Thighs Wide Shut

The Happening
More Like The Unhappening
Trailers & Mo

There’s never a dull moment, but nothing at all that interesting going on in M Night Shyamalan’s latest trifle, The Happening. You’ll be more thrilled by his previous lackluster effort, Lady in the Water [TWS review], than you will be by this, which is easily his weakest effort to date. The saddest bit of it all is that nothing really happens, unless you count one ‘jump out of your seat’ moment, endless scenes of people running from the wind and trees, and Zoey Deschannel handing in one of the worstestest performances we’ve seen this year. Had someone else directed this quarter-baked environmental disaster flick, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but audiences expect more outta M Night, and the audience we were watching it with starting booing as soon as the credits rolled. Do yourself a flavor, skip this and Netflix The Mist, where sh%t actually happen(ing)s

He’s Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today : Clerks clerk Brian O’Halloran plays a jeep driver, although you’ll only see his eyes looking through a rear-view mirror

Verdictgo: in terms of a M Night movie it’s Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

My Winnipeg
You Can Never Leave Home Again
Trailers & Mo

My Winnipeg is director Guy Maddin‘s beautifully constructed, and often hilarious love/hate poem of the town he has called home since birth. Mixing civic fact and fiction with his own family’s follies, Maddin, with his signature silent era film look in tow, creates his own surreal dream-like take on Manitoba’s capital city, past, present and future. His Winnipeg is a colorful place (shown in gorgeous black & white), filled with dark snowy nights, sleepwalkers, frozen horses, seances, man pageants, elderly hockey legends forever playing in the abandoned arena of the Jets [watch it’s demolition here] and his crotchety mother. What’s true and what’s false isn’t important, cause the mythology he presents is so filled with affection and energy that you’ll want to believe every bit of it

Up Chuk: wees suckers for any hockey player who has ‘chuk’ in their last name, and the Jets had two flamous ones, Dale Hawerchuk and Keith Tkachuk

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Encounters at
The End of The World
The Science of Nature and The Nature of Scientists
Trailers & Mo

Werner Herzog knows a thing or seven about man and his fragile relationship with nature. His films (Fitzcarraldo) and documentaries (Grizzly Man) have explored that idea ad infinitum, and with his uneven, yet engaging Encounters, he takes his probing eyes and didactic husky voice to Antarctica, to find out what the dealio. The ‘encounters’ he has down there with scientists, travelers and other inquiring minds works best when they’re out playing in the snow, but every time we’re indoors, Herzog’s mocking commentary is usually more interesting than the words his interviewees are providing. At least he knows to focus more of the attention on the breathtaking landscape of Antarctica and not on its breathless soundscape

Bowled Over: the main US base of operations down there is McMurdo Station. It aint got much, but it does have a bowling alley!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Quid Pro Quo
Spell & Wheelchair Binding
Trailers & Mo

While we saw the ending coming a kilometer away, it didn’t hold us back from being completely intrigued by Quid Pro Quo‘s story of a paraplegic public radio reporter (the vastly underrated Nick Stahl) investigating an underworld of able-bodied people who wish they were disabled, who finds love and a lot of heartache (with The Departed‘s Vera Farmiga, and her haunting blue eyes) in the process. Director Carlos Brooks may not be hitting an outright home run with his first feature, but he shows great skill and promise in piecing together this odd detective story to give this and his future endeavors a look

We Hate He: jerk actor Jacob Pitts is well on his way to joining Charles Dance & James Woods in our Screen Asshole Guild – Hall of Fame

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Das Happening is playing at a theater new Jew, while Encounters, Winnipeg and Quid are in limited release

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Promotion
Supermarket Sweet
Trailers & Mo

