Thighs Wide Shut

Straight Outta Compton
Fear of A Black Hatted Planet
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 147 min

Dude, F. Gary Gray (the guy who directed Friday) nailed it.  He took the story of N.W.A. and gave it big screen attitude, AND IT WAS SO BANGING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And why did it work?  Cause I believed O’Shea Jackson Jr was Ice Cube (and not just his real life son), and Corey Hawkins was Dr. Dre, and Jason Mitchell was Eazy-E, and I guess Aldis Hodge was MC Ren and guess Neil Brown Jr was DJ Yella.  It felt so real, but real like in a music video real real kinda way, but was like so f’reals, like 7 reals!!  And it had a lot of heart, and baseball bats, and those amazing black hats (how did they plan on who got to wear which hat on which day????).  147 minutes never felt so fun, and quick, and jheri-curled.  Get STRAIGHT at this movie, NOW!!

Bust morest importantly, it’s the 2nd movie I’ve seen this year where Paul Giamatti plays a music impresario who means well, but is mean, and greedy, and kinda horrible… and of course Giamattz plays it to perfection  

In Love & Mercy he was Dr Landy – Brian Wilson’s worst daymare

and in Compton, he was the pimp behind the wheels & deals - Jerry Heller

would you trust Gi-mattz and his toupees??? 

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Compton is Straight awesome – at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Love & Mercy
Heroes and Villains
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 120 min

Depending on how much you love the genius of Brian Wilson will determine how much you love Love & Mercy.  I LIVE for Brian Wilson, so I loved Love & Mercy.  It’s not perfect, and what is besides Popeyes fried chicken, but Brian Wilson wasn’t perfect either, but his music is, and his hair was too

The film zig zags between two periods of his life…

Period 1 focuses on the time when he made Pet Sounds, and then Smile, and then slowly descended into madness.  This Brian Wilson is emobodied heart and soul by Paul Dano

Paul Dano does Brian Wilson SO well, I wish he would spend the rest of his life being 60s Brian Wilson

Paul Dano as Brian Wilson, can we be friends and just hang out and sing about surfing, but not actually surf???  I LOVE YOU!!!

herspecially loved Loved LOVED the parts that showed Brian Dano in the studio making music magic.  It looked like this, but in Paul Dano’s body

and loved AND feared the bits where Brian started to lose it.  SH!T WAS TUFF, YO!!!

–

Period 2 captures Brian Wilson in his alive but kinda vegetated state from the 70s/80s on, when he was under the overly watchful eye AND grip of Dr Eugene Landy – who basically turned Brian into his slave.  Dude was horrible

and horrible dudes are always played by Paul Giamatti , and sometimes with a toupée!

and older, moldier Brian Wilson is now played by John Cusack

when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was instantly psyched, but I was like, why is John Cusack in this, and why is he the older Brian Wilson?  Why don’t they juss let Paul Dano be both the youthful AND the worn versions of Brian Wilson???

well, those thoughts were thrown right away after watching Cusack do an EGGGGGGGGGGSALLLENT job of being the 2nd period Brian Wilson.  Although I wouldn’t want Cusack to live the rest of his life as 70s/80s Brian Wilson, as I do with Dano and the 60s one

Anywho, a woman comes into the picture and complicates things for all – mainly to the dismay of Dr Landy, but for betterment of Brian’s saneness-ness .  This woman (Melinda Ledbetter) saves his life, and eventually becomes his wife (spoiler!)

Gawd only knows what HE would be without HER!

And she’s played by Elizabeth Banks and Elizabeth Banks is great in this!

moral of the story – Brian Wilson had mighty mighty highs, and mighty mighty mighty lows, and Bill Pohlad‘s movie gives us it all – harmonies and warts, in living color, with much blues  

Surf’s up kids, catch a wave on this and have FUN, FUN, FUN (even though most of it isn’t fun) til the daddy takes the t-bird away!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Love & Mercy is surf’s up yours, currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Saving Mr Banks
A Spoonful of Genuine Sweetener
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 125 min

How did Mary Poppins go from page (wait, it was a book???) to screen, Disney style?  ALL YOUR QUESTIONS (mostly) will be answered in the Disney studio approved John Lee Hancock flick Saving Private Mr Banks.  Who Mr Banks?  He’s a character in the book/movie, AND HE NEEDS SAVING!!!!!  Walt (a very Walt Tom Hanks) has his own ideas of what to do with him and the rest of the book, and so does his script writer (Bradley Whitford – who I still hate from his a$$hole days as the enemy in Adventures In Babysitting and Revenge of The Nerds II), and the songwritring Bros les Sherman (a game Jason Schwartzman, and an always lame BJ Novak – why Hollywood, WHY would you cast him in ANYTHING???), but the original author PL Travers (prim and overly proper Emma Thompson, who is no stranger to nanny flicks) aint having none of it – no songs, no cartoons, no Van Dyke, no color red, no nonsense!  Ya see, Poppins and Co are like family to her.  OK, so what about her own family?  We learn all about them and her upbringing, running concurrently with the story of the 20 year struggle to make this Poppins movie happen.  Travers sure loved her dad (Colin Farrell), a banker with a vivid imagination, and a livid love for drinking.  He wasn’t perfect, but he was dad!  And we’ll learn how that related to Poppins, and who Ms Mary P was actually based on!  But the real question is, will the Disney folks (or even limo driver Paul Giamatti) get PL to p(ul)l a smile out of her dourpuss sourpuss face????  Dude, it’s Disney, of course they will, and it will happen to you too!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Saving Mr Banks is money at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

