Thighs Wide Shut

The Hottest State
Even Cowboy Fans Sing The Blues
Trailers

Being a man always seems to be much easier than being a woman. I can’t say for sure, since I’ve never been a woman, but not having to bare children and the freedom to pee anywhere kinda closes the case on that one. Yet when a woman enters a man’s life, being a man aint so easy anymore. Just ask William Harding (the always eggsalad Mark Webber, basically playing a younger Ethan Hawke… in Ethan Hawke’s film… in which Ethan plays his father), The Hottest State‘s young NYC-by-way-of-Texas actor, who falls head over heels, and then some, in love with sultry musician Sarah (one of gawd’s greatest creations: Catalina Sandino Moreno, who gets NSFW in da film). Once she crosses his path, he’s unable to shake her loose, mind, body and soul. And that’s too bad for him, cause after whirlwind start between the two, Sarah throws up a stop sign, while William presses on full speed ahead. Any man watching this will squirm, as they’ve probably walked the same mile that William had in their own shoes. And like most men, this work of fiction will confirm your feelings that it’s impossible to understand the actions and emotions of women… unless of course you’re Mel Gibson

Adept Adaptations: Ethan aint the only writer to adapt and direct his own book into a movie. Some of the butter know ones are Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun, Frank Miller’s (as co-Director) Sin City, Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive, William Peter Blatty’s Exorcist III, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, Nightbreed AND Lord of Illusions, Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity, Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance and Michael Crichton’s The First Great Train Robbery

If These Walls Could Talk: if I died today, I’d die happy, knowing that my name is in the end credits of a movie. That movie be Ethan’s directorial debut, Chelsea Walls, also co-starring Mark Webber

Photochopping: one of our flavs from the past is Maria Full of Grace Jones

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

Right At Your Door
DoorbellHELL!
Trailer

Viruses and diseases plaguing mankind always make for fine entertainment. I mean, would ABC even bother airing The Ten Commandments year after year if Moses and his boy, the Lord, decided not to unleash dem 10 plagues (in Peeps form here) upon Egypt? Methinks snot. To this day, I still can’t shake the imagery that biohazardous flicks like Twelve Monkeys, 28 Days Later… or even the les ghetto Omega Man have thrown into my little head. But paranoia pics don’t have to come only in a large Hollywood size, and that’s what the little Right At Your Door picture proves. Rory Cochrane (the dude who plays confused and dazed like no other) stars as an out of work husband, who happens to be at home when sum mad bad shiz goes down in LA. While his wife(Mary McCormack, who almos was NSFW, whom I often confuse with Mary Louise Parker, who has been NSFW)’s whereabouts are unknown to him and to us viewers, he scrambles to survive, by trapping himself inside their house. While the city falls apart, we don’t really get to see it cause we’re stuck in that house with Rory. As the story unfolds, the paranoia not only falls on his shoulders, but on ours as well. Who sez you need a huge budget to have the bejesus scared outta you? I dunno, but please don’t ask Mr Epic, Cecil B Demille. And you can’t anywyz, cause he’s dead! Who knows, maybe Moses and his boy, the Lord, plagued him to death!

ArtTeaseT: this may be Chris Gorak‘s first foray as a writer/director, but the boy’s been around, as the Art Director for such lush films as Fight Club, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Brotherly Love: Mary McCormack’s real brother Will plays Mary’s reel brother ‘Jason’ in the film. Don’t waste your time looking for him, as you’ll only hear his voice on the other end of a phone conversation

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

September Dawn
Big Hate
Trailer & Mo

Ever see those commercials for dem TNT westerns starring Tom Selleck or Tom Skerritt and immediately want to fall into a Rip Van Winkle sleep coma? That’s the look and feel that’s going on here in September Dawn, but no comas will be had while watching the lil love story that blossoms around the true events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where some crazy Uta
h Mormons went crazy. Believe me, this had snoozer and loser written all over it, but somehow, Dean Cain and Angelina Jolie’s dads, Uncle Rico, Oliver from The OC, that dude who looked like Mandy Moore in that Mandy Moore movie and General Zod turn this overly melodramatic film into something that may actually be worth watching… if it aired on TNT!

Temple-Tation: the coolest LDS temple mt EVERest? No doubt, tis be the Washington, DC one. Peep out the ultra-fly Google Map overhead shot of it!

