Thighs Wide Shut

Two Lovers
The Rapper’s Pre-Delight
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Joaquin Phoenix‘ got problems, and we’re not even talkin about the muy malo ones in his new not-so-hip-hop life, like falling off stages and I’m Not There talk show appearances (Baldwin!). In what may be his final screen performance (which means it probably won’t be his final screen performance), Phoenix’ got onscreen problems, like having the horrible dilemma of choosing between Gwyneth Paltrow (showing some NSFWness that only baby Apple gets to see) and Vinessa Shaw (a fine Eyes Wide Shut actress that Hollywood has basically ignored). His Jewish parents (mum’s played by the not so Jewish Isabella Rossellini), with whom he lives with and works for, are pushing him towards family friend Shaw, but his heart keeps pulsing for the blond goy (and which Jew’s heart wouldn’t?). Mos men enjoy the chase/challenge of bagging an out of their league honey, instead of being chased and going for the easy lay, and Phoenix’ lovable loser character (think a more attractive Marty) is apparently like most men, and his choices may ultimately lead him to heartbreak hotel. While the title might suggest plenty of physical lust and caution, Two Lovers is more of an emotional mental affair, and that’s actually OK cause the film doesn’t require it (although we’re not complaining about Gwny’s boob flash). This film re-teams Phoenix with director James Gray for a third time (the other two being the gritty ditties We Own the Night and The Yards) with a role that completely suits his reserved and awkward demeanor (also correctly put on display in Parenthood, To Die For and Quills… we woulda included The Village, but playing The Village‘s idiot didn’t involve much acting). For way too long Phoenix has been miscast in parts that were bigger than his britches and his range (we weren’t buying him at all as Johnny Cash). So now that he’s hit a walk-off home run on his way to retirement (and hobo beardsville), it’s our hearts that are broken. Maybe we’ve taken him for granted and granite, and now it’s our turn to chase him

Moby Peaches: the only musician who gets less credit than Phoenix has gots to be Moby. Years after the release of his brilliant Play all the newbie fans seemed to hit the stop button. Tis a shame cause baldy’s been bustin out killah tunes in the ensuing years. His song ‘I Love To Move In Here’ [d], from last year’s overlooked Last Night (in retrospect, it should been near the top of our bestest of ‘008 list), is featured in a sultry, dick-teasing dance scene. Listen up, and get down!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Under The Sea 3-D
Sea’s Candy
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Jim Carrey‘s voice guides us on a 40 minute 3-D IMAX adventure down under the sea down under. There aint nuttin particularly special about these 20,000 leagues here that you haven’t seen on Planet Earth or the 88 other IMAX movies that took a dive, but watching ugly camouflage fish make beautiful looking fishes their dinner again and again in 3-D isn’t the worst way to spend your hard earned dollars. As the clock winds down we wondered if there was a point to this film, other than putting smiles on the faces of kids and stoners, and there is! Carrey explains in a few sentences that if we don’t take care of our planet some of these beautiful and ugly creatures will disappear forever. Tell us something we don’t already know. Actually, don’t and juss show us more clips of ugly fishes getting their grub on!

Dimension Films: 3-D is all the rage, but 4-D looks outrageyier! we mean, where else are you gonna see Elmo poop Skittles above yer head?

Verdictgo: for the kiddies/stoners Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Two Lovers and Under The Sea 3D open in limited theaters today