Pitting Seann William Scott against John C. Reilly, as two assistant managers of a grocery store both desperately seeking a job promotion that will make them the manager of a new branch, sounds like a decent set-up for a flick where hilarity might indeed ensue. Such isn’t the case with The Promotion, screenwriter Steve Conrad(The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness)’s directorial debut, where the chuckles are sparse and the tension is light, yet it still won us over with a subtle sensibility and a sirprizingly mannered performance from the guy best known for playing doofus extraordinaires, like Steven Stifler. Scott plays the straight man here, who appears to be a ‘shoo-in’ for the gig, until Reilly relocates from Canada and throws his hat into the mix. Scott steps up his game, but he really doesn’t have to as Reilly keeps shooting himself in the foot. At first he revels in Reilly’s mistakes, and then eventually begins to empathize with a man stuck in the similar situation of trying to make a better life for himself and his family (the wives are played by Jenna/Pam and Lili Taylor, who have little to do other than patting their men on the backs). Along with The Good Girl and One Hour Photo, The Promotion is a serviceable lil flick that fits in purrrfectly with the up and coming, yet non-existent, mini-genre of grocery store blues films. If you haven’t gone down those aisles yet, it may be time for you to check (them) out

Minor Leagues: The Promotion marks only the third role for bit actor Michael Kuster. Is other two roles? A Milwaukee Brewer in Mr 3000 and a Cleveland Indian in Major League

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

When Did You
Last See Your Father?
May 26th, But What Bidness Is It of Yours?
Trailers & Mo

Colin Firth’s father is on his death bed, so the lad decides to take a trip down memory lane, even if the past wasn’t exactly so memorable. Jim Boradbent plays the ailing daddy not so dearest (if he actually were his dad, he woulda been 11 when Colin was born), who definitely loved his son very much, but showed it in all the wrong ways (like embarrassing him in front a girl he’s trying to court at a summer resort, played by one of our mos flavorite cutie pie supremes, Carey Mulligan). By starting in the present and shuttling back and forth to the past, the story loses some of the sentimental steam it’s obviously trying to evoke, but it’s still far from blowing hot air. We juss think the patching up of their strained relationship woulda been more effective had the memoirs of Blake Morrison played out in chronological order. Like with The Promotion, Father is still a serviceable lil flick worth the peep… eggcept for on Father’s Day flubvs course

House Keep Her: you may recognize Elaine Cassidy, who plays the family housekeeper in Father, cause she was the mute housekeeper girl from The Others [vid]. She is a nice

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

both films open today in limited release

Rental Round-Up Dawg:

Teeth has one of the greatestistst premises for a horror movie: a teenage girl is exploring her sexuality, but how’s it all gonna turn out when her vagina has TEETH?!??!?!??! The trailer goes one step further by selling the idea to a T(eeth). Too bad the movie can’t fully deliver cause the script and the acting are down and up right atrocious (and so are the chomped off penis bits). Nunthelessss, it’s kinda watchable cause Jess Weixler (below) is super hotttttt and so is this dirty old man [vid], who shoulda been given a special Oscar for his slurping noises

Here we is again with another looney tunes mgcee premise: a socially refarted man starts to break out of his shell when he starts dating a sex doll he ordered online. We’re sure you’ve already heard about Lars And The Real Girl, but juss in case you hadn’t, we thought you should be aware of it cause you need to see it to believes its like Cheez-Its. Ryan Gosling plays Lars and you know he plays it well cause Gosling is mad crazy good at playing mad crazy nia peoples and he’s sporting a mustache and stuff!

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

we didn’t get to see a screening of Sex And The City, and since we weren’t really a fan of the series, don’t expect a review anytime soon. It looks like a rental anyways, since the only special effects on display was the work done on Kim Cattrall’s face. Too bad they didn’t hire ILM to make Sarah Jessica Parker look less like a horse or Mitch from Real Genius. If you want a review, czech out Roger Ebert’s, who’s quite curious about how female dogs masturbate

