Thighs Wide Shut

Trade
All’s Not So Wells Cargo
Trailer & Mo

Being stuck in car traffic sucks balls, but being stuck in the world of human sex trafficking is purty much the worstest situation one could end up being in. Such a horrific fate falls upon many young girls and boys from around the globe each and everyday, and it’s a problem that’s not going away anytime soon, especially with the billions of dollars being generating from it. Trade is an effective fictional story (written by Motorcycle Diaries scribe Jose Rivera) about one of these girls, a 13-year-old from Mexico City, whose kidnapping sets the film’s plot in dizzying motion. When her older brother (newcomer Cesar Ramos) finds out, he’s off to the rescue, but how effective can one Mexican punk teenager be against an organization who’ll stop at nothing to sell their ‘product’? Luckily he crosses paths with a Texas cop (played by the always outstanding Kevin Kline), who’s on a mission of his own to bring down these sleazeoids. The two strike up an unlikely bond as they criss-cross America searching for truth and justice in these most un-American ways. Trade may not win a BAFTA, but it’s a heckuva lot mo interesting than anything that became of NAFTA

Sign from The Times: Trade was inspired by the NY Times Magazine cover story, The Girls Next Door, which shouldn’t be confused with those three NSFW naughties or these four hotties!

Bartertown: bestest fantasy trade mt EVERst? Last year, in my keeper league, I shipped Ronnie Brown and Laveranues Coles and gots me Rudi Johnson and Randy Moss in return. Moss sat on the bench all of last year, but the dividends are mos certainly paying off this year! SNOZZLES!!

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

Trade opens in theaters tomorrow

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Last Winter
Nome Alone
Trailers

There’s something juss darn right creepy about being surrounded by snow and not much else. It worked to frightening perfection with Jack Torrance’s all work and no play dullness in The Shining, and for the most part, it works its eerie uneasiness quite well in Larry Fessenden’s The Last Winter. Cept there aint no hedge mazes or Scatman Crothers coming to the (sorta) rescue. Instead, we got a group of oil drillers (headed by the always solid Ron Perlman) looking for Texas tea deep in the Alaskan wilderness (although filmed in majestic Iceland). After one of the crewmembers turn up dead, it only a matter of time before the rest either do the same or go coo-coo for things other than Cocoa Puffs. But is it all in their minds or is it something else? The same question is at the heart of The Shining, but Winter gives it a nice lil man vs nature twist on it that won’t make you fill discontented… like mos horror films these daze

Confuse-Shuz Sez: anyone else ever mix up Ron Perlman with Ellen Barkin’s ex-man-ho Ronald Perelman?

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

Rental Round-Up Dawg: if you Netflix one movie this year, make it Zodiac. If you’ve already seen it and promise you aint lyinsz, then move on to the next best of 2007: Away From Her

December Boys
Australia’s Least Wanted
Trailers

For better or worse, December Boys will always be known as Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Potter flick. And he’s mos certainly miles away from Hogwarts here, playing the cigarette-smoking, puberty-horny, spectacle-free Maps (sounds like his uber-breastness appearance on Extras). Maps is the eldest of four boys (each with similarly odd names: Misty, Sparks and Spit), who get a summer holiday away from the church orphanage on a remote Australian coast (dat’s right, December is a summer month for those south of the equator, ya big dummies). While the younger trio dream and dream of being adopted, and even more so when a rumor flies that a childless couple at this seaside retreat is interested in such a thing, Maps’ accepts the bad hand he’s been dealt and tries his damnedest to hurry up his maturation process. A few trips to a cave with a randy young girl seem to help temporarily, but what about in the long run? Have no fear, as the fond reflecting narration of that one great summer unravels, you juss know that every thing’s going to end up a-ight. December Boys is kinda like Stand By Me, yet with no Ray Brauer‘s body drama to keep you glued to your seat. Sure, this flick may be a lil on the vanilla side, but by the end, yer gonna wanna adopt all four of these lil buggers!

