Thighs Wide Shut

Jackie
To Live and Die With Dignity
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
R | 100 min

I’ve missed Natalie Portman, and I feel like she hasn’t really done anything post-Black Swan, which somehow was 6/7 years ago.  Yes, I know she was in Thor and in that dumb Ashcan Kruncher flick, and other stuff, but those were juss movies, not films.  Natalie can obviously pick and choose whatever she wants to do – she’s earned that right – but being such an incredible actress means she has a responsibility to take on incredible roles

I’d like to say that Natalie Portman’s proper follow-up to Black Swan is Pablo Larraín & Noah Oppenheim‘s Jackie Kennedy film, where she somehow is even more graceful, tortured and emotionally wounded than when she was as a ballerina bent on finding perfection.  Jackie is not perfect (it’s close, but there’s not enough grassy knoll for me :), but it is what it needs to be, and Portman as Jackie IS perfection

Throughout the course of the film, Jackie goes from white swan, to white swan covered in blood, to even whiter swan, and by the end of it all, I somehow I felt more compassion for Portman (as Jackie), then I actually do for Jackie Kennedy, for enduring and rising above the horrific death of her husband, and the leader of the free world

What the country went through is incomparable to what Jackie went though, but in a time of much awfulness, she had the right mind to plan a sendoff for JFK worthy of royalty, and cement his legacy and place in history for eons to come.  What Jack Kennedy accomplished in office wasn’t much (he didn’t get a chance to put man on Uranus), but what Jackie Kennedy accomplished in giving dignified life to his death was more than a lot, it was Camelot!

Portman also accomplishes something that wasn’t important or needed – reminding me how much I love Love LOVE seeing her on the big screen

Bonus points to the film for somehow turning Greta Gerwig into a real human being.  Never seen her so un-loopy and restrained.  And props to Peter Sarsgaard for giving new life to RFK, without going haaaard on the look or accent that most others usual do in Bobby’s shoes.  Also, Billy Crudup and John Hurt are quiet great as listeners for Jackie

Also, we finally have a definitive Jackie movie.  before Portman, all we had was this…

YES!

Verdictgo: Portman is Breast In Show, but the film is Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Jackie is way JF O-Kay at a theater near jews AND white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Lovelace
Where They’re Against Her Will, There Is A Way
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 93 min

Poor Linda Lovelace, I mean Boreman – an innocent girl born to overbearing Christian parents, who met the wrong man (Chuck Traynor), which led to 17 days of working in the porn industry, which led to a lifetime of infamy, and pain and suffering.  Even more poorerer – the biopic treatment created in her image, which is trying to change her image from porn star to porn victim, like she tried dones doing herself.  The material is rich (think Star 80, without murder), and so were the performances (Amanda Seyfried, showing range AND her boobs!! + good sleazy work by Peter Sarsgaard & Chris Noth + saddy sadness by an uglified Sharon Stone and a crying Robert Patrick! ), but there’s juss not enuff penetration of who Linda Lovelace/Boreman actually was here to justify you whipping out your cock wallet.  It’s one long tease, with little to show for it.  Linda Lovelace deserved a lot better in life, and in her first cinematic treatment too.  Maybe the other Lovelace movie that Lohan got kicked off of will do what Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s flick didn’t.  Lovelace dicks around the outside of Deep Throat.  You want in? –  juss re-watch Inside Deep Throat

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

Lovelace is loveless currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Blue Jasmine
I Left My Heart Has Nothing Left In San Francisco
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
PG-13 | 98 min

Woody Allen‘s recent movies have ranged from unforgettable (Midnight In Paris) to forgettable (Whatever Works) to juss plain forgotten (had zero recollection as to what You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger was about).  And his latest – Blue Jasmine?  As a whole, it’s neither of the three, but of course you should see it, cause it’s a Woody Allen movie, but anyone who does see it will never EVER forget the performance that Cate Blanchett hands in as the title blue-stress.  Oh man, the screen burns with every fiery ember of Cate as Jasmine and her smoldering at-the-ready Chernobyl-level meltdowns.  HOT HOT HOT!!!  She’s a woman scorned, broken, battered, but trying to bounce back.  Will the world let her, or will she burn herself down into pile of alcohol-soaked black ashes?  We’re rooting for her at every (mis)step she takes, even though she’s one of the least rootable characters of 2013.  GO JASMINE!!

