Thighs Wide Shut

2010 Whitney Biennial

we no longer expect much from The Whitney’s bi-annual Biennial, cause usually it blows goats more than it blows minds, but at the very least we expect their display of way too post-post-post-modern art to try and be provocative and daring instead of bi-lame-ual and hum-ho-hum-dumb.  we examine three works from the show and pretend we’re the artist and explain it all like Clarissa

Marianne Vitale’s Patron

Hi, my name is Marianne Vitale.  Do not adjust your television cause I actually look this crazy.  And my video art is as crazy as I am!!  How profound!  So, how crazy am I?  Batshit crazy.  And how crazy is my masterpiece Patron?  So dangs crazy that I yell things at the viewer, cause people love being yelled at!   The yelling is meant to cause a reaction, but the only reaction that usually happens is the viewer walking as far away from my piece as possible.  I am a genius.  A crazy one, but nonetheless a genius.  How do I know this?  Cause I beat off to this video of myself yelling every night and that’s crazy, crazy-genius!

Jessica Jackson Hutchins’ Couch For A Long Time

This is no ordinary couch, it’s one for a long time!  Why?  Cause newspapers take a long time to read and I’m slow at reading!  Did you know that covering a coach in newspapers is the new toilet papering of someone’s house?  Of course you didn’t, and that’s why I’m leading the Couchism movement and you’re not.  You may not sit on my couch, but you can read it.  You can also do this to your own coach if you’re bored, but you probably won’t since newspapers are dead, and so is Jesus.  Jesus was resurrected, and my couch will resurrect the newspaper industry

Nina Berman’s various photos of Ty Ziegel

Poor Ty Ziegel = a rich me.  Ty was a soldier in Iraq who lost a lot of his face and body when a bomb exploded all up in his grill.  Talk about lockers that hurt!  Well, thankfully I’m alive (and him too) to show & tell you all about his tragic post-war life through the lens of my camera.  He’s hard to look at, and so are my photos of Ty.  That’s more heavy duty than someone taking a heavy dootie in a bathroom.  So where do I go from here?  All the way to the bank!   Thank you George W Bush for creating monsters that I can take pictures of and exploit them!!

skip the above and most everything else, and stick with the goodies from Biennials past on the 5th floor

can’t wait for the next batch of crap in 2012!

The Art of The Steal
Barnes Is Noble
Official Website | Trailer & Mo

The best documentaries open yer eyes to something you’ve never encountered before. Even bester documentaries do the same thing, but leave the viewer thirsting for mo knowledge on the subject once the house lights come on and they leave the theater. Even besterer ones do both them thangs but also enrage the viewer so dang much that they want to spring into action (this is why it’s our mos flavorite film genre, besides dystopian future movies from the 70s). Don Argott‘s engrossing The Art of The Steal does all three, but is so darn angrily one-sided that it’s almos hard to stand behind the cause being presented when they don’t leave much room for the counterpoint of view (this is why Bill Maher’s doc Religulous failed, even if it was frakin highlarious)

So what artful stolenings is going on here? Oh, only one of the mos impressive private art collections in the world, specifically of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work that’s so mammoth and prolific (181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 59 Matisse + choice pieces from El Greco, Goya, Manet, Modigliani, Monet, Prendergast, Picsso, Seurat and some dude named Van Gogh), it makes the Musée d’Orsay blush. All this jazz is housed, ‘wall ensemble’ style, in a suburb of Philadelphia at The Barnes Foundation, named after Albert C. Barnes, the self-made man who made a fortune on the antiseptic drug Argyrol, then spent his money on those paintings long before the great museums of the world ever took notice. Kudos to Barnes and his keen eye for doing so, and thus he should be allowed to do whatever he wants to do with his own property. So what he did was establish that foundation, a place where students of the arts could… study these arts, and thus also keep the downtown Philly upper crusters and political players from getting their grubby lil hands on his collection. But could it stay like that forever?

Eventually Barnes dies (actually it was suddenly), and although his will explicitly stated that the collection shall never be rearranged, moved, loaned or travel (or any other term that would prevent its escape), not everyone gets their dying wishes granted, hispecially since a new crop of Philly upper crusters and political players have come on the scene wanting the same thing that their predecessors did. These folks will do anything within their power to lawfully, even if done in the shadiest of shady acre ways, get the collection striped from the Barnes’ walls and relocated downtown, so more than 400 people per day can see it. Of course any number greater than 400 = big $szzz and now you can see why the city of ‘delphia wants it so badly, and to make a long tangled story that you’ll see unfold in the doc short, that’s exactly what happened. Like we said, Argott and his ill-tempered talking heads scream nothing but blood murder, and with the way it all went down they have every right to do so, but does it mean they’re right?

