Thighs Wide Shut

The Babysitters
Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Banging Dad
Trailers & Mo

The central idea behind The Babysitters, where high school girls earn extra cash by sleeping with the lonely midlife crisised fathers of the kids they’re sitting, has ‘hottest porno ever’ written all over it. Alas and molasses, this is no wet dream come true, but a nightmarish, and sometimes a bit amateurish, drama that deals with the truths and consequences of such dangerous liaisons between the jailbaiters and sleazy old men (anytime you see John Leguizamo in a film, you juss know bad stuff is going to happen). It’s tough to tell who had a more uncomfortable time watching this film, us, who needed to take 3,231,455,209 showers afterwardszz to rid ourselves of the dirty feeling it soaked into our skin, or Sam Waterston, whose adorable daughter Katherine leads this quasi-prostitution racket and bares the word found in between ‘pros’ and ‘ution’. The film is tough to recommend, and probably is a leading candidate for wurst date movie of 2008, but it’s still worth a look. Although, as our screening guest Jewanicur perfectly suggested, this woulda worked a lot better had it been a series on HBO. We see Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the teenage madame, and yours drooly as her first customer

Titillating Title: Katherine can next been seen, with her equally adorable sister Elisabeth, in some Tom Arnold vehicle called Good Dick

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Fall
Autumn Leaves Blow
Trailers & Mo

The Fall is the most beautiful film you never need to see. It’s like The Princess Bride with all the grandeur and imagination, but without any of the fun or fluidity. Our Columbo/Kevin Arnold duo here is an injured movie stuntman (Lee Pace, the dreamy piemaker from Pushing Daisies), who passes his dreary bedridden days by cheering up a peculiar little Romanian girl (Catinca Untaru), also staying at the same hospital, with tall tales of high adventure around the globe (supposedly the film was shot in 20+ different countries, over four years). We have to give director Tarsem (who made one of the besesteststest music video mt EVERest: REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’) sum credit. He’s a true visionary who hands in an udderly breathtaking piece of work, but the whole thing is too darn overbloated and ultimately purty darn boring, which was the same diarrhea that muddled his debut, The Cell. If he can ever find a way to tell a story as well as he can paint a cinematic canvas, he’d easily be considered one of the top directors in the bidness. Until that time, he should hire himself out to others to help make their visions a surrealealtiy

Pushing Hotties: our heroine Justine Waddell looks a lot like the chick on Pushing Daisies, Anna Friel [here NSFWlicious]. she also resembles deceased sexpot Natalie Wood, whom she played in a telepic directed by Pete Bogdanovich

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

The Tracey Fragments
& Noise
Boxed Out & Drowned In Sound
Tracey Trailers & Mo & Noise Trailer

Looking for a double feature that will assault both your eyes and ears, and not in a good way? Then look no further cause The Tracey Fragments and Noise have arrived to annoy the crap outta any audience watching either one of em. Tracey is a student film on Sparks about a teenage misfit (the role musta been a big stretch for Ellen Page, eh?) looking for her lost brother right before a big blizzard is about to hit Winnipeg or something. She’s solid as per usual, but the rest of the actors need a couple more months at theater camp. The film has a gimmick running throughout: more split screens than Mike Figgis’ Timecode and every season of 24 combined! After about 8 seconds, the split screens will start to give you a splitting headache, but watching all the goings on in the boxes does sorta-semi-kinda-quasi-hold your attention. Luckily the flick is only 77 minutes, so it’s bearable, but if it was 78 minutes, it would have been unbearable

Noise has a better plot to boot, but after about 15 minutes, the film has already exhausted its premise of Tim Robbins as the wurstest superhero of the summer, the Rectifier, who takes upon himself to rid New York City of car alarms with his own brand of street justice. The rest of the flick is filled with Robbins trying to enjoy the peace and quiet, and then suddenly, wouldn’t you juss know it, a car alarm goes off, and in turn sets him off. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, and then William Hurt shows up and hams it up even more than he did in A History of Violence (we wouldn’t
be sirprized if they gave him an Oscar nom for this awful performance like they did for Violence). You’ll eventually start to sympathize with Robbins’s character cause you’ll want him to turn off the sound from this movie

