Thighs Wide Shut

Gravity 
The Airless Up There 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 90 min

Love love love love love love love the space (and the fakery to make it look real) stuff goings on in Alfonso Cuarón‘s Gravity.  Don’t really love anything else about the movie.  It’s boring.  It’s characters are lame (Sandra Bullock) and smug and annoying (George Clooney).  There’s too much Murphy’s law being practiced.  There’s not enough aliens.  There’s not enuff space breasts.  There’s not enuff penetration of Uranus.  There’s a lot of tension, but it didn’t really make me feel all that tense.  Maybe it’s cause I was over-filled with udder delight & joy that George Clooney died in space!!!!!!!  SPOILER ALERT.  ooops.  oossps.  Being stuck in space is actually one of my biggest fears (even though I LOVEEEEEEEEEE space), but I didn’t fear what was going on in this movie 1 bit.  Why?  I dunno, I can’t really explain why I didn’t react to something that I probably shoulda had a reaction to.  Maybe it’s cause I could give about minus 15 sh!ts about Sandy Bullock and her troubles on earth and above.  This movie is no 2001, it’s no 2010 even, it’s certainly no Children of Men, and it’s kinda like a better SpaceCamp, but maybe not.  Sure, it’s beautiful and breathtaking, but it’s also beautifully & breathtakingllllly airless and dull

Verdictgo:  Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Gravity is grounded at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Descendants
Hawaiian Punch Drunk Love
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 115 min

It’s an Alexander Payne movie, so cue the anger, the yelling and some yokel dolted side players, but it’s in Hawaii, so life’s a breeze, right??? It’s not (we mentioned it was an Al Payne movie, right?), and now it’s George Clooney‘s turn to play a Payned middle-aged moper (please lord, don’t give him an acting Oscar), and mope he mos certainly does at the bedside of his comatose wife, but he’s trying to keep up appearances for his two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller) that he doesn’t really no how to care for, and then to make Alexander Payne movie matters worse, Clooney finds out that his wife was cheating on him with Matthew Lillard (we never forgot you!!) and he had no clue, and he’s now all kinds of conflicted (how can you be mad at a woman in a coma!!)!!  Feelings will be searched, bonds will be bonded, Hawaiian shirts will be worn and epiphanies will be reached, like how heritage sometimes trumps money!!  Plus we get to rock out to Hawaiian music with the likes of Rob Huebel, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer and Michael Ontkean!!  Plus we get handed this really dumbed up kid (Nick Krause) who serves no real purpose besides being a punching bag for one scene, but his face should have been punched in every scene, but really,  he shouldn’t have been in a single scene.  So what happens?  Stuff and it’s fine and good and things and all, but it’s like a hang 7 instead of a 10

moral of the story:  think hanging a 7 instead of a 10 explains it all.  and Clooney schmooney, but Lillard is ill-yard, yo!

Never Change:

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Descendants is currently breaking waves in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Ides of March
The Snoozes of October
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 101 min

We’re fans of great actors doing great acting, and sometimes that’s juss enuff to make a film work, but other times, like with the George Clooney written/directed/starringed Ides of March, it’s not even close enuff.  If this were a movie made for $4 and starred a bunch of people without arms and legs, maybe this woulda been something, but The Ides of March is a exercise in nothing.  It feels like an even more pointless and boring Contagion, aka – hey look, we’ve assembled this amazing super awesome cast and we’re gonna make a movie like it’s the first time we’ve ever made a movie with the most basic story of stories, and juss when you think it could go somewhere deeper, it goes somewhere like nowhere, or like pretty much anywhere a movie has taken us before!  Zzzzzzzzzzzz

OK, so it’s well known (is it??) that we’re no fans of George Clooney (and his dumb face) (and not so great acting), but as a director (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night & Good Luck, and even Leatherheads), he has shown some chops, but here he’s directing stale air.  If this political ‘potboiler’ were released in 1492 AD, it still wouldn’t make any kind of splash.  Why?  Cause the story is a bore-y.  Want lame fake politics?  See The Ides of March!  Want juicy real politics?  Rent Primary Colors

And the story is???…  Ryan Gosling is a hot shot campaign guy working with honest Philip Seymour Hoffman to get Clooney (in quadruple smug mode, spewing endless ‘I’m such a righteous man’ diatribes, which he probably wrote himself) into the White House (dream on buddy).  The rival camp, headed by Paul Giamatti, aims to steal Gosling for their own team, so Gosling gets conflicted!!!  That’s where any bit of interesting interest starts and ends.  Luckily Evan Rachel Wood‘s thighs are wide open, and Gosling drives into her!  Then Gosling starts learning some truths, like how Evan Rachel Wood may not be a holy virgin (and has a man’s name), and other stuff (that you won’t give 9 sheets about).  And then??????????  Wish the answer was ‘Zardoz‘, cause then it woulda been something instead of some kindergarten attempt at making a political statement

Slain & pimple, Ides of March don’t amount to much.  Maybe this shoulda juss been a movie about Paul Giams and Phil Sey Hoffs squaring off in a battle of angry fat guys, where they take turns yelling at each other, but in the end, become BFFs and celebrate their BFFship by taking a bath together (no, this isn’t our fantasy, but if this was a movie, you’d pay to see it like we would)

No He Can’t: nice poster!!!  NOT!!!!  yer not the white Obama, and yer also not the second coming of Cary Grant.  please leave our eyes alone

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Ides of March is out of step today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Up In The Air
Recycled Air
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

What’s the big deal here? Is there some deep meaning or humanitarian effort we missed amongst the corny dialog and Scott Tissue basic story/toilet paper? Isn’t this juss a reheated/refarted In Good Company? Would there be any applause about this hum-ho Jason Reitman ho-hum movie about people being laid off had people been not mads laid off in real life? Can Up In The Air even be classified as realistic? Can you name one Ivy League grad that uses luggage from 1833? How come not a single flight flown/shown aint at all delayed? Have these peoples even flown out of New York? Is George Clooney really trying really hard to act here or can he only be his smarming movie star self, again and snoozgain? Do we even care? And what about that useless love bit between he and Vera Farmiga? Could he not see that all she wanted was a frequent flied f#ck buddy? Think maybe he shoulda robbed the cradle of perky Anna Kendrick instead? Maybe not? Isn’t there one movie every year that everyone loves and we love to hate? Is this it? Think so? Have any of you peoples who loved this seen the much more poignant Capitalism: A Love Story? Didn’t think so

TWA T&A: there aint nuttin more bootyful in the land of airports than Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal at JFK

Verdictgo: (even though we make it sound Slit Yer Thighs Out…) Very Little Merit AND No Stinkin Badges

Air is currently deflating the hype at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…