Tag Archives: Olivia Colman

LanthiMOST

The Favourite
Powdered Go NUTS!
Official Site | Trailers & Mo

R | 121 min

We keep wanting someone to be out next Stanley Kubrick, and while some push and argue for David Fincher or Christopher Nolan to be that guy, I think people are overlooking the work and genius that is Yorgos Lanthimos, as he’s the best heir to the throne!

His Dogtooth was a revelation.  The Lobster wasn’t perfect, but we haven’t escaped its claws either and are still thinking about it years later.  The Killing of a Sacred Deer?  Oh deer!!!!!!!!!!!

And his latest, the first he didn’t have a hand in writing – The Favourite?  It’s like Barry Lyndon trapped in The Overlook Hotel, and that’s a wonderful wonderful wonderful thing.  And if you’ve found Lanthimos’ other work to be way too bleak and hard to handle, this may suit your pansy-self a lot better, you pantsy pansy you!

Corseted Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz deliciously duel each other for the love and attention of Queen Anne (a maddeningly magnificent Olivia Colman).  There is not a single non-tense moment in the film – it’s like watching one long-ass fuse burn and burn and burn, as we wait for the dynamite to explode.  Along the way in this power play, we also get a cadre of powdered up men (Nicholas Hoult, Mr. Taylor Swift, James Smith, and Mark Gatiss) doing their own fun scheming and conniving.  If you have a back in this movie, it will get stabbed.  

Screw Jane Austen – cause Lanthimos’ court jesting is more aligned to my nutty senses and sensibilities!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Favourite compels U in NY/LA today and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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Hotel For (Soon To Be) Dogs

The Lobster
Super Hurry Animals
Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 118 min

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In a sorta near future, if you aren’t paired up with a significant other, you will be turned into an animal – of your choice, naturally.  Mustached Colin Farrell was recently dumped by his wife and so he needs to partner up, or animal on out for the rest of his life.  He goes to this seaside hotel run by Olivia Colman (still one of the best actresses no one knows), which helps to pair off people, or turn them into animals.  But the time to do so is limited.  If Colin doesn’t find a mate in 45 days or less, he will became a lobster (hence the film’s title).  His brother is already a dog (ever wonder why there are so many dogs??), and he brings him along on this last ditch human effort.  Others have to go thru the same drill, including some really dour and desperate souls like Ashley Jensen, Ben Whishaw, John C Reilly, and the adorable Jessica Barden

The hotel is an oddball pacifying paradise – like The Village from The Prisoner, with forever overcast skies.  Within its doors, they stage awkward dances and even more awkward demonstrations, trying to get these folks to couple up – and offer plenty of outdoor activities too, including hunting those who have failed and escaped the grounds.  If you hunt and kill one of these escapee loners, you get bonus days to stick around.  If you don’t, the clock continues to tick, and pretty soon your days as a Homo sapien are numbered

And so after awhile, after Colin has tried and tried and tried, and failed (the heartless Angeliki Papoulia provided no help), he decides he doesn’t want to be a lobster, and he flees for the woods, and taken in by loners Léa Seydoux and Rachel Weisz.  But a (un)funny thing happens on the way to being lonely – he falls for Weisz, and she for him, and that’s not suppose to happen, and even more things happen from there, and there you go

For the first 30 or so minutes of Yorgos Lanthimos first English language feature, when we’re in that wonderous hotel, I thought The Lobster was itching its way to being the kinda movie I endless love and never shut up about.  It had happened once before with Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, which is one of the mos fcuked up flicks I’ve seen this century, but as The Lobster claws its way outside of that hotel, something got a little lost in translation, and became a little long in the tooth, but I’ll excuse it, cause The Lobster is unique and imaginative, and often fun, and always keeps you on your toes, and that can’t be said of a lot of movies that come out today.  I give it bonus points for being different, and it doesn’t even really have to try – it juss is different

These lonely love seekers aint no superheroes – they’re super-zeroes, and I’d rather count on them and their sad weirdness, than the good guys saving the cinematic day.  MARVEL OVER THAT, YO!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Lobster shacks it up currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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Herman Blume & Rosemary Cross 4Ever

Hyde Park On Hudson
Rushmore 2ish
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 94 min

You love Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.  Of course you do.  A sequel will never EVER happen, but what if there was another movie pairing Herman Blume (Bill Murray) & Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), but instead of them being Herman Blume & Rosemary Cross, they were FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt?  What if I told you that this movie ALSO included hand jobs (but spankfully not ones given to or from Eleanor Roosevelt)?  Well, that’s sorta what Roger Michell‘s Hyde Park On Hudson is, with some FDR cousin (Laura Linney) loving & royal visiting from those blokes from The King’s Speech (Bertie stuttered here by Samuel West & the not so mum Queen mum by Olivia Colman) tossed in.  This movie is barely a movie, as the plot is basically whether or not the King of England will eat a hot dog or not, but this barely movie is totally watchable, cause Billy Murray as FDR getting mad action while not being able to use his legs is totally watchable.  Doesn’t that sound totally watchable?

