Thighs Wide Shut

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A Dangerous Method
Girl Just Wanna Have Jung
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 99 min

A teacher and a pupil and the pupil’s own pupil get into a psychological triangle of thoughts, dreams and masochistic desires in David Cronenberg‘s A Dangeous Method. It’s true, and it’s all true, cause the people we’re talking about are real people!!!  Like the cigar chomping daddy of modern psychology Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), his reluctant and doubting heir apparent Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a fidgety young Russian girl who takes great pleasure in pain, and has a few of her own thoughts on analyzing this AND that!!!

We see relationships forged, broken, mended and bended all over again, before this trio goes their own ways into the annals of psychoanalytic history. But whose story is this? Freud is on the fringes, observing afar from Vienna, while Jung and the Ruskie take center stage experimenting with some… dangerous methods – read, HOT KINKY HOTNESS!!!!  THEY SHOULDN’T, BUT THEY SHOULD!!!!  Or should they???? What does Freud think of all this???

Mustached Fassbender as Jung owns the proceedings (of course he does, this is Fassbender we’re talking about!!!), but Keira Knightley comes pretty close to upstaging Mr Mos Fantastic Actor of the Moment. At first, her accent seems to flicker in and out of believability, but as the minutes pass, not only does Knightley’s character blossom before our eyes, but she herself, from the run of the mill Jane Austen broad we’ve become bored of, to an actual actress with great range, filled with sirpizes!  Yes, we’re talking about the same KK that is in such boring stuffy British movies like, Crumpets: The Movie. Same also goes with Cronenberg, who sirprizes us by showing he’s capable of making an adult movie that doesn’t succumb to weirdness for weirdness sake, or has William Hurt in it for no reason

moral of the story: a movie about thinking people thinking about other peoples thoughts doesn’t exactly scream ‘see me’, and we cannot necessarily say that A Dangerous Method is something worth screaming about, but it is worth a thought, and a lot of thought was put into it, so think about that.  Remember, it’s a non-weird Cronenberg movie, and William Hurt isn’t in it for no reason, so if that’s what yer thinking, THINK AGAIN!!!  BUT you get to peep at Knightley’s nips AND see Vincent Cassel play yet another oversexed pig, and that’s good enuff for we to think you should see it, maybe.  thoughts?

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

A Dangerous Method wants you to hear its thoughts in NY & LA today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

a rare electric pink color scheme for a Vertigo (1958) advertisement. Saul Bass, who worked with animator John Whitney to translate the Lissajous spirals into the movie’s title sequence, aimed to capture ‘that very particular state of disequilibrium associated with vertigo’

more Unseen Saul Bass

The Artist
Silence Is Mostly Golden
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 100 min

Ah, the era of silent films.  Long forgotten and loved by so few in today’s world of gabfests and explosions.  In the past year we us ourselves have grown a love for the dialog-free flicks that were so flappertastic… which explains why we’ve spent many an hours digging in the past for endless bobbed photos.  The bygone format may have collected dust, but cinema has paid tribute here and there, from Sunset Boulevard, to Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie, to the maudlin madness of Guy Maddin‘s mizzles, and now with The Artist, Frenchie writer/director Michel Hazanavicius‘ loud-quiet love letter that’s sealed with a giant sloppy kiss

The artist in The Artist is mustachioed George Valentin (the dashing and playful Jean Dujardin), a star of the silents, with the look of Douglas Fairbanks, a name like Rudolph Valentino’s, and a ‘talkies killed my career’ tale, that sent the likes of stars Pola Negri, Ramon Novarro, Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, John Gilbert (the list sadly goes on and on and) into early acting retirement.  The sentiment on display is a welcome one, but the story, a little too simplistic.  Hazanavicius, his artist Dujardin, and gal vendredi Bérénice Bejo have driven us down this road before.  If you’ve seen their OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies Bondish spoof [trailer], you’ll know they are more than capable of putting the period pieces together.  And just like with OSS 117, The Artist is a beautifully polished homage with the right rah-rah spirit, but it doesn’t exactly score touchdown after touchdown

STILL, The Artist is worth seeing cause we need to be reminded of that time and that place and of those movies that had no talking, and what happened when their time was up, and it was time to start talking.  And where else are you going to see Uggie the dog doing awesome stuff (sadly no skateboarding) in B&W, John Goodman being loud without saying a word, or James Cromwell being sweet without a pig that talks?  Or find bonus employment for fine folks like Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell, Ken ‘Borat’s buddy’ Davitian, Nina ‘sister of Casey’ Siemaszko (see below), Joel ‘brother of Bill’ Murray and Bill ‘Dauber from Coach‘ Fagerbakke??!!  FREKKIN DAUBER!!!  FROM COACH!!!

moral of the story: The Artist is the best silent film of the year, and probably the best silent film since maybe the end of the silent era (both proclamations don’t really say much… or do they???), and you’ve probably have seen zero silent movies, so start with this, and then open Pandora’s Box to all the other silent pleasures that eggsist in the fine history of the cinema. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

SiemaszKOed: wethinks we’re in love with Nina ‘sister of Casey’ Siemaszko. she went from having a license to drive

to having a license to be MAD ADORABLE!!!!!!

and havings a license to show off her assets!!!!!!!!!!!! [NSFW]

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Artist takes up residence in NY & LA this Friday, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

490+ more White Castle pics for you to feast yer thighs on