and until next thyme the balcony i
s clothed…

The International
House of Edible Plaincakes
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Ever wonder what a James Bond movie woulda been like had Clive Owen inherited 007’s License to print money over Daniel Craig? The International, with it’s duller than dullhouse cookies title, doesn’t necessarily fulfill that ‘what if‘ scenario, hispecially since it isn’t an over-bloated actioner, with fast cars and easy women and easy cars and fast women (sadly that means there aints no Naomi Watts NSFW fun to be found, or really a reason for her to be in this movie other than to sport them sexy buckteeth of hers… speaking of those teef, we kinda want to see a movie where all she does is eat carrots for 5 hours), but it’s about a good looking good bloke in a good suit caught up in a ploppy plot filled with evil European dudes working for evil European corporations making evil European transactions that will make them evil European richer… which sounds eggszactly like the inept and crapluster Quantum of Solace. That’s hactually a compliment for The International cause no one’s expecting anything from a movie that may actually be the same movie as Owen’s Duplicity (which also stars this guy), and everyone was expecting the world from Quantum, but apparently the world is not enuff (although we expect more from the director of Run Lola Run)!! Can you even name a single memorable scene from Quantum, without naming a scene from Quantum Leap? The answer is ‘you can’t’. ‘You cunt’ is also an acceptable answer, but only if you have a British accent. Wells, The International has one memorable scene, a giant shoot out in the Guggenheim (bestest building mt everest? perchaps, although they hammazingly created an exact replica of it instead of filming at the real deal), and it’s so rawkin and raucous and filled with endless Uzi gun spray (is there any better kind of gun spray?) that it not only makes up for the none-sense that comes before and after it, but makes it more worth a peepers than any of Quantum‘s jeepers. Shame on you Bond film peoples! And why the fred funk have you never cast scary German (East Prussian to be exact) guy Armin Mueller-Stahl as a Bond villain? He’s so scary and German that he makes the other scary German guy look as cuddly as a Blago Cabbage Patch Kid

Office Face: remember Neil from the British Office? he’s actually a solid actor named Patrick Baladi and he keeps popping up in movies (this one and also in Last Chance Harvey) and we love him so much that we may have to buy a Sergio Georgini knock-off of his Armani leather jacket

Verdictgo: for the Gugg Uzi spray fest alone, Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Gomorrah
(Gomorra)
Houses of Sodom
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Don’t know if you’ve been over-enveloped by the hype surrounding this film, but don’t believe every grandstanding statement you’ve heard or read or hread. Gomorrah is not the 19th coming of City of God (or Goodfellas). It’s not even the Italian City of God, but perhaps it’s the Italian Village of a Lesser God. Huh? Wuh? Wuhuh? You probably have no idea what we’re talking about or what Gomorrah is or why the word Sodom is missing or how much sodium a body needs or why Gomorrah in Italian doesn’t have an ‘h’ at the end or how it’s related to the Camorra in Naples, which has nothing to do with nipples. NIPPLES! Gomorrah is a movie based on a book of the same name about the Camorra (there’s that word again!), which is a mafiaso type mafia type mafia who organize crime and make money and kill people and make more money and kill more people. The movie follows 6 characters (a money middleman, a neighborhood kid who joins a gang, a guy who works in toxic waste, an expert tailor, and two wanksters who wish they were Tony Montana) and how their lives are shaped by the Camorra’s comings and goings and doings and shootings. Each storyline will keep your eyes glued to the screen throughout, yet as the movie winds down, you expect these pieces to line-up neatly together into one nice lil package, but then it doesn’t. The individual fragments remain juss that, and this piecemeal approach leaves us hungry for more than juss desserts. Nonethebreast, it’s always a pleasure to be let into a corner of the world that’s rarely seen, even if it’s not a nice place to visit or a worse place to get robbed

Tre Sei Mafia: give peepage to Excellent Cadavers (In Un Altro Paese), a hot doc on taking down the Sicilian mafia. if you speak Italian, you can wa
tch the entire thing here

Verdictgo: these fragments are waaaaaaaay better than The Tracey Fragments, so wees has to says Jeepers Worth A Peepers

International opens thighs wide, while Gomorrah hits up limited theaters today. more reviews to be posted today, so stay pooned!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

