Thighs Wide Shut

POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
Sold In
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 90 min

Morgan Spurlock is the king of gimmick documentaries that don’t really say much cept ‘Hey, look at me, I’m just like you, but with a fu-manchu mustache, and laugh at my own jokes more than you do, and I like pointing obvious things out about our world, which yer probably already well aware of, but I don’t have a strong enough slant on these generic opinions, which ultimately make my documentaries hollow and shallow, but I bet you laughed a few times!.‘  Well, that’s how we see him.  How bout you?

Anywho, his first gimmick, Super Size Me, was an easy layup, but a doc anyone of us could have made.  Oh, eating McDonalds for a month is gross AND bad for you?  BIND-MOWING!!!.  His second gimmick,  Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?, was less of a gimmick and more of a Middle-Eastern clusterf$%k, even more so than the one that George W Bush created himself.  And now for the good news – his third gimmick (we didn’t see his Simpsons thing and don’t remember which segment he did in the unmemorable Freakonomics) is his BEST gimmick!  POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is not a great documentary, but it’s a really good Morgan Spurlock documentary, and for what that’s worth, it’s actually worth a lot

PWP: TGMES finds Spurlock looking into product placements placed in motion pictures and how the companies behind the products end up funding and influencing the finished… product.  Instead of digging deep, you know, the whole ‘why’ bit, he dips his toes into the pool and simply shows the ‘who’ and ‘how’, as he tries to find company partners to funnel money and products into the documentary he’s making.  It’s not so-sirprizingly all that probing, and heck, it’s not even really anything at all, but it is certainly entertaining

At first he’s has no luck getting any company on board, since his snarky reputation proceeds itself, and no one’s really jumping at the chance to be associated with his project, but miraculously, he finds some that do.  The full list of partners are: Amy’s Kitchen, The country of Aruba, Ban, Carrera Sunglasses, Hyatt, JetBlue, Mane ‘n Tail, Merrell, Mini, Movietickets.com, Old Navy, POM Wonderful, Seventh Generation Inc, Sheetz, and Thayers.  We applaud all of those companies, not for playing ball with Spurlock, but for being smart enough to having their products placed and beyond whored in the film (Mane ‘n Tale didn’t agree to be, but Spurlock loved the idea of a horse AND human shampoo that he included it for free).  Why?  Anyone who sees Sold will walk away with a better knowledge of the products presented, and may hactually be interested in purchasing them (we’re already Ban® Roll-On users 4life!!).  Products 1, Spurlock 0!!  Are you sold yet?

Ads By Subtraction: his best diversion within the doc is his trip to São Paulo, Brazil, a city which banned advertisements in public spaces.  this would never fly in America, and that’s what’s so wrong AND so right with us/US!!

flickr РṢo Paulo No Logo

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Sold is boughten in limited release today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed, but Morgan aint…

Scream 4
Ghostface Knows No Rust
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 111 min

A franchise’s fourth entry, delivered a decade after its forgettable third, is destined directly for the dust bin, damn’i’right?  Such is NOT the case whatsoever with Scream 4, which somehow, someway, somewhy flows fun new blood into a worn body we all left for dead.  Yes!!!  Believe you we, if this movie was any bit a crap-stain, we’d be the first to tell you that it’s the wurstestest!  Wes Craven keeps the dark alight, and Kevin Williamson gets his script data all meta and stuff, and it works works works!  And while most movies like this tire and get all too redonkeloyous as it progresses towards its end, this movie goes in the opposite direction.  You start off watching it going, OK, been there, done that, hardy har, yadda yaddle, but gotta say, by the time we get to the unmasking, shiz was almos as satisfying as eating 8 Snickers!!!!  It’s true!