Fenella Woolgar/Benedict Cumberbatch Bestest Name Future HOFamer: Tracey‘s emo beefcake Slim Twig

C’mon Bring The Noise: we wonder what’s more irritating, Noise or Timmy Robbins’ band Gob Roberts

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Tracey gets a Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges, while Noise gets our first Slit Your EARS Off Repoopulous

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
(OSS 117: Le Caire – nid d’espions)
The Man With The Not So Golden Pun
Trailers & Mo

OSS 117 is a French spy comedy devoid of any humor. Maybe something got lost in the translation, cause to our ears (and eyes, since we were busy reading subtitles) there were no jokes or gags present, and therefore, there’s nothing much to laugh it. It doesn’t take itself serious enough to be considered a drama either, so picture is a bit of an enigma. At least the Goldfingeresque mise en scène is spot on our Bondian super agent Jean Dujardin is so darn endearing and having a good time onscreen that you’ll at least crack a smile. Hopefully they’ll work on the funny a bit more when the sequel drops next year (at least in France)

We Want To Bond With These Fatale Femmes: meet the eye candy that be Aure Atika and Bérénice Bejo, both NSFWers. here’s a nic pic of BB

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

all five films open in limited release today

Rental Round-Up Dawg:

We missed The Great Debaters on its theatrical run, but it played juss fine in a home viewing environment. It runs a little too long, and is overly sentimental, but you can’t help but get swept up by this true story of a historically Black college that broke the racial barrier with their minds and mouths. Be sure to czech out the bonus feature where director Denzel interviews the actual living members of the Wiley College team

As for I’m Not There [TWS review], it’s probably the most overlooked and underloved film of 2008 (well, besides Before The Devil Knows Your Dead [TWS review]). Unlike our buddy Tarsem (and heck, a lotta damn directors), Todd Haynes knows how to blend style and substance seamlessly. The guy’s got a huge hard on for movies and music and he’ll turn you on too with this picture about the personas and myths of Bob Dylan. Watching the movie, you won’t learn a thing about Dylan, but if you pop on the muss muss listen to commentary by Haynes, you’ll discover how much of a genius he and this film truly are. It was recorded post-Ledger’s death, and when Heath’s first scene comes on, it’s hard for even him to watch

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Forbidden Kingdom
A Misfortune Cookie
Trailers & Mo

Jet Li AND Jackie Chan, finally together, in the SAME MOVIE!?!?! WOWZERS! That’s probably how we woulda felt if the year was 1998, not 2008, but netter bate than lever, eh? Not so much. Directed by the guy that brought us two Stuart Littles, The Haunted Mansion and was an animator on many a Disney projects, you can probably guess at how KICK ASS this movie could possibly be. You guessed correctly, NOT MUCH AT ALL! No one’s seeing a movie like this for the story, so all the pressure rests on the action… and the action is more played out than 3-year old Play-Doh. Yuen Woo-ping (The Matrix dude)’s fight choreography has now become about as exciting as watching the paid programming on C-Span 4 (please note there is no such thing as C-Span 4). To make matters worse, it’s almost all in English, and we all know that Li and Chan’s mastery of the language is about as proficient as this website is. And to make splatters even worser, they had to throw an American kid obsessed with Kung-fu into the mix, we presume to appeal to a wider audience. The kid, played lamely by Michael Angarano, is supposed to be from Boston, but he doesn’t have an accent and more importantly, any bidness being in this. In the flick, the characters have to go through something called ‘a gate of no gate‘, so using their refarted terminology, this is a movie of no movie, and we forbid you to see it

In America, It’s Bling Bling: but out here it’s BINGBING, as in Li Bingbing. YUM!!!