Pindemonium: Olympic pins are a big deal… well, at least for people who attend the games. That’s why when I hit up Utah’s Winter ones back in the ’02, I juss had to have the Mmm… Bologna one

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): barely, but still Jeepers Worth A Peepers

all three films open in limited theaters tomorrow
and elsewhere elsewhen

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Stardust
From Dust Til Yawn
Trailer & Mo

Rob Reiner won’t be havin any restless evenings knowing that Stardust is not only NOT in the same league as his beyond brills Princess Bride, but not even in the same Species, Genus, Family, Order, Class, Phylum and/or Kingdom! Stardust is somewhere between Zardoz and MS-DOS. I don’t really know what that means, but what I do know is that the man who produced Snatch & Lock Stock and basically put X-3 into Brett Ratner’s fumblin hands decided to follow-up his yummy Layer Cake [TWS.org review] with this over baked Danny Ferry tale. Stardust mos certainly tries hard at entertainin, but it’s way too whimsy and not enuff cool. Hell, this pic of Mr Vaughn on set is the coolest thang that had anything to do with this kiddie pic. All the actors do a fine job, hispecially DeNiro as a gay pirate, but they’re having all the fun on screen and leaving little for the audience. And there’s two things that really peeved me. Numba one was the cheesy special effects. Young Sherlock Holmes had better CGI than Dust did, and that came out in 1985 for out loud cryin! And numba two, what on earth (and the heavens for that splatter) is goings on with Claire Danes’ blond eyebrows?

Hammer Time: hopefully Vaughn’s next project Thor will be more cool than whimsy. And who would make the perfect Thor? How bout Vincent D’Onofrio who played him in Adventures In Babysitting

Netflix Capacitor: want a Stardust that you’ll actually remember in years to come? Hit up the Woodman’s klassic Stardust Memories [trailer]

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

No Reservations
Send My Compliments To The Chef
Trailer & Mo

Lettuce waste no time here folks. This shoulda been a giant terd on a stick. Smarmy Aaron Eckhart uses all the right ingredients to get uptight Catherine Zeta Jones Douglas the III (the greatest Sorority Ever) to open up her kitchen and her heart, all while she tries to play mum to her recently orphaned niece, Olive Hoover. But ya know what? It wasn’t a terd, and not even close! To put it in laid-man’s terms, there are far worse movies to be dragged to by a woman. One of them is Stardust, but in that parDICKular case, I was the dragger, not the draggeeeeeeeee

Wurstest Date Movie Mt EVERest: my boy Gulf of Sonkin had his first and last date when he took a lady to go see Sleepers. Same thing woulda probably happened had it been Sleepwalkers, although that flick didn’t contain any Kevin Bacon raperific fun!

Be Wear: if I could buy one sorta offense Native American shirt, tis would be the one

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

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

El Cantante
Cant Stop The Music
Trailers & Mo

Who is Héctor Lavoe? That is the question I had going into El Cantante… and it’s still the same question I have going out. While I may not have learned a lot about the man himself, I now know the dude created some sick sick jams. Even if you’ve never heard a note of salsa music in yer life, those lively tunes will be pulsating in your head for days after seeing this. And it’s the films’ love and appreciation of Lavoes’s music that saves this by the numbers musician’s rise and fall, by way of drugs, biopic

So what’s the problemo here? Well, it’s mos def not Marc Anthony, who follows up on his promising supporting work in Man On Fire by easily slipping behind those tinted sunglasses and into his first major lead role. OK, then what’s the illy on this pickle? It’s none other than Jennifer Lopez and her portrayal of Lavoe’s (beyond fargin annoying) lover Nilda, who goes by the name (which is almos mo annoying than her acting) ‘Puchi’. J-Lo’s moanin and groanin takes its toll on the viewer after about her second tirade. If it was only three tirades, then it wouldn’t be that much of an issue, but there’s about 7 zillion and 6 that follow. Regardless of the girl from the block’s antics, I still couldn’t be anti El Cantante, so ante up folks! Ole!

Found In Translation: ‘el cantante’ translates to ‘the singer’, which not so oddly enuff is the name of another movie about Lavoe that recently completed filming

Good Bad Company: others who share Lavoe’s death date of June 29th, ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle (1933), Paul Klee (1940), Jayne Mansfield (1967), Bob Crane (1978), Lana Turner (1995), Katharine Hepburn (2003) and this year, Joel Siegel

Not Ready For Prime Time Player: director Leon Ichaso first cut his teeth making short films for SNL, includin one about Gilbert Gottfried as the only bullfighter in NYC

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

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
We Don’t Need No Education
Trailer & Mo!

Slain and pimple, Phoenix is eggzactly what one would expect from a 5th big screen outting for Harry Potter and his posse of tweens with wooden sticks. Yer not going to be amazed, but yer not gonna walk away disappointed neither. Long gone are the zzzzzz inducing days of Chris Columbus’ Potters 1 & 2, as newbie David Yates‘ Phoenix easily rides the coattails of Alfonso Cuarón’s masterful Azkaban [TWS review] and Mike Newell’s steady as she goes Goblet [TWS review]. I stopped reading the books after Ass-Ka-Ban, so to me, the films’ plots and pacing are usually a bit jumbled and confusing. I guess that’s to be eggspected when you cram 896 pages of kiddie-lit into 138 minutes of cinema. While I’m sure there’s sum good stuff that they left out of the flick, I don’t think anyone’s cryin that the quidditch season got canceled this go around. What we are treated to is more of everything. More darkness, more action (both the fighting and loving kind… but no HJs yet!), and duhvs course, more characters. While they’re too many to name, and some are down right lame (like Hagrid’s half-brother giant Grawp), there were two that stood out as mos welcome additions. A new book/flick always signals a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and none have downright owned the screen like Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake [TWS review])’s Dolores Umbridge did… some say mos wicked teacher since Miss Viola Swamp took over for the missing Miss Nelson! And I dunno what to make of odd ball Luna Lovegood (played by Potter obsessed girl Evanna Lynch), but I cannot stop thinking about her… yet not in the way I think about Ginny Weasley! Redheads forever!!