And the nicest thing about it all?  Scream 4 is like a haven for actors that Hollywood’s lost sight of, and need work, cause there’s nothing wrong with their talents.  Folks like Neve Campbell (we kinda wish this was Sarah Michelle Gellar’s role, so we could see her again), David Arquette (his character and mustache deserve their own spin-off), Courteney Cox (although her face is more frightening than ghostface’s), Marley Shelton (those eyes! THOSE EYES!!!), and even guys like Anthony Anderson (OK, so maybe he gets a lot of work, but it aint all good work) and Adam Brody (we sob for you Seth Cohen!).  Plus you know all the ingénues put on display here will soon enuff be yesterday’s ingé-news, juss like the aforementioned peeps.  Kids like Hayden Panettiere (having the most fun), Aimee Teegarden (FNLILTF: Friday Night Lighter I’d Like To F$%k), Shenae Grimes (her career will probably disappear post-90210-2) and Marielle Jaffe (whomever she is).  There are three kids that we don’t have to worry about, as their chops should keep them in the game for years to come: Alison Brie (she’s kinda prissy one-notey, but we like that prissy one-notey thang she does!!), Emma Roberts (may end up being a better actress than Auntie Julia… which isn’t too hard of a task), and Rory Culkin (Culkin clan aint nuttin to F#%K WIT!).  That kid Erik Knudsen wasn’t so bad neither, even as the film’s most annoying character

Anywho, to slum things up: Scream 4 was not awful, when it could have so easily been, times like 892727378!!  What more do you need to know?

Also, if you’re jonesining for more Roberts-Culkin action, do yerself a flavor and rent the thighly recommended Lymelife

All Hail Hale: sure, Aimee Teegarden is in a league of our groan, and probably deserves this hottie space, but we’ve never seen this Lucy Hale chick before, who’s like a lovefusion of Alexis Bledel and Mila Kunis, and she’s so Hale AND Hearty that her lovely circles get the square!!!

Verdictgo:  Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Scream 4 is currently howling it up at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Princess of Montpensier
(La Princesse de Montpensier)
He Hugs Me, He Hug-uenots!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 139 min

Sorry that we always compare 16ish Century flicks to The Tudors, but we juss love The Tudors so dang munch, and we juss can’t helps ourselves from comparing things that have no comparison to The Tudors.  Anywho, Bertrand Tavernier‘s long take on Madame de La Fayette‘s short story, La Princesse de Montpensier, is like a French Tudors, but with little to no hotness, aka sex, since any ‘action’ happens off screen!!!  At least they gave us the royal treat of watching some handmaidens bathe Mélanie Thierry‘s rack, as she prepares to have her hymen broken on her wedding nite!  Got yer attention?  It did ours, even though this flick sometimes borders on snoozyTuesdayland

Thierry is the Princess in question, and the dude she’s arranged married to (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) is not the dude she loves.  That’s her hubby’s cousin(?), the roguish Duke de Guise (younger Hannibal Gaspard Ulliel).  Throw in their outranking other cousin(?), the slimy Duke d’Anjou (mustache-tastic Raphaël Personnaz), who’s also chasing her tail, and BLAM!, we’ve got a love square sorta goings on!!  Sounds hot, but it’s more chaste then you’d think it would be.  CHASTE-TIZE THAT SHIZ!!!!  But it’s the 5th wheel, the Prince’s pacifist mentor, the Count de Chabannes (Lambert Wilson, who deserves a better American resume than Catwoman and Sahara), truly driving this carriage from start to finish.  He becomes the Princess’ mentor, friend, and in the end, only trusted confidant.  He also seems to be the only person with any values or morales, and thus our most trusted protagonist (the film could of easily been named for him).  Btw, the three suitors are all real historical peoples!

There’s other shaz going on, like a religious war with the Huguenots, and lots of horse riding, and even more horse riding + courtly stuff like playful swordplay and large banquets, AND MORE HORSE RIDING!!  It all adds up to one endless runtime, which might feel a bit unnecessary, and yet there’s never a moment wasted… unless you believe there should be more panties a dropping than men talking about it.  That’s why this aint no Tudors!  Shame, cause her highness in high on hotness!!!

Chaos Thierry: who wouldn’t want to Franc her?

