Peace The Forks Out

to

Bill Paxton

&

John Hurt

&

Judge Wapner

+

Roe v Wade

Emmanuelle Riva

Pac Man’s father

Doc Hayward

Della Street

the World’s Foremost Authority

Mannix!

Hannity & Colmes

Spielberg’s mom

Tom Cruise’s mom

George ‘The Animal’ Steele

Mr MRI

he gave us Chloraseptic

Mr Chelsea Hotel

Time‘s movie man

Japanese director

Pizza! Pizza!  Tigers & Red Wings Oh My!

the engineer of the almost impossible

he was soldier 

the blind sheikh – FCUK YOU!!!

Steptoe & Son father

film preservationist Shepard

Co-Coach

Al Jarreau

Rao’s/Sopranos’ Frank Pellegrino

Fab Melo

giant Gamer

British actor

Canadian actor

Goebbels’ secretary

straight-up bimbo

&

Captain Apollo

Jackie
To Live and Die With Dignity
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
R | 100 min

I’ve missed Natalie Portman, and I feel like she hasn’t really done anything post-Black Swan, which somehow was 6/7 years ago.  Yes, I know she was in Thor and in that dumb Ashcan Kruncher flick, and other stuff, but those were juss movies, not films.  Natalie can obviously pick and choose whatever she wants to do – she’s earned that right – but being such an incredible actress means she has a responsibility to take on incredible roles

I’d like to say that Natalie Portman’s proper follow-up to Black Swan is Pablo Larraín & Noah Oppenheim‘s Jackie Kennedy film, where she somehow is even more graceful, tortured and emotionally wounded than when she was as a ballerina bent on finding perfection.  Jackie is not perfect (it’s close, but there’s not enough grassy knoll for me :), but it is what it needs to be, and Portman as Jackie IS perfection

Throughout the course of the film, Jackie goes from white swan, to white swan covered in blood, to even whiter swan, and by the end of it all, I somehow I felt more compassion for Portman (as Jackie), then I actually do for Jackie Kennedy, for enduring and rising above the horrific death of her husband, and the leader of the free world

What the country went through is incomparable to what Jackie went though, but in a time of much awfulness, she had the right mind to plan a sendoff for JFK worthy of royalty, and cement his legacy and place in history for eons to come.  What Jack Kennedy accomplished in office wasn’t much (he didn’t get a chance to put man on Uranus), but what Jackie Kennedy accomplished in giving dignified life to his death was more than a lot, it was Camelot!

Portman also accomplishes something that wasn’t important or needed – reminding me how much I love Love LOVE seeing her on the big screen

Bonus points to the film for somehow turning Greta Gerwig into a real human being.  Never seen her so un-loopy and restrained.  And props to Peter Sarsgaard for giving new life to RFK, without going haaaard on the look or accent that most others usual do in Bobby’s shoes.  Also, Billy Crudup and John Hurt are quiet great as listeners for Jackie

Also, we finally have a definitive Jackie movie.  before Portman, all we had was this…

YES!

Verdictgo: Portman is Breast In Show, but the film is Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Jackie is way JF O-Kay at a theater near jews AND white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Frigid War ‘Thriller’
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 127 min

If you were a casting director and said to we, hey, you, if you could pick yer British acting (male) dream team, who’d be on it?  Well, we’d be like, hey, we’ll take Gary Oldman, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Graham, Simon McBurney and throw in Colin Firth, Toby Jones and John Hurt for really good measure (sorry Mark Strong, but yer kinda in too many movies and are kinda annoying in a majority of them).  And then if an art director was like, hey, you, what modern movies that take place in the 70s should we copy for look and style?  Well, we’d be like, hey, totally rip off the look & stylings of Zodiac, Munich and Carlos.  Oh, you mean 3 of the bestest movies of the past ten years, right?  Yes, we do mean those blam-mazing movies that everyone needs to see like 992929 times (even if we haven’t seen em that many times).  Woaaaaaah, a cast like that AND a look & style like thems, could a movie like that be humanly or even robotically possible?  IT IS!!!  It’s Tomas Alfredson‘s (he made the lesser, original Let The Right One In) version of John le Carré‘s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy!!!!!

