Thighs Wide Shut

A Dangerous Method
Girl Just Wanna Have Jung
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 99 min

A teacher and a pupil and the pupil’s own pupil get into a psychological triangle of thoughts, dreams and masochistic desires in David Cronenberg‘s A Dangeous Method. It’s true, and it’s all true, cause the people we’re talking about are real people!!!  Like the cigar chomping daddy of modern psychology Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), his reluctant and doubting heir apparent Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a fidgety young Russian girl who takes great pleasure in pain, and has a few of her own thoughts on analyzing this AND that!!!

We see relationships forged, broken, mended and bended all over again, before this trio goes their own ways into the annals of psychoanalytic history. But whose story is this? Freud is on the fringes, observing afar from Vienna, while Jung and the Ruskie take center stage experimenting with some… dangerous methods – read, HOT KINKY HOTNESS!!!!  THEY SHOULDN’T, BUT THEY SHOULD!!!!  Or should they???? What does Freud think of all this???

Mustached Fassbender as Jung owns the proceedings (of course he does, this is Fassbender we’re talking about!!!), but Keira Knightley comes pretty close to upstaging Mr Mos Fantastic Actor of the Moment. At first, her accent seems to flicker in and out of believability, but as the minutes pass, not only does Knightley’s character blossom before our eyes, but she herself, from the run of the mill Jane Austen broad we’ve become bored of, to an actual actress with great range, filled with sirpizes!  Yes, we’re talking about the same KK that is in such boring stuffy British movies like, Crumpets: The Movie. Same also goes with Cronenberg, who sirprizes us by showing he’s capable of making an adult movie that doesn’t succumb to weirdness for weirdness sake, or has William Hurt in it for no reason

moral of the story: a movie about thinking people thinking about other peoples thoughts doesn’t exactly scream ‘see me’, and we cannot necessarily say that A Dangerous Method is something worth screaming about, but it is worth a thought, and a lot of thought was put into it, so think about that.  Remember, it’s a non-weird Cronenberg movie, and William Hurt isn’t in it for no reason, so if that’s what yer thinking, THINK AGAIN!!!  BUT you get to peep at Knightley’s nips AND see Vincent Cassel play yet another oversexed pig, and that’s good enuff for we to think you should see it, maybe.  thoughts?

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

A Dangerous Method wants you to hear its thoughts in NY & LA today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Artist
Silence Is Mostly Golden
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 100 min

Ah, the era of silent films.  Long forgotten and loved by so few in today’s world of gabfests and explosions.  In the past year we us ourselves have grown a love for the dialog-free flicks that were so flappertastic… which explains why we’ve spent many an hours digging in the past for endless bobbed photos.  The bygone format may have collected dust, but cinema has paid tribute here and there, from Sunset Boulevard, to Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie, to the maudlin madness of Guy Maddin‘s mizzles, and now with The Artist, Frenchie writer/director Michel Hazanavicius‘ loud-quiet love letter that’s sealed with a giant sloppy kiss

The artist in The Artist is mustachioed George Valentin (the dashing and playful Jean Dujardin), a star of the silents, with the look of Douglas Fairbanks, a name like Rudolph Valentino’s, and a ‘talkies killed my career’ tale, that sent the likes of stars Pola Negri, Ramon Novarro, Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, John Gilbert (the list sadly goes on and on and) into early acting retirement.  The sentiment on display is a welcome one, but the story, a little too simplistic.  Hazanavicius, his artist Dujardin, and gal vendredi Bérénice Bejo have driven us down this road before.  If you’ve seen their OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies Bondish spoof [trailer], you’ll know they are more than capable of putting the period pieces together.  And just like with OSS 117, The Artist is a beautifully polished homage with the right rah-rah spirit, but it doesn’t exactly score touchdown after touchdown

STILL, The Artist is worth seeing cause we need to be reminded of that time and that place and of those movies that had no talking, and what happened when their time was up, and it was time to start talking.  And where else are you going to see Uggie the dog doing awesome stuff (sadly no skateboarding) in B&W, John Goodman being loud without saying a word, or James Cromwell being sweet without a pig that talks?  Or find bonus employment for fine folks like Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell, Ken ‘Borat’s buddy’ Davitian, Nina ‘sister of Casey’ Siemaszko (see below), Joel ‘brother of Bill’ Murray and Bill ‘Dauber from Coach‘ Fagerbakke??!!  FREKKIN DAUBER!!!  FROM COACH!!!

