Thighs Wide Shut

Precious: Based on the
Novel Push by Sapphire
The Anonymous B.I.G.
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

In the past couple of decades, African-American dramas have been dominated by Spike Lee’s joints, Tyler Perry’s disjoints, blackstoric epics told by white men (Color Purple, Glory) and one and done eye/thigh-openers (Singleton’s Boyz ‘N the Hood and the Hughes Bros’ Menace II Society), so when an imaginative film that’s equally as crushing as it is uplifting, like Lee Daniels Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (almos a curious a title as The Men Who Stare At Goats) is, comes along, you have to consider it to be one of the best of that bunch. However, when you take it out of that genre, it’s still a sight to be seen, but we wouldn’t exactly say that this elevated after school special is the most special and precious thang that one has seen in ages, as the hype machine been sayin ever since it’s debut at Sundance

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe, in an unforgettable career-defining, career-ending performance… seriously, where does she go from here besides Nikki Blonskyland?) is an obese, illiterate school girl with one mentally challenged daughter and another kid on the way thanks to some rapage by her momma’s baby momma. Said momma aint no role model neither, as she’s the nightmareiest of nightmare mothers (Mo’Nique, one bark away from ‘NO WIRE HANGERS EVER!!!!‘), and finds every which way to welch welfare checks and mentally and physically abuse her once precious Precious at the same time. There’s nowhere to go but down, but since this is a movie, ya juss know that things will slowly start to turn around. Precious escapes hell through fantasy (seen numerous times, which sometimes feels a little out of place and pace), and eventually escapes her horrid public school by being transferred to an alternative one where teachers (namely the luscious, soulful Paula Patton, see below) actually care and her classmates have better things to do than tease her, like being her friend, something she’s in dire need of. Yeah, the story is a tad predictable, yet it doesn’t completely head down the cliched alley that it seems like it’s heading directly towards

Precious delivers roundly (pun intended) on the talents of its cast (with unlikely solid turns from a no-make-uped/mustachioed Mariah Carey, replacing Helen Mirren???, and a sunglassesless Lenny Kravitz) and a starkly muted mise-en-scène that captures a rundown NYC in the 80s to a T. One of the more revealing kudos that the film has earned is the lending of Tyler Perry(and Oprah)’s own name to the credits to ensure a wider audience, hispecially when his chitlin’ circuitry works lean more toward a ForUsByUs nature. Yes, Precious is black, but her tale of rising above a stack of shitty circumstances will hit home with anyone, regardless of skin color. Don’t know if the same can be said about Madea, who belongs in cinema hell right next to Ernest

Patton Pending: why is Precious the first we’ve ever heard or seen of the gooooorgeous Paula Patton????? oh yeah, maybe cause we skipped out on Hitch, Idlewild, Deja Vu, Swing Vote and Mirrors. did we miss much with any of those? thinks snot, unless she totally had a shower scene in all of them. oh wait, she DOES have a shower scene in Deja Vu! and whaaaaat, she’s married to Alan Thicke’s son, WTF?!!@@@!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

The Men Who Stare At Goats
Mind Over Does It Matter?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Apparently there was a unit within the US army that specialized in implementing really odd mind tricks in fighting our enemies. Some of them were used in the war on terror and yes, one of them tactics involved staring at goats. Strange! but true!! it muss be cause Jon Ronson wrote a book about it!!! Fascination abound!!!! but the movie (directed by Goodnightgoodlucker Grant Heslov) made from that book is more foolish (not a bad thing at all) than hard factual (can we handle the truth?), and while we laffed and laffed and laffed sum mo, ultimately wees was like, well, what’s the point of all this sensenon? So go in not expecting a point and come out experiencing the closest thing we’ll get to a Lebowski sequel… til The Big Lebowski II happens, which it won’t and shouldn’t, but why shouldn’t it? Doesn’t Tara Reid need a job? Dude, are we serious? Dude, where’s your car? Dude, anytime Jeff Bridges is playing a hairy stoner and forces George Clooney to dance like a jackass, and Clooney in turn has to explain to Ewan McGregor what a Jedi is and Kevin Spacey has a super gay mustache AND isn’t super annoyi
ng, it has got to count for something over nothing, is wees right? Of course wees is, cause ours mums said wees was always right, eggcept when wees was left!!!

