Thighs Wide Shut

I FINALLY got around to watching Twin Peaks – The Return. At first, I was beyond dumbfounded by it all.  I was like, this isn’t MY Twin Peaks.  WTF???  What is this?  It’s too far out there.  Too much Inland Empire and not enuff of that perfect Twin Peaks charm and whimsy that had made me a blind devotee since 1990.  But I pressed on, and The Return got better, or I got wiser, or both.  And when it was over, (I binged all 18 eps in under a week), I wanted to experience it all over again, solve the unsolvable mysteries, and started re-watching it immediately.  This isn’t my OLD Twin Peaks, but this is my NEW Twin Peaks!!  Also, Andy and Lucy’s son Wally Brando is my everything!!

the cast of the new Twin Peaks series is INSANE, and endless – click here to read ALL 217 names

it’s udderly nice to see soooo MANY familiar names on the roster – included our beloved Harry Goaz as Deputy Andy Brennan + Catherine E Coulson as The Log Lady – even though Catherine sadly left earth and logs behind in the fall of 2015.  Heck, even the front desk receptionist from The Great Northern is back!!!

however – absent from the list are – The Man from Another Place (really???) Sheriff Harry S Truman, his girlfriend Jodie, Piper Laurie, Leo ‘New Shoes’ Johnson (WTF),  any version of Donna Hayward, David Lynch’s son, Heather Graham, Dick Tremayne (one of my personal favorite characters), and even Van Dyke Parks!!  not sure if they are gonna cameo or it aint happening at all or what.  lettuce truss in Lynch/Frost and see where it goes

anywho, there are a fcukload of newbies, so lets take a guess as to what characters these actors are playing, and who they are (spoilers from Twin Peaks past may lie ahead… but shame on you if you’ve somehow never watched the greatest TV show that ever was)…

 

Jane Adams as Pepper Patterson

Pepper is The Great Northern’s concierge, a job she learned all about from her aunt Julie, who held the same position 25 years ago

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Monica Bellucci as Countess Valentina Bianchi

a mysterious Italian woman who has taken over the affairs of Thomas Eckhardt.  she smokes more than she talks

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Jim Belushi as John Aykroyd

long living in the shadow of his deceased brother and his brother’s business partner, he’s ready to step into the spotlight and make a lot of noise – with his loud mouth and wisecracks, which may end in his own demise

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Michael Cera as The Blog Lady

The Log Lady will die (it sadly has to be), and in her place, all the town’s mythical wisdom will come from her long lost son, who dresses as a woman and blogs about all the visions he has of the woods – THE BLOG LADY!!!

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Richard Chamberlain as Chamberlain Richárd

with the Renault Bros out of the picture, someone needs to run the drugs, women and every other vice from Canada down into Twin Peaks.  Chamberlain Richárd is that man, and he’s twice as malicious and twice as Canadian as the Renaults ever were

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Frank Collison as Stooby Jensen

the town’s preacher, who is also the town’s rabbi

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Jeremy Davies & Balthazar Getty as Duffy and Daffy McScrappy

The McScrappy Brothers are the town’s biggest troublemakers, and drunks.  They’ve spent more nights in the sheriff’s overnight jail cell than they have on the outside.  No wonder – their uncle is Hank Jennings

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Laura Dern as Dorna Loone

after Nadine goes blind in her other eye, she needs more help than ever – and in comes her doting niece Dorna Loone – but she has her own issues – she has three ears!!

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Francesca Eastwood as Arnolda Palmer

wait, Laura Palmer had MORE cousins???  Man, I fear for poor Arnolda Palmer.  Whatever you do Arnolda – don’t visit the town.  Bad things will happen.  And stay away from plastic or from people who like to wrap

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Patrick Fischler as The One-Eyebrowed Man

remember the One-Armed Man?  well, now there’s the One-Eyebrowed Man – a man who’s a body to a spirit.  Good or evil – time will tell, but there aint no shaving or stopping this unibrow

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Robert Forster as Sheriff Richard M Nixon

strange that they’d replace honest Sheriff Harry S Truman with mischievous Sheriff Richard M Nixon, but he’s not a crook, is he?

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Ernie Hudson as Spin Williams

There were TWO black characters in the original series (BARELY), and now there’s at least one in the new series.  Spin William’s is the town’s #1 DJ on radio station WTIN (get it – it’s like TWIN, but spelled wrong!).  Yep, Twin Peaks is town that still values radio, in an age of Spotiwhatever

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Ashley Judd as FBI Agent Wynonna Naomi

the FBI knew it had lady trouble when their only lady was Denise Bryson.  No more – Georgian peach agent Wynonna Naomi is a no-nonsense lady who can pack heat and create it.  BAD GUYS BEWARE!!!! AND AGENT COOPER TOO!!!

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Jennifer Jason Leigh as Marguerite Meade

rivalries are a big part of Twin Peaks culture, and there’s no rivalry going that may be more delicious than the one going on between the Double R Diner and the one Marguerite Meade owns – The Triple Q Diner.  TOAST WILL BURN!!!

