Thighs Wide Shut

Pitch Perfect 2
Not Awful!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 115 min

I don’t think I sat all the way thru Pitch Perfect 1 (I was probably laying/lying, not sitting). The wife said, lets watch it on TV, and she watched it, while I played on my phone and mocked it while 1/2 paying attention. It was a movie you can get the gist of in about 8 seconds – it’s Glee, with girls as the focus, and maybe more laffs, but not really

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to being forced to see #2… after 5 minutes of eye-rolling, my eyes stood in place, and my ears followed, and I sat thru the sequel – ALL OF IT. And you know what, it was not awful! Sure, this thing was far from sexy or original or awesome or deep or anything, but it has more going for it AND was more enjoyable than Sucker Punch is/was, and Sucker Punch had scantily clad women fighting ninjas or something!  

Pitch Perfect 2‘s plot is razor thin, but it makes up for it in the girth that is Fat Amy/Rebel Wilson, who doesn’t steal the show, cause she IS the show.  Without Fat Rebel Wilson, the movie would be nothing but mousy Anna Kendrick looking for cheese and Brittany Snow rolling her eyes more than I did when I was forced to watch #1, and Elizabeth Banks (who directed this movie!!!) and John Michael Higgins with their not so witty repartee reprising its repetitive rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s.  But don’t worry, you get all of Fat Wilson, and the fat butt and fart and poop jokes that come with it!!  + Keegan-Michael Key! and David Cross!  and Snoop Dogg!!  and some Green Bay Packers!!!!!

The Pitch Perfercts are light and fluffy and pitch perfect for viewers young and old, but if it REALLY wanted to razzle dazzle (at least if it wanted to dazzle my razzles), they should go light on the tunes and heavier on the theatrics.  Time to Step-Up evermore yo!

Verdictgo: sirprizingly Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Pitch fast at a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Scott Pilgrim vs The World
8-Bit More Than It Can Chew
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Remember this lil maddening Nintendo send-up/mash-up/cracks-we-up?  What a wonderful, colorful and inventive way to spend 8.5 minutes!!!!!  Same could be said of the similar pixelated terrain of Edgar Wright‘s screen version of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels.  But what of the remaining 1 hour and 45 minutes? Tedious, repetitive, uninteresting.   Waiting for our titular hero (Michael Cera) to fight and (of course) beat level boss/evil ex-boyfriend after level boss/evil ex-boyfriend (Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, etc + one ex-girlfriend, Mae Whitman) had us screaming internally for ‘game over’ to flash on the screen as soon as Atarily possible.  No matter how many 1-ups Pilgrim gets on his quest, the film never 1-ups itself into new territory, even if that singular territory is inspired, fun and a place we’d like to play in… for 8.5 minutes!!!!!

Urgggggh!!!!!!!!!!!!  Maybe there needed to be more real-worldedness ala The Wizard!  Maybe there should have been more things for the supporting cast (Kieran Culkin, Mark Webber, Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick, et al) to do besides make ironic smirks and be all malaise-y (esp Aubrey Plaza, who’s a pro at malaise-y.  so much so that she may end up with a career more one-noted than Cera’s).  Maybe Scottie P spent too much time slayin’ dragons, chasin’ waterfalls and tiltin’ at windmills, and not nearly enuff time building up the actual relationship he so desires with his beloved Ramona Flowers (our once and future wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead, with anime eyes that won’t and we hope, will never quit!!!).  There’s more time devoted to destroying his relationship with Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) AND forgetting his one with Envy Adams (Brie Larson) than anything resembling quality time with Flowers (smiles and heart kisses don’t suffice!).  Their love grows with artificial sweetness, but sometimes substitutes aren’t better than the real thing!!!  Pilgrim, leave Plymouth and do not collect 200 bonus points!!!!

Out With The Old & Always In With The MEW: Mary Elizabeth Winstead may be new to you, but she’s MEW to us, and with this pic from the flick, MEOOOOOOW for one and all!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Pilgrim is currently may deflowering at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
#3 Puts The ‘Sag’ In ‘Saga’
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Where did we leave off in the land of flighty, but fun Twilight [reviews of Twilight 1 & New Moon]? Bella sweated Edward, but Edward took off to work on his hair, so she was stuck hanging out with Jacob and his abs and his shirtless friends, and they did stuff together, and everyone got blue balls. Then Edward returned and Bella totally wanted to jump his bones, and Jacob got angry and hungry like the werewolf. Then Bella and Eddie Muster went to Italy where Dakota Fanning and some red-eyed Vamps did some slo-mo throwdowns. A marraige proposal is proposed and all the ladies in the theater swooned and were over the moon

And where does #3, Eclipse, with no actual eclipses, go from there? Nowhere new or interesting. Same ole story as #2 (still NO SEX!), cept no trips under the Tuscan sun, and Edward sticks and dicks around, prolonging this whole love triangle that really isn’t a love triangle cause Bella totally wants to be a vampire for no other reason than trying to be as hot as Ashley Greene is. Good luck with that plain jane Kristen Stewart!!! OK, we lied, there is some new stuff, like snow! and 8 second backstories of the Cullen kids, like that of Jasper/Jackson Rathbone (our favorite character in the series), when he was Texan during the Civil War or something, and for 5 minutes he speaks with a Texas twang, and then abandons it when someone offers him Texas toast with garlic on it, and how he was seduced by Catalina Sandino Moreno, and who wouldn’t want that to happen, but she’s gone in 60 seconds, and if we were in her presence, we’d blow a load in 60 seconds

Oh, and there’s a mounting battle between vampires and other vampires, and the werewolves want to help out, cause they hate the new vamps more than the old ones. And why is their a battle mounting? Cause Bryce Dallas Howard stole Rachelle Lefevre‘s job and they all want Bella and must have her, which apparently everyone in the Twilight universe done does as well, which makes no sense, cause there’s nothing special about her, besides her dad’s awful mustache. OK, we get how Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner would want to protect her, but why would their respective clans also care so dangs much? Wouldn’t life in the land of Forks be much easier is she was killed? Or what if she moved to Florida to live with her mom (Sarah Clarke)? Seems like some fun in the sun could do her well. And maybe new stuff could actually happen, like vampires surfing or werewolves playing beach volleyball. As for the battle, the vamps prep the wolves on how to take down other vamps, and no tension mounts, cause an hour passes before any actual fighting begins and then the fighting is over in about 4 seconds and then Bella and Edward make kisses faces in a field of flowers, while Jacob pouts and works on his abs.  The end.  More like the end of fun in this now overly repetitive saggy saga!!!

Women will love this third edition (lust w/o the lust), and men will juss wish they were watching True Blood, and we/me juss wanna get as far away from vampires as possible, and Anna Kendrick too. Her acting here was juss as lame as it was in her Oscar-nominated turn in Up In The Air. Where’s the justice people, and moist importantly, where’s the ludicrous vampire baseball??!!!!

Twilight Up Our Lives: here be two vampiressesesessses who needed more screentime/shower scenes…

Kirsten Prout

&

Monique Ganderton

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Eclipse slips, blips, with no nips today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…