moral of the story: The Artist is the best silent film of the year, and probably the best silent film since maybe the end of the silent era (both proclamations don’t really say much… or do they???), and you’ve probably have seen zero silent movies, so start with this, and then open Pandora’s Box to all the other silent pleasures that eggsist in the fine history of the cinema. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

SiemaszKOed: wethinks we’re in love with Nina ‘sister of Casey’ Siemaszko. she went from having a license to drive

to having a license to be MAD ADORABLE!!!!!!

and havings a license to show off her assets!!!!!!!!!!!! [NSFW]

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Artist takes up residence in NY & LA this Friday, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

My Week with Marilyn
Companionship Is A Girl’s Best Friend
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 99 min

Colin Clark is one lucky fellow.  He was born into money and used family connections to get onto the set of Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl, and somehow sirprizingly into the heart and soul of Marilyn Monroe… for a week!!  Of course any man would give both of their testicals to be in her presence for 10 seconds, so we’re pretty dang darn jealous that Clark did what he got to do, especially since he’s a dweeby guy played by the dweeby actor Eddie Redmayne (he needs to get a lip reduction or something).  But even if this is CC’s story, Simon Curtis‘ film version of his true story is truly all about Marilyn through and through

When we first saw a picture of Michelle Williams dolled up as MM, we were kinda creeped out by it.  We love Williams and all, but didn’t think we’d be able to buy her as her.  Well, after seeing MW be MM, we are now beyond sold.  So much so that we’d almos rather spend a week with MW as MM than with MM.  It’s true!!!  Throw in some stiff-upperlipping by Kenneth Branagh as Olivier, Judi Dench dame-ing it up, Julia Ormond ormonding(???) it up, Toby Jones standing tall, Emma Watson not being Hermione, Dougray Scott wearing the same exact glasses that Arthur Miller did, Dominic Cooper not being Uday Hussein, Zoë Wanamaker rapping with her raspy voice, and we got ourselves a solid supporting cast playing the cast of characters who supported MM during her cinematic journey in the old country

But there was something about the whole falling in love affair with MM that didn’t sit right with us.  It felt like we were being served a giant slice of nauseating sentimentality.  And this Colin Clark kid is just too vanilla a human being to give two flying figs about.  He’s as cardboard as… cardboard, and as interesting as… cardboard.  We ended up rooting against him getting into MM’s troubled life, and wished it was Olivier who had itched that seven year itch (whatever that means).  But it is what it is, and that’s what it is

moral of the story: Monroe has been portrayed on screen and TV 100+ times.  Michelle Williams hands in the 2nd best MM performance we have ever seen.   This is why you see this movie.  So, who’s #1?  Samantha Morton, who played a heartbreaking MM impersonator in one of the best films of the last 10 years – Mister Lonely

Smoke Em If You Got Em: yes, these did really eggsist.  EAT IT MR T!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Marilyn‘s Week begins limited release on Thanksgiving Eve Day

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

(this is Colin with Olivier’s wife Vivien Leigh!)

Melancholia
Let Nature Take Its Collision Course
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 136 min

What’s that in the sky?  Is it a bird? A plane?  No, it’s a mysterious blue planet colliding with ours!!!  WHAT!!!?!??!?!?!  Perish the pershing thought!  But would you expect anything less than a date with annihilation with our host being none other than Mr Slap-Happy Go-Lucky himself, Lars von Trier???  No, we wouldn’t, but after whatever the f%^k his Antichrist was (or wasn’t), we’re glad he’s putting us out of our miseries, and the results are sirprizngly not eye slitting out repoopulii!!!  Who knew that R.E.M. could get it so darn right when they said that they felt fine at the end of the world!!  It’s true, well, at least when watching it happen cinematically!

