Thighs Wide Shut

Mister Foe
Oedipus Wrecks
Trailers & Mo

Hallam Foe (Billy Elliot‘s Jamie Bell) is unwilling to let the memory of his mother’s suicide by drowning go (no more rhymes, we mean it, anybody wanna play Scene It?). The tragic event has stunted his growth, as he’s filled his adolescence of solitude with a lotta tom foolery and peeping tomage. To make splatters worse, he suspects his father (Ciarán Hinds, secretly the world’s greatestist actor) of having something to do with her untimely death, so he could take a new wife (welcome back Claire Forlani). Father, stepmother and son can’t live in harmony together, so Hallam has no choice but to escape this life and start a new one in Edinburgh. There he spots a cutie patootie bidness lady (hottie Sophia Myles, one of the only redeeming bits and NSFW pieces of Art School Confidential), who eerily resembles his mother, and it sparks a disturbing chain of events that will draw the two of them closer together. Presenting a perverse love story with flawed characters is nothing new for director David Mackenzie, especially if you’ve seen his Young Adam (where Ewan McGregor flung a lotta food on a nekkid Emily Mortimer [NSFW]), and once again, while it all may be a bit uneasy to watch, with no characters to really root for, you can’t help but be sucked into the film that’s filled with fantastic performances (including Jamie Sives, Maurice Roëves and the always incomprehensible Ewen Bremner) and one killer soundtrack (Franz, Clinic, Sons and Daughters, etc). Hallam Foe reminded us a lot of Max Fisher from Rushmore. They are both motherless misfits, who get way too emotionally in over their heads with an older woman, get burned, but in the process grow up. These aren’t average tales of teen rebellion, but then again, those teen characters aren’t very average to begin with, and that’s what makes both of these flicks stunningly complex and compelling

We Wanna Befriend This Foe: although she’s barely in the movie, playing Hallam’s sister, model turned actress Lucy Holt has juss replaced Torry as our #1 fantasy option

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peeping Tomers

Ping Pong Playa
& Everybody Wants To Be Italian
Ethnic Slurries
Ping Pong Trailers & Mo | Italian Trailers & Mo

If you see two comedies this year, whatever you do, DO NOT LET THEM BE Ping Pong Playa and Everybody Wants To Be Italian. If you took a dump and threw it on screen, it would be fleventeen times funnier than both of these movie combined. Italian-Playa are so downright humorless that they make Christopher Guest’s overhyped-underipe misfire For Your Consideration look about as Oscar worthy as Idiocracy’s Ass, which took home 8 Oscars in the year 2505, including best screenplay. You know how a lotta DVDs include deleted scenes? Well Italian-Playa are two movies filled with nuttin but deleted scenes. They’re so rotten and lame-stream that they feel like failed TV pilots that no one would ever bother to make cause they’re about as original as Kennedy Fried Chicken. Italian is by far the wurser of the two evils, and that’s purely based on the runtime (don’t think we needed 4 scenes of nuttin but early morning jogs). It’s a romantic-‘comedy’ that’s aiming to be the Tuscan-American version of My Big Fat Greek Snooze Fest, but it’s more like going to the Olive Garden for authentic Italian food. The biggest names in the cast are supporting players Laverne, Dan Cortese of MTV Sports fame, Fletch’s editor and Carl the Janitor from The Breakfast Club. Did we lose you already? If we didn’t, then czech out the previous [NSFW] work of its star Cerina Vincent, who played the Shannon Elizabethish naked foreign exchange student in Not Another Teen Movie. As for Playa, it was a huge personal disappointment for us since we’re such big fans of doc director Jessica Yu (In the Realms of the Unreal and Protagonist). Yu is so out of her league here, handing in a poorly acted and constructed full-length narrative debut that leaves little left to be desired for whatever her next fictional project may be. She woulda been better off making a documentary about Ping Pong instead. Many of you loathed last year’s Balls of Fury (we didn’t), and if that’s the case, you might as well swear off ping-pong flicks for the rest of yer life

The Story Is Utah: although this space coulda been reserved for Cerina Vincent’s NSFW work, we dug up this gem while putzin around the nets for Fletch’s editor, Theatrically Released Feature Films with Major Characters who are Latter-day Saints/Mormons

Verdictgo: both are Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous to the Crème de ^Menthe degree

