Thighs Wide Shut

Super 8
Amblin’ Enuff Entertainment
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 112 min

Steven Spielberg doesn’t make Steven Spielberg movies anymore (yes, Munich is the knees bees, but do flicks like that scream Spielberg’s name? no), so why not let someone else make them?  Fine by we, and apparently fine by Spielberg, who produced JJ Abrams‘ Super 8, which is soaking in so much Spielbergian Spielbergedness that someone has rightful dubbed it ‘Spielberg porn‘.  Still fine by us.  We all loved Spielberg’s 70s & 80s output (if you didn’t, you must have skipped childhood), and no big flicks these days has come even close to (re)capturing that magic and wonder (maybe Pixar stuff, but that’s computer cartoon stuff, and thus doesn’t count).  Abrams must feel the same void we do, and he certainly aims hard to fill it.  Good for him

For 2/3rds of his first real film, Abrams hits the E.T. marks to perfection.  By the time we get to that last third, he’s still following in Spielberg’s footsteps, but instead of karaoke-ing on the good stuff, he gets Super 8 bogged down in the lesser and louder Spielberg stuff, like his War of the Worlds. That’s not a good thing (we can never forgive Spiels for everything that happened after Tim Robbins showed up), but still, it’s OK.  We’d rather have movies that hearken back to older movies that work, and not just be extensions of franchises and name brands (we know yer siked for that Battleship movie… SIKE!).  We must support this kinda stuff, hispecially since Abrams comes awfully close to nailing it

Recently, we were watching The Goonies (another Spielberg related 80s gem thingie) and felt sorry for today’s kids who don’t have their own Goonies. Movies where kids are the focus and there’s fun AND serious stuff going on (read: NOT Hotel for Dogs) are too far and few between.  Again, Abrams is gunning for that same territory, and is A THIRD CLOSE to having an encountery-kind there.  They did cast a great bunch of youngins, who all fit into some sorta Spielbergesque kid role/look – Mikey Walsh (Joel Courtney… hope this kid’s around 9ever), Chunk (Riley Griffiths), Henry ‘Elliot’ Thomas (Zach Mills), Elliot’s brother (Gabriel Basso) and Mouth (Ryan Lee), but in 10 years time, no one will be remembering these characters’ names or any lines of their dialog.  It’s kinda like Joe Dante’s Explorers, which sorta looks and feels Spielbergay right, but juss aint eggzactly the genuine article.  Wait, what the hell was Explorers about?

So what is it that doesn’t work?  For one thing, Elle Fanning should have played every role.  Yep, she’s that hammazin.  She’s even more hammazin than her sister is/was.  If you haven’t seen her in the nowhere going Somewhere, yer going nowhere, MISTER mr!!!  Our lil Joel Courtney (see, who cares what his character’s name is) falls for her, and you will too. You will!!  So much so that yer gonna start rooting hard for them tweens to hook up.  Kids making out is a pretty sick thing to root for, but thats how compelling and believable their budding relationship is!  That shiz is Super-gr88888!!!

So what is it then that keeps this Spielbergy thing from being totes Spielbergeded????  If we told you, we’d have to kill you, or spoil-ish the movie, sorta.  We will tell you this – Abrams is grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr8 at keeping the lid on mystery (and keeping the pace fast!!!), but once the lid is lifted, what’s behind the curtain was probably better left being a mystery.  Remember how Lost began and ended?  Bang and whimper?  Still, we’re not going to complain here.  This is only Abrams’ first stab at Spielbergvilletown.  Looking forward to seeing his Indiana Jones rip-off.  Just don’t let George Lucas anywhere near it

ps, Kyle Chandler is so good at being a screen dad.  we so wish he could be our screen dad!!

ps 2, we agree with Leitch, Abrams’ buddy Matt Reeves’ Let Me In is THE Super 80s throwback over Super 8

West Virginia Is The New Ohio:  what happens when yer town is rundown and hasn’t changed in 30 years?  YOU GET TO STAR IN A SPIELBERG JJ ABRAMS MOVIE!!!!!

welcome to Weirton, West Virginia, home to ‘Lillian, Ohio’!  watch this! read this! & look at this!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

