Mary Poppins Returns
The Old Disney Razzle Dazzle Made New
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG | 130 min

Everything’s a winner in Mary Poppins Returns, and purists should have no cause for alarm, and everyone else should have cause to see this, cause it’s pure Disney movie magic, in that old fashioned way we knew and STILL love.  Walt would be proud

First and foremost, Emily Blunt stepped into shoes that be so large that they were simply impossible to fill.  So I guess that means she did the impossible, because she made Mary P her own, with a bit of Julie Andrews’ spoonful of sugar, tossed in with a tad of author PL Travers’ bitter toughness.  Blunt’s Mary is, well, blunt.  She doesn’t take no sh!t, but also makes magic out of anything, even sh!t, but not literally sh!t

And the kids are great.  They’re wide-eyed enuff, and one of the kids has super-wide ears!  And the girl’s real name is Pixie Dust or something!

And the kids in the first movie are now grown up, and the perfect path for moving the story forward, in what is the loosest story they could go forward on (they don’t have money and may lose their house!  can anyone help them!).  And you cannot ask for better actors basically doing pointless acting as worrisome siblings than Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer.  I wish they were my dad and mum, or brother and sister, or husband and wife, or anything that would make me able to hug them.  I’d give Ben a mustache ride, and Emily any kind of ride she desires

Oh, and super annoying Lin-Manuel Miranda is super annoying (not sure why a guy who lights lamps has to appear in every scene, AND BE SO FCUKING HAPPY), but his super annoyingness actually works for this show-stopping show that does not stop.  He doesn’t stop!  HE WON’T STOP!!  And his pizzaz in the proceedings is infectious!  You’ll want to light lamps!  And imitate him, like…

Oh, and Colin Firth is a good baddie, and Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury are old as fork, but you watch them twinkle and wish that you’ll be as spry and as with it as they are at age 93.  And even thought his character was kinda whatevs.net, it was nice to see David Warner.  I love David Warner.  You probably do too, but just don’t realize it.  And what about Meryl Streep?  How do you think she was??

And the songs?  I don’t remember any of them, but they were really good!  And when mixed with the 2-D animation, I literally felt like a kid again, on a Disney ride with no line, having the time of my life!

Verdictgo: mos def Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Mary pops at a theater near jews and white nationalists today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

 TV was watched in 2012, and here’s how we rank what we watched!!!!!!

1. Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable (ESPN 2)

Two years of existence and it’s still the funniest show on TV (NO JOKE), and it’s on DAILY!  More Papi rants please!  Less Papi raps please!

[we’ll take this off the list next year, and just make it a permanent bestness like CBS Sunday Morning & PTI]

2. Louie (FX)

the best David Lynch TV show since Twin Peaks + there was GF Parker Posey + that episode where Louie got so scared of his dad that he had to escape the madness on a boat

2a. The Untold History of the United States (Showtime)

IT HAS BEEN TOLD!!!!! As told by Oliver Stone!!!

3. American Horror Story: Asylum (FX)

Dominique -inique -inique s’en allait tout simplement,

Routier, pauvre et chantant.

En tous chemins, en tous lieux,

Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu,

Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu.

4. The (American) Inbetweeners (MTV)

MTV tried to make an American Skins, and it didn’t exactly work.  They tried again with the UK’s BEYOND INCREDIBLE The Inbetweeners and it BEYOND WORKED (like how the US version of The Office beyond worked)!!!  Making this work is Nobel Peace Prize worthy.  Too bad MTV cancelled the series, cause it was smarterer & clevererer than anything else on its channel.  Personally, I think the show failed cause they didn’t get crazy hot adorable girls, like the British one did

5. Modern Family (ABC)

If you hate Modern Family that means you hate Phil Dunphy which means you hate life.  I feel sorry for you

6. Episodes (Showtime)

Everything about this show = A+.  Daisy Haggard as Myra = A++++++++++++++++++++++++++

7. Dexter (Showtime)

Finally, Dexter boned someone we’d actually bone too – Yvonne Strahovski.  Oh, and the show returned to form, after its first and only not so great season, which starred Tom Hanks’ son

8. Newsroom (HBO)

I’d literally watch Emily Mortimer watch TV screens, which is why I watch the overly annoying YET thighly addictive Newsroom

9. 30 Rock (NBC)

Going out with a bang, of laughter!

10. Rock Center with Brian Williams (NBC)

It’s ALMOST better than 60 Minutes.  Well, it’s definitely more fun.  And Bri Wills’ week in review bit at the end of each show 30 ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!

11. The Client List (Lifetime)

and what’s your reason for NOT watching this show about hand jobs & boob jiggles??????????????