Transsiberian
Strangers On A Train
Trailers & Mo

Emily Mortimer is adorable and easily startled (and also a Non-Us Hottie), Woody Harrelson is nutty, Kate Mara looks like a raccoon, Eduardo Noriega is smokin hot (love this pic), and Ben Kingsley is appearing in his 2184938219th film this year with his 1283982929th different accent. Put em all together with some heroin and matryoshka dolls on the world’s longest train that goes from China to the Hoth Systemeish parts of Russia and whats yous gets is a slow simmering, nice little thriller that’s sure to satisfy all the Ping Pong Playa haters out there

More Time With Mortimer: we LOVE Emily Mortimer!!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

all three films join Transsiberian in limited release today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The House Bunny
Rumor (Willis) Has It, This Movie Has No Hop
Trailers & Mo

Like the Playboy scented TV show The Girls Next Door, The House Bunny sends an awful message to young females that in order to succeed in this world you gotta be pretty and pretty dumb (even if they do try to say otherwise at the end of the film). If only Bunny were anywhere near as entertaining as Girls is (Holly, Bridget and Kendra + Hef appear in the film, along with some other pointless cameos like Dan Patrick, Shaq and Matt Leinart), let alone, was as short as a single episode of the giggle and jiggle fest. While the set-up about an expelled mansion bunny finding a new home as the house mother to a sorority of misfits certainly sounds like a perfect fit for Anna Faris‘ brand of dopey humor (and her Jennifer Coolidge wax lips), this ‘comedy’ turns out to be about as flat as the flat-chested women who get rejected by Mosquito Bites Magazine. The two screenwriters behind Legally Blonde attempt to strike the same women empowerment magic here (although luckily we’ve always been able to deflect their spells), but this thing is so terribly ‘vapid’ (the word people keep calling Faris’ character that she takes as a compliment) that it makes Elle Woods look like Thelma & Louise

One of the main things that irked us more than Urkel was the gaggle of girls in the sorority. They’re all such oddballs who loathe glamor and glitz that it’s hard to comprehend why they’d ever want to be in a sorority in the first place. There’s a nerdy one (Emma Stone in glasses, yum), a mute one, a dwarf, a pregnant one (Katharine McPhee, who woulda been better off starring in From Justin To Kelly 2), a tomboy hick (Dana Goodman, who eerily resembles Jeremy Renner), one covered in Joan Cusack Sixteen Candles-type protective metal (Rumer Willis, whose face scares us) and a goth with piercings everywhere (Kat Dennings, being annoying, juss like she was in The 40 Year Old Virgin). You juss knows they have inner beauty, in a She’s All That kinda way, and only Faris has they keys to unlock it. When she makes them over, Stone resembles a whored out version of Lohan and Dennings, Hillary Duff. Of course the girls have some lessons in humility to impart upon Faris’ empty mind, as she attempts to woo a normal guy (Colin Hanks… someone please explain why he keeps getting jobs, besides the fact that he’s Rita Wilson’s son). Oh yeah, and all of this shiz is goings on within the pseudo-plot about trying to raise money and find a new class of pledges before the Dean throws the sorority off campus. This could been the female answer to The Revenge of The Nerds, but instead it ended up being about as poopified as the straight-to-TV flick Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. Lamar, stick a javelin in this one, please!

Pledge Pin-Ups: meat Rachel Specter & Sarah Wright (sometimes credited as Sarah Mason), two ladies in a rival sorority who have no purpose being in this movie other than looking fine!

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Hamlet 2
Something Is Rotten In Arizona
Trailers & Mo

Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) is at his wits’ end. Having failed as an actor, unless you count that Herpes medication ad he appeared in, he’s retreated to suburban hell in Tuscon, Arizona as a high school drama teacher. To make splatters worse, due to budget cuts, and the poor critical receptions of his last few plays based off of modern movies (his Erin Brokovich was nowhere near as good as Max Fisher’s Vietnam opus), the school has decided to shut down his class by the end of the year. Yet nothing will stand in Dana’s way of succeeding, even his giant lack of talent. He decides that Shakespeare’s Hamlet tragedy needs a happy second life and drums up an abortion of a sequel complete with a rocking Jesus and plenty of Grease lightening

A majority of the film centers on putting the play together, with the help, or lack thereof, from his rowdy class mainly consisting of a bunch of yo boys and girls, and is filled with some dreadful lame bits of humor as seen in the trailer (people running into things! gay jokes!). It almost feels as dead as The House Bunny, but as soon as the curtain rises on the actual production, the film comes alive and makes up for any shortcomings that came before it. Coogan’s manic energy (which reminded us a lot of Paul Dinello’s Geoffrey Jellineck character from Strangers With Candy) saves the production, both liguratively and fiterally. The rest of the cast try their best to keep up with him, but their characters are either underdeveloped (esp the students, but we didn’t let that stop us from continuing our rising love for Melonie Diaz, last seen in Be Kind Rewind), purposeless (Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler and David Arquette) or wasted (Elizabeth Shue… playing ELISABETH SHUE!), that this puppy is purty much a one man show. To see or not to see may be the question, but if you do go, juss remember the play’s the thing!