OMG, THIS HAS GOT TO BE LIKE THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER, RIGHT?  WRONG!!!!!  It’s got the cast, AND THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY AWESOME (esp Oldman as Bill Nighy, and Benedict Cumberbatch, who’d blow minds even if he were playing a mute invisible person!!!), and the look, AND IT’S FORKING DULLTASTIC 70s GORGEOUSITY (apparently yellows & browns = the 70s), but what this movie doesn’t have is much to keep you from the beating drums of dull.  BUT HOW COULD IT BE???  Dunno, but this cold war thriller is juss too dang icy to ever warm up to.  NO WAY!!! Yes way.  Sure, it’s nice to see a spy movie that doesn’t need to resort to endless vroomy car chases and big-o bang-o explosions, but guess what, THIS MOVIE REALLY FRICKIN NEEDED SOME CAR CHASES AND EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!  It’s true.  Believe you we, the plot is not all that thick, even though it makes you think it is, and when the denouement show’s its face, it’s more like denoue-meh

moral of the story:  this ‘spy’ movie needs further TAILORING and TINKERING and SOLDIERING!!!!  shiz needed to be defrosted and did not need Tom Hardy with a crappy wig that made him look like Andy Lameberg with a crappy wig.  great actors acting great in a great looking movie does not equal a great movie.  We really want to see if the old Obi-Wan Kenobi TV version is any less tundra-y.  HOPEFULLY IT HAS LIGHTSABERS AND A DUDE WITH A BUTT FOR A MOUTH!!!

Fairbank-Weather Fan: we’ll pass on Svetlana and get svelt-hotta all over cutie Amanda Fairbank-Hynes!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Tinker aint eggzactly Tailor made this Friday in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Melancholia
Let Nature Take Its Collision Course
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 136 min

What’s that in the sky?  Is it a bird? A plane?  No, it’s a mysterious blue planet colliding with ours!!!  WHAT!!!?!??!?!?!  Perish the pershing thought!  But would you expect anything less than a date with annihilation with our host being none other than Mr Slap-Happy Go-Lucky himself, Lars von Trier???  No, we wouldn’t, but after whatever the f%^k his Antichrist was (or wasn’t), we’re glad he’s putting us out of our miseries, and the results are sirprizngly not eye slitting out repoopulii!!!  Who knew that R.E.M. could get it so darn right when they said that they felt fine at the end of the world!!  It’s true, well, at least when watching it happen cinematically!

von Trier’s Melancholia starts with a masterfully artsy fartsy prelude bang (the sequence alone is worth the price of admission), and them calmly works its way backwards, 2 days before our time is up.  We meet blushing newlyweds Kirsten Dunst and Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd, who are late to their own party, but with their perma-smiles & nuptial bliss in tow, no one is going to mind waiting hours for their arrival.  Once it all gets going, the reception is to die for (think this is how we’d all love ours to look like), but as the evening progresses, things start to unravel as we learn that nothing in this world can make Dunst happy, even on her most special of special days.  Her bleak mum (Charlotte Rampling), inebriated womanzing father (John Hurt), money matters brother-in-law (Kiefer Sutherland), pushy employer (Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd, shockingly NOT playing the father of the groom… his real life son Alexander), and even her hopeless wedding planner (Udo Kier!!!) are only making matters worse.  The ones trying to turn her frown upside down, newbie husband A SkarsgÃ¥rd, sister Charlotte Gainsbourg, and nephew Cameron Spurr, don’t have a chance on this planet of succeeding.  So where does Dunst, down in the dumps, go from here?

After a nice hot bath, urinating on a golf course, and a spontaneous encounter with Brady Corbet (the fake Michael Pitt), Dunst has fully come undone.  The wedding ends, and so does the marriage!  THAT WAS QUICK!!!  Once everyone leaves, grumpy Dunst grumps about with sister Charlotte, bro-in-law Kiefer, and nephew Cameron at their palatial castle and grounds (see ‘Castle-Free’ below). This is when all the planetary madness comes into play, and for once, Dunst starts to feel at peace (she even planet-tans in the nude at night!!!!!), while her sister starts to lose her shit, in her own way.  Dunst’s performance garnered all of the Cannes attention and awards, but it’s hactually Gainsbourg who has the more challenging, and rewarding role.  Maybe they should have been co-awarded, as two sides of the same coin, flipping the flip flip out

moral of the story: von Trier can create joy out of uncertainty and destruction, and this time he didn’t need to harm any penises in the process.  that in itself can be seen a success, and this might juss be his mos accessible movie to date.  Heil von Trier!!

Castle-Free: LvT made the heavens and earth collide at Tjolöholm Castle, Kungsbacka, Sweden

via this really cool site QOTS!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Worth A Peepers

Melancholia explodes into limited release tomorrow, and is already available on-demand, but this is a theater movie people!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…