He’s Just Not That Into You
She’ll Be Into It, You Just Won’t Not
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There’s a wildly popular book that we haven’t read called He’s Just Not That Into You (which is based off of a line of dialog from a wildly popular show that we didn’t watch called Sex & The City) that explains to women the most obvious truths about men and their actions and how they don’t want to bang you. The fact that a tonz of ladies out there couldn’t figure that out on their own, from the fact that they weren’t being banged, and had to be told thru a book makes us want to cry (and bang some women, but not necessarily those particular ladies cause we’re not that into you). Anywho, for those who never took on this reading assignment (most men, women who get banged, people who can’t read, people who hate people), here comes a dumb downed motion picture version that’s basically 19 generic romantic comedies rolled into one giant generic romantic drama (or were they aiming for comedy? hard to tell since it wasn’t funny or very dramatic). Anywho, it appears that director Ken Kwapis has access to an amazing casting director and has some sorta of vendetta against paying audiences cause all he wants to do is hand in films with scripts that were written in urine, in the snow, and everyone knows that urine in snow tell the worstest stories!! First Kwapis tortured us with License to Wed (aka I Now Pronounce You One Giant Piece of Sh$t) and now he’s back, but at least he had the good sense to leave Robin Williams on the sidelines this poo around. We’ll give Kwapie a minor pass in general since he’s produced episodes of The Office, one of if not the best show goings on the telly

The movie focuses on straight white ladies and the straight white men they either want to bang, are banging, or aren’t banging enuff. What, gay, Asian, black and purple womensz don’t have love problems like straight white womenz have? And who cares about straight white ladies’ problems hispecially since straight white people be more out than the Bull Moose party. Letttuce meet our lovebirds and how they’re all loosely related and loosely developed, shall we? There’s poor lil Ginnifer Goodwin, who’s more clueless than a person who once owned the board game Clue, lost it, and is now Clue-less. She can’t score with Kevin Connolly cause maybe he only dates ducks cause he talks like a duck. Anywho, Kevin’s trying to bang Scarlett Johansson, cause she looks like a lion and has an enormous rack, but she’s totally sweating Bradley Cooper (who kinda looks like a porn star), a married man married to Jennifer Connelly, who isn’t a man, but she works with Ginnifer and Jennifer Aniston and like twenty other ‘innfers. Aniston has been with Ben Affleck for ages but he’s not the marrying kind cause his old lady was J-Lo and after she took up with that ghoul Marc Anthony his pride was hurt and he knows that Aniston in real life will never end up marrying anyone so he juss strings her along cause he’s just not that into marrying her. Anywho, Justin Long is a wise bar owner who sells Apple products at a discount price. He also avoids banging his hostess Busy Philipps cause he’s a bit too busy AND philipps. Long takes Ginnifer under his wing and helps her learn to fly. They’re perfect for each other, but the characters won’t realize this until the end credits begin to roll, which doesn’t happen until the 1283819 false endings finally become true endings. Drew Barrymore is in the movie for no real reason other than the fact that she’s got a killer smile and she’s a producer of the film and that she totally wasn’t into that dude who wanted to have a date with her cause no one is into that guy. Kris Kristofferson and that gay dude from My So Called Life pop their heads in from time to time and we’re happy to see them working, but we’d rather see a movie where the two of them are lovers and own a glass blowing factory. Stuff happens in this movie, yet nothing really happens, bonds are made and hearts are broken, and white people are white people, so why should this movie be? Sorry, but it weren’t juss that weren’t into it just not, although czech out a ladies opinion on the film from our gal pal over at the bestest Bachelor Bloggg

Nodds & Bends: lil Morgan Lily > Eli Lilly + The Morgan Library, extra Chihiro Fujii apparently does some NSFW extracurricular activities, and Jocelin Donahue definitely earned the role of ‘Cute Girl’