Visitation Right: a relocation makes sense, since this collection is too important to be hidden, but we suggest you trek down to 300 North Latch’s Lane in Merion, PA to see the collection in the only home it has even known, before it moves for good in 2012. that’s eggzactly what we did after seeing this doc!! NOTE: reservations are required so plan ahead!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mosssssssssssssss Def Worth A Peepers!!!!

Steal opens in NY/Philly on Friday and is already avails on IFC on demand!!!!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Fish Tank
Hope Sinks
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

It’s not often that a movie comes along that wows the pants off of us, and Andrea Arnold‘s second feature, Fish Tank, not only did juss that, but has continued to do so, even mo so, days after our initial, and what will probably be multiple viewings of this brilliant brilliant film (guess we gotta see her first flick, Red Road, STAT). Arnold’s hand-held, freewheeling look at a raw nerved teen stuck in nowheresville England, looking for any kind of connection, is a pure revelation, and most of its success can be credited to the novice actress at the center of it all, Katie Jarvis

A star has instantly been born, kinda like with Carey Mulligan in the similarly themed An Education, cept Mulls is a trained actor and been rising thru the ranks for years. As for the untrained Jarvis, she was famously discovered by Tank‘s casting agent when she overheard yelling at her boyfriend on a train platform. The rest is not herstory, as it will be interesting to see where this diamond in the rough goes from here. Even if she doesn’t reach any higher than this (we’re hoping that that’s not the case), this would still be considered quite the one-hit wonder

Jarvis mind-blowingly plays the temper-a-mental Mia, a 15 year old struggling to fit in at home and in the gruff world outside of it. Her whorish mother (Kierston Wareing) and annoying sister (Rebecca Griffiths) are no help, but when a man (Michael Fassbender, a fass rising star in his own right) enters the picture and her mum’s vag, everything changes, and not necessarily for the better. He seems to be the only one to get a positive rise out of Mia, and the more he sticks around, the mo their own relationship deepens, pushing things toward a messy-ickyville territory, and then things go in a whole different direction and then it all ends with Mia graduating with her own ‘an education’. You knows we love Mulligan, but gotta say that Jarvis is more deserving of being the prized pupil and head of the class, even if that class is a lower one, one that’s like school on Saturday, no class at all

Tank Girl: JARVIS! JARVIS!!!! we hearts you like mad, even if yer teeths be crooked, and yous may not be as cutie pie mcgeed as Mulligan (here’s a pic of the two together!), but who cares cause Sean Connery totes wanted to touch yer fingers and he’s lord, and Marcus Brody once got lost in his own museum and then ZARDOZ!!

fo further reading, further read this int with KJ

Verdictgo: Breast In Show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tank is currently bubbling up in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Young Victoria
Teen Wolf To Queen Woof
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Showtime’s The Tudors has purty much spoiled the fun and taken the thunder outta every other filmed look back at a British monarch ever since it hit the airwaves. These thingses try and try, but they end up being a tad tame and rudimentary (esp see, or don’t see, The Other Boleyn Girl) when compared to the brilliant series (the NSFW bits surely don’t hurt), which will mos sadly end it’s reign next year (he’s running out of wives to discard). And with that said, Jean-Marc Vallée‘s treatment of Queen Victoria: The Early Years, with a whip-smart, brisk paced script by Julian Fellowes, does a purty decent job of turning out something wholeheartedly entertaining, albeit mildly informational (it’s bit hard to keep track of how all the players fit onto the playing field, but they all look and act so dangs good, esp dueling jerks Paul Bettany and Mark Strong). Where this royal treat excels like ells yeah, isn’t on Vicky’s (a game Emily Blunt) upbringing or ascension to a throne she doesn’t even know how to sit on, but on her courtship and eventul marriage to her soulmate cousin Albert (a mos eggsalad Rupert Friend, helping us 2 5get his prissy Chéri). Sure, their lovely love story’s been told zousand thymes over, but that doesn’t mean for a second that they shouldn’t do it a zousand thymes mo, cause nobody puts Albert in a can and juss leaves him there! You’ve got a friend in Rupert!

