May The Furs Be With You

Peace The Forks Out

to

Ebert

you had one of the two best thumbs OF ALL THYME  

you and Gene showed me that it was OK to both LOVE and HATE movies  

you made it OK to be overweight AND really really love movies  

I grew up digesting your show, EACH and EVERY Saturday.  it was the best TV show about movies, and one of the best TV shows PERIOD…  and then it was gone, and there hasn’t been anything on TV (or the stoopid internets) like it since, and probably never will, cause there’s only one Ebert, and only one Siskel  

cancer took your voice, but it never silenced you  

cancer took your life, but your voice will always and forever be heard in our hearts and minds  

thank you for being you. there aren’t enuff thumbs on earth to raise up and salute you

and until next time, the balcony is clothed closed :(

Upstream Color
Downstream Blather
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
NR | 96 min

I call bullshit on Shane Carruth‘s Upstream Color.  No, I take that back – I call pig shit on Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color.  No, yes, I take that back/forward too also – it’s both kinds of shit, and all other kinds of shit, even if it thinks it’s the shit, in the good kind of shit way, and not the shit shit way I’m talkins bout.  Now don’t spank me wrong, the film is well crafted, especially if you love editing and pigs and nonsense and crap and Henry David Thoreau  (WHO DOESN’T?????).  Well, there’s something definitely going on in the film, actually lots of things, but really nothing – so much nothing that it all amounts to more zippo than a Zippo lighter factory!  I kept thinking – what does all this mean?  But then I remembered that I didn’t care enuff to know the answer, so my question was replaced with – what the fcuk was that?  Anyone who tells you this movie is awesome doesn’t know what it’s about either, and they apparently want you to suffer the same pointless mindmelt that they endured.  I would never tell you anything was awesome juss cause it had snappy editing and pigs and deep thoughts that weren’t so deep (like the oh so ‘smart’ Inception).  That’s why I call bull/pig/all-kinds of shit on Upstream Color.  I could go on and on and on, like the movie does, and so I will, by ‘explaining’ what the movie is – plotwise – from start to finish, not what it’s about, cause no one knows what it’s about, and it’s not worth trying to figure it out what it’s about

So, some green thumbed dude discovers that his plants are giving off blue dust, so he digs into his plant’s pot to find worms, and then he finds more worms and then gives them to his friends who ingest them and then like start tripping or something and do hand jives with each other.  Then he puts a worm into a pill thing and goes out to some bar where he targets some cute girl (Amy Seimetz) and ruffies her and gives her the worm pill and then he like brainwashes her to write out Henry David Thoreau’s Walden on paper chains, and take tiny sips of water and make her think that each sip of water is like the nectar of the gods, and then he makes her turn over all of her money and assets to him, and then he like disappears, and leaves her alone in some house and she starts seeing a worm crawl inside her body, and she’s like scared, so she finds some pig farmer (Andrew Sensenig) who helps her get rid of the worm by connecting her to a pig, and the worm goes into the pig or something.  Then she’s OK and tries to return to normal life, but she’s been gone for weeks, so she loses her job, and she has no money, so she gets a cute short haircut and gets all moody and sad.  Then some guy (director/writer/editor/composer/’genius’ Shane Carruth) comes out of nowhere, and like falls in love with her, cause she’s cute, but maybe also cause the same thing happened to him.  So they like go places and things and stuff, and more things, then stuff, but she’s all distant, while all he wants to do is to get closer… into her pants.  Meanwhile, the pig farmer does things, like raise pigs, BUT ALSO records sounds, like he was Ben Burtt or something.  Well, apparently the movement of the pigs also mimics the movements of humans, mainly the ones who were drugged and had their money stolen or something.  ANYWHO, one of the pigs gives birth to little pigs and then the pig farmer/sound recordist puts the babies in a bag and tosses them into a river or something.  Meanwhile, our ‘heroes’, the guy and girl, start to get crazier and crazier, hearing sounds, and thinking things, and although the movie wants you to think it’s getting crazier and crazier, and deeper and deeper, it’s actually getting more nonsensical, and stupid, and stuff, and whatevs and zzzzzz.  Our gal starts swimming a lot and starts spouting Walden lines, and the guy starts putting ‘it’ all together.  This leads them back the pig farmer, where they do things to him, and then they find his documents and that leads to a list of people who were also wormed to pig synergized or something, and then they have a party at the pig farm and hug pigs and paint fences!  But what about that pig that was tossed into the river?  Oh yeah, it’s dead, and its blue death germs like went into the water and then grew into a rare blue orchid… which brings us full circle to the planting guy in the beginning, but it really brings us full circle to a toilet bowl where this movie should have been flushed, or something

