Thighs Wide Shut

Tetro
American Zoetrope Beauty
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

A ship docks in Buenos Aires and a young man decked out in a crisp white uniform disembarks and walks amongst the dark shadows of the city’s streets. He doesn’t speak the language. Holds no currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound. Don’t call him Al, call him Bennie (fresh, yet classic faced Alden Ehrenreich… more on him below), and whatever you do, don’t call Bennie’s long lost and now found brother anything but Tetro (a marvelously grumpy Vincent Gallo). Tetro isn’t so happy to see his brother and he’s in no real huge hurry to describe eggzactly why, other than the obvious fact that he wants nothing to do with his family, and in particular, their manipulative, impossible to please composer patriarch (Klaus Maria Brandauer, this time without an arcade filled with Centipede). While gloom and doom are the way of Tetro’s walk, there’s sunshine emitting from everyone else, from his girlfriend (the radiant Y tu mama Maribel Verdú) and his bohemian pals (including Motorcycle Diaries‘ energetic Rodrigo De la Serna and Almodóvar muse Carmen Maura… her part was originally suppose to be played by Almodóvar’s male muse, Javier Bardem), and the impressionable Bennie soaks it all up, maturing with every ray. This is juss the base of the cake, and the rest of the story is theatrical icing that’s too sweet and luscious to divulge, or to pass up on

Did we mention that this is Francis Ford Coppola‘s first original screenplay since 1974’s The Conversation, his second ever black & white feature (with splashes of color, and also about sibling rivalry) after Rumble Fish, and is easily beeslyily his finest work since The Rainmaker Jack Captain EO (double dare we say) Apocalypse Now? That’s wright folks, Coppola is EFFIN and TREFFEFFELIN back yo [note: we didn’t see his richard prior, Youth Without Youth], and finally pulling the spotlight away from his over-lauded daughter. Sum of you will disagree (the critics are already mixed) and find Tetro to be boring, pretentious, superfluous, or all three (even we felt a bit of each at times), but you cannot deny the effort and passion that he poured onto this gorgeous canvas, to make a more personal piece of work that’s an absolute treasure. It’s perhaps the greatestest student film ever made, which happens to be made by a true student of film. George Lucas has talked a good game about making flicks juss like this, but at this point in time he’s probably incapable of doing so (he may be ‘independent’, but he’s far from being an independent filmmaker). Coppola no longer has to prove anything to anyone (that’s the kinda carte blanche that The Godfathers give ya, even with all the crap he’s churned out beyond the mid-80s), yet like the subtitle of Lucas’ Episode IV, Tetro is putting on display a new hope. The force is strong with this one, and we certainly hope that Coppola’s empire keeps striking back

Mazel Toast: this hottie space is usually guy free, but why would we want to be free of this guy? Alden Ehrenreich looks like DiCaprio and Tom Brady’s lovechild, talks like Matt Damon, acts like he’s cooler than Chris Cooley, and is 100% awesome. if you need an eggcuse to see Tetro, he’s it. Alden’s discovery as an actor is the stuff of Hollywood urban legend (ala Lana Turner). supposedly he appeared in a home movie that played at a Bat Mitzvah that happened to be attended by none other than Steven Spielberg, who was so taken by the heartthrob’s performance that he got em a screen test with the DreamWorks casting peeps. the rest, as they sorta say, is history… in the making

bi the gay, is this really his voice on Mazel Tov Cocktail? sadly it’s NOT the starmaking Bat Mitzvah vid, which we would die and thigh to see

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Tetro opens today in NY/LA only, and elsewhere, elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Up
yUp!
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Can the Pixar people do no wrong? No, they can’t. We don’t even like modern cartoons, but we will always pay to see a Pixar flick (Toy Story being the one to rule them all). People went balls to the wall for last year’s WALL•E, but that was only 1/3rd perfection (when faux E.T. was alone on earth). Up is about 3/5ths perfection, and thus more worthy of any Oscar talk than its predecessor possessed. Why? Cause Up is a triumph of the human spirit, not of the robot one. Sure, the kid is annoying (voiced by Jordan Nagai), and the rare bird and talking Up-dogs are a bit gimmicky (being in 3-D was hactually not gimmicky, and therefore hactually unnecessary), but the old man (Edward Asner) wears his emotions on his sleeve, and while you watch him turn from an Andy Rooney curmudgeon into an Andie MacDowell softie, you’ll probably be wiping tears off of yer own sleeve. The teariest bit of bits comes at the beginning, as we watch him and his wife montagely grow old together. That stretch of the film alone is more Oscar worthy than WALL•E and most films that win Best Picture, and if you don’t think so then you smell like Upyo

DNA-Hole In 1: Carl Fredrickson from UP Totally Looks Like Joe Paterno

so how come you haven’t b-marked TotallyLooksLike.com yets?

