WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THERE WAS A MONA LISA PREQUEL??????????????????????????????????????????????????

Elton John
Madison Square Garden
December 4th

Dude, he’s still standing, cause HELLO, yellow brick AWESOME!!!  He rocketed it, man!!!!  He saved my ears that night, cause Wednesday’s alright for fighting AND rocking, and for freedom from Philadelphia and everywhere!!  What about Lennie and the Mets???  NO FCUKING WAY, CAUSE IT’S ALL ABOUT BENNY AND THE JETS!!!  The moon didn’t do up on him, cause the bitch was front AND back, and I guess that’s why he would never get the booos.  He’s the one, like a lighter in the win.  Hold me closer Tony Danza.  Dude, it was fcuking ELTON JOHN!!!!!  AND HE IS LESS GAY THAN YOU ARE!!!!!

Setlist – Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding / Bennie and the Jets / Candle in the Wind / Grey Seal / Levon / Tiny Dancer / Holiday Inn / Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters / Believe / Philadelphia Freedom / Goodbye Yellow Brick Road / Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time) / Hey Ahab / I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues / The One / Oceans Away / Someone Saved My Life Tonight / Sad Songs (Say So Much) / All the Girls Love Alice / Home Again / Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me / I’m Still Standing / The Bitch Is Back / Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock ‘n Roll) / Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting

Encore – Your Song / Crocodile Rock

The Past (Le passé)
Divorce, Persian-Parisian Style
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 130 min

Man, Asghar Farhadi sure LOVES himself some divorces!!  And why not?  His last feature, the well acted, but a tad overrated divorce discourse A Separation [TWS review] took home the Best Foriegn Pic Oscar, so if it aint broke, then why fix it?  Well, this time the divorce fun has been shifted from Iran to France, and once again, the divorce in question kinda serves as a macguffin for something deeper goings on, a mystery that will quietly and laboriously reveal its solution, and it’s worth sticking around to see the how and the why!

Our couple on the way outs is (The Artist‘s) Bérénice Bejo and (a terrific) Ali Mosaffa (with a terrifically horrible hairpiece).  She still lives in the outskirts of Paris, holding down a fort of kids, while he returned to Tehran.  He’s back in town, to finalize the dissolution of their marriage, but there’s other shiz going on, like a new man around - Tahar Rahim, and how their relationship came to be.  This new man has his own old lady, but she’s in a coma, and he’s trying to move on, with raggamuffined son Elyes Aguis in tow.  But how’d this woman get to be in a coma, and isn’t this relationship with a new woman a bit scandolous if the old one’s in a coma and he’s already moving on?  Yes, sez Bejo’s daughter, (a solid) Pauline Burlet, who can’t even stand to be home anymore and deal with it.  But there’s more to it all, and now that old husband Mosaffa’s around, all kinds of things will be talked about and discovered and forced to be dealt with

It’s kinda strange that Farhadi barked up the same thematic tree, but I’m glad he did, cause The Past worked a lot better for me than A Separation did.  Can’t exactly figure out why, but lets just hope he doesn’t try to give divorce another look on his next film.  Maybe he can try something tha’s a little happier, like marriage!

Anywho, I’m betting 5 bux that The Past (Le passé) wins Best Foreign Pic at this year’s Oscars. Why? Cause (my beloveded) Film Forum has premiered the winner (at the end of the year) from the last two Academy Awards – Haneke’s Amour in 2012, and yes, Farhadi’s own A Separation in 2011.  Looking forward to finding out what will win ahead of time, when the FF picks their movie to close out 2014!

Ooops, I owe everyone $5. The movie didn’t even make the cut!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Past is present in NY/LA today and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Inside Llewyn Davis
That Darn Cat
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 105 min

I don’t get it. I get that this movie’s about an unlucky folk singer named Llewyn Davis, who’s an amazing musician, but can’t catch a break, or even a cold, but beyond that, what’s it all about Coeny Bros? No, seriously, what is this movie about?  Cause to me it’s about NOTHING.  Is it a tribute to some real forgotten folkie named Dave Van Ronk, who had an album called Inside Dave Van Ronk? Apparently so. But what do we learn about him or his faux self? NOT A FCUKING THING. And what do we care about in this movie? Not much. Sure, we sorta want success to come to Llewyn (a superb Oscar Isaac), but the bleak tone sez it aint in the cards, so why should we care?  The only thing we sorta care about is the cat (or cats) Llewyn lets inside his life.  But a movie about caring for cats, that’s well shot, and has a slickly-produced T Bone Burnett soundtrack, and not much else really isn’t much of anything.  You keep thinking that it may turn into something, being from Joel & Ethan, but if anyone else made this movie, people would be totally WTFing this movie instead of BS praising it.  It’s beautiful, but forgettable.  We already forgot about it.  It makes Todd Haynes’ cryptically dreamy I’m Not There look like a fluid dose of reality.  Don’t go Inside.  Go outside and do something else

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Llewyn is currently strumming in select theaters

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

TV is the new Jesus.  In 2013, it was totally TVeesus!!!!  here’s our picks for bestestestiest TVeesus shows done shown (that we done watched)

1. Drunk History (Comedy Central)

I want to be 12 years a slave to this TV show, which combines my two greatest loves that aren’t food or the Nationals or my soon to be wife – comedy and history (not so much a fan of drunkards, but happy to make the exception here!).  And the actors all deserve 8312888 emmys for their sync work with the blottoed narrators!