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

88 Minutes
Brainless In Seattle
Trailers & Mo

Leelee Sobieski, Benjamin McKenzie, Neal McDonough, William Forsythe, Deborah Kara Unger and (the beyond delicious) Alicia Witt. All of these actors were once seen as rising stars and all of these actors are falling even faster now that they’ve joined Al Pacino in 88 Minutes, one of the least thrilling thrillers of recent memory. From the opening murder scene, you can juss tell that this baby is dead on arrival (sorta pun intended?). It’s clunky, doesn’t make a lick of sense, and is purty much an entire movie consisting of Al Pacino running around Seattle (or is it Vancouver made to look like Seattle?), telling his assistant Amy Brenneman to do 324882 tasks, and occasionally being shot at. Why is he being shot at and not the director or the screenwriter? Dunno, but we do know that Pacino has 88 minutes to live. Sadly the movie is 20 minutes longer than the title, and each time the killer calls Al to remind him how much longer he has left to live, the killer keeps reminding the viewers how much longer we have to endure watching this crap

Double Trouble: Pacino’s worked with the number 88 before, Mandy Patinkin played 88 Keys, the piano player in Dick Tracy. He’s also going to work with DeNiro and director Jon Avent again, in Heat 2 Righteous Kill. Be afraid, be very afraid!!

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

The Life Before Her Eyes
Fairy-fail Ending
Trailers & Mo

Apparently director Vadim Perelman loves a good flick where awful horrible awful things happen to its main characters. If you saw his brilliant debut House of Sand and Fog (the original pairing of Behrooz and his mum) you know of what diarrhea we diarrhea of. Well olde Vad is at it again with his sophomore effort, The Life Before Her Eyes, and this time he’s bringing the pain Columbine style. The story revolves around loose girl Evan Rachel Wood and her polar opposite BFF, bible loving Eva Amurri (the second coming of her MILF ), who get caught up in the crossfire and one of them ends up dead. Flash to the future, where ERW is growns up and is played, unconvincingly, by Uma Thurman. Everything seems purty good for her with hubbie and kid, but as we keep shuttling back and forth from the past and present, we start to learn that maybe all is not so swell. The scenes with Wood and Amurri are poetic and moving. The ones with Thurman, poor and made us want to move outta the theater. And then there’s the final scenes. We won’t say what happens, but we will say that there’s a twist as incredibly nonsensical as Haute Tension‘s that every bit that came before it renders itself pointless

Cutie Patootie: Nathalie Paulding may have a bit part in the movie, but she now has a big part of our hearts! Peep this montage someone flazzumed in her honor

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

Kingdom and 88 open across the country today, while Life opens in limited release

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

My Blueberry Nights
Tasty Snoozeberries
Trailers & Mo

Director Wong Kar-wai‘s first foray into the English tongue is very pretty, and pretty boring. No real shock there since that’s how we felt about the only other two of his films we’ve seen, In The Mood For Love and 2046 [TWS review]. Normally style doesn’t make-up for little substance in filmdom, but there’s juss something so beautiful about WKW’s love of glowing neon lights and sped-up slow-motion shots that we’ve now made this exception for a third time. Blueberry Nights marks Norah Jones’ acting debut, and after taking it in, it’s hard to tell if she’s any good or not. Why? Well, she spends most of the movie barely speaking, as she and we stand by and watch the other actors act, and damn fine ones at that (David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, Jude Law and Natalie Portman). The film’s story is hers, but it doesn’t feel that way. She’s traveling across America to mend a broken heart, meeting all these other lonely souls, and we tend to be more interested with them than with her. Luckily their bits make up for her empty stares, although together as a whole, the bits don’t add up to much, but boy are they pretty. A more interesting debut is pitched in by Chan Marshall, another singer who you may know better as Cat Power. She shares a quality short scene with Jude Law that seems to come outta nowhere, yet her brief contribution made us wonder if maybe she shoulda been cast in the lead. Oh well, maybe WKW will throw her more of a bone if he decides to follow this up with My Blueberry Days

Memphis Belles Yes!: a 1/3rd of the film is set in Memphis, Tennessee (mostly at the Arcade restaurant), and if you’ve never been to this franztastic southern city, you owe it to yourself to visit. there’s Graceland, Sun Records studio, the Civil Rights Museum (amazingly built behind the Lorraine Motel, where MLK Jr was killed), gettin sloshed on Beale Street and mos importantly, sum of DE breast fried chicken we’ve ever had, GUS’S

