Molly’s Game
Deck Stacked Against Her
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 140 min

Aaron Sorkin pulls out all the stops in his slick and fun directorial debut – Molly’s Game, and while there is much to enjoy in the true story of poker pitboss Molly Bloom’s rise and fall, the end result doesn’t come close cinematically to the other films he’s lent his penmanship to – Steve Jobs, Moneyball and The Social Network, but that’s OK, cause it’s hard to hit home runs in both the writing AND directing categories, and especially on one’s first time out behind the lens, and it’s also OK, cause the movie is really good!

Molly Bloom (a confident and chesty Jessica Chastain) is all about rising and falling.  Once on the cusp of skiing at the Winter Olympics, she saw her lifelong medaling dreams dashed in a bad trial run downhill, and so she picked herself up, moved away from the snow to Los Angeles and started over again.  Found work working for a fast-paced prick, who happened to run an underground poker game with Hollywood stars and rich hot shots, and found her new calling running those games.  A big risk for both players and Molly, but the money was just too good to pass up on.  Things go good, then things go bad, but Molly always seems to find her way out on top again, and again… until the FBI comes in to say GAME OVER.  But that’s not where the movie ends – it’s actually the starting point, where Molly tries to fight back at the system with a lawyer (Idris Elba) who sees the good in her, and the evil in the world.  DAMN YOU EVIL WORLD WITH YOUR LAWS AND STUFF!!

That’s nice and all, but it’s actually all the meetings with her lawyer, and courtroom non-drama that drags the film down a bit from being something fantastic.  While the chips are stacked and the cards are dealt, the movie flies, but when it gets bogged down in legal briefs, it seems far from being brief, as it lingers on a little TOO much.  Still, Molly and Sorkin have a winning hand and a winning movie, and Kevin Costner works magic in limited screentime, and you know if there’s a movie about competition and Kevin Costner’s in it – it’s a winner!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Game on Xmas day at a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Goodbye Christopher Robin
Wiping The Pooh, And Back The Tears
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG | 107 min

Oh great, another one of those Finding Neverland / Saving Mr Banks-type movies where we discover the truth behind the (family) pain and (monetary) gain that birthed a beloved childhood literary classic (that eventually became an animated Disney classic)!

And for awhile, that’s what Goodbye Christopher Robin felt like – a by the numbers tale of how Pooh got Winned in Hundred Acre Wood

BUT, despite that, and despite not super-loving an over-accented and not so fun Margot Robbie, I eventually softened on the tale, and by the end, I was so soft, I was dripping wet in my own tears.

Yes, I was crying cause Domhnall Gleeson‘s forehead make-up as old man A. A. Milne was more awful than most of these jobs (not really), but I also was crying cause Kelly Macdonald makes some of the best glum and saddened faces in the bidness, but also cause I cried for Christopher Robin!  A.A.’s real son who’s playfulness and imagination was his inspiration that launched a zillion books, and when success came they turned their son into a puppet of profit!!

HOW DARE YOU PARENTS?????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poor Christopher Robin. 

FREE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN!!!!

And oh man, the two peeps that played CR are fcuking amazing.  Will Tilston (cast by the same person who cast Danny Radcliffe as Harry Potter) does most of the heavy lifting in this one.  The child actor is beyond precious.  When you look up the word ‘moppet’ in a dictionary, either one of these pictures should be there

THAT FCUKING KID IS SO ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And with limited screen-time, the more adult Chris Robz done up by Alex Lawther (who also played young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game), puts an exclamation mark on the proceedings that still has me exclaiming FREE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN!!!

Also, the biggest take away from this movie that I learned [spoiler alert] is that Winnie the Pooh IS real, and lives at the NYPL!!!

Also, that the kid’s name is ‘Christopher Robin’, not ‘Christopher Robbins’, which I think I thought that it was for like 9ever

Movies – where learning and enjoyment sometimes go hand-in-hand!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Christopher rounds Robin in limited release today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Battle of The Sexes
Net Gain
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 121 min

There’s a lot of good and goodness in the Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris‘ movie take on the event and events that led up to the infamous 1973 Battle of the Sexes tennis match between old man Bobby Riggs and young Billie Jean King.  You will laugh!  You will cheer!  You will love all the wigs and false teeth (well, maybe not as much as I did)!  And when it’s over, you’ll be like, oh, that WAS nice.  Women had it tough, and they still do!  My, how times have changed, but they really haven’t!  

But you won’t be like, oh man, that was the greatest movie I’ve ever seen about tennis (Strangers On A Train? Match Point?)

But you will go, man, Steve Carell is so good at being funny AND dramatic AND being so real!  To me, he’s having the serious career that Jim Carrey should have had!  Oh man, Jim Carrey, why don’t you have like 11 Oscars already!?!??!