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Matthew Lillard as Gilbert Gottbaked

Twin Peaks is a town of full of nutjobs, and none may be nuttier than the guy in charge of the TP’s marijuana dispensary – Gilbert Gottbaked.  His original last name was Gottesbergfeld, but he changed it to increase business sales

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Trent Reznor as Pavel Puree

first it was the Icelanders, then the Norwegians, and now come the Bulgarians looking to invest in Twin Peaks real estate.  But long gone are the nice and sweet blonde Northern Europeans, and in are the dark, brooding and shady Eastern Europeans, led by Pavel Puree, who has more than plots of land on his mind – like burying people under them!

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Tim Roth as Ace Asimov

ruthless Canadians aren’t the only dirty dealers dealing in Twin Peaks – in comes one of Russia’s biggest and baddest oil barons – Ace Asimov, who likes his vodka warm, and his murders cold

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Amanda Seyfried as Poppy Hewitt

there is, and will always be, only one Laura Palmer – the center of it all, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a new object of everyone’s affection – like what happens when Dale Cooper finds out he has a daughter, who juss so happens to come to town looking for him.  Poppy Hewitt will light everyone’s F-I-R-E, but can Twin Peaks survive another blonde with endless ambition???

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Ethan Suplee as Theo Johnson

Leo Johnson is missing, and his brother Theo wants to find him… and a pair of new shoes along the way

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Lauren Tewes as Mildred Ambers Horne

it’s about time Jerry Horne stopped being horny and settle down, especially with a woman his own age.  happy homemaker Mildred Ambers Horne has changed Jerry’s life for the better, but is he a better man, or still up to his old tricks?

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Eddie Vedder as Otis Skunkmeyer

Big Ed still has a gas farm, but he aint getting any younger.  With his nephew James Hurley leaving the family business, that leaves mechanic Otis Skunkmeyer to help Ed out with this and that

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Naomi Watts as Tilly Ivers

we told you Coop had a long lost daughter, right?  well, what about a long lost mother to that daughter?  welcome Tilly Ivers – Coop’s high school sweetheart who’s come to find him and reclaim his heart, and soul

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Twin Peaks 2017 is so on.  I’m jazzed – hope you are too!!

This Is The End
Smarmageddon
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 107 min

OMG, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson plays themselves, in a movie!!!!  And in this movie, the world is being destroyed, but these guys survive, and they act as… themselves!!  And they’re stuck at James Franco’s house, which means we’re stuck with them.  And they think they’re so funny, so we’re forced to listen to their think they’re so funny jokes, that aren’t really that funny.  OK, so any time Danny McBride opens his mouth, or even lifts his eyebrows, we smile and laugh, but all that gets overshadowed by how much we could care less about Jay Baruchel, or minus-one note Seth Rogen, who co-wrote/directed this thing, by expanding his and Jay’s 2007 short film/trailer into something so over-long and over-done you truly wish the movie theater you were sitting in would get destroyed too.  Ugh.  Snooze.  But if you think Seth Rogen’s the funniest man since the last funny man who wasn’t that funny was the funniest man, then by all means, go see this movie that makes ‘funny’ rape jokes about Emma Watson, or drinking your own pee!  OK, so Michael Cera playing a crazy version of Michael Cera was pretty funny, but he leaves the film too soon and yer juss left with Jay Baruchel being Jay Baruchel and no one wants to see that, cept for apparently Seth Rogen, and probably Jay Baruchel’s parents

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

This Is The End has no beginning or end in a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Scott Pilgrim vs The World
8-Bit More Than It Can Chew
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Remember this lil maddening Nintendo send-up/mash-up/cracks-we-up?  What a wonderful, colorful and inventive way to spend 8.5 minutes!!!!!  Same could be said of the similar pixelated terrain of Edgar Wright‘s screen version of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels.  But what of the remaining 1 hour and 45 minutes? Tedious, repetitive, uninteresting.   Waiting for our titular hero (Michael Cera) to fight and (of course) beat level boss/evil ex-boyfriend after level boss/evil ex-boyfriend (Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, etc + one ex-girlfriend, Mae Whitman) had us screaming internally for ‘game over’ to flash on the screen as soon as Atarily possible.  No matter how many 1-ups Pilgrim gets on his quest, the film never 1-ups itself into new territory, even if that singular territory is inspired, fun and a place we’d like to play in… for 8.5 minutes!!!!!

Urgggggh!!!!!!!!!!!!  Maybe there needed to be more real-worldedness ala The Wizard!  Maybe there should have been more things for the supporting cast (Kieran Culkin, Mark Webber, Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick, et al) to do besides make ironic smirks and be all malaise-y (esp Aubrey Plaza, who’s a pro at malaise-y.  so much so that she may end up with a career more one-noted than Cera’s).  Maybe Scottie P spent too much time slayin’ dragons, chasin’ waterfalls and tiltin’ at windmills, and not nearly enuff time building up the actual relationship he so desires with his beloved Ramona Flowers (our once and future wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead, with anime eyes that won’t and we hope, will never quit!!!).  There’s more time devoted to destroying his relationship with Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) AND forgetting his one with Envy Adams (Brie Larson) than anything resembling quality time with Flowers (smiles and heart kisses don’t suffice!).  Their love grows with artificial sweetness, but sometimes substitutes aren’t better than the real thing!!!  Pilgrim, leave Plymouth and do not collect 200 bonus points!!!!

Out With The Old & Always In With The MEW: Mary Elizabeth Winstead may be new to you, but she’s MEW to us, and with this pic from the flick, MEOOOOOOW for one and all!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Pilgrim is currently may deflowering at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…