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Drag Me To Hell
Drag Thyneself To See This
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

After years of toiling in the mainstream, or perhaps lamestream would be a better word (still can’t get the taste of Spiderman 3 outta our mouths), Sam Raimi (and his brother Ivan) goes back to the well that has treated him and us so… well, and all hell breaks loose, spankfully. And with bigger studio dollars to match his beloved street cred/crud comes Drag Me To Hell, the movie equivalent of riding one of those cheesy Haunted House rides, where the scares are cheap, albeit scary, and outright thighlarious (we couldn’t stop larfing, and didn’t want to stop). DMTH could end up being the moist fun anyone could have in a theater this summer. Of course you have to have the stomach for it, and by it, we mean a crusty old Gypsy woman (Lorna Raver) constantly drooling ooze & pulling the hair and biting the face of the lovely Alison Lohman (the only thing more amazin than her beauty is how perfect a casting choice she was to play a younger version of Jessica Lange in the thighly underrated Big Fish). Along for the thrill ride are her boyfriend (Justin Long, using nothing but Apple products… and we wish were joking), a psychic (purrfectly over the top Dileep Rao), her shyster employer (the always shystery David Paymer) and another mystic (the creepy Adriana Barraza, who is not in fact the housekeeper from The Goonies). DMTH is bestest enjoyed in the company of (this is gonna be racist regardless of how we put it) an über-urban audience, although we were a lil put off by the couple that brought their baby to the theater when we saw it. May they be dragged to hell!!

Totally Got Gyped: the only Gypsy scarier than the one in DMTH is Tina Turner as the Acid Queen in the movie version of the Who’s Tommy

come to think of spit, as a whole, Tommy‘s one of the scariest movies we’ve ever seen

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Up and Hell are currently playing at a theater near jews two movies you have already seen, or should have already seen

and while we got ewe hear, peas watch the trailer for FFCoppola’s Tetro, which opens (and will be reviewed) next week

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Tyson
Uppercuts & Downercuts
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

A Mike Tyson documentary that doesn’t bother to mention his 8-bit/5th-best NES classic Punch-Out!! (or Michael Scott’s prank phone calls for that splatter) is an automatic failure. James Toback‘s Tyson doesn’t go there, but if we can get over that faulty fact, then you’ll probably be able to too, cause this profile straight from the horse’s mouth of the Last Lord of The Ring is the funniestest and moist touchingestest movie we’ve seen since Gran Torino. What can we say, we love a man of words, even if their racist (Eastwood’s Asian barbs are still boning are funny) or malapropped 8 days a week (Tyson twice made playful use of the word ‘skulduggery‘… btw, bestest Tyson quote of balls thyme: ‘I guess I’m gonna fade into Bolivian‘). If yer looking for an in-depth look back at his life and career, you may want to look elsewhere, cause this doc aint about depth of facts, but of feelings, and you’ll be feeling his pain, from the punches in the ring, to the ones that came from outside of it. Regardless of what you think of him going in, you’ll feel sympathy for this devil coming out, and maybe, juss maybe, you’ll let him eat your children

They Got Game: play Nintendo/Tyson’s Punch-Out on-line + Sega’s James ‘Buster’ Douglas Knockout Boxing (which sold about as many copies as minutes of fame he had) too!!

Verdictgo: sure, it runs a lil long, even at 90 minutes, but this shiz is totes pelling-com, so low end Breast In Show, but Breast In Show lessthenone

The Informers
Walking On Empty
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Bret Easton Ellis is ell a gifted and talented writer. The movies made from his books haven’t been so gifted, even if they’ve been loaded with talented people (we don’t care what you say, American Psycho the movie SUCKED when compared to American Psycho the book, which has gotz to be one of the greatestest American novels ever written, so eat it Faulkner!). His loosely connected short storied Informers (another book we hactually read) unfortunately continues this trend, leaving the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder, Lou Taylor Pucci, Rhys Ifans, hot newcomer Jon Foster, and the ageless Chris Isaak, with not much to do, cept sit around and look beautiful and bored, as their shallow and vapid characters are unseamlessly being tied together. You’ll probably be more bored than they are (although we weren’t bored by perky cutie Cameron Goodman). We knew it wasn’t working as we were watching it, yet it did kinda sorta stick with us after we left the theater (doesn’t 12 minutes afterwards count for something). You can skip it (along with its poster, which has gots to be worstest poster of the year), and instead watch the hammazin unrated trailer again and again, and pretend, like us, that the movie rocks the cashbar. It’s really sad that Brad Renfro‘s final performance ever will best be known as that movie where Amber Heard’s NSFW scenes are better seen than anything else seen or heard from within