Verdictgo: low end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Hyde seeks in NY & LA today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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Paranoid Hyde Park

The Iron Lady
Fear & Loathing at 10 Downey Streep
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 105 min

What the f$%k is this Phyllida Lloyd (she directed Crappa Mia!) and Abi Morgan (wait, she wrote Shame???) Margaret Thatcher ‘biopic’ all about???  You learn next to zero about the woman and her accomplishments (well, besides that she was a woman who did the impossible by becoming a female Prime Minister and then became a rather bossy lady and then people grew tired of her bossy lady finger waving ways, and then…), and what we do learn is that the retired PM apparently spends her todays in lost delusional thoughts and talks to her deceased husband, who might be crazier than this movie.  If we were Margaret Thatcher and saw this Oliver Stone boneheaded treatment of our past and present, we’d say FALK(land islands) YOU!!!  Seriously, what’s the f$%k did we juss watch?  This is a big ole BM about the first lady PM

Crying fracking shame, cause Meryl Streep hands in another one of them beyond magnificent performances that muss be seen to be beloved (and is miles away butterer than anything these ladies done tried), and it’s udderly wasted (along with the supporting work of Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, and Alexandra Roach, who’s equally as brilliant as Streep is, playing the younger Margaret) amongst a mess of ideas and conjecture and canted angles.  Sure, give America’s iron(weed) lady an Oscar, and another to the hair and makeup department (AMMMMAZING!!!!), and throw the rest in the rubbish bin, or the looney bin, where the filmmakers apparently believe Mrs Thatcher belongs, but it’s where them filmmakers belong.  We don’t know how to make movies, but had we made this one, we woulda taken a much more straight-forward approach, like those solid Michael Sheen as Tony Blair thingies, cause learning about someone is usually more interesting than making up crap and displaying it in a ‘creative’ way

moral of the story – The movie feels like Nixon + Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas + Harvey MINUS everything good about any of those movies.  there you go, or don’t. NO NO NO!  They should have never made that Julia Childs movie and this one, and instead juss made a movie where Streep does imitations for 9 hours

Spitting Image Headache: oh yeah, The Iron Lady also feels like watching that eyesore Genesis video for ‘Land of Confusion’ with those f$%king scary-a$$ Spitting Image puppets

Verdictgo: Streep saves from total eye slitting, so Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

this Lady is Iron clud in NY/LA only, and elsewhere elsesoon

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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Paddying The Stats

Tyrannosaur
The Helpless Help Each Other
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 91 min

An angry drunk man brutally kicks his dog after losing a bet, throws a brick thru a window of a proprietor he doesn’t like the jib cut of, and then tops off his unsympathetic screen introduction by roughing up a bunch of kids in a pool hall cause they’re annoying.  NOW THIS IS HOW YOU START A MOVIE!!!

Can anyone save this man?  Does he even want to be saved?  Does he just want a pint of beer and to be left the f$%k alone?  Don’t tell that to the God-loving woman who crosses his path (or did he cross hers??), who needs a bit of saving herself.  You would too if your husband was an udder a$$hole.  How so?  He’s the kinda guy who comes home pissed drunk and… pisses on his Mrs while she sleeps.  Is this a movie?  You frakkin bet it is, and it could only come from the British Isles, the home of gritty sad sack people dramas that we juss can’t get enuff of!!!  It’s true!  May be our second mos flavorite genre besides future dystopian shazzle badazzles!!!

What a rousing written & directorial debut by actor Paddy Considine Tyrannosaur is be!!!!!!!!!!  The material itself isn’t anything all that blindmowing (esp if you’ve seen a British movie that’s not a period piece or made by Guy Ritchie), but the performances he gets out of the angry man (Peter Mullan), damaged woman (Olivia Colman) and piece of sh#t spouse (Eddie Marsan) is a trifecta of mindblowing awesomeness.  We already knew these three actors were the real deal, and if you see this film, you’ll be on board too.  Colman in particular is a revelation.  Known mostly for comedic work, she goes for broken by getting broken.  Get this woman an Oscar nom, NOW

moral of the story: It is humanly possible to find sympathy for a man who inhumanly treats other people and dogs, cause sometimes we need people who kick ass to kick other problems to the curb.  Also, the helpless may not be able to help themselves, but they can help other helpless people, so please, help yerself to this!!!!!

Saur Winners: czech out these thighly recommended movies including our 4 pals – Mullan in Boy A, Colman on Skins,  Marsan in Happy Go Lucky, and Paddy in front of the camera in Dead Man’s Shoes

Verdictgo: performances alone make it Breast In Show

Tyrannosaur stomps its way into limited release on Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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