12 Years A Slave 
Chain In The A$$
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 133 min

Whatever you does, do not bring your significant other to see Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave, unless you want to go 12 years without having sex.  A most important movie, filled with zero fun, and has about as much rewatchable-ness as Schindler’s List done doesn’t (which means you’ll never want to watch it EVERRRR again).  Actually, after seeing 12 Years, I’ve now had enough of the slavery movie genre.  No mo fo me.  Add it to the list of non-starters, alongside Holocaust pics + westerns + rom coms + anything with vampires or zombies + anything directed or presented by Guillermo del Taco

12 Years is truly important, cause it fo reals happened – it’s what happened to a born-free black man named Solomon Northup, wrongfully turned into a slave.  This story, based on Solomon’s own book, certainly needed to be told (it was once before), but I don’t know if I needed it told to me.  I’m not one for turning a blind eye to things that are horrible in history, but I also wasn’t eggzactly all that interested in having my senses blinded and numbed completely.  Maybe the point is that watching something so hard to take should be exactly that, but c’mon man, couldn’t they have at least cut out 1/4 of the whipping and yelling and awfulness and made this excruciating experience only 90 minutes long???  We know that Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor, FINALLLLLLY with a meaty role to match his acting might) will become a slave, and then 12 years later, not be a slave.  And so we’re forced to watch him go from 0 to 12 years, without a clue as to which year we’re in.  If only there was a countdown ticker, so we could get excited about crossing the finish line of this torture-fest 

But hey, look at all those famous actors playing horrible people!!  Solomon gets conned by Scoot ‘Poop’ McNairy! & Taran Killam!, and sold into slavery!  Where he’s chained up with Michael K Williams!  Then sold by Paul Giamatti! To Benedict Cumberbatch!  Who’s plantation-hand Paul Dano! is out of hand and forces Benedict to send Solomon to the much more evil plantation owner (and McQueen regular) Michael Fassbender!  And his nasty wife Sarah Paulson!  Well, at least he can find some sympathy in slaves Lupita Nyong’o! (don’t know who she is, but won’t be soon forgetting her performance), and former slave or something Alfre Woodard!  Don’t worry, things get better once (the film’s producer) Brad Pitt! and his Amish beard show up!  Maybe Brad can save the day!!  But where’s Clooney????  Why can’t the whole Ocean’s 12 crew free the slave of 12 yearss??  Oh yeah, and oh, look there’s Beasts of the Southern Wild alumz Quvenzhané Wallis AND Dwight Henry!  Man, slavery has never been so well cast and acted!  

Am I better for seeing this film?  Maybe better off not.  But what’s been seen was seen, and it aint going away, from my head, or from history.  And oh, that final scene – a scene that packs a super-HEAVY emotional punch that’s equally AS punchy as Captain Phillips‘ UNFORGETTABLE final scene wiz was, making the torturous torture ALMOS worth letting yerself get tortured by

But c’mon McQueen, when are you going to make a ‘happy’ movie?

Verdictgo: hard to watch, but still – Jeepers Worth A Peepers

12 Years is how long it will feel like sitting in a theater watching this, tomorrow in NY/LA/DC/Chicago/ATL/Toronto, and elsewhere elsehwhen

oh, and here are some previous the würstest date movies EVER, reviewed on TWS –  Amour, Towelhead, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Babysitters, Vera Drake & Lake of Fire 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Ides of March
The Snoozes of October
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 101 min

We’re fans of great actors doing great acting, and sometimes that’s juss enuff to make a film work, but other times, like with the George Clooney written/directed/starringed Ides of March, it’s not even close enuff.  If this were a movie made for $4 and starred a bunch of people without arms and legs, maybe this woulda been something, but The Ides of March is a exercise in nothing.  It feels like an even more pointless and boring Contagion, aka – hey look, we’ve assembled this amazing super awesome cast and we’re gonna make a movie like it’s the first time we’ve ever made a movie with the most basic story of stories, and juss when you think it could go somewhere deeper, it goes somewhere like nowhere, or like pretty much anywhere a movie has taken us before!  Zzzzzzzzzzzz

OK, so it’s well known (is it??) that we’re no fans of George Clooney (and his dumb face) (and not so great acting), but as a director (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night & Good Luck, and even Leatherheads), he has shown some chops, but here he’s directing stale air.  If this political ‘potboiler’ were released in 1492 AD, it still wouldn’t make any kind of splash.  Why?  Cause the story is a bore-y.  Want lame fake politics?  See The Ides of March!  Want juicy real politics?  Rent Primary Colors

And the story is???…  Ryan Gosling is a hot shot campaign guy working with honest Philip Seymour Hoffman to get Clooney (in quadruple smug mode, spewing endless ‘I’m such a righteous man’ diatribes, which he probably wrote himself) into the White House (dream on buddy).  The rival camp, headed by Paul Giamatti, aims to steal Gosling for their own team, so Gosling gets conflicted!!!  That’s where any bit of interesting interest starts and ends.  Luckily Evan Rachel Wood‘s thighs are wide open, and Gosling drives into her!  Then Gosling starts learning some truths, like how Evan Rachel Wood may not be a holy virgin (and has a man’s name), and other stuff (that you won’t give 9 sheets about).  And then??????????  Wish the answer was ‘Zardoz‘, cause then it woulda been something instead of some kindergarten attempt at making a political statement

Slain & pimple, Ides of March don’t amount to much.  Maybe this shoulda juss been a movie about Paul Giams and Phil Sey Hoffs squaring off in a battle of angry fat guys, where they take turns yelling at each other, but in the end, become BFFs and celebrate their BFFship by taking a bath together (no, this isn’t our fantasy, but if this was a movie, you’d pay to see it like we would)

No He Can’t: nice poster!!!  NOT!!!!  yer not the white Obama, and yer also not the second coming of Cary Grant.  please leave our eyes alone

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Ides of March is out of step today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…