Thighs Wide Shut

Saving Mr Banks
A Spoonful of Genuine Sweetener
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 125 min

How did Mary Poppins go from page (wait, it was a book???) to screen, Disney style?  ALL YOUR QUESTIONS (mostly) will be answered in the Disney studio approved John Lee Hancock flick Saving Private Mr Banks.  Who Mr Banks?  He’s a character in the book/movie, AND HE NEEDS SAVING!!!!!  Walt (a very Walt Tom Hanks) has his own ideas of what to do with him and the rest of the book, and so does his script writer (Bradley Whitford – who I still hate from his a$$hole days as the enemy in Adventures In Babysitting and Revenge of The Nerds II), and the songwritring Bros les Sherman (a game Jason Schwartzman, and an always lame BJ Novak – why Hollywood, WHY would you cast him in ANYTHING???), but the original author PL Travers (prim and overly proper Emma Thompson, who is no stranger to nanny flicks) aint having none of it – no songs, no cartoons, no Van Dyke, no color red, no nonsense!  Ya see, Poppins and Co are like family to her.  OK, so what about her own family?  We learn all about them and her upbringing, running concurrently with the story of the 20 year struggle to make this Poppins movie happen.  Travers sure loved her dad (Colin Farrell), a banker with a vivid imagination, and a livid love for drinking.  He wasn’t perfect, but he was dad!  And we’ll learn how that related to Poppins, and who Ms Mary P was actually based on!  But the real question is, will the Disney folks (or even limo driver Paul Giamatti) get PL to p(ul)l a smile out of her dourpuss sourpuss face????  Dude, it’s Disney, of course they will, and it will happen to you too!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Saving Mr Banks is money at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Moonrise Kingdom
Merit Badger
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 94 min

Moonrise Kingdom might juss be the mos Wes Andersonian Wes Anderson movie there ever was was.  Instead of adults acting like kids, MK has kids (LOTS OF THEM!) acting like kids!  Instead of modern folks wearing vintage threads, using out of date audiovisual equipment and reading crusty old looking books, it’s of the day folk (1965) wearing threads, using audiovisual equipment and reading new looking books that will all eventually become vintage!  It’s got characters with character names that have more character than this restaurant.  Names like Gadge, Lazy Eye, Nickleby, Skotak, Lionel, Roosevelt, Izod, and Redford give the Tenenbaums & Steve Zissou & Raleigh St Clair & et al a run for their precious money.  It even has a ski-capped Bob Balaban as an on-screen narrator.  CAN WE GET ANY MORE ANDERSONIAN THAN THAT!  Oh, and it’s got kids who have absent parent figures.  Oh, and Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are in it. Oh, and the film’s color looks like it was filmed with Instagram.  Wait, did Wes Anderson invent Instagram?

So is being the mos Wes Andersonian Wes Anderson movie there ever was was a great, good or bad thing?  To be perfectly honest, we have yet to make up our mind, and have already resigned ourselves to the fact that we probably need to see this flick again before delivering a real final verdict.  Well, if we want to see it again, that’s gotta mean this shiz is f#$king the biz-quick, yo!  Right?  Well, it’s definitely not the biz-quick, but it’s certainly not the limited Darjeeling Limited neither.  Moonrise Kingdom has a lot of heart, which is a wonderful quality for any movie to have (it’s what made MiB3 totally watchable!), but that heart didn’t somehow penetrate our own heart.  We’re not heartless (unless we’re talking Clooney or Apatow), but we juss couldn’t give our complete love and devotion to Moonrise Kingdom.  Maybe we’re still jaded with the Andersonian world, which started with Zissou, and kinda had a reprieve with his Fantastic Mr Fox, but Moonrise puts Anderson right back in Andersonland, and it feels like we’ve sorta been here, done that before

True, Wes (with writing help from Roman Coppola) has never given us a boy scout adventure, but he has taken us to an island before, treated us to amateur theater, and had kids write letters and read them aloud.  Since it’s been there/done that territory, gonna briefly explain the plot in Andersonian terms: A less annoying Max Fischer (Jared Gilman) has found his Rushmore, not in the Khaki Scouts (led by scoutmaster Edward Norton), but in the eyes of a girl that reeks of young Margot Tenenbaum (Kara Hayward).  Things stand in the way like un-understanding parents (Murray, Frances McDormand), but that won’t stop faux Max from carrying out his well laid out plan. (which would make Bottle Rocket‘s Dignan proud) of escaping with his beloved young Margot.  (this flick reminds us of the kids in love movie Melody).  Cuteness and zaniness ensues, and Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, and Tilda Swinton pop up, but don’t really stand out.  Then the movie gets Andersonianish and so on and so forth.  Roll credits

moral of the story – like we said, hard to make a final judgement without seeing it a 2nd time, but that has gotta be a somewhat good sign, since we didn’t even want to bother seeing Zissou or Darjeeling a second time.  but why didn’t it hit us on the first time?   have we had enuff of Andersonian stuffs? well, we could never get enuff of his 2nd to none production design, but how many times can we sit thru the same basic movie but with different vintage threads, audiovisual equipment and old crusty books?  dunno, probably like 5 more times, AND THEN THAT’S IT ANDERSON!!!

Quiet Riot: this is where that was

you love movies, so why aren’t you following Quiet On The Sets???

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers?  Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers?

Moonrise rises today in NY/LA only, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Scott Pilgrim vs The World
8-Bit More Than It Can Chew
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Remember this lil maddening Nintendo send-up/mash-up/cracks-we-up?  What a wonderful, colorful and inventive way to spend 8.5 minutes!!!!!  Same could be said of the similar pixelated terrain of Edgar Wright‘s screen version of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels.  But what of the remaining 1 hour and 45 minutes? Tedious, repetitive, uninteresting.   Waiting for our titular hero (Michael Cera) to fight and (of course) beat level boss/evil ex-boyfriend after level boss/evil ex-boyfriend (Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, etc + one ex-girlfriend, Mae Whitman) had us screaming internally for ‘game over’ to flash on the screen as soon as Atarily possible.  No matter how many 1-ups Pilgrim gets on his quest, the film never 1-ups itself into new territory, even if that singular territory is inspired, fun and a place we’d like to play in… for 8.5 minutes!!!!!

Urgggggh!!!!!!!!!!!!  Maybe there needed to be more real-worldedness ala The Wizard!  Maybe there should have been more things for the supporting cast (Kieran Culkin, Mark Webber, Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick, et al) to do besides make ironic smirks and be all malaise-y (esp Aubrey Plaza, who’s a pro at malaise-y.  so much so that she may end up with a career more one-noted than Cera’s).  Maybe Scottie P spent too much time slayin’ dragons, chasin’ waterfalls and tiltin’ at windmills, and not nearly enuff time building up the actual relationship he so desires with his beloved Ramona Flowers (our once and future wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead, with anime eyes that won’t and we hope, will never quit!!!).  There’s more time devoted to destroying his relationship with Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) AND forgetting his one with Envy Adams (Brie Larson) than anything resembling quality time with Flowers (smiles and heart kisses don’t suffice!).  Their love grows with artificial sweetness, but sometimes substitutes aren’t better than the real thing!!!  Pilgrim, leave Plymouth and do not collect 200 bonus points!!!!

Out With The Old & Always In With The MEW: Mary Elizabeth Winstead may be new to you, but she’s MEW to us, and with this pic from the flick, MEOOOOOOW for one and all!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Pilgrim is currently may deflowering at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…