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Fanboys
The Force Is Not Strong With This One
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Remember seeing Spaceballs back in the ’87 and thinking it was the mos genius spoof of the Star Wars galaxy, but later in life came to realize it really wasn’t all that funny and was hactually (gasp) purty darn lame (look, we love ‘we aint found shit‘ as much as the next guy, but
the movie aint nearly as good as you remember it)? The same won’t be said of Fanboys cause we don’t need the passage of time to figure out how purty darn lame this Star Wars-fused comedy is. The events in the film take place in the year leading up to The Phantom Menace‘s release as our freaks and geeks (the new Jimmy Olsen, that skinny kid, the voice of Gossip Girl, one of those kids from The Girl Next Door, and Dan Fogler, a huge comic talent waiting to explode… if only someone could get him a decent script) will stop at nothing short of breaking into Skywalker Ranch to catch a sneak peek at it (and their motivation to do so is cause one of the characters is dying, yet they treat that fact so lightly that we thought it was a joke). Their excitement of the first new Star Wars film in 16 years is certainly understandable, since we all felt the same way, and had this movie been made in 1998/9, maybe this mild mannered Lucas love affair woulda worked, but as we all know the new Star Wars episodes ended up sucking and who really wants to celebrate a movie that celebrates the release of a movie that shouldn’t have been released. That aside, the film never takes full advantage of its golden opportunity to riff on Star Wars fan culture. Sure, there’s some yucks (and by some, we’d say a total of 4 laffs) to be found when referencing the old films, but it’s no mountain that hasn’t been climbed before, like with Family Guy‘s overrated ‘Blue Harvest’ episode or Robot Chicken’s roast. As for the Billy Dee Williams, Carrie Fisher and William Shatner cameos? They woulda been better off starring in a Cash 4 Gold commerical with MC Hammer and Ed McMahon than wasting their time with Fanboys. You shouldn’t either and instead juss gaze at its hammazin (Apatowish) poster. Then again, what are we to expect from a movie that has Seth Rogen playing two different roles? One Seth Rogen is enuff, but two? That’s way too much Seth Rogen for anyone to handle

Dex’s Diner: never forget Jedi Chefs!

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coraline
Dread Buttons
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

The stop motion magic from the dude who gave us The Nightmare Before Christmas is back, and after working with the zany creations by such loony bins like Roald Dahl and Tim Burton, he’s returning to weirdo alley again by tackling a Neil Gaiman book, but this time the stakes are higher, cause this baby’s in 3-D (it’s like watching that Scarecrow GE commercial thru a View-Master)!!! Lil Coraline (not ‘Caroline’, but juss as sweet as the one in Neil Diamond’s song, who looks like a claymated Punky Brewster and is voiced with perfect pitch by Dakota Fanning), and her family just moved to cloudy Oregon, where her days are filled with loneliness and boredom. Mom (Teri Hatcher, actually better heard here than seen anywhere) and pop (the PC guy… wonder who’s gonna win the battle of MAC vs PC at the box office this weekend?) won’t give her the time of day, let alone cook her something decent to eat. Then one day Coraline finds a portal to an alternate world that’s just like her own, yet in this new one she’s the center of her parents attention, and the home cooked meals can’t be beat (plus she gets to listen to the voices of Ian McShane and Keith David). Everything’s perfect in this idealized place, but maybe a little too perfect (and what’s with everyone having buttons for eyes?). Cracks begin to show and Coraline becomes caught between two worlds. The proceedings are a lil too strange, cold and creepy for most tykes to fully enjoy, and while some parents may feel the same way, it’s hard to pass up a gloriously vivid color paletted 3-D adventure that will make you wish you were ‘shrooming your balls off

Giants of Industry: originally They Might Be Giants were to create numerous songs for the film’s soundtrack, but only one teeny 28 second song made the final cut

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Not That Into You and Coraline open thighs wide, while Fanboys hits up limited theaters today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Medicine For Melancholy
Prescription Fulfilled
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Did you see last year’s darling In Search of A Midnight Kiss? Didn’t sphinx so (cause if you did there’d be a lot mo Sara Simmonds fan sites out there!), but if you did (then where are all these Sara Simmonds fan sites?), you’ll probably find it quite similar to Medicine for Melancholy, and that’s dos mefinitely a good thing. Both films seep with hip boys and cutie pie girls searching for love and understanding on the left coast, and are presented with the lowest of lo-fi/budget aesthetics that a budding filmmaker’s credit card can take them (think Clerks, with more class and a lot less of Kevin Smith’s ass humor). The major differences between the films be that the one night stand occurs at the beginning of M4M, not at the end, and the action (and by action we mean endless witty banter, besides the action betwixt the sheets) takes place in and around San Fran, a bit more of a cerebral locale than Los Angeles’ could ever be (maybe that’s why the great See’s Candies started in LA, but ultimately HQed in SF). Also the kids in Kiss are white, and in M4M, they aint, and its this distinction that ultimately makes it the better of the two (being white totally blows these days)