As We Like It: dude, Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, is so bangin

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Henry Poole Is Here
Take A Dip In The Holy Water
Trailers & Mo

Henry Poole Is Luke Wilson, a mopey man looking to drown his sorrows with alcohol in the new sunny neighborhood he juss moved into. One day his nosy next-door neighbor Esperanza (Adriana Barraza, returning from Mexico after almost killing Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s kids) notices the face of Jesus on the exterior wall of his house and all heaven and hell breaks lose. While she’s convinced that it’s a sign from above (muss be the blood dripping from it), Henry, who simply wants to be left alone, takes it a sign of annoying things to come. Soon the holy rollers start rolling in (including a priest understatedly played by George Lopez), looking for a miracle (including this girl, whose face is 80 zillion times scarier than Rumer Willis’) to cure all their ills. Some of dem ills do get cured, including the muteness of his other neighbor’s (Radha Mitchell) daughter (Morgan Lily, perhaps the mos adorable lil girl ever!), yet Henry remains unconvinced, even as he starts to fall for her (Radha, not the daughter you sick-o-phant). Why is he so against these possible acts of Gawd? It’s as if he doesn’t believe in hope and faith (no, not that TV show that no one ever watched). OK, so the ploting and conclusion is quite obvious and is pieced together a tad too unevenly, and the soundtrack is beyond awkward (Blur’s ‘Song 2’, aka the Wooo-Whoo song, is played as Luke attempts to remove the Jesus face with a hose), but director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, Mothman Prophecies and Pearl Jam’s ‘Jeremy’ video), who’s using the film as therapeutic way to help get over the loss of his beloved wife, provides enuff spiritual enlightenment to earn our praise

Pareidoliamania!: now you can make your own miracles at home with the Jesus pan!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Bunny and Hamlet 2 join Henry P in theaters mos everywhere today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
A Latesummer Night’s Sex Dramedy
Trailers & Mo

The two names that proceed Barcelona in the title are two American tourists BFFs who are spending a month long holiday in Spain’s second largest city before heading back to reality. Vicky (Rebecca Hall, with the film’s finest performance, which is saying something considering how great everyone else is), essentially the Woody Allen character here, is the straight-laced one with her future well planned out, including her upcoming marriage to a boring NYC finance guy (Chris Messina). Cristina (Scarlett Johansson, who always exudes sexy, and awkward acting) on the other hand, is the free spirit, ready for whatever adventure comes her way. One night, while the two are dining in a restaurant, a famed local painter named (Don) Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) approaches them with an offer to whisk them away for a whirlwind weekend of fine wine, art and fornication. Cristina is overly charmed and ready to jump in, and while Vicky is hesitant at first, she ultimately agrees to join them. Juan Antonio guns for Cristina, but she gets very sick after a heavy night of drinking, forcing him to spend the next day and night with Vicky. She tries her best to resist his charms, but this is Javier Bardem we’re talking about! The two tryst it up, leaving her shaken and stirred. The threesome return from the weekend, and Cristina and Juan Antonio pursue a steamy relationship, while Vicky starts to second guess her life’s plan and pending nuptials, finding a good ear in an expat who’s been in a similar situation (Patricia Clarkson)

It sounds like there’s enuff drama here to fill up the rest of the film, but things get a lot more interesting when Juan Antonio’s ex-wife and soul mate Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz, whose English keeps gettin better flick by flick, but is at her best when speaking in her native Spanish tongue) reenters his life and lights the screen on fire. She’s down in the dumps and Juan A has no other choice but to let her live with him and Cristina. It’s an fragile grouping from the get go, but by looking at the image above, you juss know things will eventually get a lil bit saucy between them. Yes, there’s a ménage à trois between beautiful peoples Bardem, Cruz and Johansson, but before you pack yer Kleenex and Jergens lotion and head off to the theater with yer pants around yer cankles, please note that this hot action occurs, sadly, off screen, save a lil smooching d-tease. Don’t let this panty bunching prevent you perverts from seeing Woody Allen’s latest European Vacation, which is dripping with plenty o’ luscious lust-er, and gorgeous scenery that isn’t flesh-based