So how did Jassy Jasmine bottom out to such a low match point?  She turned a blind eye to husband Alec Baldwin‘s madoff-ing with other people’s monies & philandering all over New York, and before it was too late to open her eyes, she lost everything.  Now she’s begging at the door of Sally Hawkins, her adopted sister who Jasmine could give three sh$ts about.  But times are tough and any family is family when yer down and out and now in San Francisco (new Woody locale, yeah!!).  Hawkins has enuff stuff on her own plate, like trying to feed two kids she sired with ex-husband Andrew Dice Clay (not playing for nursery rhyme laughs, and it works!), and a non-stop yapping greasy new beau in the form of Bobby Cannavale (although his yawk-y character doesn’t seem like the kinda guy who’d be living in the Bay Area).  Of course Jasmine complicates matters for all parties involved, as anything she (or Woody) touches turns into instant-neuroticism.  Things eventually do get better between the sisters, and then they each meet a dashing new man – Jasmine + Peter Sarsgaard and Hawkins + Louis CK, but the likelihood of the forecast staying perma-sunny in a ‘blue’ movie is about the same as the chances that dentist Michael Stuhlbarg or dopey mustachio Max Casella have of scoring with Cate Blanchett

Wowsers Cate Blanchett!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Are you the best actress alive?  Dare we say possibly even bester than the grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat Meryl Streep?  Time will tell for some, but we may be ready to make and stick by such a bold claim.  Streep of course coulda played a perfect Jasmine, and has even worked with Woody before, but I just don’t see a Streep Jasmine giving me movie memory neurosis for time eternal.  Burn baby burn!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Blue is golden currently in NY & LA, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Robot & Frank
Does Compute
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 90 min

Frank (Frank Langella) is a lonely man, left to his own devices, which includes sitting around reading books, and eating crappy food, and having his memory slip by the day.  His children (all bidness James Marsden and earth-toned Liv Tyler) are concerned, so the son drops off a robot helper (installed with Peter Sarsgaard‘s voice!) to whip Frank into shape, keep him sharp, and busy, or it’s off to the old folks home.  Frank aint having it, but this wouldn’t be a movie if he was ‘having it’, but maybe the two can eventually co-exist, even though Robot doesn’t really exist, and maybe they can even become friends!!!!! Man and robot?  Friends??????  MAYBE!!!

Frank does sorta have a sorta friend - Susan Sarandon, who works at the archaic library, and it’s archaic cause it’s the near future and the printed word has become passé, kinda like Frank!  Frank has plenty o’ enemies, like forgetting things, and his kids who won’t let him forget that, and sometimes the Robot, and also progress, like the peoples who want to re-purpose the library into something new and hip and without books!  The face of this progress is a jerky bespectacled young man (Jeremy Strong), and Frank likes him less than he likes having the Robot make him a healthy meal

While Frank starts to get used to the Robot and the help he provides, the Robot turns out to be even more helpful in an entirely different way.  Ya see, Frank is a seasoned cat burglar, but obviously not in mid-season form anymore, but the Robot aint got no rust or dust, so maybe the Robot can help Frank pull off some heists that will stick it to the man!!!!  Yep, this is a movie about some old thief dude who gets a robot to help him rob houses, but it’s also one that’s so sweet (but not too sweet), and so savory (Langella is ammmmmazings)

I love the Robot.  I love Frank.  Pair the obedient bucket of bolts with the crodgity ole man and you have a movie that I juss love love love.  It’s nothing super complex, but it’s simply juss a wonderful film to watch, from start to finish.  You did it Jake Schreier & Christopher D Ford!  Is this the greatest robot movie ever?  No (A.I.?).  Is it the greatest Frank movie ever?  No (Frankenstein?).  Is it the greatest Robot AND Frank movie ever?  YES!!!!!!!!

Robot & Robot: check out Behind the Robots in Robot & Frank, which drops such hot info like how the robot was designed by the same folks who made Daft Punk’s LED helmets, and that there’s actually a person inside the robot – Rachael Ma!!!!!!!!!  we want one, NOW!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Frank does the Robot in NY only today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…