Our pretty young XX & XYer are reserved, yet smiley Jo (newcomer/yummer Tracey Heggins, see below) and bitter, but chillaxed Micah (Wyatt Cenac, a Daily Shower). As we sprayed before, they have a single evening fling, which is followed by a morning of coffee and awkwardness. Micah wants to explore her some more, and after she leaves her purse in a cab, he returns it and returns to her life. At first she’s as cold as Mr Freeze’s blue balls on a January morning in Siberia, but is soon warmed to his charm and the fact that she likes to ride bikes too. They go around town, taking in culture, and then indoors to take in each other, all while the conversation goes deeper. San Francisco’s a glorious place, renowned for its liberal and ethnically varied ways and population, but what isn’t really known is how the Black community has drastically dwindled over the years. Gentrification is a bitch (and sadly sometimes a necessary one), and Micah doesn’t want Jo, a woman who’s been a bit gentrified herself, to forget it or her roots. They say that black is beautiful, and this lil gem shot in grainy black & white is certainly beautiful too. You’re beautiful too too, and if you don’t believe us, juss ask your mother

The Tasty Tracey Fragmints: huggies for Heggins!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Dos Mef Worth A Peepers

Taken
You Don’t Mess With The Qui-Gon Jinn Rummy
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Liam Neeson‘s annoying daughter (played by the annoying Maggie Grace) gets TAKEN!!! IN FRANCE!!! And will soon be sold into the ALBANIAN SLAVE TRADE (OH NO, NOT THE ALBANIANS!!!!)!!! and Liam Neeson’s not gonna let that happen!!! Please don’t confuse this movie with the Steven Spielbergo presented Taken, but feel free to confuse it with the Harrison Ford goes looking for his missing wife in France movie Frantic or the Kevin Kline hunts down slave traders movie Trade, cause it’s like those two movies combined, but this one’s got Qui-Gon Jinn and he’s totally pissed (for being the star of Darkman) and has a background in hurting people, cept he aint got a lightsaber or that shitty facial hair, but that won’t stop him from getting back his daughter (we were kinda wishing that the police found his daughter and handed the girl over to Liam, but it turns out that it isn’t his daughter and then he screams for the next hour how this girl isn’t his daughter and if that was the case than Liam Neeson would also pointlessly get an Oscar nom like Angelina Jolie did for the pootastic, lesser Clint Eastwood film The Changeling… to hell with The Dark Knight and Wall*E cause GRAN TORINO WAZ OSCAR HOSED THE MOSTEST PEOPLES!!!). Q-G Jinn goes around Paris kicking a$$ and refusing to speak anything but English, and it totally feels like we’re watching some semi-crummy fun action movie from the 80s (although it’s more bourne with another movie’s identity) , and that’s fine with us. There’s nothing new here, but we missed seeing Qui-Gon kick a$$, so it was nice to see Qui-Gon kick a$$, and it didn’t hurt that this lovely lady was briefly in the film (although not in the France part, where the nekkid ladies dance)….