Tatooine You: why does Jack Thompson look so darn familiar? Cause he totally was banging Anakin’s mom as Cliegg ‘Father of Owen’ Lars in Attack of The Clones

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

Great World of Sound
Con Hot Air
Trailer

I really really wanted to like this no-budget film, but as it dragged on and on, I kept getting angrier and angrier with it. Maybe that was its intention, but I’d rather be friends with a film than an enemy of it. So what got me so flustered? There’s two cons games constantly being played, and for all those involved, it’s juss too darn aggravating that they can’t see they’re being tricked. Our two main novice A&R characters travel the country selling dreams of stardom to ungifted musicians, but in the process, it’s their own legs that are being pulled by the home office, who are more interested in securing dollars than talent. To make my depression worse, the musicians endlessly auditioning before our eyes aren’t actors, but real people, who actually responded to vague newspaper ads that they hoped would fufill their dreams. So not only are they being conned in the movie, but for the movie. Sure, it makes for a more realistic film, but to me, that reality bites

For The Record: director Craig Zobel is a co-founder of Homestar Runner, and the mos excellent Kene Holliday was not only Matlock‘s boy, but the voice of GI Joe‘s Roadblock!!!!!! Yo!

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

In the Shadow of the Moon
The Apollo Creed
Trailer & Mo

There really are no muss see movies in life, but this doc comes purty darn close to required viewing, and that goes for every living person on this earth… including you Saudis, even though you don’t have a single movie theater in your country. In The Shadow of The Moon brings together, for the first and maybe last time, the remaining crew members of the 9 Apollo missions (although media-shy Neil Armstrong declined to appear in it, his presence is still mos certainly felt), to tell their incredible tales of how they helped to fulfill JFK’s challenge to our nation ‘of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth‘ before the end of the 60s

Obviously we did make it happen, but you’ll still marvel at how they could possibly do so, in a much more archaic age, where people under 18 actually had a hard time obtaining pornographic material to JO to. I’m sure many of you, like myself, will walk out of this and wish you were born in an earlier time, so that you could have experienced this remarkable journey first hand. Since that’s an impossibility, this doc, complete with pristine NASA archival footage (some never seen before), comes purty darn close to making up for it. While the missions were wholly American, the accomplishments were for the world to share. If only we had a remarkable event today to bring us all together (besides Coca-Cola). While we wait for such a thing, please go see In The Shadow of The Moon. Making the leap to the theater is juss one small step for you, but one giant leap for mankindness

Buzzy Bee: one of the more colorful astronauts who appear in the doc is Buzz Aldrin, who, thankfully this time around, was not interviewed by Ali G

Us & Them: here lies the video/music mash-up of The Dark Side of Oz/Dark Side of the Rainbow (thanks to de la Roachclip, I sorta saw it work back in my college daze). Too impatient to watch it all? Rolling Snooze went thru the trouble of pickin out the better bits

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Breast In Show

3:10 to Yuma
Homeboys On The Range
Trailer & Mo

I aint no fan of westerns, but if I had to choose a genre to make a comeback, I’d pick it 8 outta 10 times over musicals. While 3:10 To Yuma may not usher in a new era of unshaven dirty gunslingers, it’s still way more entertaining than John Travolta dancing in a fat suit. Director James Mangold follows up his Walk The Line with a different sorta man in black tale, a solid remake of the classic ’57 film of the same name, but like most of his films, it’s the casting that wins us over, and not the storytelling. Yuma pits poor rancher Christian Bale against bad bad man Russell Crowe, who has a date with the titular train. In the beginning, the two are as distant as me from a veggieburger, but as they make the trek to train station, the two strike up an unlikely kinship. This is the film’s main thrust and folly. While I can see why Crowe’s character could identity with Bale’s need for redemption, I juss don’t buy that he’d help him out, especially when it will still end up in his own imprisonment. Not only that, but in the process Crowe has to turn against his trusted outlaw buddies who are trying to rescue him. Even though Bale and Crowe chew up the scenery, it’s actually Six Feet Under‘s Ben Foster who makes the biggest bite. The guy totally pwns the angry man screen persona… which leads me to wonder how he could be so miscast as X-Maner Angel