Keeping You Well Informed: never 5get the best/wurstness that is Snow’s ‘Informer’ [d|vid] + the Jim Carrey parody, which isn’t as thighlarious

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Tyson & The Informers are both currently playing in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Star Trek
Spock & Awe
(sorry, but had to steal that one)
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Move over Arnel Pineda cause wunderkind J.J. Abrams has assembled the single greatestist tribute act known to man (+ other bonus cast and crew members) with his spankin brand new Star Trek, which has gots to be the coolest, hippestest, funnestistest Star Trek adventure of balls thyme. Not that we’re sexperts in all things Trek, since we’ve only seen (and truly madly deeply loved) the IVth movie with the whales, a handful of Next Gen eps and that Kaaaaaaahn!!! clip that’s all up and down YTMND, but we knows and loves solid entertainments when we see it, juss like knowing and loving a solid bowel movement when we shat it. Obviously there wouldn’t be a dazzlin nouveau Star Trek w/o the original gangster version, so Abrams and Co have gone to great lengths to preserve that what is holy, as well as boldly going above and beyond where they went before. They say you can never go home again, and for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (but mostly Lucas) they maybe should have never gone home again. Abrams, however, doesn’t have the last name Roddenberry, so thankfully he didn’t have to carry that torch, and was allowed to light his own. Gawd bless you Paramount Pictures!

This Star Trek takes us back to the beginning, when Kirk was born, Spock was mocked, Winona Ryder was his human MILF and the Enterprise was juss startin to be enterprising with the help of the always helpful Bruce Greenwood. Large shoes had to be filled all around, and the new crew comfortably walk many a star logs in the old ones’ kicks: Chris Pine is moist fine as Capt JT Kirk; Zachary Quinto lives long and prospers as Leonard Nimoy‘s Spock, but as an angrier version (bonus points for casting Nimoyish doppelganger Ben Cross as his papa), Zoe Saldana makes hearts and pants melt as Uhura (see below); John Cho doesn’t chew up scenery, as he shouldn’t, as Sulu; Englishmen Simon Pegg peggs the Scottish accent and humor as Scotty; Anton Yelchin (blows in general) bures as Pavel… Chekov; and lastly, but bestly, Rohan Rider Karl Urban is the real effin McCoy as Dr Bones dammit! The plot is a lil paper thin (and maybe a tad too hazy, with all the confusing time traveling shiz, and the Hoth scene with the Starship Troopers alien beast), but since this is more of a re-introduction piece, and one that works so well, it’s hard to get upset about anything, including, but not limited to Eric Bana‘s baddie character’s limited screen time. We think he hates Spock or something and wants revenge like the horse I Want Revenge, although he scratched in the Derby, so he didn’t get revenge on any horse, but Bana does, but not on horses and not nearly as good as the revenge he gots when he fake played a Jew in Munich and totally kicked terrorist a$$ in the name of the Lord. Anywho, this new Trek totally nails it for diehards and livesofts alike, and will have us all thirsting for more in the years to come. So set yer phasers to fun and beam thyne self to a theater!

Outta This World: is there anyone named Zoe that isn’t hot?

+ her green Orion Star Fleet Academy roomie
who turned out not to be Diora Baird, but
Rachel Nichols (no, not the ESPN one)

who will mix bidness with leather
as Scarlett in this summer’s GI Joe

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Star Trek opens tomorrow (yes, on a Thursday)
at a theater near Jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Logan’s Run-On
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