While not as brilliant as Match Point, or as goofy as Scoop, or as gripping as the vastly underrated Cassandra’s Dream, VCB is still an enjoyable romp around the Iberian Peninsula. The more the Woodman stays away from Manhattan, the less his movies feel like… a Woody Allen movie, and after a decade of mediocrity, this is a mos welcome sojourn. Must be something in the Old World’s water that has the ability to tone down his usual New World neurosis and output something that feels fresh, yet still retains a hint of the Allentown we all love to keep visiting year after year. VCB‘s got more charm than a 24 pack of Charmin, so break out the rolls and wipe this baby up!

Voice Male: the film’s narrator, Christopher Evan Welch, is most well known for providing the voice of Tails in the cartoon The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog when he was a kid. these days, you can hear his growns up vox on many an audiobooks

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

A Girl Cut In Two
(La Fille Coupée En Deux)
An Obtuse Astute Love Triangle
Trailers & Mo

Lovely TV weather gal Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier, for once, not in NSFW mode) has gots some men issues. She’s the part-time mistress of a renowned French author (François Berléand, last seen as the police detective in Tell No One), who totally enjoys a good tumble under the sheets, but he can’t really commit to her, being married and taking frequent trips to an high-brow sex club. Then there’s the wealthy brat Paul (Benoît Magimel), who will stop at nothing to win her affection, although he only seems to love himself, and his hamazin hair. As the author starts to pull away, tearing Gabrielle’s heart… IN TWO, she finds uneasy comfort in Paul’s arms. While Paul may have won the prize, he can’t help but feel like sloppy seconds. This leads him to do something quite dastardly that we won’t reveal here. The plot is hactually based on what this man did to Madison Square Garden (version II)’s architect (don’t click one the first link unless you want yer milk spoiled), and it isn’t even the first time these events have been fictionalized. It was the subject, mos famously, of the 1955 film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing and the 1975 novel Ragtime. French New Wave director Claude Chabrol blends the love tragedy in Girl with some nice bits of humor, and shows that for a septuagenarian juss like Allen, he isn’t showing any signs of rust. And while we’re still figuring out what exactly happened at the end, we suggest y
ou start at the beginning

E Femme Rule: Paul’s sisters are quite the cutie patooties. pay love and respek to Clémence Bretécher and Charley Fouquet

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Anita O’Day:
The Life of a Jazz Singer
Not All That Jazz
Trailers & Mo

Anita O’Day led a mos colorful life. Nicknamed The Jezebel of Jazz, her unique voice has stood the test of time (peep Ms O’Day at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival kick out the jams ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ and ‘Tea For Two’), even dropping her last album right before she passed on at age of 87. She’s been as highly revered as such other legends as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn, sang alongside sum luminary musicians like Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton, and had more than her fair share of professional and personal highs (she loved to drink and smoke marijuana) and lows (and dabble with heroin and multiple husbands as well). This basic documentary, pieced together over 4 years by her adoring manager Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden, shines when the camera’s pointing at Anita, but the rest of the other surrounding pitter-patter will probably only eggcite the diehard fans, which leaves the uninitiated feeling that if it don’t mean a thing, it juss aint got that swing

Hat Tip: although currently not available on DVD, don’t forget to seek out Hats Off, about another classy olde dame by the name of Mimi Weddell

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

all three films open in limited release today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Pineapple Express
Two Bongs Don’t Make A Right
Trailers & Mo