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): if we can give Run Fat Boy Run a Jeepers Worth A Peepers, then Blueberry should get it too

Sex and Death 101
Sophomoric Class Exercise
Trailers & Mo

Roderick Blank (pretty boy Simon West) has got probably the greatest dilemma on earth. Right before he’s about to wed, he’s magically emailed a list of women he’s previously bedded, plus the added bonus of 70 more names that he will eventually get to kiss kiss bang bang. With a list like that, does one go ahead and get hitched or seek out these other ladies and start crossing off their names? Blank wisely chooses not to shoot blanks and tackles the list (with some assistance from his assistant, the long forgotten Mindy Cohn, aka Natalie from Facts of Life, and of Peabs face-down in her Honey Bunches of Oats fame). Wonderful premise, eh? Indeed so, and there’s some solid raunchy NSFW goings on here, but the execution is too clunky for it to fully work. Obviously we’re going to see him finish out his list of 101 names, but did we really need to see almost all of these sexcapades played out? There are some montages, but the movie runs a little too long, and could have benefited from a few more montages. And who doesn’t love montages? They even reference them in the film

So the real question is, who’s the last name on the list (and when the hell are we gonna get there already)? We won’t tell you, but we will say there’s a subplot about a killer of sexual deviants that appears to have nothing to do with our protagonist’s journey through the valley of the dolls. Or does it? Enter Winona Ryder, who re-teams with her Heathers (best teen movie EVERRRRRRR) writer, Daniel Waters, on his second directed joint. The two have a lot in common, a solid start to the early 90s and then tossed aside by the Hollywood machine. Ryder’s been able to bounce back a bit, although she really needs some better movies, but Waters? Being the dude who penned Hudson Hawk and Batman Returns won’t get you a lot of meetings in any town. There’s been talk of a Heathers sequel, and if that’s true, lettuce hope Waters takes a course on Directing 101

O Brother, Where’s Your Art: Daniel’s younger brother Mark has had a munch better go of things in Hollywurst. He started off with The House of Yes and went on to direct Freaky Friday, Mean Girls and a bunch of other pedestrian fare

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

The Flight of the Red Balloon
(Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge)
Full Of Hot Air
Trailers & Mo

Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 Oscar winning The Red Balloon (Le Ballon Rouge) is a 34 minute gem that anyone of any age would love. Hsiao-hsien Hou‘s homage to that short, The Flight of the Red Ballon,
is an almost 2 hour borefest that anyone of any age would slit their eyes out to if they’re even able to sit through all of it. All the innocence and charm of Lamorisse’s piece apparently didn’t make the flight as it’s been replaced by nothingness and lots of it. If you’re dying to see the ‘adventures’ of a Taiwanese babysitter in Paris + Juliette Binoche lend her voice to a puppet show, then this is the movie for you. If not, then make the le voyage to Netflix, rent the original short and watch it 4 times instead of taking in this celluloid equivalent of NyQuil

VH99: in 2006, for one whole hour, VH1 Classic aired the video for Nena’s ’99 Luftballons (99 Red Balloons)’ to help raise money for Hurricane Katrina Relief

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Priceless
(Hors De Prix)
MasterCard Declined
Trailers & Mo

Gad Elmaleh is the most loveable loser in French cinema today. Anytime we’ve seen him on screen, our hearts go out to him, and our mouths end up errupting with laughter. He stole the show in the average Valet [TWS review], and he keeps Priceless from going completely bankrupt. Here he plays a simple barman who, by way of mistaken identity, literally charms the pants off of sugar daddy hunting Audrey Tautou. A whole movie coulda been built around this, ending with the revelation that he’s a pauper and not a prince, but that bubble bursts earlier in the flick than expected. Once Tautou discovers that he doesn’t have the Midas touch, she instantly loses interest in him. Elmaleh doesn’t give up and tries hard to re-charm her pants off. Tats starts up her old ways again with another rich dude, and while Elm waits for her to change her mind, he decides to jump into the gold digging game as well. You know it will be only a matter of time before Audrey breaks down and realizes that Gaddy is the man for her, even if he’s only rich at heart. Priceless is down right cute like its stars, but too darn predictable to be worth the trip to the art house