You’d think with a spin-off of a mighty popular movie franchise, featuring its moist mighty popular character, that the production would actually spend a good deal of money (is there such a thing as a ‘bad deal of’ anything?) on top of the line special effects, right? So what then is the story with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which features dodgy CGI that looks about as complex as the flight simulator the monkeys played with in 1987’s Project X? What? That’s not the finished version of the film that we watched? You mean to also tells us that them on-screen ADR directions weren’t subtitles of what the character was saying in a mutant language? That’s not what the dude in the trench coat in the dimly lit parking garage led us to believe when he handed us a DVD copy of this film with a label written in sharpie, and told us we had to watch it ‘as is’ or else he was going to kill our Queen and our Secretary of State-ments. We take all threats of Thighland’s national security vary seriously, and when that involves making tough choices like the one in which we were presented, sometimes you have to task not what your country can poop for you, but what poop can who flung on your country. Huh? Yeah, whatevaaaaa

Full-on CGI or not, Wolverine is about as good as any of the other X-Men movies, so take that for twatever it’s worth. To us, it doesn’t really mean shiz since we couldn’t really tell the difference between the three blah blah X-Mens, including that Brett Shatner one. They were decent enuff super hero flicks, but this caped crusader franchise is easily the least memorable of them all (plus everyone knows that DC Comics so kicks Marvel’s a$$, and anyone who disagrees can lick Aquaman’s chocolate starfish). Hugh Jackman is totally jacked and hughed and game for this adventure, but if this were a Choose Your Own Adventure, we’d probably choose a different path for him to follow. We did like the shaz in the beginning where Wolfy and his equally facial hair gifted bro are fighting in every American war known to man, eggecept for the Cola Wars, and all the action sequences that follow throughout are kinda tight, like a man’s anus, but the filler in between, endless military talk, medical experiments and running from one locale to the next, isn’t eggzactly our idea of eggcitment. Tis kinda a shame it turned out to be so rudimentary, hispecially since they roped in a prestige director (Gavin Hood of Tsotsi fame… then again, Gavid Hood is also of Rendetion disfame. shame what Hollywood can do to a talented filmmaker), sum thespian best-ians (Liev Schreiber and Danny Huston) + eye candy for the ladies (Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch & that a$$hole from Lost, cause ladies love the a$$holes). Then again, this thing was doomed not to rule as soon it was revealed that Will.i.Am‘s mutant power was being a CNN hologram

Mutton Chop Phooey: where would Wolverine be (or any of us cool kids for that splatter) w/o Ambrose Burnside and his mutton chops? the man’s last name, in reverse, gave rise to one of the illest, moist important words of balls thyme… SIDEBURNS ^{[citation needed]}

Verdictgo: it wouldn’t be fair for us to give one, so if yer a crazy X-fan, see it in a theater, and if you’ve had enuff X-crap, then you can stay away and rela-X at home (at watch the legboot)

The Soloist
Cello Darkness My New Friend
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

The Soloist is less about Nathaniel Ayers, a once promising Julliard student turned schizophrenic homeless virtuoso (Jamie Foxx, showing off his incredible ability for mimicry, like he did with Ray) and more about Steve Lopez, the jaded LA Times reporter who discovers and gives cover to him (Robert Downey Jr, so effin hammazin as a journalist once again, juss like in Zodiac… did you ever see that movie? juss had to ask for the 4 zillionth thyme). So much so that The Journalist woulda been a more apt title. As the great Time Werespanko pointed out to us, disability movies aren’t about the disabled, but about the person who has to help them. His main example was Rain Man, sayin it wouldn’t have worked tat all had Tom Cruise not been so balls to the walls in it (yet no Oscar nom for Tom? boo-urns!). Tis true what he says and the same thinking applies here, although The Soloist is Rain Main w/o the thunder and lightening cause it covers the feelings bases well, but not so much in the telling a story department. It does try to send a heavy handed message about the larger issue of homelessness in LA, and while it doesn’t fully succeed in getting it across, it was certainly worth trying to do so. Wees thinking that The Soloist was all over the place due to the fact that Joe Wright is out of his usual element here, directing a film that plays out in the modern era and is not starring Keira Knightley (although he did bring along his creepy friend Mr Collins from P&P). And yet despite its many flaws, we took to this beautiful film, as the performances elicited a few tears here and there, which is a sure sign of a fantabolous movie. So, have no fears for tears, or slapdash presentation, and go and see this flick that briefly stars a guy with one of the bestest IMDb headshots we’ve ever seeeeen

60 Minutes Divided By 5: justin case you missed the real deal, watch Morley Safer’s more rounded story on Mr Lopez and Mr Ayers… which also elicited tears from us. what can we say, we’re suckers for things that don’t suck

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Wolverine opens at a theater near Jews on Friday, where The Soloist is already isting

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…