Albertopolis: when visiting lovely London, be sure to head to the Victoria & Albert Museum, home to one of our mos flavorite eggzibits of balls thyme, The Power of The Poster. and justin case you 5got, here’s our mos flavorite posters of balls thyme!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Young Vic opens in limited release today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Pirate Radio
The Boat That Didn’t Rock
or The Boat That Sucked A$$!
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Hey Pirate Radio (which was once called The Boat That Rocked in its Native country and was somehow 20 minutes achingly longer) wake us up when yer done being so in love with yerself. Yeah, seriously, get a room with yerself, and then sink to the bottom of the ocean and never submerge or re-emerge or whatever merge cause you are AWFULes like really bad waffles or wiffle ball bats or Casey at Batman’s or Casey Kasem and Sean Casey watching Kazaam. Yes, seriously, yes. NO!!! NO!!! Ships a-oy!! WHY Richard Curtis y? X? Y? Zzzzzzzz? No one should love actually this movie. Notting OFF, not hill. Five funerals, no weddings! Bridget Jones would have a diarrhea if she saw this film you call a movie that is straight up, straight down unfunny, unfortunate, and unwatchable. January Jones shows up and proves once again that she’s about as talented as Christmas Jones. OK, so the fact that pirate radio stations in the UK’s high seas eggsisted is kinda um-musing, but why take that and then put the world’s giantestistest anchor into your storytelling and then make Kenneth Brawn-aaaaaaah have the mos grating role in his acting career that has stalled more recently than all the stalls found in Jerry Stahl’s shower stall museum that he co-owns with Armin Müller-Stahl. We HATED this movie more than we hated your mom cause she vomited on our cock. The End!

Musick To Our Stomachs: great soundtrack, but as the even greater A.O. Scott pointed out, most of the songs used cames out after 1966, when the film supposedly takes places. boooooo urns. want a real pirate radio movie, when then PUMP UP THE MOTHERFORKIN VOLUME!!!

Verdictgo: WURST IN SHOW aka Slit Dem Eyes Out RePOOOOOOOOOPelusssz!!!

Bad Lieutenant:
Port of Call New Orleans
I Know Why the Nic Caged Bird Swings For The Fences
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Remember when Nic Cage overacted his heart out playing Nic Cage trapped in John Travolta’s body pretending to be John Travolta in Face/Off? Well imagine if Nic Cage was trapped in John Travolta’s body, but tried to be Nic Cage, but was also trapped inside his own body and also tried to be Nic Cage and those two bodies were really one body and that body attended a school of over-overacting, and he was so good at overacting that he was a shoe and a sock in for valedictorian of over the counter overacting. Can you imagine it? Can you? YOU CAN! Throw in Werner Herzog, some hallucinogenic iguanas, MURDER!, the deep dirty south, Val Kilmer, Grima Wormtongue, Eva Mendes playing a whore juss like she is, a dog, Jennifer Coolidge acting serious, drugs, more drugs, more overacting, some black people, Xzibit being one of them, and Xzibit being one of the wurstest ‘rappers’ turned ‘actors’, multiply all of that times crazy crazy crazy like the Crazy Bread from Little Caesars and your port of call is a port of AUTHORITY! The cage has been broken and you will laugh! You’ll be scared, and you may juss forgive Cage for being Cage. Cage closed. Or is just opening? Cage against the machine!

Out Of Mind Out Of Time: 1987 – proposes to Patricia Arquette at first sight. She refuses; he suggests a ‘quest’ to prove his love. She asks for J. D. Salinger’s autograph, a black orchid, a Bob’s Big Boy statue, and a Tibetan wedding dress. Cage obliges; Arquette again refuses, then relents in 1995; marriage lasts six years [The Wild, Wild Ways of Nicolas Cage, a timeline]

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers and a creepers!!

The Box
The Box That Maybe Rocked?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There was a box and it had a button. If a couple (the dude with the laser eyes in X-Men and the girl that we’d all bang but looks like the Cuban Joker) pushes the button then they get 1 millionnnns dollars but someone dies, someone thighs and Frank Lungjello still has part of his mouth face missing!!! what? WHAT@!!@! They DO push the button, which activates the box so someone dies, we think and then people start acting strange cause it’s the 70s!! The dude works sorta at NASA, and it’s a movie directing by the Donnie Darko cat. Got it, but that doesn’t explain the really strange library where Jerri Blank’s stepmother works (maybe?). What about that other stuff, stiff, aliens, what? What’s that light? Why are things happening that make no sense or dollars? Do you cents something strange? We have no clue what happened in the movie but it was kinda cool, right? YES. On second thought, still yes, but hey, a movie doesn’t have to make sense to make change for a dollar, whether it’s an American one or an Australian dollar or whether the weather can make a pitcher out of a picture. Read that reed, and pee on a pea, you. YES, ewe!!!

We Can’t Handle The Turths: wanna know what The Box is alls about? PUSH HERE!!

Verdictgo: with reservations, still Jeepers Sorta Worth A Peepers

theses movies are already doing things in theaterses NOW

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…