Verdictgo: a mild Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Princess is mostly a crowning achievement in NY this Friday, on demand on April 20th, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Meek’s Cutoff
Probably Sponsored In Part By ARRID Extra Dry®
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG | 104 min

Ever see that movie where Michelle Williams loses her dog?  Oh, you mean one of the biggest snoozefests ever put to film?  Yeah, that one.  It was called Wendy and Lucy (please read our review) and the American military have used it to torture people into giving us information.  Yes, it’s really that ungolden slumbers.  It’s so boring that we’d rather sit thru Hebrew School all over again than ever sit thru it again.  Wellllllllllllllllll, apparently that’s director Kelly Reichardt‘s thang.  Fair enuff, if you love the last letter of the alphabet repeated times 838383.  Get the picture?  Don’t think so!  It ALMOST did the impossible and make us not like Michelle Williams, you know, the actress we all adore and admire and wish was our lover, friend and/mother

So what if there was a subject matter so boring to begin with that it would perfectly suit the director’s style and sensibility so dangs well that she couldn’t lose like Parker Lewis or Indiana in 1976.  Guess what, there is, and it happened, and it worked!!!!  We sorta heart Kelly Reichardt now!!!  All is forgiven… sorta!  Her latest subject is people moving westward in search of a better life (actually that was the subject matter of her last 2 movies).  Yeah, but this is 1845, and moving round back than wasn’t easy, cause the west is wild and also mild and filled with nothing!!!!!

3 families are making this journey, and are led by real life Stephen Meek (a grizzly Bruce Greenwood), for who’s path, Meek’s Cutoff, they’re all passing along on!!  There’s the Gatelys (real life super indie droopy faced cutie pie couple Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan), the Whites (moaning Myrtle Shirley Henderson + Neal Huff and tiny Tommy Nelson), and the couple we care and focus on mostest, the Tetherows (Reichardt alums Williams and Will Patton).  They travel slowly by parched day, and unwind even slower by fire at night.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Occasionally stuff happens, like a wagon’s wheel breaks, or like they think they’re going the right way, but maybe they’re not, but maybe they are, but they still have like zero water!  They even capture an Injun (Rod Rondeaux) and things get a bit more interesting, but then they don’t!

Meek’s Cutoff was like watching everyone’s favorite educational game Oregon Trail (see below) come to life.  That may sound intriguing and boring, and it is!!!  Yet it’s pretty impossible to not walk away from it feeling both mesmerized and thirsty.  Plus how often do you get to see a film displayed in a 1.33:1 square aspect ratio, like our boy Kubrick done did wit some of his flicks with pre-HDTV home video in mind

Blazing Saddles: dude, PLAY THE OREGON TRAIL, Apple IIgs stizz, NOW!!

gawd bless you Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Meek’s is Cut-ON in NY only this Friday and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Source Code
Train Teaser
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Soooooo… there’s a train that explodes outside of Chi-town, and there’s no changing that, but the gov-mint could save future lives if they can figure out the who did it and why did it.  Enter purty boy Jake Gyllenhaal (who gets a lifetime pass from us for being in Zodiac), who’s like some amnesiac soldier tapped in box or something, tasked with finding the answers to those questions.  It’s a serious mission, he knows little about, and it’s an endless mission, that repeats over and over until his superiors (kind AND cold-eyed Vera Farmiga and a bordering on maniacal Jeffrey Wright pulling the strings) get that killer intel they desire.  Ya see, each time he gets thrust into the past, on that doomed train, he has only 8 minutes to dig deep.  Obviously he doesn’t complete the job on the first time (hottie Michelle Monaghan is a unwelcome distraction for him, and a welcome one for us!), and thus the movie is longer than 8 minutes

Just what we’ve all been waiting for: Groundhog Day with explosions!!!  Yesssss!!!!!!  And while some of the sci-fi-y stuff may be a bit too batty for lashing, and there’s sum pasted on sentimentality towards the end, director Zowie Bowie (Duncan Jones) and writer Ben Ripley‘s Source Code is one code worth cracking or breaking or sourcing or decoding or courcing or soding!!!!!!  It is!!!  Swears!!!  Who knew that the kin of David Bowie could truly make it on his own in a non-Will Smith’s children shoved down our throats kinda way!!!  His first feature, Moon, showed that the kid had talent and a cinematic eye (for Kubrick movies), but Code proves something even more important – that he could deliver quality Hollywood-type entertainment with a brain attached.  If you found Limitless to be limited (we didn’t), you won’t with Code

Thursday’s Child: father & son, in what musta been confusing times for the youngin

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Source Code bodes well today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…