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Upstream Color basically rain-blows in NY this Friday, and elsewhere elsewhen

btw, I think this White Stripes video for ‘Blue Orchid’ makes more sense than Upstream Color does did

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

I love The Cowsills, and you should too

they sang about ‘Hair’, down to here, down to there

and this lil ditty, which I have not stopped listening to, and don’t ever want to stop listening to…

they’re the original Partridge Family, with a pushy evilish dad manager on par with the pushy evilness of patriarchs Joe Jackson & Murray Wilson.  what is it about pushy evilish dads that push their kids to musical greatness?  maybe the kids woulda gotten there anyway, but maybe not, without all that pushing from pops!  bless them!  damn them!

there’s a doc on The Cowsills.  I know you know nothing about them, so you should watch and learn and LISTEN!

btw, how awesome of a last name is ‘Cowsill’?  AWESOMES!

G.I. Joe: Retaliation
The Pryce Is Right, Everything Else Mostly Wrong
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 110 min

OMG OMG OMG, do you remember how much fun and awesome and dumb perfection and hotty hot hottness the first GI Joe movie was????  I DO!  I DO!!! It made The Transformer movies look more like a has-been trash-bin than the Hasbro heroes we grews up on. Well, they decided to make a sequel, and obviously they had nowhere to go but up, but apparently they decided to go down.  There were rumors that Wild Bill and Shipwreck & Tomax and Xamot(!!!!!!!) would get added to the respective good guy and bad guy crews, but they weren’t, and actually many of the cool characters from #1 were dumped.  They went ahead and filmed the movie, then delayed it by a year.  Apparently they wanted to convert it to 3-D (like anyone was really clamoring for that), and there were rumors that they wanted to un-kill off Channing Tatum’s Duke character.  Well, they still killed him, early in the film.  Yawn

So what’s the problem with the sequel, Retaliation??  I mean, Bruce Willis’ is in it!  Wait, he was in it?  I think he showed up for 10 seconds, smirked, took his check, and then checked out.   The dumb fun from #1 lost the ‘fun’ part of the equation on its way to becoming a #2.  There juss wasn’t much fun to be had, and moistly importantly, and sadly, hottness.  For some reason they dumped Sienna Miller‘s Baroness and Rachel Nichols‘s Scarlett.  That’s like making a sequel to Spring Breakers and replacing the four slutty hotties with four Joan Cusacks (nothing personal Joan).  UNACCEPTABLE!!!  How are Cobra gonna destroy the world and the Joes save it with less hottness???  I mean Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye is fine and all, but they didn’t even put her in pleather, or have her take a shower.  UNACCEPTABLE.  But there were ninjas, and briefcases, which kept things watchable, but when your most convincing and masterful performance is two Jonathan Pryces for the pryce of one, you know your GI Joe sequel isn’t as killer as you instinct. It kinda in-stinks.  But them briefcases!  And those ninjas!!!  Yes, those ninjas – Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow – need their own spin-off movie, and if they go that route, please have them ninja star the RZA to death within the first 2 minutes of the movie, and then have Scarlett and the Baroness shower together for the next 7 hours

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

GI Joe is a yo-no at a theater near jews 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…