If there were a Mount Rushmore for filmdom’s finest smot pokers, Cheech & Chong, Jeffrey Lebowski and Jeff Spicoli would be our picks for a foursome chiseled outta stone(r). There are plenty of other memorable midnight tokers worthy of such an honor, like the Texan kiddies from Dazed & Confused, the porch rockers of Friday, the mini-hamburger obsessed Harold & Kumar, the fully baked Half-Baked crew, the freedom lighters of Easy Rider and Brad Pitt’s method man acting in True Romance, but where do Judd Apatow’s Pineapple Expressionists Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) and Saul Silver (James Franco) rank? Well, if they made a Mount Poopmore, they’d be on there right next to any of the hammy actors from Reefer Madness and Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut. It’s not that Rogen and Franco can’t act stoned (and you know they can if you’ve seen the vastly overrated TV series Freaks & Geeks), it’s juss that the movie these stoners appear in isn’t much of a stoner movie so their performances are wasted (poor choice of words) and ultimately forgettable. It’s not even much of a comedy for that splatter, as the ‘jokes’ are about as flat as a 2-liter of RC Cola that has been cap-less for ten days. We’re sure you’ll laff more than we did (the total came to 2 chuckles, so BEAT THAT!), but then again, you probably worship Dane Cook and saw Semi-Pro in a theater. What the film ends up being is a silly (not in a good way) 8th rate action flick that makes the Eugene Levy-John Candy crapfest known as Armed and Dangerous look like Terminator 2 written by vintage Woody Allen. What’s even more disappointing is that the film was directed with such little skill or flair by David Gordon Green, a man of great talent who is way outta his league here. So peas, pass this douche-y on the left hand side and instead czech out Green’s other ’08 pic Snow Angels or The Wackness, although we weren’t fully enamored with it , you’d be better off inhaling from that joint than partaking in the shwag that is Pineapple Express

Shirt Tales: the bestest part of the entire movie is James Franco’s kitten being eaten by a shark t-shirt, yet the tee is a rip off of a shirt designed for Urban Outfitters by a clothing company called WOWCH and they aint too happy about it

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Bottle Shock
The O-enophiles: Pleasant Napa Valley Fundays
Trailers & Mo

There once was a time when California wines were considered to be about as classy as Married With Children and as world-renowned as Burger Chef. Then a lil thing dubbed the Judgment of Paris happened (aka the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976), where a bunch of stuffy Frenchies sirprizngly awarded blue ribbons to some Napa vineyards, and the rest is history. Bottle Shock recaptures these events, focusing primarily on Chateau Montelena (even doing a bit of filming on the grounds), its owner Jim Barrett (Bill Pulman, who on this ship you refer to as ‘idiot’, not ‘you Captain’) and his dippy refried beaned son Bo (Chris Pine, on this ship you refer to him as the new Captain Kirk!!), and how a British gent named (no, not that one) Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman, finger looking good with a bucket of KFC) plucked them from obscurity and changed the face (and taste) of wine forever. Also along for the ride are Federico Diaz, that annoying Australian girl from Transformers who loves saying the word ‘supercomputer’, Count Dooku’s daughter [ytmnd] and Dennis Farina (doing the best he can w/o a gun). The film has an overly sundrenched and smiley tone about it, that’s reminiscent of the yumcredible Juicy Fruit ad from the 80s (the taste that’s gonna move ya!), yet despite all it’s wine & cheesiness, you juss can’t stick a cork in this one. It’s like a happier, lamer Sideways [TWS review], so take a whiff and then a sip and enjoy

Is Anything Sacred?: there’s a rival movie in the works based off of George M. Tabor’s book Judgment of Paris and Chateau Montelena was recently sold to a French wine company

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Bottle Shock opens today in limited release while Pineapple is currently playing at a theater near Jew. Happy b-day M Night!

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Frozen River
Icy Hotness!
Trailers & Mo

Ray (the fiery Melissa Leo, whose like a white trash Patricia Clarkson) has got no money, mo problems. It’s days before Christmas and her gambling-crazed hubby has just skipped town with their savings, leaving her to fend for herself and their two sons (the eldest played with the utmost sincerity and maturity by Charlie McDermott). Her dreams of a double-wide trailer home don’t look to become a reality any time soon, especially if she can only feed her kids popcorn and Tang. As Ray heads out looking for her degenerate spouse, she has a chance encounter on the Mohawk Indian reservation with Lila (Misty Upham), another struggling mom whose trying to save up enuff money to care for her young boy who currently resides with her in-laws. Lila and Ray may come from opposite worlds, but their desperate times call for desperate measures that will ultimately bring them closer together, whether they like it or not. Lila’s got a connection to earn some not so easy money by smuggling illegal immigrants across the US-Canadian border by way of a river on the reservation that’s… FROZEN! If only she had a car! Ray’s got one and the two embark on the risky enterprise that will hopefully fix their monetary woes. Of course it purty much works like gangbusters for the first few runs, but as the local police start to get wind of the operation the duo keep pushing their luck for that quick buck. It’s all truly thrilling and chilling stuff, right down to the final frame, with unforgettable tender turns by both female leads, and in a year of film that’s been kinda weak, this, alongside The Visitor, ranks as one of the year’s best dramas. So if overrated film circuit darlings like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine can garner numerous Oscar nominations, why shouldn’t Frozen River? It’s wishful thinking on our part, but there’s no way it will get any cause the characters are too realistic and not quirky enuff for Academy consideration. Honest to blog!