IMess: only in IMAX will you see Hermoine’s boobs grow larger

Extras! Extras! See All About It: is there anything better than Willow, Mrs Peel, David Brent AND Daniel Radcliffe chewing up the scenery in Extras?

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

SiCKO
Rescuing 911
Trailer

Slain and pimple, SiCKO is eggzactly what one would expect from a 5th big screen outting for Michael Moore and his natural good looks (this would be flick #6 if we were including his Canadian Bacon, but we aint, so eat some bacon ands shut up!). No other documentarian is the showman that Moore is. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s at the top of the field, cause he isn’t… ever hear of Fred Wiseman? Didn’t think so. Anywho, bein a showman like he is juss means that no one can grab people’s attention like he does, which is his bestest and wurstest attribute. Fahrenheit 9/11 [TWS review] was quite the attention grabber, but it backfired since it was only preaching to the choir. So with SiCKO, his pseudo-exposé into America’s health care system, Moore preaches to a larger choir, which doesn’t require the love of donkeys or elephants. While you can’t fault the man for raising awareness on the issue, you can for the half-assed way he does it. If yer looking for something in-depth, wait for 60 Minutes or John Stossel‘s mustache to go knockin’ on the HMOs’ doors, cause all yer gonna get with Moore are opinions, with little to no facts to back them up. He shows us how socialized medicine is such a wonderful thing in other countries, but he doesn’t really investigate how those systems work or are funded, besides saying that the gov-mint takes care of it. Raising questions is one thing, but attempting to find the answers is another. Remember folks, sometimes less is more, unless yer Michael Moore, where more is juss… more hot air

IMDb Sweeney: besides being the not so secret star of all of his docs, and Canadian Bacon, for that splatter, I’m sirprized his acting resume only has 3 other titles on it

Steal His Movie: seriously, he doesn’t care if you download his movie off the internets! [Rutgers Hat lover]

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Moore bashing aside, the issue is the issue so dis shiz be Jeepers Worth The Peepers•

and if you haven’t already dunn so, peep the trailer to what will be one of the wurstest movies of the year

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Interview
Acting School Confidential
Trailer

If yer casting a movie and lookin for the perfect fugly wormy guy, then Steve Buscemi is your man. And if you are seeking a beautiful ditsy blond, then Sienna Miller is mos certainly your woman. Put those two typecast characters together for one night only and what you end up with is a mos delicious meeting of the minds that they call Interview. Directed by Buscemi, Interview is a remake of slain Dutch filmmaker and Vincent van Gogh relative Theo‘s 2003 joint of the same name [trailer]. In what could have easily been a stagy yawn fest, Buscemi and Miller keep thangs moving as a snarky journalist and spoiled starlet, respectively, trading barbs from the get gogh to the get end. While Interview is thighly entertaining for all walks of life, it’s really a showcase for both its stars to prove their detractors wrong. After many misfires, besides his work on some Sopranos eps, Buscemi demonstrates that he’s quite adept behind the camera (I wonder if he’s at all like director Nick Reve in Living In Oblivion). As for Miller, she’s so easy on the eyes that mos of us overlook her chops o’ acting. She basically played a piece of a$$ in Layer Cake [TWS.org review] and Alfie, and although sum eyebrows were raised for her fine work in Factory Girl [TWS.org review], the movie itself didn’t focus enuff on the Girl for mos to take notice. In Interview, Miller plays a beautiful ditsy blond actress, but what she proves is that she’s a beautiful ditsy blond who can act

I Want A Room With This InterVIEWee: hottie NSWer Katja Schuurman, who played the Sienna Miller role in the original version, makes a cameo at the end of Steve B’s edish

Ripley’s Bee Leave It or Snot!: I used to live down the street from Steve B in Park Slope, Brooklyn. One day, his family was holding a yard sale. I bought a solar system poster from them for one Ron Weasley dollar. It now resides on the back of my front door. You can SUNY purchase yer own identical, yet non-Buscemi, solar system poster here

Yer Cillian Me!: the future’s bright for Ms Miller, hispecially since she’ll be appearing in two upcoming flicks alongside Cpt Bestness, Cillian Murphy – The Edge of Love and Hippie Hippie Shake

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers, Mos Def Worth A Peepers•

Interview opens in select theaters this weekend, and elsewhere elsewhen

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…