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2. Maron (IFC)

 

MARON!!!! it’s like Louie, but kinda sorta less depressing!!!

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3. Under The Dome (CBS)

Feels like the 90s all over again, with TV dishing out quality Stephen King mini-series mini-scares week after week.  Dome is the best since It, even if it is nowhere as awesome as It

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4. Shameless (Showtime)

TV’s most audaciously outrageously slimy AND fun show… that no one loves, talks or cares about it.  shamemore on you!

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5. Bates Motel (A&E)

somewhere Alfred Hitchcock is NOT turning over in his grave, as this is sacrilege finally done right!   

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6. Vice (HBO)

it’s kinda what 60 Minutes needs to be more like, cept the show could do without the hipster correspondents.  still – each story is VITAL, and none was more compelling than when they sent Dennis Rodman to North Korea

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7. Hannibal (NBC)

I’m mads mads for Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal.  Anthony Hopkins who?

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8. Arrested Development (Netflix)

Full Mental Tobias.  Terry Crews out-of control.  The intertwining episodes took much much thought and planning, and it all paid off, in spades and our hearts.  Just wish I didn’t have to watch it on a computer

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9. Princesses Long Island (Bravo)

 

if Jews truly controlled the media, would they ever let this show air?  it sets back Judaism 5774 years, and somehow I couldn’t turn away from it

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10. The Big C: Hereafter (Showtime)

a very sweet hereafter

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11. The Client List (Lifetime)

where you can wear your cake AND eat it too.  Can’t believe they axed a show where off screen hand jobs totally did their job

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12. Joe Rogan Questions Everything (Syfy)

it’s like a ghetto Unsolved Mysteries, with Joe Rogan talking loud and making amazing wide-eyed faces.  FEAR THE ROBOTS!!!

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other solid forms of entertainments: Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel (5 real!), Eastbound & Down (not the greatest of swan songs, but live for Stevie Janowski), Masters of Sex (a bit behind on this one, but smart and sexy + Beau Bridges = WE’RE ALL IN!!), Breaking Bad (glad it’s over, so the tweets ended too), Newsroom (we chewed on Grace Gummer), Mad Men (the acting or the scripts are SO bad, but can decide on which), An Idiot Abroad 3 (anything with Warwick Davis is appointment watching), Elementary (Natalie Dormer!!!!  but not naked, booooooo!!!), Portlandia (manic, but sharp), Homeland (F MURRAY ABRAHAM AND MANDY BEARD IT OUT!!!), The Office (Michael Scott returned and we cried), Boardwalk Empire (miss you already Richard Harrow), Enlightened (the lovable losers lost), Veep (veep on veeping on), The Americans (we love all things Russian), Dallas (no more JR, and somehow it still works), Undercover Boss (how does the employees NOT know they’re on the show???), Burning Love (THE MALE CAST OF SEASON 3, OMG!!!), Ray Donovan (awful accents, but helLA fun), Modern Family (best standard comedy going),  The Carrie Diaries (love high school shows, but there’s TOO much sex talk for a high school show on this high school show), House of Cards (so Fincher moody!), Dexter (even if they should have ended it a season ago), Girls (I watch it for the boys), SNL (Cecily weak) & American Horror Story (almost TOO batshit crazy to watch) 

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+ bone-yes moments

everything in front of Behind The Candelabra, but mostly Rob Lowe’s face

- Limitless Paper In A Paperless World

– Colbert gets unlucky

– Poopeye

– The Yummy Awards

– Saved By The Belding

– I’ll Take The Mother of My Children For $400 Alex

– Lazy Eye

– CBS and Time Warner Cable hate their customers.  thanks for NOTHING a$$holes

– wait, there was a Dirty Dancing TV show??

– how fcuking good the casting and music video recreations were in Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story

– one of the greatest commercials of all time(/my childhood)

– stop pretending that the VMAs matter

– Sharknado, not that awful, even though it’s awful

– Topanga The Mok!!!!!!!!!!!

– Third Reichers Island

+

– NAKED GRANDMA!!!!!

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fair thee well to those who have passed on, leaving a lumpy in our throat…

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the boat from The Love Boat

 

perv-iously

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