12. Political Animals (USA)

this mini-series was more engaging and sirprizing than the 2012 election, and Ciarán Hinds (my favorite living actor) as faux Bill Clinton was pretty much the knee’s bees to end all knee’s bees in 2012 + Carla Gugino was in it, so that means she was probably half nekkid and banging someone.  in fact she was!

13. Dallas (TNT)

Desperate Housewives was the würst, and yet we barely missed an episode.  It ended in 2012, so we needed a trashy prime-time soap to replace it.  Well, how about a show that features two of the hunky guys from DH, who happen to be two of the würst actors around?  SOLD!!!  Plus, there’s JR, one of TV’s greatest villians EVER.  Glad we joined in.  And we’ll stick with it, until TNT doesn’t

–

other solid forms of entertainments: Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel (so real!), Eastbound & Down (that Russian pitcher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), Pretty Little Liars (JOtastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), Breaking Bad (it’s been kinda downhill after the dis-Gus), Misfits (love it, but there’s been too many cast changes), Mad Men (think we take it for granite, and yet it’s still overrated), Sherlock (CUMBERBATCH!), Elementary (it’s no Cumberbatch, but Jonny Lee Miller is awesome!!!), Arrow (super, heroes), Homeland (losing patience with this one), The Office (righting the wrongs of last season), Boardwalk Empire (less Bored-ing this year), The Ricky Gervais Show (anything Gervais is behind is worth your time), Veep (THAT CAST!!!!!), Life’s Too Short (we loved it… in 2011), The Mindy Project (who knew Mindy could carry her own show?), Don’t Trust The B—- in Apt 23 (Dawson-awesome), Childrens Hospital (11 minutes of heaven), Gossip Girl (we’re actually gonna miss this show), Parks & Rec (it’s still not as funny as you all make it out to be),  Shameless (annoying, but can’t stop watching), Nurse Jackie (annoying, but can’t stop sorta watching), House of Lies (awful, but can’t stop watching), Californication (awful, but see below), SNL (obvs) & Game of Thrones (well made, but we couldn’t tell you a thing about this show) 

+ bone-yes moments

Californication, you’re never amazing, and yet, you are the BREAST!!!!!!!

- Phil-isms

- Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel’ Gymnast Sisters story :(  :)

– ‘where are gay men’s vaginas?’

- Lisa Loeb + Rufus 9ever!!!!!!!

– Gervais’ Derek pilot is melancholy madness

- Weeds ended, thank gawd

– found out who Gabbo is, almost 20 years after the fact

– MLB.tv is the greatest web tv thing ever

– 12.12.12 got us to watch one thing on TV for 6 straight hours

– more Drunk Uncle please!!!!!!!!!

– wait, Joe E Tata was on TV’s BATMAN?!??!?!!

– the guys of Girls, cause the girls from Girls suck

– when it comes to Hitchcock, we’re on team Toby Jones (and Sienna Miller too!)

– Pat Sajak’s interview on DLHQ | Liam Neeson calling Dan ‘David’ on DLHQ

– Mister Rogers and the Make Believe Olympic Games robot!!

– the Luck theme song

& fair thee well Dick and…

&

&

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perv-iously

’11
’10
’09
’07

Hugo
Méliès-y Shady of Winner
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG | 127 min

So, there’s this orphan kid (Asa Butterfield) who lives and works in the clocks of a Parisian train station.  When he’s not being chased by Sacha Baron Cohen with a mustache, he’s trying to re-build Bicentennial man.  When he’s not doing that, he’s stealing stuff from cranky ole toymaker Ben Kingsley.  When he’s not doing that, he’s hanging out with Kingsley’s ‘daughter’ Chloë Moretz, who is way too mature hot for being a 14 year old.  399393939 movie hours pass of them two kids running around, causing minor mischief and making endless lil ragamuffin faces, while also borrowing books from Christopher Lee, and listening to a bearded Michael Stuhlbarg talk about his boner for pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès

Wait, what does Méliès have to do with all this?  Well ya see, Kingsley is not only a cranky ole toymaker, but HE’S ALSO GEORGES MÉLIÈS!!!!  But he doesn’t care about movies anymore, CAUSE OF WORLD WAR and MOVIES BEING TURNED INTO SHOES or something, but the kids care and so does his wife (Helen McCrory) and so does Martin Scorsese, who turns the last brilliant third of this movie into a love letter to early cinema AND a giant PSA for film preservation!!

moral of the story: it’s a kid’s movie where all the great stuff is about the adults.  the kids stuff should have been thrown out the window and this baby shoulda been all about Méliès, cause Kingsley hands in a f#$king crowning achievement performance as the cinemagician.  also, there should have been a naughty sex scene between SB Cohen and Emily Mortimer.  also, the 3-D is not as great as everyone’s making it to be.  also, they should have cut out 98% of the kids stuff and replaced it with 3-D clips of how hot Louise Brooks was, or maybe with some modern 3-D hotness like this!