Show-Times: there are plenty o ‘films with a time in the title, but there’s only one that stars Casey Siemaszko, Lisa Simpson and that’s directed by the Rattle & Hum dude, the ’87 mastercheese that be Three O’Clock High [trailer]

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Mos Def Worth Yer Peepers

Fierce People
A Tribe Quest Called
Trailer
(which is a much watch so u can hear the faux versions of
‘Under Pressure’, ‘The Passanger’ and ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ )

Fierce People wants to be a lotta thangs, but one thing it probably didn’t want to be was a film that’s released in theaters 2 years after it first hit up the festival circuit. I can see how that’s possible, cause it’s a mess, but then again, it’s one of the more earnest messes I’ve enjoyed this year (Spidey 3 was another mess we approved of, but that didn’t quit
e understand the importance of being earnest goes to camp). What starts off as a nice lil coming of age piece (on top of the drug recovery and eccentric tycoon story threads that run along side it), eventually takes an unexpected dark turn, which for some viewers, may quickly erase any positive feelings you may have had leading up to it. Director Griffin Dunne (Johnny Dangerously‘s lil brother Tommy) and writer Dirk Wittenborn certainly have something on their hands here, but I actually think the crazy world that they created would be better suited for an HBO/Showtime type series. There’s too many interesting characters inhabiting that world, and frankly, we don’t get to spend enough time with any of them. But why not spend some of your time with them instead of none of it? I’ll leave that up to you

Eat At Perkins: I for one am very glad that Elizabeth Perkins’ career is turning itself around. I for one also love the fact that she showed us her perkies at least once [NSFW]

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): on the lower end, but still Jeepers Worth A Peepers

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Balls of Fury
Serve’s Up!
Trailers & Mo

The State alums Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant have long ago earned their funny stripes. Yet for the past few years, the two have either been wasting their talents or showing their true colors when penning such Hollywood tripe as Herbie Fully Loaded, The Pacifier, Night at the Museum and Taxi. While we did peep Herbie, for Lohag purposes only, we didn’t need any tomato meters to tell us to stay away from the others like the boo-bonic plague. So it is with great relief that their latest effort, Balls of Fury, shines a whole new light of hope on the thighnamic duo

The sell is simple: Christopher Walken is an evil lord of ping pong and the only one who can stop him is an overweight, clumsy Def Leppard fanatic schlub (played by the brilliant Dan Fogler, whose name you’ll soon know in the many years to come), with a lil help from hottie Maggie Q, George Lopez (finally, we get the chance to see what he’s got since we’ve all long avoided his ABC sitcom) and that dude from Big Trouble In Little China, whose shenanigans are worth the price of admission alone! If that premise doesn’t pique your interest, then you muss be watching too may Judd Apatow comedies for your own good

The bottom line for any comedy is not the story, but laughter, and for the majority of the picture, Lennon and Garant deliver on the funny. Sure, it coulda been butter, but as of today, Balls of Fury is the mos hilarious American ping pong movie mt everest. Hell, they even outdid their fellow Staters’ other summer movie The Ten [TWS review], which had a much better story, but juss didn’t produce much laughter

Anime Foundation: as an old occupational hazard, I can’t stand cartoons, hispecially ones that come from Japan. Yet in all my time working with the Empire of the Sun’s animation, only one stole my heart, The Ping Pong Club. It’s like Beavis & Butthead, without the videos and about 10 times the toon nudity!

Fun & Games: play ping pong online AND Celebrities Playing Table Tennis, including many yummy snaps, like one of Sean Connery havin a ball

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

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…