Thighs Wide Shut

Marley
Wailer of a Good Time, Mon
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 144 min

You think you know the story of Bob Marley (he’s that dude who made those amazing reggae songs and smoked a lot of pot!!), but you really don’t the story of Bob Marley (his dad was white, and absent, he really loved soccer, and he had children with at least 7 different women), and although Kevin Macdonald‘s exhaustive and exhausting doc Marley tells the story of Bob Marley as best as it possibly can, we somehow still feel like we didn’t get the full story on Bob Marley.  And that’s OK, mon.  No problem, mon.  Fo’real mon!  Really?  Yeah mon, cause how could a doc about Bob Marley, officially sanctioned & supported by the Marley clan (Rita Marley, Ziggy Marley, Cedella Marley), including all the choice Bob Marley tunes, that gives us a good enuff overview of Bob Marley’s life, from shantytown birth til painful cancerous death, not be something worth seeing?  Guess what, it’s all true, and so it’s worth seeing!

This documentary has been a long gestating project, passing thru the hands of Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, and finally into Macdonald’s.  Macdonald, taking a break from his not so fabulous narrative work (The Eagle, State of Play), returns to where he belongs – doc making.  He gave us One Day in September and Touching the Void, two of the best films docs we’ve ever seen, EVER.  Marley isn’t eggzactly in league with those two, but then again, not much else is.  EAT THAT EVERY OTHER DOC!!!

The talking heads are endless, and endlessly loving (guess he was incapable of being bad.  even his infidelities were accepted!), from the living Marleys (the ones mentioned above + Bob’s mom Cedella Booker), to ex-lovers (Cindy Breakspeare), bandmates (Bunny Wailer, who we could listen to talk pretty much all day long), to even a janitor who worked at a recording studio.  And while their stories are a treat, still, something feels missing… like a deeper understanding of who Bob Marley actually is and was.  Seriously, who was Bob Marley, and what was he is and was???

moral of the (Bob Marley) story – well, he’s that dude who made those amazing reggae songs and smoked a lot of pot, had a white daddy, who was absent, he really loved soccer, and had children with at least 7 different women.  get up, stand up, go to a theater, learn a lil more, and inhale his music.  it’s that simple, like this pretty simple doc, that’s simply one (giant) love (fest), and you love Bob Marley, right?  if you don’t, you need to Exodus planet Earth you idiot

Pop Marley: here lie the only known photo of Bob’s pop, Norval Sinclair Marley.  we smiled & chuckled everytime it popped up in the doc

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Marley lights up in many select theaters & Video On Demand today, 4/20!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Eagle
Soar Subject
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

When not in HBO’s Rome we don’t really care what Romans do, cause none of them there Roman TV shows or movies that have come after HBO’s Rome are nearly noble Roman enuff to be fully worth roaming out and about to see.  But if you haven’t seen HBO’s Rome then maybe you can be more open to Romanesque Roman things (Romain lettuce or Polanksi don’t count), but if you haven’t seen HBO’s Rome, well then you’ve missed out on one of the bestestestest shows of the 2010s.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Sorry, but we work for HBO’s Rome street team, even though the show ended 4 years ago and there is no street team, and even though the term ‘street team’ is almos more lame than saying yer a part of some team like ‘team Jacob’.  GO TEAM HBO’s ROME!!!

Anywhooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo… welcome to The Eagle, director Kevin Macdonald‘s take on Rosemary Sutcliff’s book The Eagle of the Ninth, which was inspired by the real life doings of (not HBO’s) Rome’s Ninth Spanish Legion.  That’s a lot of 9s and eagles and adaptions!!!  It’s also a pretty decent premise about a 2nd century young Roman dude (dude Channing Tatum, who’s actually a purty dependable leading man) who wants to restore pride in his family’s name after his papa and his solders disappeared in the tribal hinterlands north of Hadrian’s Wall in Great Britain, and lost their treasured GOLDEN EAGLE THINGIE!!!!!  So Roman Channing dude leaves the confines of some forts and Roman hanging out places where wise dudes like Denis O’Hare and Donald Sutherland (who’s voice is almost worth the price of admission to any film he’s in) roam, and takes his newly acquired slave and future BFF (Jamie Bell) on a quest to conquer the unknown questions, and the unknown in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the journey begins, and while the vistas we travel thru are mightily vistastic (Hungary, doing a fine job standing in for the ye Olde Country!), this puppy doesn’t really start cooking until Roman dude and his Billy Elliot slave meet up with a tribe of Native American looking savages covered in mud that are called Seal Peoples or something (led by A Prophet‘s Tahar Rahim), AND THEN the tables are turned and like the Roman dude is now like a slave and the slave Billy Elliot kid is like a Billy Elliot with all the power cause the tribes people hate Romans (no word on what they think of HBO’s Rome), but not the slave cause he’s from the area, but none of this is as awesome as HBO’s Rome.  What does this all have to do with dude’s lost pops and that golden eagle???  Uh, everything!!!!!  And it’s kinda cool, but its only a sliver of cool, cause there was like a ton of sorta nothing & boringness leading up to it, and a sum of sorta nothing & boringness following it, and sometimes when Mark Strong shows up in a movie it can either be a strong thing, but sometimes it can be a weak thing

So, have you ever seen HBO’s Rome???  DO IT!!! Or check yerself out some of Macdonald’s munch munch more munchable non-fictional frictions One Day in September and Touching the Void

Bold MacDonalds: Kevin Macdonald’s brother Andrew has produced a lot of his films + Trainspotting & other Danny Boyle joints, and their second cousin is…. NORM FORKING MACDONALD!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Eagles lands today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…