Thighs Wide Shut

30 Minutes or Less
Less Is… Less
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 83 min

Two dumb dudes (Danny McBride &  Nick Swardson) want to become rich, so they take an idea from a stripper to knock off one of the dude’s dads (Fred Ward), inherit his money and become rich!  In order to do so, they need 100K to pay someone to do the killing (Michael Peña), so they come up with their own idea to kidnap some random person (Jesse Eisenberg), strap a bomb to them, and force them to get the money for them!  All hell will break loose, and hilarity will ensue, won’t it?

Ruben Fleischer‘s 30 Minutes of Less sounds like the stuff of comedy dreams come true – a sharp storyline (by Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan), a killer & lovable cast, and a runtime under 90 minutes (wish more movies would follow suit).  So, why then does 30 Minutes feel like a stretch times itself by 3?  Um, cause it’s only mildly funny, and when it is funny, it’s barely funny (Netflix jokes about never watching the DVDs one gets sent in the mail seems so 2004), and yer mainly giving it charity laffs cause you think McBride is funny.  McBride is pretty much doing his Kenny Powers shtick with a game Swardson doing the Stevie Janowski even dumber sidekick thing.  And we know Eisenberg can be funny, cause he is and has (Zombieland, Adventureland), but if he isn’t given the material to be funny, he can’t be funny.  Unfunny Aziz Ansari doesn’t help matters neither.  He’s more of a comedian than an actor (cause he is), and there’s only so much of his over-exciting yelling thing one can take (maybe you dig that, but we don’t)

Sill, there are far worse offending comedies, with lesser talent that have no story to tell.  But still, this felt like a slightly better Cop Out.  What does that tell ya?  Not much AND a lot.  This has rental written all over it

Pakistan Packing Heat:

Dilshad Vadsaria

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

30 Minutes doesn’t go a long way at a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Wookiee boobs are just plain wrong AND also un-plain wrong

Around the time preceding the broadcast of the [Star Wars] Holiday Special, Kenner had in mind a line of toy tie-ins based on characters from the show. It was probably assumed that the Special would be much more successful than it was, and that kids would be clamoring for new toys from the TV show. In the end, Kenner wound up scrapping the whole thing, either because the show was a disappointment, or (according to a Tomart’s Action Figure Digest article) because the selling window was too small

However, at least a couple of items did make it to the drawing board or prototype stage – a complete set of the Chewbacca family action figures. Chewbacca was the standard Kenner figure, and the prototypes for Itchy and Malla were created by altering two more standard Chewbacca figures. The smaller figure of Lumpy was actually built around a Fisher Price family action figure, whose distinctive bent elbow pose can be seen in the photos.

In the end, Kenner technically produced no specifically Holiday Special-related products

[Star Wars Holiday Special via Retro & Rather]

The world’s most brilliantly pointless street flyers 

The Help
Maid In America
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 137 min

We’re not super big on southern styled movies revolving around sassy women doing sassy things in sassypants (never have seen Steel Magnolias, Driving Miss Daisy, or Green Fried Tomatoes), but we do like us some sappy movies that make us cry and semi-revolve around pie and fried chicken.  The Help is just such a movie, but this one’s got a message, about dicey race relations or something, but with a hope for a better tomorrow, or something!!!  And guess what, WE LOVED IT TO TEARS!!!!!!!!!  NOW FEED US SOME FRIED CHICKEN, NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Based on the runaway bestseller of the same name by Kathryn Stockett (that we haven’t read a word of, snatchurally), no-name writer/director Tate Taylor takes the story about the stories of two black maids (stoically solid, and Oscar-worthy Viola Davis, and an outrageously enraged Octavia Spencer) and the one white woman (not even fugly wigs can make Emma Stone un-hot/awesome) ‘brave’ enuff to tell their stories, and makes all these stories about stories of stories well worth telling and watching… even if they never happened, and even if some have accused the movie of candy-coloring & white-washing elements of the Civil Rights era.  So what if Skeeter (Emma Stone’s stoopid character’s name) is the white vehicle for these oppressed black women to be courageous and let them have their say?  It’s a freakin movie, and one, FOR ONCE, that’s appealing to both white AND black audiences!!!  Name another movie that is… that isn’t a crummy Eddie Murphy movie!!!????

Maybe The Help is lame, and we’re juss over-loving it cause it’s a summer Hollywood movie without any superheroes, and we’re beyond sick of summer superheroes.  Or maybe it’s not lame cause The Help has super heroes, but the only special powers they use are kindness, caring and compassion!!!!  (this review is starting to sound as sappy as the movie is, but WHO CARES!????).  Maybe The Help works cause Julia Roberts isn’t in it?  Maybe cause it juss looks great and feels right?  Maybe cause peeps like Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson and Sissy Spacek are supporting acting the sh#t outta it?????  Maybe the movie is juss a great fracking movie, with tenderness, laughter and has pie AND fried chicken in every 5th scene????? MAYBE!!!

Maybe we need help, but maybe you need to see The Help

Help Wanted:  here’s someone we’d like to see in a French maid outfit – former James Franco flame…

Ahna O’Reilly

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Help helps itself to a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Happy 20th, to one of our top ten fav movies of balls thyme

Stand By Me as the TRAAAAAAAIN passes over the Lake Britton Bridge in Burney Falls State Park, California, 1986 [QuietOnTheSets]

we want to go to there!

thank you Rob Reiner, River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, Casey Siemaszko, Gary Riley, Bradley Gregg, Jason Oliver, Marshall Bell, Frances Lee McCain, Bruce Kirby, William Bronder, Richard Dreyfuss, John Cusack, Andy Lindberg, Kent Luttrell,  et al, and of course, Stephen King

Chopper, sic balls!

(fyi – sic vs sick)

one year later, Rob’s Princess Bride was released.  quite possibly the bestest back 2 back movies by any director EVERRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! 5reals yo!