Escape Goats: a majority of the book/film is based off of The First Earth Battalion Operations Manual [peep the whole thing in pdf form], pieced together by Lieutenant Colonel crackpot Jim Channon, the basis for the Lebowski II character

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

That Evening Sun
Tennessee Ill-ones
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Hal Holbrook, zero Oscar wins. His That Evening Sun co-star Ray McKinnon, one Oscar win (it was for a short film). Is there justice in this world? No, except DAVID JUSTICE! And that fact aint gonna stop Hal, who has always chipped in credible incredible work as an actor’s actor (usually playing Abe Lincoln or Twain), from trying. He mcnabbed his very first Academy nod recently in Into The Wild and aints stopping there, not going gentle into that not goodnight. Scott Teems adaptation of William Gay‘s short story is short on story (and reeked of upyo AND An Unfinished Life), but Hal’s work as a grumpy old man refusing to let go of his farm and home to a white trash family (McKinnon + Carrie Preston & Mia Wasikowska) is as good as it gets in terms of performances, and as father time clicks on Holbrook’s book (see Peter O’Toole in Venus), it’s a memorable late chapter even it’s not exactly a page turner, or a Tina Turner neither, or Ted, Michael, Bachman Overdrive, et al

Not So Whistlin’ Dixie: Holbrook’s real life wife Dixie Carter plays his real dead wife in the film. she speaks no words. her last movie that she probably had a line of dialog in was back in 2001. Poor Dix. and what, they couldn’t give a part to Meshach Taylor whiles theys waz add it?

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Goats goes baaah most everywheres, while Precious & Sun rise in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

overdue quickies wit no bonus links…

Good Hair
Sit Back And Relaxer
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Chris Rock be funny as a human being, but not so much lately in anything with a script attached to it. Good thing then that Good Hair is real life shiz with Rock going round the globe frolicking in follicles and talking to peoples, famous (Al Sharpton, Nia Long, Maya Angelou, Ice-T and a very scary Raven-Symoné) and everyday folk about African-American hair and the big bidness that surrounds it. It’s more humorous than a knowledgeable documentary, but who farkin cares when Chris Rock is in freestyle mode and set loose upon the Bronner Bros International Hair & Beauty Show, which may be the mos abstract and redonkeyballsulous things wees have ever seen since that the fashion show in David Byrne’s True Stories

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Damned United
In A Premier League of Their Own
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Politics may not be the central focus in the soccer (football) driven Damned United, but there are plenty of it abound in the action that takes place off of the pitch in this colorful and cheer-happy flick directed by Tom Hooper and written by the magic fingered Peter Morgan. The we love you even more every time we see you Michael Sheen portrays renowned (not in our neck of the woods) coach Brian Clough who, along with buddy Peter Taylor (the great Timothy Spall), make winners out of losers, but when they try to make winners out of someone else’s winners (the also great great Colm Meaney), they end up losing everything, or do they????? Morgan-Sheen is the new Merchant-Ivory of quality filmmaking. Can you beat their Deal, Queen, Frost/Nixon, etc pairings? Would you want to try and beat them? DON’T YOU DARE!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Zombieland
Shun of The Dead
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Jesse Eisenberg is the same guy in every movie he’s in, basically a wittier, more loser-ish Michael Cera, and we eats it up every time (the opposite effect that Vince Vaughn has on us). He last wooed us in Adventureland and Zombieland is like the same thing with less rides, less employees, 865% more Woody Harrelson thighlariousness and Bella has been replaced by the much yummier/less broody Emma Stone. Plus any movie where Abigail Breslin isn’t annoying has got to be something gooooo! Too bad Letterman ruined the cameo for us, the night he also revealed that he banged women

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Z-land is currently playing everywhere, while Damned and Hair tangle it up in select theaters

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Where The Wild Things Are
Add Depth Tation
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