Stuck
The Ultimate Car Trouble
Trailers & Mo

Life seems to be going quite well for Brandi (Mena ‘Surfin’ Suvari, exposing more of her 9-head here sporting cornrows). That is of course until she’s driving home late one night, floating on ecstasy, and hits newly homeless schlub Tom (oldy schlub supreme, Stephen Rea) with her car. It’s one thing to hit someone with your car, but it’s another to have them stuck in your windshield after doing so. Panic sets in, and instead of doing the right thing, by taking an unconscious Tom to the hospital, Brandi decides to park the car in her garage and leave him stuck in her windshield until she can think of something better to do with him. Tom eventually comes to, and pleads with Brandi to help him. She rebuffs his requests and even places the blame on him, by saying over and over, ‘Why are you doing this to me?‘. Doing this to her? He can’t even do anything for himself trapped in cracked glass. She leaves him be in the garage and Tom tries his best to attract outside attention, with little to no results. Brandi, still in a tizzy, enlists the help of her drug peddling boyfriend Rashid (scene stealer Russell Hornsby), who’s only real suggestion is to get rid of the body. The back and forth frantic antics between the threesome will keep you on the edge of your seat, and may make you cover your eyes, as it does get a bit gory, but unexpectedly, it’s all rather hilarious. We haven’t had this much fun at the movies all year. So go head, let Stuck get stuck on you, which shouldn’t be confused with the decent Farrelly Bros film

Stranger Than Friction: all of this sounds kinda redonkeylous, but the movie ripped its plot straight from a real-life headline, while tweaking the outcome a bit to make quite a sirprizing little suspense film. The Smoking Gun has got some papers on the actual affair

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

The Foot Fist Way
You’re The Semi-Best Around
Trailers & Mo

Ever imagine what it would be like if the Rex Kwon Do bits from Napoleon Dynamite was turned into a full-length feature film? We’re sure this thought hasn’t crossed many peoples minds, but for those who have or who find the idea worth investigating you’ll find much delight in The Foot Fist Way (juss to clarify, this isn’t a Rex Kwon Do spin-off movie). While it may be low on plot and budget, it scores mightily high on laughs thanks to its star and co-writer Danny R. McBride (looks like Liev Schreiber with a mustache), who’s baby steps away from stardom, turning up elsewhere this summer in Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder. McBride plays Fred Simmons, the owner and proprietor of a North Carolina strip-mall taekwondo center and self-proclaimed ‘King of the Demo’ (here he is on Conan demonstrating). Fred’s going through a rough patch, after his bimbette wife gave a hand-job to her boss, and he’s taking it out on everyone, including his students. Things don’t get much better when his hero, a Hollywood action star that looks like a cross between Chuck Norris and Iggy Pop, turns out to be an absolute zero. Foot Fist will probably have a great second life once it hits DVD (boo-ray, downloads, etc), but for those who felt kicked in the groin by Mamet’s Redbelt [TWS review], this will be a welcome kick back and enjoy joint

It’s Almosy Jhoon Already: if you watch one local ghetto TV commercial today, or any day for that splatter, make it Jhoon Rhee’s taekwondo spot

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Strangers
More Goosey Than Bumpy
Trailers & Mo

A pretty young couple (Liv Tyler & Scott Speedman) are spending the evening at a family retreat deep in the woods. Right as they’re about to kiss and make-up over some early night rifting, a knock comes on the door. IT’S A STRANGER, looking for someone who doesn’t live at that address. The couple close the door and assume that that was that and that nothing else would come of that. TAKE THAT, cause they were damn wrong about that! The stranger and two other stranger friends, all wearing creepy masks (and juss in case you didn’t know, masks are always creepy, even the ones in Police Academy 3 – Back in Training were creepy von creepstein), play a snail’s pace game of cat and mouse with the couple in and around the house. The early scare build ups are good, but by the film’s midpoint, they plateau instead of finishing the job of makin
g us shiz our pants. Think of The Strangers as a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-lite. It attempts to emulate the master of all horror movies, supposedly also being inspired by true events like how Massacre loosely based itself on killer Ed Gein’s human flesh loving doings, but it turns out more like Funny Games (which we didn’t see) with a lot less talking and action. Nonethebreast, it works decently enuff to watch as a scary movie, as it’s more realistic than the slasher porn that keeps filling up theaters in this day and rage

