actresses no one knows), which helps to pair off people, or turn them into animals.  But the time to do so is limited.  If Colin doesn’t find a mate in 45 days or less, he will became a lobster (hence the film’s title).  His brother is already a dog (ever wonder why there are so many dogs??), and he brings him along on this last ditch human effort.  Others have to go thru the same drill, including some really dour and desperate souls like Ashley Jensen, Ben Whishaw, John C Reilly, and the adorable Jessica Barden

The hotel is an oddball pacifying paradise – like The Village from The Prisoner, with forever overcast skies.  Within its doors, they stage awkward dances and even more awkward demonstrations, trying to get these folks to couple up – and offer plenty of outdoor activities too, including hunting those who have failed and escaped the grounds.  If you hunt and kill one of these escapee loners, you get bonus days to stick around.  If you don’t, the clock continues to tick, and pretty soon your days as a Homo sapien are numbered

And so after awhile, after Colin has tried and tried and tried, and failed (the heartless Angeliki Papoulia provided no help), he decides he doesn’t want to be a lobster, and he flees for the woods, and taken in by loners Léa Seydoux and Rachel Weisz.  But a (un)funny thing happens on the way to being lonely – he falls for Weisz, and she for him, and that’s not suppose to happen, and even more things happen from there, and there you go

For the first 30 or so minutes of Yorgos Lanthimos first English language feature, when we’re in that wonderous hotel, I thought The Lobster was itching its way to being the kinda movie I endless love and never shut up about.  It had happened once before with Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, which is one of the mos fcuked up flicks I’ve seen this century, but as The Lobster claws its way outside of that hotel, something got a little lost in translation, and became a little long in the tooth, but I’ll excuse it, cause The Lobster is unique and imaginative, and often fun, and always keeps you on your toes, and that can’t be said of a lot of movies that come out today.  I give it bonus points for being different, and it doesn’t even really have to try – it juss is different

These lonely love seekers aint no superheroes – they’re super-zeroes, and I’d rather count on them and their sad weirdness, than the good guys saving the cinematic day.  MARVEL OVER THAT, YO!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Lobster shacks it up currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Harlem Globetrotters thawed the Cold War a bit when they played 9 games in Moscow in 1959 – watch this 30 For 30 short all about it 

but instead of playing a bunch of Soviet punching bags, they brought their own opponent…

The San Francisco Chinese Basketeers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHINESE!!!!!!!!!!!!  BASKETEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but ZERO pictures or footage exist of these Chinese Basketeers!!!

all I could find are these programs, of when they traveled to England during the same year

thankfully someone posted the roster found within the program, so the Chinese Basketeers’ names (real and pretend, although it’s hard to read them clearly, so I tried my best to transcribe them) can live in infamy…

• Willie Lee (Wey Li Lee)
• Taddy Song (Te Day Song)
• Ronald Kim (Lo No Gan)
• Robert Akeo (Da Se Al Keo Oh)
• Lelan Wong (Way Lan Wong)
• Robert Rees (Lee So Chin)
• Donald Ho (Don No Hall)
• Ronnie Hold (Ming Tai Sam)
• Harry Higs (Yip Chang Fong)

and it turns out – most of these dudes were Hawaiian!  

and some of these dudes also played on other teams the Globetrotters played against, like the ‘Hawaii 50th Staters’, the ‘Honolulu Surfriders” and the ‘San Francisco All-Nations’!!!!

Chinese Basketeers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Captain America: Civil War
Marvel-ous
Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 147 min

OMG, these guys…

and these guys…

are all on the same team – but because Captain America has a hard-on for Sebastian Stan, there gonna be a war son, CIVIL style!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

This is what Avengers 2: Age of Voltron should have been!!!  Sorta kinda whatever!!!

Actually, this sequel (which is miles above #1) is basically Avengers 3, but works so much better cause there’s less clutter, and less dumb Thor and bulky Hulk.  Those two dudes caused way too much destruction.  HULK SMASH!! The less destruction the better!! Like slash the Hulk smash!

And this one has Daniel Brühl, and in case you didn’t know - Brühl rühlzzzz!!!!!!  But he’s not a superhero or a superhero villain, but he is a bad guy, but he kinda has a reason to break bad – like our superheroes do in this movie.  Man, so much noir going on here.  Who’s bad?  Who’s good?????  No black and white – juss lots o’gray – 100 SHADES OF IT!!!

BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT – the movie is wayyyyyyyyyyyy too long.  Like 9 hours too long.  I enjoyed it all, but man, it’s a haul, a long one – like a long haul!!!! (I ran out to pee 2 times – but that’s cause I drank like a gallon o’soda – and all I missed was the superheroes talking about stuff)

Also, Jeremy Renner‘s Hawkeye is beyond lame.  Cut him and his character out of this Marvel universe

And I don’t care how cool he is, but Paul Bettany‘s Vision creeps me out too much and made me wish I didn’t have vision in my eyes

but it’s OK cause we get to see Ant Man become Gi-Ant Man, and there’s a new Spidey – who’s a no name actor – and actually looks like a teenager – which already seems more right than Tobey or Andrew Garfield minushimself could ever muster as Peter Parkz!!!

But the real bestestest thing???  There are three black dudes in the movie, and they blow away the white dudes and dudettes outta the water.  I’d rather see a movie with juss Rhodey (Don Cheadle), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and my new mos favorite superhero ever – Blank Panther (the treasure that is Chadwick Boseman) – kicking major a$$ AND gla$$!!!!!!!!!  They should take Hawkeye out back and beat the lame fcuk outta him!!!

Heck, there needs to be a movie (superhero or not) with Boseman, Mackie, Cheadle, Denzel, Will Smith, Michael B Jordan, and Billy Dee Williams called Smooth Operators – where they’re a gang of telephone operators who are SMOOTH AS FCUK!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers (if it was somehow shorter, it woulda been BREAST IN SHOW)

Captain soldiers on at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…