Thighs Wide Shut

All Is Lost
A Must SEA II
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 106 min

Dude, there’s this movie about Robert Redford as an unamed guy, who’s like sailing in the Indian Ocean or something, by himself, and one day wakes up on his ship, with his cabin flooded, caused by some shipping container ramming into the ship and bustin a hole into it.  Being an awesome old man at sea, the old man goes about trying to fix what he can, and sail on, trying to get somewhere, anywhere, from the middle of nowhere.  Sh!t happens, more sh!t happens, none of it good, and the man does what he can to survive.  This is what J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost is all is lost about.  This is what Life of Pi should have been, but wasn’t, cause it had a tiger, and lots of CGI colory stuff and things and spirituality and stuff.  Redford speaks maybe a single page of dialog in the entire movie, but he acts by doing, and doings he does OH SO WELLLLL!!!  All Is Lost is a better silent film than The Artist was.  Damn, son.  Makes me wish that Redford acted MORE (at least outside of his own movies).  And continues my wishes of never wanting to go sailing EVER!!!!   If it were a true story, it would probably be better than Captain Phillips, but it’s not true, and Captain Phillips is the movie of the year (thus far), but Lost is not far behind.  It’s like the 2nd best film that isn’t about Native American/Holocaust/fake moon landing conspiracy theories of The Shining!!  Oh man, be a man, and set sail on this MUST SEE SEA ADVENTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Lost is FOUND, currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Captain Phillips 
A Must SEA
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 134 min

Captain Phillips is a real person.  Some really really real sh!t happened to him.  Fo’real.  Five’reals.  999999’reals.  None of us would ever want to walk/sail a mile in his poop-deck shoes, even if the stuff that happened to him didn’t happen to him.  That’s probably why none of us are captains of cargo ships that pass thru ye dreaded pirate alleys of today.  Who be the pirates of today?   No, they aint from Pittsburg, they from Somalia. It’s a poor country, and sometimes people go to such extremes that they have to hijack ships and demand money and stuff.  This is what happened to Captain Richard Phillips and the crew of the Maersk Alabama.  But Captain Phillips wouldn’t let any harm come to his crew or cargo or ship, so he saved them all by putting himself in more danger.  What happens next is either something you already know or (hopefully) not, but either way, Paul Greengrass‘ rivitinglisciously-rousing panic-stomach-knot-inducing 134 minute thrill ride movie is BEYOND required viewing, especially if you consider one of THE best films of the year to be something you should probably see

Cap’n P is embodied by our generation’s Jimmy Stewart – Mr Tom Hanks, but I don’t think even Jimmy Stewart could pull off what Hanks does done in Greengrass’ grassy knoll (whatever that means).  You know Hanks can play any type of character (usually nice dudes), and will make whatever character he plays instantly likable and believable, but Hanks has been taking on such blah roles for most of the past decade.  Don’t think he’s won our heart this much since he got lost as Viktor Navorski in the horribly amazing The Terminal.  But what Hanks does in Phillips isn’t just his best work in a decade, it’s one of his best pieces of work period.  Yep, right up there with Gump, Woody, Josh Baskin, Jimmy Dugan, and whomever he played in Philadelphia.  Wow, just wow.  Still being wowed just typing the word ‘wow’ when describing Hanks in Phillips

But Hanks isn’t even really the star of the movie.  He literally takes a backseat to the four dudes who play the pirates.  Every single one of them should be given awards, parades, a street named in their honor, and probably some food, so they aint so dangs skinny.  Oodles of kudos galore go out to Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed and Mahat M Ali (with the bestestest forehead-afro combo on planet earth).  They scare the Captain & crew onscreen, and us off screen.  I’m sure they scare themselves juss looking into a mirror.  Look at this gif below and tell me you aint scared of that man and his barely fingers!!?!??!?!  Can he even pick up a fork????  Doesn’t matter, cause he picks up our eyes and keeps them glued to his

Verdictgo: beyond Breast In Show

Captain Phillips sets ails and sails into a theater near jews today

Ship Mates:  filming happened on the Alabama’s sister ship, the Alexander Maersk 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Salinger
How To Lose Friends & Influence & Alienate People 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 120 min

From the writer of Armageddon and the Shaft remake comes a documentary about the biography that he, Shane Salerno, co-wrote, about one of the most infamous and mysterious writers and persons of the the 20th century – Salinger, about… YOU GUESSED IT –  Jerome ‘Jerry’ David ‘J.D.’ Salinger 

We all vaguely know what JD’s been up to since he was last published in 1965 – self-imposed hermiting in Cornish, New Hampshire, questionable loving of way too young younger ladies, possibly working on unpublished stories – but what has he really been doing (is he drinking his own urine)?  There may not be a lot of knowledge or truth (nor analysis of his work) dug up in Salerno’s two hour long expose, but the hearsay said is here to say, and I for one ate up every inch of it!!! (although no mention of urine drinking ever pops up.  CRAP!!  or more like PEE!!)