Holly HOLY: she’s appeared in mooovies before (none that we’ve seen) and we’ve covered her bases as well (esp in our wettest of wet dreams), but we’re always lookin for an eggscuse to post a Holly Valance snapppage (or make a Neil Diamond ref)

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Melancholy opens in NY only, while Taken opens thighs wide today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Notorious
Revisiting The B.I.G.sty
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

To some (including thighselves), hearing the title Notorious will always conjure up images of Cary Grant outwitting Nazis in South America while winning the love of Ingrid Bergman, and for everyone else w/o an appreciation for one the Master of Suspense’s bestest films from his early Hollywood period (or who aint a fan of Duran Duran), it will apply to the film about the short but very productive life of one Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, aka Big Poppa, aka The Notorious B.I.G. That life included ushering in NY’s hip-hop’s renaissance in the early 90s, battling wits and much more with West Coaster Tupac, and winning the love of millions and many women along the way. As a true life story, no one can touch the mystery and intrigue of Biggie’s, but as a movie, Cary Grant and co. will retain the rights as the mos notorious Notorious movie for all eternity (although both of them have nothing on Gretchen Mol’s thighopening performance in The Notorious Bettie Page). Not to say that hip-hop’s first biopic isn’t a crowd pleasing, hand swaying and head boppin’ night at the movies, cause it certainly is, but had this by the numbers recount (purty much devoid of the mystery and intrigue) been helmed by someone with a lil more sensitivity and a dash mo flash and class than what George Tillman Jr. handed in, then this trip down Biggie’s Bed-Sty memory lane coulda ended up a lil more memorable, something along the lines of Ray

Notorious goes down easy like drinking Gatorade, thanks in large part to the creditable acting performances by a bunch of nobodies, outside of Derek Luke, who puts a bit of humility into Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, a man who couldn’t find humility even if he was looking at a dictionary that only contained the word ‘humility’. Jamal Woolard (aka Gravy)’s struttin and rhyme flippin in his embodiment of B.I.G.’s big body is dead-on (poor choice of a pun, but then again all of our puns are usually a poor choice), and you don’t even think for a second that he’s acting. It’s comes off as being completely natural, as is the work of Biggie’s actual son Christopher Jordan Wallace (who plays the young version of his poppa), Naturi Naughton (getting dirty and being dirty as Lil Kim) and Antonique Smith (keeping the Faith Evans). The ensemble effectively show us this Notorious figure’s life and times, but the film as a whole doesn’t necessarily breathe any new life after his death

Walk A Mile In His B.I.G. Shoes: TONY mag has created a DIY walking tour of Biggie’s old haunts in Bed-Sty

Naughty Naughton: yum, you is

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Defiance
Don’t Bother With These Brothers In Arms Way
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Here we go again with Edward Zwick‘s big camera and big lessons following the unyielding will of the underdog round the globe, past or present. It worked like a gangbusters gangbang with his Glory and Legends of the Fall, but every similar flick he’s made since then is heavier on the guts than the glory. The Last Samurai and Blood Diamond were both big and bold, but boorish and cold juss the same. Defiance falls in line with those last two, which makes this historical drama that partially covers the time line of the brothers Bielski (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Elliot) and their forest dwelling group of WWII Jewish freedom fighters (which led our friend to quip that this movie shoulda been called The Swiss Family Epstein) a crying defying shame. Zwick can’t decide if he wants his film to be as sobering as Schindler’s List or a Nazi shoot-em up fun fest like The Dirty Dozen. We couldn’t decide on whether to commend the actors for speaking in a poor quasi-Russian accent or to laff at em for trying the entire time. The only thing you need need to decide is to wait for the DVD, or don’t even bother and juss rewatch Munich, a much better Jews killing Jew-haters flick

Young Guns IIII: twas nice to see In Treatment‘s Mia Wasikowska on the big screen before she gets even bigger by playing Alice in Tim Butron’s Alice in Wonderland in 2010, but we wanna give a widethighs shout out to the fourth Bielski bro, played with bright eyes and an endless blank stare by lil George MacKay. This kid looks eggzactly like a young Roman Polanski, and w
e urge anyone who may be cinematically telling Polanksi’s life story, to let him be the not so noble Roman. And while we’re at it, let NSFWer Diora Baird play his slain wife Sharon Tate, Michelle Williams play Mia Farrow, Christian Slater play Jack and Bob Odenkirk play Charles Manson

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Notorious and Defiance are currently playing at a theater new Jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…