Book Em Dano: the scariest darn books wees read as kids, which weren’t by Richard Scarry, were the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. Here’s a bunch o scanned images from the books, including our fav, ‘The Viper‘

Verdictgo: a low end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Savage Grace
Mother Dreariest
Trailers & Mo

Waiting 19 years for a new Indiana Jones adventure didn’t seem like such a long time compared to waiting 16 for Tom Kalin to follow-up on his brilliant debut Swoon, about the sexually-charged killers Leopold and Loeb. Lucas and Spiels had plenty of other projects that kept them busy in the interim, while Kalin filled his time by directing a bunch of shorts and art installation projects that none of us have seen. Savage Grace FINALLY finds the director back in his chair, barking up the same tree as he did with Swoon, a dramatized real-life (yes, the third film on today’s docket) period piece about a famous murder involving cosmopolitan socialites. The style is all there, in crisp color and lucious settings, but the unfolding of the events leading up to Barbara Daly Baekeland(Julianne Moore)’s murder by the son she nurtured in all the wrong ways (including incest!) doesn’t really bite as hard as it should of. As is the case with Dr Jones, it was still nice to have Kalin return to the screen even if the results didn’t exactly hold up to its promise

Tu Again: Elena Anaya was the only woman we fell for in the Adam Brody poopstain In The Land of Women [TWS review]. And as the saying goes, once bitten forever smitten, especially since she shows up in Grace, thankfully, continuing in her NSFW body of work (pun intended), without clothes!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

Strangers is playing at theater near Jews, while the other three open in limited release today

Rental Round-Up Dawg:

We’re currently oversaturated with movies about the war over in Iraq, and not enough about how it effects us back home. While Grace Is Gone may be as basic as any made for TV movie you’d find on basic cable, it’s still a touching little story about a husband whose wife is killed in battle and must figure out how to pick up the pieces, and eventually tell their two daughters that mommy aint coming home. The girls are adorable, herspecially the eldest (Shélan O’Keefe, who looks like a female Paul Dano) and it was a pleasure to see John Cusack act in a role that doesn’t require him to be an adult Lloyd Dobler. Be sure to check out the bonus feature that shows where the film drew its inspiration from

As for the best doc Oscar winner of ’85, The Times of Harvey Milk is REQUIRED viewing before anyone sees the facts and fiction get mixed in van Sant’s upcoming biopic, where Sean Penn will play Milk, California’s first openly gay elected official, who was assassinated along with San Francisco’s mayor George Moscone in 1978

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First
Impression, Unless of Course Yer Indiana Jones
Trailers & Mo

Outside of our mostly glowing review and those of our fellow critics, there doesn’t seem to be many others out there showing love for Dr Jones and his journey to the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We hear what you’re saying about the script and the story (see below), and you have every right to be disappointed and pissed off, but didn’t you at least have fun watching the old man be whip-smart for possibly the last time? Now that your expectations of it living up to the first three haven’t been met, shouldn’t you give the film a second look before declaring war, like Germany, on the Jones boys? When we first saw Star Wars Episode III, we branded it with our No Stinking Badges label, but upon further review and putting away our already sharpened knives, the thang actually improved and we stepped it up to Jeepers Worth A Peepers status. Could the same happen to you, or are you juss sick to death (star) of giving George Lucas your milk money for his franchises that he keeps milking? We saw Skull a second time, a mere 3 days after the first viewing, and our thoughts purty much remain the same, although we’re ready to declare it as the least best film of the four

Aliens and shitty ILM CGI aside, what’s so wrong with Indy 4? Sure, the action and adventure may be a bit too much over the top, but wasn’t the same true of the other three films? The first two-thirds of Skull are awesome, but then things do start to get a bit clunky and whatevsy when they go down waterfall after waterfall, and make their way into the Kingdom. The main problem from keeping this puppy from fully satisfying the kid in us all is the lack of drama. You never feel that Indy and his crew are ever in any real danger or that they won’t succeed at whatever they’re trying to do (wait a second, what are they trying to do?)