von Trier’s Melancholia starts with a masterfully artsy fartsy prelude bang (the sequence alone is worth the price of admission), and them calmly works its way backwards, 2 days before our time is up.  We meet blushing newlyweds Kirsten Dunst and Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd, who are late to their own party, but with their perma-smiles & nuptial bliss in tow, no one is going to mind waiting hours for their arrival.  Once it all gets going, the reception is to die for (think this is how we’d all love ours to look like), but as the evening progresses, things start to unravel as we learn that nothing in this world can make Dunst happy, even on her most special of special days.  Her bleak mum (Charlotte Rampling), inebriated womanzing father (John Hurt), money matters brother-in-law (Kiefer Sutherland), pushy employer (Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd, shockingly NOT playing the father of the groom… his real life son Alexander), and even her hopeless wedding planner (Udo Kier!!!) are only making matters worse.  The ones trying to turn her frown upside down, newbie husband A SkarsgÃ¥rd, sister Charlotte Gainsbourg, and nephew Cameron Spurr, don’t have a chance on this planet of succeeding.  So where does Dunst, down in the dumps, go from here?

After a nice hot bath, urinating on a golf course, and a spontaneous encounter with Brady Corbet (the fake Michael Pitt), Dunst has fully come undone.  The wedding ends, and so does the marriage!  THAT WAS QUICK!!!  Once everyone leaves, grumpy Dunst grumps about with sister Charlotte, bro-in-law Kiefer, and nephew Cameron at their palatial castle and grounds (see ‘Castle-Free’ below). This is when all the planetary madness comes into play, and for once, Dunst starts to feel at peace (she even planet-tans in the nude at night!!!!!), while her sister starts to lose her shit, in her own way.  Dunst’s performance garnered all of the Cannes attention and awards, but it’s hactually Gainsbourg who has the more challenging, and rewarding role.  Maybe they should have been co-awarded, as two sides of the same coin, flipping the flip flip out

moral of the story: von Trier can create joy out of uncertainty and destruction, and this time he didn’t need to harm any penises in the process.  that in itself can be seen a success, and this might juss be his mos accessible movie to date.  Heil von Trier!!

Castle-Free: LvT made the heavens and earth collide at Tjolöholm Castle, Kungsbacka, Sweden

via this really cool site QOTS!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Worth A Peepers

Melancholia explodes into limited release tomorrow, and is already available on-demand, but this is a theater movie people!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Martha Marcy May Marlene
Cult of Lightening In A Fragile Bottle
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 120 min

Elizabeth Olsen is the unknown, and now known, sister of the Olsen twits.  Don’t know what she’s been doing all her life, but now she’s an actress, and from what we’ve seen of her in Sean Durkin‘s purty darn good Martha Marcy May Marlene, she definitely passes as an actress, and even more so than her sisters, who never really were actors to begin with, juss a set of twins who played a set of twins on a really dumb sitcom

In MMMMMmmmmmmMMmMmm, Liz doesn’t do much talking, but she does eat, and swim, and mope, and sometimes falsely smiles, and other times juss scares us with those blue-green Olsen dead eyes.  That’s what Olsen kin do best – they stare with those eyes, and creep us the creep creep out.  Liz as MMMmMMmmmMM does lots of staring cause she’s a lost soul stuck in the real world (at sis Sarah Paulson and bro-in-law Hugh Dancy‘s fancy dancy lake house) after running away from a cultish farm commune, which she kinda sorta not really wishes she never left, but of course is glad that she left (oh the contradiction!!!!)

She’s haunted by the past, going nowhere in the present, with not a very bright future ahead of her.  Blame the washing of her brain and private parts by the Jim Jones/David Koresh/Charles Mansonish dude played by John Hawkes (he has shady facial hair AND plays a guitar, so he muss be a cultish leader!!!!).  Now we loves ourselves some JHawkes, but he’s far too gentle of an actor to be seen as a lecherous misguided messiah.  Maybe that’s where faux-Michael Pittster Brady Corbet comes in, cause his eye starings are almos as creepy as Olsen’s is be!!!

Moral of the story?  Everyone with blue-ish eyes kinda creeps us out

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

MMMMMMMMM is currently mmmmmmmm good in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…