Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Prequel Post-Cool
Official Site| Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 134 min

The best thing to ever happen to movies is George Lucas creating Star Wars

The best thing to ever happen to Star Wars is Disney becoming its keeper

Two Disney movies in and the franchise is beyond on the right path back to where it needs to be… and galaxies away from the wrong turns Lucas took with his prequels

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the prequel the fans have needed and wanted all along.  It’s no stretch to say that it’s better than Episode I thru III combined, times a zillion.  It may be rogue to say so, but I believe Rogue One is a better Star Wars movie than Force Awakens is.  It’s true!  Cause I juss said it!

So why does Rogue One work as a Star Wars movie (more so than the prequels AND Episode VII)?

• Rogue One tries to fit into the Star Wars world, without having to be too bound (and gagged) by it.  There’s no text crawl, no John Williams score, and gasp – there are actual lower-third titles telling us the locations of where we are.  For Star Wars movies to evolve – they need to break from the past, but also celebrate them.  Rogue hits the balance perfectly, and is an excellent kick off right into Episode IV

• There’s not that much Jedi stuff.  Look, we know Star Wars is what it is cause of Skywalkers, and lightsabers and hokey religion things, but after those forced-forcey prequels, and the new Rey & Kylo stuff, we needed a break from it all.  Rogue keeps the Jedi stuff to a minimum, and truly puts the ‘star’s and ‘wars’ back in Star Wars!

• People die – LOTS of them – and we’re not just talking about bad guys.  Gritty is good.  Episode IV was gritty.  Things should try to be more like Episode IV.  Episode VII was cutesy – almost TOO cutesy.  Here’s hoping Episode VIII is grittier!

• It’s OK for Star Wars to be less white.  I know, it seems like overkill trying to OVERLY make your cast a United Colors of Benetton ad, but if your actors are good, then the acting is going to be too.  All the actors cast in the film were great.  EVERYONE (well, I didn’t really like this lady and her role, but it’s probably not her fault cause she didn’t write her own dialog).  Sure, there wasn’t too much time to give the characters actual character, but Ben Mendelsohn, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen, Felicity Jones, Donnie Yen, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, and Forest Whitaker gave it their all, and in turn, I’m all for them!

• Plus, Diego Luna is super hot

• Plus, Ben Mendelsohn is such a good screen a$$hole

• Plus, Mads Mikkelsen is the fcuking best ever!!! (ok, maybe 2nd best ever – juss a tick behind the greatest living actor – Ciarán Hinds)

• Alan Tudyk‘s droid K-2SO is more like A+2SO!!

• Admiral Ackbar Raddus!

• The Death Star never looked better – or more menacing!

• Plain and simple – Rogue One looks AND feels like Star Wars – not some shiny bullsh!t imitation version of it

• Simple and plain – Rogue One was a lot of fcuking fun!

• The nods to the fans & cameos were good, even if most of them were unnecessary, but hey, us fans love being nodded at!  BLUE MILK!

• three words – stormtroopers in paradise!

wait, was there ANYTHING I didn’t like?

yeah – these rebel solider helmets, which don’t look very Star Warsy to me.  but that’s juss me.  maybe you disagree and think this movie was juss ok, or sucked, but maybe you’re juss ok, or suck!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Rogue One for all at a theater near jews and white nationalists

Next stand alone Star Wars story I want to see get made???

BOSSK TO THE FUTURE!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Closed Circuit
Boy Eh 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 96 min

John Crowley directed Boy A, one of my most favorite movies about a boy and the first letter of the alphabet.  Two of my moist flavorite actors are Eric Bana and Ciarán Hinds, who co-starred in Munich, one of my moist favorite Jewish movies starring non-Jews.  Them three gots together, with Rebecca Hall, Jim Broadbent, Riz Ahmed, a dash of Julia Stiles and a bob of Anne-Marie Duff to make Closed Circuit – a desperately wanting to be riveting courtroom drama that isn’t nearly riveting enuff, doesn’t have much courtroom to roam, or any real drama from its start to its whatever finish.  WHAT A MOVIE!!!  Wish it was something more than juss not much of anything, but heck, we’d watch Bana and Hinds in ANYTHING – even if they were in a movie about the invention of microwaved tunafish sangwhiches!!

Verdictgo:  Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Circuit is open for bidness at a theater near jews 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Climate Changez
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 130 min

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a Pakistani named Changez (Riz Ahmed), a man who once went to America chasing the Yankee dollar, and is now a professor in his country of origin, possibly teaching questionable curriculum… depending on who’s doing the questioning (and no, we are not reffering to teaching how to do some sports betting or playing poker).  The man questioning him in the present is American journalist Liev Schreiber, who’s looking for a kidnapped American professor from the same university where Changez teaches.  Changez may not have the answer, but he begins to tell his story, and spank Allah he does, cause the past he presents ends up being much more intriguing than anything happening in the present.  Changez regales Schreiber and his Elmer’s Glue cow face with a tale about his once promising life in America, where he was taken under the wing of Wall Streeter Kiefer Sutherland (IN GLASSES!!!) and quickly moved up the finical ladder, and quickly down Kate Hudson’s pants (she’s actually pretty decent in the movie! not decent as in keeping her pants on, but decent as in she’s not being awful in some awful rom-com that’s awful).  Things go swimmingly, and then 9/11 happens, and then the world is with America, and then America turns hateful, and turn on people like Changez, who personally had zero to do with any of it besides the color of his skin and his religion and his nationality.  Enough becomes enough, and Changez demands change, for himself and his home country, so he heads home, where stuff happens, and then we’re caught up to the point where Schreiber and his Elmer’s Glue cow face come walking in to question this and that and why Changez has a beard and is angry at America

Mira Nair‘s take on Mohsin Hamid’s novel is certainly heavy handed, but should a movie about post-9/11 Muslim identity in Western and Eastern societies be dealt with with a light hand?  No, it shouldn’t.  Sure, Nair is a bit out of her depth in a 1/3 of her movie – where guns and hard talk raise tensions in the present, but the other 2/3rds told in flashback are right on point and carry the message across.  Her film practically sinks or swims on Riz Ahmed’s piercingly serious eyes, and she was wise to make him the navigator, as he floats above the given script and keeps us tuned into that bigger picture (he similarly sizzled and dazzled in Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna, and one would assume for him to do the same in many more films to come).  So what’s the bigger picture?  There are more sides to the post-9/11 world than just the one that America wants the world to take.  This is the fundamental point.  It’s more mental than fun

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Fundamentalist luctantly opens in limited release today, and on-demand April 30th

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…