We’ve been baffled, befuddled and blindsided as to what to make of Spike Jonze‘s much more than 10 sentences movie version of Maurice Sendak’s long beloveded (which our mumsy can’t figure out why it is so) Caldecott Medal winning Where The Wild Things Are picture book. It’s inventive, audacious, dreamy, bleak, and downright boggleminding. It also happens to be the biggest big screen risk in recent memory that a studio has taken by letting Mr Jonze’s Sendak approved work play out as it is. No wonder there was a lot of fuss between the WB and the director, cause it’s a remarkable unmarketable flick

Can’t say that we truly loved it, but can’t say that we didn’t either. One thing we can say is that you should stock up on yer shrooms intake before viewing, and even if you don’t, you should still probably see it cause you’ll get juss as delirious even if yer sober. Don’t know if kids will take to this very un-PG PG pic at all, but it’s middle section, where the Wild Things actually are, is seen just like a children’s book usually reads – free flowing, with no real rhyme or reason other than to entertain the end user with a nice little moral or message. In someone else’s hands (besides Gondry or Burton, hell, let’s throw Kubrick’s name in there as well), WTWTA, would have been a disaster, so it has to be said that Jonze hit the nail on the head, even if there wasn’t exactly a blueprint on how to turn this short book into a full fledged feature (we’d love to see him go through with the aborted Harold & The Purple Crayon adaptation he planned to make… czech out this test footage)

Best way to describe what it was like to experience the imagery heavy/plot light WTWTA is thru… heavy imagery, and even more sentences than 10! we’ve rarely done this in this past, and it was only to show how awful a movie is, like VanHelSucks, or not, like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

take one kid who looks as innocent as Elijah Wood
with a real name (Max Records) as fake as Max Powers

but make him a bit cooler, and more rambunctious
like Corey Haim and/or Corey Feldman
before theys became uncool and had a reality show

then force him to wear a pair of footie pajamas
that are less gay than Ralphie’s

topped with a Burger King crown

then have him get totally pissed at his family
cause no one has time to pay attention to him
esp his mum Catherine Keener who has to appear by contract
in any Charlie Kaufman or Kaufman-esque type movie

who dates Mark Ruffalo
who’s in the movie for like literally 39 seconds
and therefore gots like the easiest paycheck mt EVERest

then the kid runs away and somehow finds a boat
and sets sail for the cliffs of insanity!

or a rocky beach where the Goonies see the light of day!
or any sorta odd island type place ala Lost or Lord of The Flies

where he then runs thru a creepy Twin Peaks forest

that’s not as creepy as Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, MD

where he meets a bunch of harry goof balls that look like
incredibly hi-tech updated versions of Chuck E. Cheese’s
animatronic house band The Pizza Time Players!

with voices that sound an awful lot like
Tony Soprano, Claire Fisher, the milkshake drinker,
that closeted gay dad from American Beauty,
the last king of Scotland and Catherine THE GREAT O’Hara
who’s name alone conjures up that one in a zillion voice

and theys also look like

Falkor and Mischa Barton

and pretty much anything else from
The Neverending Story eggcept this

although kids, incorporated or not, loves the Limhal

and then the boy and the harry and the henderson goofballs
goof around like theys was on Romper Room

and beat the fork outta each other like Romper Stomper

and then theys walk the desert

which aint got no two suns like Tatooine!!

and so theys do this stuff, and then run thru
the forest again and then the desert again

and everytime theys does, you hear some some
Polyphonic Spree type-o positive music by Karen O and The Kids
which is brilliant stuff, but is played a lil too often

and then theys build a fort

with a center consisting of a circle thingie
that looks like the New World Entertainment logo

and then the kid and the hairy things get mad at each other or something and then make up or something and then it’s time for him to go and then he does and then it ends

and another Dave Eggers penned flick that attempts to
pull at yer heart strings doesn’t really pull at anything
juss like his Away We Go did/didn’t