Toying Around: art imitates life

Verdictgo: last third is beyond breast in show, but the first two-thirds keeps it a Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Hugo is quasi-moto-awesome currently in a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

but before we go, imagine if Asa and Kodi Smit-McPhee switched Chloë movies!!!  LET THIS IN!!!

Chloë 9ever!!!

Our Idiot Brother
Oh Brother, Why Aren’t Thou?
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 90 min

Our Idiot Brother feels like the work of a first time director, with a screenplay that plays out like a mediocre sitcom pilot.  Well, OIB is director Jesse Peretz‘s third entry (never have seen The Ex or The Château, and we’re guessing we probably don’t need to), and it is indeed David Schisgall and Evgenia Peretz‘s first stab at a motion picture script.  Does this explain why their stellar assembled esmble and R rating are basically laid to waste?  Maybe.  OIB is a harmless lil flick, and it’s hactually purty darn hard to even come up with anything negative to say about it (we did smile a bunch, dangit), but there’s nothing really here to see or hear, outside of folks who are Shirley Knight completists.  If that’s you, then go ahead, bother with Brother

But if yer like we, you expect a little something more than nothing (it’s basically the story of a guy who wants his dog back, but it’s not as boring as Wendy & Snoozy) when you got Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer (oh gawd, do we love this woman) playing patient sisters to ‘idiot’ brother/minor Lebowski Paul Rudd, no??  And what if you surround these fine folk with the likes of Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones, Hugh Dancy and Adam Scott???  Shouldn’t that be enuff to miss misfiring?  Apparently not.  Everyone here is game, especially a chillaxed Rudd, but everything here is also tame, and kinda lame

A better approach would have been to toss the family aside and partner Rudd up with fellow mellow head T.J. Miller, and have them do crazy stuff, like open a candle store, with zero cares in the world or bidness sense.  That idea actually pops up at the end of the movie (and no, we didn’t ruin a single thing by telling you this), but by then, any buzz you might have had, will surely have subsided.  Pass the peace pipe, and pass on this

Chin Up: Paul Rudd’s first film role was in 1992’s A Question of Ethics, a film he was so appalled by (for religious reasons – he’s Jewish, the flick was Jesus preachy), that he asked to be credited as Kenny Chin.  can’t find any video of it online, but found this still

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges 

Brother is familiar stuff at a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

WE STILL LOVE YOU RUDD STUDD!!!!

Harry Brown
Brown v. The Bored & Uneducated
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Michael Caine‘s been down the shoot em up road before, as he’s gottsen Carter and filed Ipcress, but them pics were ages ago.  Since then, the artist formerly known as Maurice Micklewhite hasn’t really had the chance to pick up a gun, since he’s been recently used as a supporter of others (Batman’s butler, Clive Owen’s pot toking prof pal in Children of Men, and juss being a wise grandpa in a plethora of solid movies).  In Harry Brown, Caine’s history of violence is no longer history, and it’s a delight, cause as everyone knows old people kicking ass totally kicks ass, especially in movie form!!!  It’s a genre that always delivers, and wholly entertains, juss like body switching movies!!  Now if only someone made an old person body-switching kicking ass movie!!!!

Caine plays the title character, a pensioner who’s had enuff of the street hooligans (including Skins‘ Jack O’Connell) running rampant round his downtrodden South London housing estate (see below for more on the actual location).  After his BFF (David Bradley, that creepy Hogwarts caretaker dude) is killed by some of dem cockney slang slingers, and the police are, naturally, of no help (although Emily Mortimer tries), he decides takes matters into his own hands.  WATCH OUT YOU DANG KIDS, CAUSE GRAMPY’S PISSED AND COMING AFTER YOU!!!!

Brown is slain and pimple the UK’s answer to Gran Torino, with oodles more grit and violence (the one scene inside the drug dealer’s lair is scary as fork!!!), yet isn’t exactly able to dispense the emotional wallop quite like Eastwood’s modern day masterpiece did.  No knock against Daniel Barber‘s directorial debut, cause his geezer Death Wish is a delicious and diligent vigilante fantasy, but old Dirty Harry’s always gonna beat out old Harry Brown in any comparison… unless of course they switch bodies!!

Estatements: you knows we loves rundown London neighborhoods as movie backdrops, or maybe you didn’t, but you should loves em too!  Harry Brown took place and was filmed in the hellhole known as the Aylesbury Estate.  czech out these here beautiful/ugly pics

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Harry carries it in NY/LA/SF & Chi-twon today and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…