8 is duper-enuff tomorrow at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

X-Men: First Class
When We Were Tweens
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 132 min

There’s all kinda stuff goings on and off in Matthew Vaughn‘s X-Men prequel, but most of it is not much of consequence (wow, mutant kids meet other mutant kids for the first time, AND THEN they get to hone their skillz, in a super slow montage!), since prequels are usually pointlessly redundant ways of taking more of our cash for something we already know well about (wait, Magento was a holocaust survivor???  wait, Professor X used to be able to walk and then one day he couldn’t???). And since this film’s trailer (a damn fine one) puts on display all the juicy actiony content (that Cuban missile crises sh#t was still pretty cool!!), the bits that are worth the price of admission are the wits-y ones.  You know, watching brainy studs Magsy & Proffy X forge a BFFship and then sees it fall apart (we still rooted for it to work, even though we KNEW it wouldn’t)

Watching James McAvoy think and act like Jean-Luc Picard, and Michael Fassbender snarl and snap like an evil Gandolf, while both adding their own flourishes to the characters, was the only thing first class about the film, and that’s almos good enuff for us.  But why employ Kevin Bacon as yer main bad guy?  He was only scary and creepy when he was invisible and groping chicks in that Verhoeven movie.  And don’t know why everyone’s getting all over January Jones‘ case.  She has the very egggzact same amount of acting talent that Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence does —  negative 5.  Lawrence is more blah as the conflicted blue chick than JJ is at looking hot in a movie where she was solely cast to look hot in.  Lawrence is more like X-Men WURST CLASS!!!!!  It’s true, cause we said so.  Oh, and Rose Byrne‘s in this, but she’s not a mutant, so she serves no purpose, but we’re not going to complain about her undercover (but sadly NOT under the covers) lingerie work.  Oh, and Nicholas Hoult was pretty good as Frasier with furry feet, even though he wasn’t wearing a super gay pink angora sweater.  He should get that sweater written into all of his contracts

Fassbestness: see Mikey F sizzle and dazzle in last year’s brilliant Fish Tank OR ELSE!!  but you’re probably a smarty jones and listened to us and already saw this!  if so, pat yerself on the back, and then yer balls

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

X-Men hits the spot enuff, currently at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Thor
Thunder Claps
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 114 min

Kenneth Branagh‘s Thor was some pretty darn decent superhero fun.  T’was also unexpectedly mighty funnier than The Mini Page‘s Mighty Funny Mini Jokes (…who doesn’t love fish outta water situations)!!!  And even though 1/2 of the flick takes place in a CGI eyesore in the sky (glad we didn’t see it in 3-D), everything we liked about Thor took place there (no thanks on the earthbound Natalie Portman, Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd and Kat Dennings pointlessnessness).  It’s also the paramount reason why this one feels different from all the other recent caped crusader pics – it has real mythology behind it, not juss mortal madness.  And when yer playing with Gods (and monsters), you get to unleash the hammiest ham acting this side of an an Orson Welles’ performance.  Anthony Hopkins (as papa Odin), Chris Hemsworth (our titular please do hurt them hammerer) and Tom Hiddleston (the mischievous Loki) all overdo it, but in a good good good way.  The Clash of The Titans aimed for the same ham heights, but the ham they produced was more un-Kosher than… ham

Choosy Men Choose Sif: Jaimie Alexander plays Thor’s gal pal Sif, and we’re choosy, but we choose Sif!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Thor is currently hammering it home at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

btw, Thor is NOT a homo

Fast Five
New Model, Same Make That Makes Our Day
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 130 min

Justin Lin‘s Five Fast Five Furious (what the film should really be called) is the best Fast/Furious film since #2.  Is that really saying much?  No, but like Prom, it’s eggzactly what it needs to be – fast cars and the lunkheads who drive them, hot woman surrounding them, and dialog so basic that it couldn’t even be written in Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.  There was one scene in particular that took the cake, made us cackle for a full minute, and summaries the film and series as a whole:  Newbie/hottie Elsa Pataky has a case file in her hand and says ‘this doesn’t make any sense‘.  Her (also Fast rookie) superior  Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson takes the file in hand, sez ‘here’s what makes sense‘ and tosses it aside with much anger.  It so ridiculous that it almost must be seen to believed, and while udderly laughable, it’s eggzactly the kind of scene a Fast/Furious movie needs.  It’s a perfect self-reflexive moment of juss how testosteroned and over-the-top the whole affair is, and anything less would be uncivilized