All Hands On Sendak: best gift for kids that we get all of our friends’ kids be the Nutshell Library, which includes our flav Sendaks, Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice, One Was Johnny, and Pierre. not so sure of their greatnesssss? then why did the wonderful Carole King lend her pipes to singing his books as Really Rosie, eh? read em, listen to her CD and feel the earth move under yer feet

Verdictgo: so effin luol dang strange, but that shouldn’t stop you from peepering this Jeepers Worth A Peepers

WTWTA opens at a theater near jews today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Bronson
Jail Wish
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

One day in 1972, a 22 year old man named Michael Gordon Peterson was looking for a purpose in life and found it after being jailed for robbing a post office for a grand total of £26.18 (and no, that wasn’t a very large number back then). For most, the process of living is either halted or temporarily delayed when incarcerated, but for the real life Mr Peterson, who would eventually rechristen himself Charles Bronson, it had the exact opposite effect, as the English penal system somehow liberated his warped mind, taut body and soulless-soul. When he was eventually released, it didn’t take him very long to get right back to where he belonged, behind bars, and due to his unruly hostility towards other inmates and prison employees alike (he’s been dubbed the ‘most violent prisoner in Britain’), he spent a lot of that time in solitary confinement. Bronson was released a second time and didn’t last more than 2 months on the streets before being locked up again, where he’s been ever since

Nicolas Winding Refn‘s visually and aurally arresting (pun intended?) portrait of the man starts off with a bunch o’ big bangs, and as we sat there being udderly mesmerized by this auspicious beginning, we got a gut feeling that this film could end up being one of the bestest, mos inventive ones we’ve seen this decade. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. It didn’t necessarily end with a whimper, but it didn’t really seem to go anywhere cept in the same circle of mischief in which Bronson, goes pound for pound, round and round, again and again. Going nowhere may be the point, but after watching about 30 minutes of it, you kinda want to be released from it on yer own recognizance. Such a pity it turned out this way, as Tom Hardy‘s hard-boiled, no holds barred bars holds brilliant performance as the title character is as eye and thigh opening as Carey Mulligan werk in An Education

Sorry critics, but Bronson is certainly not this generation’s Clockwork Orange, no matter how much Kubricky nods Refn throws up on the screen. Plus anyone who has a cinema brain knows that our generation’s ACO has already been made. It’s called Trainspotting, and it’s the only Danny Boyle piece that truly deserves a Best Picture Oscar

MUST Stache: Bronson/Hardy’s mustache makes us want to eat Pringles and play Tapper all day long!!!

Verdictgo: moist sad to say with all the promise it had, but Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Peter And Vandy
Well, Are They or Aren’t They?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

He’s Peter (Jason Ritter)! She’s Vandy (Jess Weixler)! Together they are Peter AND Vandy! Apart they are still Peter and Vandy! This movie is about… PETER AND VANDY! Sometimes they’re deep in love, in each other’s pants, and other times fighting about nonsensical things like using two knifes to make PB&J. OH THE HUMANITY! Writer/director Jay DiPietro presents their relationship in a low-budget, non-linear, jumpy, in love, out of love manner, and without this lil style choice, P&V woulda been juss another boy meets girl, boy loses girl, enter whatever conventional love story ending you can think of type dealio here. Well, it basically is still that, even with the ‘tricks’, and that is that

Not Coming Soon To A Theater Near Jews, Muslims or Gentiles: Peter Vandy, the biopic!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Sorta Worth A Peepers, we guess?

P&V are together and apart in NY & LA today, while Bronson bides its time in NY only

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

An Education
Cold Schooled
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

We’ve warned you over and over about how udderly franztastic actress cutie pie McGee Carey Mulligan is be (our love started with her minor work in Pride & Prejudice, then blossomed fully in the Dickens mini-series Bleak House, and has never stopped since), but you were probably too busy looking for the NSFWs all over this site to even notice (sure, her boobs aren’t gigantic, but it’s OK, juss ask yer moms, who doesn’t have gynormo ones either). Well, sometimes it takes more than a nation of Thighlanders to get a very valid point across

Spankfully An Education eggsists, and certifies and further promotes this and our finding of Ms Mulligan’s skill and bestness. She is An Education. Without her in this breakout and first lead role this knowledge might have remained buried for years to come, and the flick itself would have not been as palatable. But she is in the movie, and others have certainly taken note of her performance, earning much much much Oscar buzz, comparisons linking her to Audrey Hepburn, and plenty o’ praise heaped about, even from someone who rarely doles it out like Anna Wintour. Will things ever be the same for this up and comer? It won’t, and even if you take a pass on the course work of An Education and miss her indelible/incredible work, her name and face will be hard to escape in the decades to come, so why not hop on now before the bandwagon aint got no mo seats left?