We don’t blame Spielberg at all, as he keeps up his end of the bargain quite well with the production aspects, so all crap should be thrown at George Lucas. The only reason this film took so long to finally get made was cause Lucas kept saying that they were waiting for the right script. What about Frank Darabont‘s version (watch him ‘dish’ about the process)? Spiels and Harrison were both jazzed about it, but Lucas vetoed it, which may be the cinematic equivalent of vetoing a bill for stem-cell research. We know Lucas has every right to do whatever he wants to do with the franchise, but when did he become such the authority on storytelling these days? He used to have a great gift for it back in the day, but something happened along the way and he juss can’t reignite that fire anymo (Star Wars has been ruined forever). Since Darabont’s script won’t see the light of day and Skull is what it is, lettuce not even bother investigating that angle

Instead, lettuce focus our attentions on the guy who fleshed out the basic story Lucas came up with, which works fine for the most part, and put the dialog into the mouths of the actors, David Koepp. Sure he’s penned sum solid screenplays in his time (Spiderman 1, Panic Room, Carlito’s Way), but what does anyone expect from the dude who wrote War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible? Those were all feasts for the eyes and poison for the ears. Compared with those films, Koepp actually elevates his game with Skull, but still, was that the best he could do, or was Lucas holding him back from handing in something better? Despite numerous entries on IMDb, there are no real memorable quotes. ‘I like Ike‘ is pretty effin lame. Why didn’t they go with something like ‘Russians, I hate em, cause they’re always in a hurry.’

Regardless (and Regarding Henry), the script never stopped us from having a good time, for either of our viewings, and it shouldn’t stop you neither. The only thing that could have prevented such a thing would’ve been killing off Indy in the first 10 minutes, which is much worser than the actual ending of Skull where the aliens kill him by making him watch Howard The Duck for 3 months straight, while Willie Scott sings anything goes in Latin

Get Yer Kicks: Cemetery Warrior #2 is played by Ernie Reyes Jr, who, alongside Gil Gerard, kicked major a$$ in the short lived but long loved mid 80s Disney Channel TV show Sidekicks [view show’s intro | pilot part I]

Them ‘Stakes Is High: Skull has 47 mistakes, and counting

Verdictgo: not the best Indy ever, but still a lot better than mos of the Hollywurst crap released, so we’re gonna stick by our Breast In Show

Indy is currently playing at a theater near Jews

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Sangre de Mi Sangre
Blood Simple Complicated
Trailers & Mo

Sangre de Mi Sangre (meaning ‘blood of my blood‘) isn’t your average illegal immigrant heads to New York City story (neither was Maria Full of Grace… Jones), but its purty much like any slightly above average independent movie that you’d find at Sundance, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in 2007. It feels more like a runner-up than a winner, but that doesn’t mean it won’t win your attention with its gritty grittynessness. The flick escapes mediocrity thanks in part to its four very flawed, yet colorful characters: a bright eyed naive kid (Armando Hernández, Fast Food Nation) seeking the father he never knew in Brooklyn, who’s duped on the trip up norte by a slick thieving liar (Jorge Adrián Espíndola, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada), who then passes himself off as the long lost son to the feisty blow-harded and very reluctant patriarch (Jesús Ochoa, Man on Fire). The fourth contagonist is a homeless street hooker with a heart of plated gold (Paola Mendoza), who’s helping our unfortunate and hopeless son on his quest to find his padre. Lotsa stuff happens to and between the foursome, and while a few smiles pop up here and there, most of the goings on are not from a happy place. Being an immigrant’s tale, it’s no real sirprze that the ride is gonna be quite bumpy, and in Sangre‘s case, it’s true to the bitter end

Turn That Frown Upside Down w/o The Help of Lionel Kiddie City: czech out Cheech Marin in the long forgotton comedy Born In East LA, or at least the music video for the song of the same name

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Sangre opens in limited release today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…