For a man so privately guarded about his life and his work, and who was no fan of the Hollywood-ization takes on either, JD Salinger would hate every minute of this sleazy talking head documentary (filled with questionable interviewees – John Cusack???), but he’s dead and can’t do anything about it now, and if this five/nine years in the making doc is all we have to look at, then this is what we have to look at, and it works for me!  

What we’re mainly looking at is 30ish photographs of Salinger, and we see them over and over in the film (like the one above), and some we’ve never seen before – a bunch of WWII ones, including one of him actually writing Catcher In The Rye!!!  And a lot of talk – from former friends and lovers, that may not get us any closer to better understanding Salinger, but it’s about as close as we’re gonna get, unless his son (see below), and third and final wife ever have their say, which they probably won’t

You want a deep study on Salinger’s work – get a degree in comparative literature.  You want whatever dirt can be dug up on JD – see Salinger.  See it and hear how his upper class upbringing brought on his hate of materialism and phoniness.  See how the loss of his young love with Oona O’Neill (she moved on to bigger things – like Charlie Chaplin!!!) spurned him for life with the ladies (he didn’t seem to like it when girls became women).  See him at war (there’s actually a video clip of him in liberated France!!!), and how it permanently damaged his psyche and soul.  See him find happiness and inspiration in innocence and isolation.  See him seek adoration, but reject fame in the same breath.  See how others seeked him out for answers, only to find out that he didn’t offer or have any, and really just wanted to be left alone

Salinger’s death didn’t solve any of the myths and mysterious surrounding his life and his work.  This doc doesn’t either, but nothing truly can, cause only Salinger can answer for himself, although he himself said that nothing should be known about an author, and juss let the work speak for itself.  Maybe the answers will lie in those unpublished works, supposedly headed our way between 2015-2020.  Maybe they won’t.  They probably won’t.  Regardless, JD Salinger will always remain a closed book that we will want to re-read and over-analyze until we’ve finally caught that rye

Verdictgo:  Breast In Show

Revenge of The Literary Nerds:  Salinger’s son Matt is an actor, that you sorta know in his own right.  He played Captain America in the eponymous movie that no one saw, BUT he was also in Revenge of The Nerds, a movie that everyone in the 80s saw!!!  wonder if dad ever saw it, and was proud or found the movie phony, or he loved all the nude scenes like I really did when I was under 10 years old

Salinger catches eyes in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

My Father and The Man In Black
Saul Good vs Evil
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 87 min

You know the man who was the Man in Black’s right hand man, right?  Of course you don’t, and neither did his son.  Well, now it’s time to introduce you to Canadian Jew Saul Holiff, who did so much more than manage Johnny Cash for 17 years.  He basically had to play the role of father-figure adult, trying to keep the childish Cash from crashing and burning, all while trying to keep himself from doing the same.  Unfortunately, Holiff wasn’t much of any actual father figure to his own son, and the director of this marvelously melancholy doc, Jonathan Holiff 

Saul Holiff killed himself in 2004, leaving his son searching for answers.  Who was my father, and why did he not care and love me?  Jonathan’s journey of paternal discovery led him to his father’s storage locker, filled with Cash mementos and audio diaries.  In his father’s own words, archival photos and footage + Unsolved Mysteries-like recreations, My Father and The Man In Black reveals Saul’s story and motivations and regrets (there are MANY), and Johnny’s too, and even a dash of June Carter Cash‘s, and it’s all 182893929 times more interesting and useful than whatever that garbage Walk The Line movie is was.  It’s true cause I said so  

In the end, we get a loving portrait of an unknown who should be known, and Jonathan gets a clearer picture of a man of gray, who was in the shadow of the Man in Black, and the only thing missing from this can’t miss doc is Harry Chapin’s ‘Cats In The Cradle’ playing over the end credits

‘When you coming home, dad?’

‘I don’t know when, But we’ll get together then. You know we’ll have a good time then.’

:(

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Black is right in NY/LA today and elsewhere elsewhen + on iTunes & Amazon September 10

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Our Nixon
Nixon Business With Pleasure
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 84 min

watch this clip

what is this??? Richard Nixon spraying nasty personal opinions that the public was never suppose to hear, from his INFAMOUS(ly stupid) secret White House audio tapes, paired with glorious Super 8 footage that was shot by one of his three right-hand men – Nixon Chief of Staff HR ‘Bob’ Haldeman, Chief Domestic Adviser John Ehrlichman and Deputy Assistant Dwight Chapin.  All three would end up being collaterally damaged casualties from the Watergate scandal. Someone had to take the fall, right? From 1969 to 1973 these gents shot over 500 reels of Super 8 footage. Co-directors/producers Penny Lane and Brian L Frye tell the Nixon presidency story thru this footage and his own dumb words. The result is not only an important historical audiovisual record, but a beyond fascinating eye and ear opening paranoid snapshot of such a time and such a place and such a person, which all juss keeps on getting more fascinating as the years pass. Whomever Nixon it is, make sure you make Our Nixon yours, even if it’s just for 84 minutes

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Nixon aired on CNN and opens tomorrow in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…