So what is all this Education stuffs, eh? Mulligan plays Jenny, an impressionable school girl (a screenplay by good ole Nick Hornby based on Lynn Barber‘s memoirs), who’s skipping right along on a rosy pathway to Oxford in the post-war 50s world of England. Her proud semi-stern folks (Alfred Molina and olderish-Mulligan look-a-like Cara Seymour) keep a watchful eye on their beloved only child, so when the charming, older, more refined David (Peter Sarsgaard) steps into her life from outta nowhere, will hers or theirs ever be the same? For better, and for worse, no

Through David, she gets to learn lessons that can only be found outside the walls of her all girls school (with a supportive teach played by hey, where the fork have you been Olivia Williams + Emma Thompson, doing her usual steady Emma Thompson thing as the headmistress). Her bright eyes and keen ears are wide open, taking in all sorts of culture and delicacies her working class family never had the privilege to have shown her. She’s wined and dined, and has her lid flipped all over London town, the British countryside, and eventually a bon Paris trip, with her new beau, his thick as thieves buddy Danny (Dominic Cooper, slowly growing on us as a solid actor) and his dense sweet-tart (Rosamund Pike). Sounds purty peachy, eh? Well David isn’t all that he seems and when not-so-perfect things come to light about her Mr Perfect, everything will come apart at the seems. Will it be too late to stitch thangs back up????

Director Lone Scherfig‘s colorful period piece thrives with Mulligan in the driver’s seat, but the road we head down feels all to well traveled. We’ve encountered numerous coming of age, girls II women, stories before, and this one isn’t that discernible from the rest. But for this particular film, it doesn’t have to be, especially when we get the rare chance to see a star being born

Bearded Wonder Boy: poor Matthew Beard. this is the second movie, after When Did You Last See Your Father?, where his crush and hard-on for Ms Mulligan have been crushed and turned into blue balls

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

St. Trinian’s
Holy Crap!
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

English cartoonist Ronald Searle‘s St Trinian’s series spawned several books and big screen adaptations, the first being The Belles of St Trinian’s in 1954. Sequels followed, the last being in 1980, and apparently the time was right to do it all over again, splashed up wit respected actors (Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Lena Headey, Stephen Fry, and the namesake of our annual movie names award, Fenella Woolgar), youngish hotties (Gemma Arterton, Lily Cole, Mischa Barton, Russell Brand?), youngish ones who are on their way to
respectability (Talulah Riley, Jodie Whittaker, Juno Temple) + a lil help from the loud girls of Girls Aloud. This film came out in the Old World circa 2007. It was such a island-wide smash that it’s own sequel, St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold, is hitting up their shores this winter. Besides peering at them wickedly adorable beauties and seeing Rupert Everett deliciously switch hit as a student’s father and then don a ladies get-up as the school’s wacky headmistress (a word so grand, it had to be used in both of our reviews!), this slapdash exercise in controlled insanity is nuttin more than a British version of the hiss-fire Bratz, cept w/o the ‘Bratitude’ [d]. What, that comparison means nuttin to you? Well, think Monty Python’s Flying Circus, w/o the Monty Python, the flying, and a circus with only a 1/4 ring

Saint Sinner: remember Caterina Murino? she was one of the Bond gals in Fapino Royale w/cheese, and if you look at these pictures, you probably won’t forget her again

Verdictgo: Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous

An Education schools in NY & LA this Friday, while St. Trinian’s fails in the North East only on the same day

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…