So what’s new?  NOTHING, cept for the location, and the change is for the better.  The action takes place in Rio and its favelas, and even though this may not be no City of God, it’s a city of good… dumb fun.  Not only are Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster back behind the wheel, but so are there friends from the other installments like Tyrese Gibson (no one delivers more predictable and pathetic one-liners that audiences eat-up more than he does!), Ludacris, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, ultra fly Gal Gadot, Tego Calderon and Don Omar.  And what is this ‘dream team’ assembled to do?  Something like burn the dirty money of the Portuguese Phil Hartman (Joaquim de Almeida) or something, BUT WHO CARES WHEN THE CARS GO SO FAST AND THE WOMEN ARE SO HOT AND THERE ARE LIKE 3 TOTALLY WICKED RAD ACTION SEQUENCES, which are well worth the price of admission and admission that it’s OK to love refarted flicks like this.  RIDE ON!!!!

Fast Women: you already know about Israeli Gal Gadot (she’s like a taller, finer Natalie Portman!!)

but what about Spanish hottress Elsa Pataky?????

she’s far from tacky!!!!!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

5 is alive and well at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

we and the folks took last year off, but came back with a mengeance (whatever that means) this year.  saw 5 flicks over 3 days, all were Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers, and all will be blathered about below in blurb form (in order of seeing them)

A Quiet Life (Una Vita Tranquilla)
Official Site | 100 Minutes

Rosario (our man Toni Servillo of Il Divo amazingness) escaped Mafia death in Italy, leaving his wife and son behind, and now has a new wife, son and QUIET LIFE as a restaurateur in Germany.  Everything’s fine and dandy… until his long lost son juss so happens to show up with his lunkheaded partner for a murder for hire gig in the area.  Director Claudio Cupellini keeps the tension tight and kitchen knives sharp, in this, only his second feature.  Impressive enuff stuff that deserves an American release, and yer eyeballs

The Swell Season
Official Site| 90 Minutes

What happened to those crazy kids after Once?  No, not the quasi-movie versions of themselves, but the real McCoys, Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová (collectively known as The Swell Season), who went on to much fame, acclaim and Oscar glory.  Great question!!!!  And that is EGGGZACTLY what the doc Twice The Swell Season answers!  He was a seasoned musician with not much world-wide traction and she was a little girl just about to begin life, AND then all their wildest dreams came true AND THEN SOME!!  It wasn’t easy on either of them, especially her, and especially since they were lovers!!!!  DRAMMMMMMMMMA!!!  AND GREAT TUNES!!!!   AND MORE!!!  It’s often painful stuff, but it’s always interesting, but truly only for those who saw Once and Once to know more!

The Trip
Official Site| 107 Minutes

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon go on an English countryside romp, filled with rustic lodgings, questionable fine dinning and a lot of awfully awesome impersonations.  The title to Michael Winterbottom‘s funtastic semi-improvised flick (a summarized version of a the 6 episodic TV show of the same name) sez it all, and it’s a lot more dandy than the trio’s earlier effort, 2005’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.  Book yer ticket when this rock & rule story lands on our shores this June

Mama Africa
Tribecal Site| 90 Minutes

Miriam Makeba is… someone both you and thigh know NOTHING about.  Correct this, like we did, and see this doc (titled with her nickname) about the exiled South African singer and civil rights activist, who won the ears and love of people the globe over, with her click-clacking killah voice.  while you wait for release, get yer ‘Pata Pata‘ on [emp3 d-lode]

God Bless Ozzy Osbourne
Official Site | 91 Minutes

Dude, it’s an unflinching documentary about Ozzy’s life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  There are both Black AND White Sabbath moments, and there’s plenty of red all over!!!!!!!!!!  The only bad thing about it is that it’s not longer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

for all past years Thighbeca-ness, click here