Thighs Wide Shut

Countdown to Zero
or How I Learned Nothing New About
The Worrisome & Overloved Bomb
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

The United States has nuclear weapons.  Russia does too.  So do a bunch of other countries.  Some of them are scary countries that are even scarier cause they have nuclear weapons (guess which ones????).  The world would be a much better place if no one had nuclear weapons.  Is this news to you?  Probably not, but if it is news to you, then you’re probably in elementary school and if so, you probably shouldn’t be reading this site.  There’s basically 30 minutes of info rehashed 3 times over in Lucy Walker‘s attempt at an inconvenient, but obvious truth that goes by the name Countdown To Zero.  The only thing you’ll be counting down to is the minutes remaining until this redundant history lesson is over.  Snap!  Snap indeed.  Even with an impressive roll call of talking heads of state (Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Pervez Musharraf, Robert McNamara and Jimmy Carter), all being talked over by Gary Oldman, there’s just nuttin here that’s a bombshell.  Tick, tick, boo?

Doc-torate: do yerself a flavor and watch the franztatsic ’82 doc Atomic Cafe instead [for free on hulu!]

Verdictgo:  its heart is in the right place, even if its information is already in the place called your brain, so Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Zero wants you +1 this Friday in NY & DC only and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Oh Can She Talk, And We All Should Listen
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

We’ve never cared much for Joan Rivers and her schticky schtick, and we expect you feel the same, but if you see Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg‘s lovely and lively doc Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, and you mos certainly should, you will walk away caring about her (even if her jokes still blow).  Without Joan there aint no Sarah Silverman, no Kathy Griffin, or really any other bitchy female comedienne (we also don’t care for) going today.  Picking up the torch from Rodney Dangerfield, Joan feels she gets no respect, and by what we encounter in this ‘year in the life of’ piece, she basically doesn’t

The doc tries hard to make us feel sorry for her, and it does, when the focus is on the past (Johnny Carson turns his back on her, her husband’s suicide), but when we peer into the present, it’s hard to cry for a woman that’s consistently working (even if it’s in places like Minnesota) and keeping in the public’s eye at age 77 (even if it’s for Celebrity Apprentice), especially since she loves doing it and the monies that comes along with it.  OK, we do feel sorry for her ever growing list of plastic surgeries, and for her daughter’s Melissa Rivers‘ lips, but they’re nowhere near as pitiful as Jocelyn Wildenstein (where’s the documentary on her???).  This Rivers still flows, and Piece of Work lets us know, and knowing is half the battle

Gwar & Remembrance: when Joan meet Gwar

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Joan works in NY/LA/SF this Friday and elshwere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

When You’re Strange
They Wanted The World And They Got It Then
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

The story of Jim Morrison,  Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and  John Densmore has been told before, dazed and confusedly by Oliver Stone (so hard to shake the image of Val Kilmer as Morrison out of our heads) and in the mos eggsalad Morrison bio No One Here Gets Out Alive, but while writer/director Tom DiCillo‘s passion poem on The Doors, When You’re Strange, skimps on the details of the group’s history, it does one thing exceeding better than all that came before: it leaves the music on until it’s time to turn off the lights

Funny how DiCillo’s best work to date is not one of his quirky lil low-budget comedies, but his very first stab at making a documentary.  And what an easy subject he picked to succeed with, which begs the question, why hasn’t one been made on The Doors before?  Notice we didn’t say ‘definitive’ anywhere in that last sentence, cause this is most certainly not the one, but it will light your fire, or, as in our case, re-ignite it, since our deep infatuation with Mr Mojo Risin & friends sailed off on a ship of fools ages ago.  And there’s a bonus to it all:  it’s narrated by Johnny Depp (naturally, after he did such good work for the Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson doc).  Another funny DiCillo thang is that this may be the only opportunity he’ll ever get to work with the 21 Jump Streeter

The Hitch High-ker: there is some incredible footage of Morrison aimlessly walking and driving in the desert used to frame the entire doc.  Turns out it was culled from an unfinished(?) Morrison film called  HWY: An American Pastoral [watch it all, in really shoddy quality].  here’s a lil backstory on it and DiCillo’s use of it, and while we’re throwing video and links around, here’s a college recruiting video starring a pre-Doors Morrison + the story of the rediscovery of it

Verdictgo: we might want to see this twice so we can LOVE IT TWO TIMES!!! Breast In Show

Strange doesn’t trip in limited release today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…