Slap Happy: McDermott was slapped in the back of the head 52 times in as many takes by Liev Schreiber in the not so funny film The Ten

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

In Search of A Midnight Kiss
Will You Still Love Me Before Sunrise?
Trailers & Mo

It’s been over a decade since a little independent movie about life and love in LA called Swingers exploded onto the scene and captured the hearts and minds of twentysomethings across the country. In that time span, no film has come about as a worthy successor, that is until now. In Search of a Midnight Kiss treads on very similar ground, but this film keeps the laffs to a minimum and cranks up the heartstrings to 11. Kiss features a pair of friends that closely resemble the Vince Vaughn-Jon Favreau dynamic that worked so well in Swingers. Wilson’s (Scoot McNairy) the shattered soul who can’t get over his past relationship and Jacob’s (Brian McGuire) the witty tall best friend boosting his ego and trying to get him laid, and even more so after he catches Wilson beating off to a photoshopped image of his girlfriend’s (Kathleen Luong) head pasted on a model’s body. It’s New Year’s Eve day and Wilson’s eager to find someone to spend the night with. Jacob persuades him to Craigslist it up and wham, before you know it, Wilson’s got a date. When he meets up with Vivan (Sara Simmonds), she gives him 5 minutes to impress her or else she’ll move onto the next date, who’s arriving in another 5 minutes. She comes off as shallow and neurotic, but Wilson doesn’t appear to be as choosy as she is. Vivian decides to give him a go and the two wander around the deteriorated downtown streets of LA waxing both philosophically and inanely. They slowly start to grow on one another, and in turn these once annoying characters’ start to grow on us as well. Will they kiss? What do you think? But then what? Dunno, but we’re juss darn happy to be reminded that independent no-budget filmmaking is far from being dead

Kiss & Show & Telll: we totally want a midnight kiss with both Sara and Kathleen. YUM!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Sixty Six
Mazel Tov Cocktail
Trailers & Mo

Poor little Bernie (newbie Gregg Sulkin), not only does he look like My Three Sons‘ resident dork Ernie (who juss got his second bit of TWS love in a week!), but his fantasy of having the Bar Mitzvah to end all Bar Mitzvahs is in deep trouble when it’s scheduled for the same day and time as the World Cup Final of 1966. It also doesn’t help matters when his dad’s (Eddie Marsan, back where he belongs in a British drama after playing a baddie in Hancock) corner grocery store closes and he no longer has the funds for hours of hors d’Å“uvre. Everyone keeps reassuring him (including Helena Bonham Carter, doing charity work as the hottiest goth-ish goy Jewish mom EVER) that there’s nothing to worry about and how unlikely it will be for England (that year’s Cup’s host country) to make it to the champ
ionship game. Well, this wouldn’t really be a movie worth making had the English not gone all the way (shown in crisp b&w footage), so you can probably guess how well attended his rite of Jewish passage ends up being. This sometimes schmaltzy and mostly bittersweet tale is nice little break from all the other summer fluff out there, and what really allows it to come alive is the fact that it was actually inspired by director Paul Weiland‘s own tragic Bar Mitzvah’s run in with the World Cup

Paul’s Boutique: the Beatles opened up a shop to sell hippy crap in late 1967. within six months (exactly 2 years to the day of that ’66 World Cup final) the place closed for bidness and opened the doors for people to take whatever they wanted

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

America The Beautiful
Mutiny On The Beauty
Trailers & Mo

America is obsessed with beauty and it’s the media’s fault! Not really a groundbreaking statement (unless this was 1908), but that’s the gist of Darryl Roberts‘ bare bones documentary that’s poorly shot, too broad and juss way too long. Roberts finds a perfect subject that sums up his point in a 6-foot tall, 12-year-old in over her head model (Gerren Taylor) and her Dina Lohanish mum, but squanders his focus elsewhere with other topics (make-up has chemicals in them!!!) and talking heads (the Vagina Monologues LADY!!) that don’t really do anything except reinforce the first sentence in this review and use more percentages than the game show Playing The Percentages. DR, trim this sucker down to an hour and throw it on TV, not the big screen, and then maybe you’ll have a thing of beauty

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

(on) all four(s) films open in limited release today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…