Thighs Wide Shut

Trishna
Rorschach Tess
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 117 min

There’s a famous book that you may have heard of called Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.  We don’t know a thing about it, cept that it’s probably about a girl named Tess and she’s of d’Ubervilles.  Man, remembering how to spell ‘d’Urbervilles’ is about as hard as remembering how to spell ‘hors d’oeuvres’!  And did you know that the lady of the d’Ubervilles has no relation whatsoever to the lady of Cat Stevens song ‘Lady d’Arbanville’???

Now that that’s settled, one of a kind/wunderkind director Michael Winterbottom has taken the Tess text, whatever it is, and renamed her Trishna of no family name, and moved her story to India.  Since we don’t know the source material, it’s hard to compare how they compare, but this movie is kinda the bomb-bay… well, for a Winterbottom movie that is.  Rule of thumb/numb – if Michael Winterbottom has directed a movie, it’s probably worth seeing.  Trishna is no exception, and probably one of the more exceptional movies he’s done did.  It’s true!

Trishna is Freida Pinto, a peasant girl who works for peanuts to provide for her family.  One day, her traditional dancing  catches the eye of Richie Rich Riz Ahmed (he was in Wintery’s Road to Guantanamo) and he plucks her from poverty to work at one of his father(Roshan Seth, he of the Temple of Doom!)’s hotels.  Since he’s a man, of course he has ulterior motives, like getting into her pants.  She’s shy, and he’s nice, but guards are eventually lowered and so are pants.  Then Trish leaves, returns home, takes care of some unwanted bidness, and the Richie Rich guy goes chasing after her.  They decide to live together in the big city, where him being rich and her being poor isn’t a big deal, and everything goes really darn swell (smiles! more dancing! the life of luxury!), until things change and aren’t going well, and then things GET FREAKING CRAZY!!!!  This flick’s got love, hate, secrets, lies, thighs, Pinto, no beans, beautiful scenery, Indian stuff, some happiness, much sadness AND MUCH MORE!

moral of the story – oh, Trish, of the d’Oeuvres, why do fools fall in love, especially with rich fools who seem to be nice but really are juss controlling iceholes??!?!??!?!  TRAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  we totally now want to read the book watch one of them stuffy British TV mini-series adaptations!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Trishna opens in theaters May 18

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Found Link
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 105 min

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is by far the scariest of all the 7 Apes movie (Tim Burton’s mistake was scary for a different reason), and maybe even the third best ever, after the orginal and Escape from the Planet of the Apes.  YES!!!!!  This is how a prequel should be done – add to the series (it’s like Conquest, but done betterer), not take away from it (Hannibal Rising) or add nothing new (X-Men: First Class) or juss be plain insulting (Star Wars, cough, cough)

The storyline wasn’t overly complicated, and the direction (by Rupert Wyatt) was good enough, but what makes this Apes rise high is the quality caliber of acting put on display, by the humans (James Franco, John Lithgow, and from the little that Freida Pinto, David Oyelowo, Brian Cox and Tom Felton get to do) and by the humans who were motion captured to pretty close perfection as CGI chimps (Andy Serkis, the king of kong and all other creatures who aren’t really there).  If you watch the originals, they feel kinda cheesy, and we’re not just talking about the ape masks.  When you watch this one, cheese is nowhere to be found

We dug Apes cause we could believe the apes.  Not their cause (although animal cruelty does suck though, right Nim?), but that they were really apes, aping up more feelings than juss wanting a banana.  CGI shiz is still not eggzactly where it needs to be (neither is the internet, so nobody’s perfect… yet), but we’ll take this Planet‘s fake terrain over most other CGI clusterfudges of the past few years

All hail Caesar, and hopefully for many movies to come!

The GrApe Escape: there’s no denying how yumcredbile the original Apes is, but Escape from the Planet of the Apes may be the most fun.  watch why!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Worth A Peepers

Apes is pre-cool at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
Lucy Punch Drunk Love
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Woody Allen has made his fair share of winners, duds, mehs and yeah-yeah-yeahs.  You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger falls under the yeah-yeah-yeah category.  It’s nothing special, like Corky from Life Goes On, nor flat out retarded, like Lindsay Lohan’s lifestyle choices, it’s juss a delightful lil London love trifle wrapped inside no enigmas wrapped inside a comfy blanket that eventually becomes an uncomfortable one, cause some of our characters make poorer decisions than Todd Margaret, but we’ll never know the full outcome of em as the movie finishes open-ended! Bastardo cheerio!  Moist importantly, it’s not Whatever Works 2, cause #1 was dreadful!!!  And thankfully, there isn’t even a character playing the nebbish Woody Allen role in Stranger!  Basically it’s lecherous men (Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas) versus their insecure, neurotic women (Gemma Jones, Naomi Watts, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch), with some fortune telling, failed artistic careers and marriages strewn about.  Whatevs.  It’s a Woody Allen movie, and at this point, you’re either a person who sees and mostly enjoys his movies or one who doesn’t.  What kind of person are you?

What’s Next?: Midnight In Paris – 2011.  but when will Allen make a movie in Norway so we can read the headline ‘Norwegian Wood’????????

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Stranger is currently light, not dark, in limited release!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…