And when you see Emma Stone in Billie Jean’s genes, you’ll be like, OMG, I totally want to bang Emma Stone as Billie Jean King!!!!  And when you see this hairdressing scene where a hairdresser (Andrea Riseborough) runs her hands thru Emma Jean King’s hair and they make eye-bally faces at one another, you’ll be like – HOLY FCUK, I juss creamed myself watching this hairdressing scene!!!  It’s like the hottiest hairdressing scene EVER!!!! (granted, we’ve never seen Shampoo, but it’s probably hotter than anything in it)

Come for the tennis, and then literally COME watching this hairdressing scene!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Sexes is game, set, snatch in limited release this Friday, and at a theater near jews and white nationalists on September 29th

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Home Again
You CAN Go Home Again, Especially When Your Parents Give You The Blueprints
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 97 min

The shiny apple doesn’t fall from the rom-com tree as writer/director Hallie Meyers-Shyer follows in her parents’ footsteps and delivers Home Again – a saccharine sweet debut that will surprise no one, and delight everyone at the same time.  Would you expect anything less from the kin of Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, It’s Complicated, The Intern) and Charles Shyer (Baby Boom, Father of the Bride I and II)???  No, we didn’t, and neither should you.  The torch hasn’t been fully passed yet, but it’s good to know that mushily digestible romantic comedies may be safe for another generation with Hallie and her DNA

Look, Home Again is about as groundbreaking as the discovery that lint exists in your bellybutton, but juss cause everything about this movie is obvious and oblivious to the way the things work in the real world, doesn’t mean that you won’t sit there the entire time with a smile plastered on your face, and all the women you know will be happily watching it for years to come on cable TV airings

Look, I care zero for Reese Witherspoon, and her plight in this movie about just turning 40, being recently separated from (the always charming even when smarmy) Michael Sheen, raising two (too adorable) daughters AND trying to get an interior design career off the ground, but throw in a GILF (Candice Bergen) and three homeless, hunky, aspiring filmmakers (Nat Wolff, Jon Rudnitsky, Pico Alexander) looking for a home (guess where they find a temporary home?????), and you have the recipe for a winning chick flick where they will probably end up singinging doo-wop or Van Morrison songs into the handle of a broom whilst sweeping the floor.  OK, so I was surprised a little, cause THEY DIDN’T SING INTO THE HANDLE OF A BOOM!!!  OR EVEN A MOP!!!  True women’s lib!  LIBERATING (MOVIE) WOMEN FROM SINGING INTO THE HANDLES OF THINGS!!

If you don’t think this is a step forward, THEN STEP OFF!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Home Again aint at your home, but at a theater near jews and white nationalists tomorrow!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Spider-Man: Homecoming
The Kid Stays In The Picture, And Then The Picture Strays From The Kid
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 133 min

Somehow it took five Spider-Man movies to get us to this point – a sixth movie that FINALLY gets Peter Parker right.  Tobey Mags and Andrew Garf were fine and all, but they didn’t seem like a teen doing teeny things.  They were already too old to be properly naive and out of their depths.  Tom Holland makes for such a perfect PP that he will now forever be Peter Parker in my mind’s thigh.  YOU GO LIL TOM HOLLAND!!

They may not have gotten Aunt May right, but they definitely have gottzen Aunt May HOT!!!!  UM HELLO Marisa Tomei.  why aren’t you and your tight clothings in every movie???????

and while the high school stuff was super great (the very non-actory Jacob Batalon as Peter’s BFF felt refreshing), and Michael Keaton as Birdman/Condorman/Johnny A$$holely was a pretty good bad adversary (with a nice lil twist with him in da plot), there were some stuff that I didn’t care for whatsoever…

like the forcing of Zendaya and Donald Glover into this movie.  She serves no purpose in this movie (BUT MAYBE IN FUTURE ONES!!????), and Donald Glover was only in it cause he and the internet wanted him to be Spider-Man years back, and so you have to give him and the internet what they want, right???

And the real reason there’s more Spider-Man, even though we really don’t need more, is not only cause it’s easy $$$ to make, but really to drag poor Spidey into the web of the rest of the existing Marvel cinematic universe, and therefore render the kid into another cog of the already waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too bloated Avengers posse

This Spider-Man movie excels when it focuses on Peter and Spidey, but gets muddled and repetitive once Robert Downey Jr‘s ironic Tony Stark and lame lackey Jon Favreau rear their ugly heads here there and everywhere in this picture  

By the time the smoke clears at the end of the movie, after yet another gigantic battle with too many explosions and public property destruction, you no longer feel like you’re watching a Spidey movie - just another brick in the Marvel wall.  Tear down that wall!!  These superhero movies are losing their super-ness.  Spidey Homecoming felt like a step in the right direction, only to arrive at a destination we’re sick of visiting

Cool end credits though!

Verdictgo: low end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Spidey senses tingle a bit at a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…