Gadamn: Gad, as a woman, scary shiz indeed

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

all flicks open in limited release today, cept for Priceless, which already be in theaters

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Bank Job
Job Well Done
Trailers & Mo

Jason Statham has built an entire acting career on heists, cons and transporting. The films in which he stars in are usually high on octane and low on brain usage, and no one seems to mind one bit. But what if one of these high-octane Statham action flicks had a brain attached to it? Wouldn’t that be the perfect movie? That question was answered with a resounding ‘yes’ in The Bank Job, Roger Donaldson’s (No Way Out, Thirteen Days) loose take on a real London bank robbery from 1971 that crossed the hairs of everyone from the criminal underground, the police, the secret service, the British government and even the Royal Family. No arrests were ever made and none of the money was ever recovered. Not much information has ever surfaced from the case, thanks to a government D-notice request, but Donaldson does his best to piece together a story from what little facts exist and the fiction he sprinkled in. This is one of the mos entertaining caper flicks we’ve seen since The Usual Suspects. It may not be as taxing on the brain as Suspects, but what do you expect, it’s juss a Jason Statham movie

Job 1: Statham already co-starred in The Italian Job and will be seen next year in its sequel, The Brazilian Job

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Breast In Show

CJ7 (Cheung Gong 7 hou)
Bites Off More Than It Can Chow
Trailers & Mo

What are we to make of Stephen Chow’s CJ7? It’s family film, that’s too strange to be a family film, and while it has the typical Chow hijinks and outlandish action one would expect, it doesn’t have enough of either to truly satisfy the fans that ate up his King Fu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer. So what are we left with? A so-so Hong Kong knock-off of ET. Cept this alien, known as CJ7, moves a lot faster, and doesn’t have a glowing heart that will melt your own. Since you probably won’t fall in love with the shape-shifting fur ball, you may for his human counterpart, Dicky, a little poor boy who’s actually played by a little girl. He/she hits all the right notes, but it’s not enough sweet music to make up for the rest of the mediocre symphony

Hello Kitty: keep and eye and a thigh on cutie supreme Kitty Zhang Yuqi. she is a niiiiiiiice

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Penelope
Pig Slop
Trailers & Mo

Where to begin. The end credits. If only we could of. Urggggggggggggh!!!

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

The Bank Job & CJ7 open this Friday

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Be Kind Rewind
Betamaxminimum
Trailers & Mo

Michel Gondry’s ideas are getting bigger, but his films aren’t necessarily getting better. No one would ever deny the fact that he’s a true artist, in any medium really, but then again, no one would probably admit to watching Science of Sleep [TWS review] a second time. Besides the brilliant Eternal Sunshine [WS review], none of his other films have hit the nail on the head, only getting a passing grade cause they’re so cool to watch (DP’s Block Party doesn’t count). Be Kind Rewind is juss the latest to join dem ranks, but the novelty is starting to wear thin. The idea of Jack Black erasing an entire video store’s inventory of VHS tapes, forcing him and store clerk nice guy Mos Def to recreate them in a mos basic DIY kinda way (or as they call it ‘swede a film’) is rather nifty on paper, but after you see the fruits of their labor on VHS, you’ll be wishing you could skip ahead, like you can on a DVD (or should that read Blu-Ray now?). Once Gondry has had his fill of fun with his playful swedes (send ups include: Ghostbusters, King Kong, Driving Miss Daisy, Rush Hour 2 etc, etc), the story attempts to find some meaning in it all. While the conclusion is sweet and good-natured, its juxtaposition to the silliness it follows doesn’t add up to anything more than a great idea that juss looks cool. We tried to be as kind as we could, but now it’s time to FFwd to the next Gondry joint. Regardless, we can’t wait

Genius Loves His Own Company: Gondry sweded the original trailer! SWEEEDTT!!

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Gondry is always worth a Peeper, but this one is juss Sum Merit But Not Stinkin Badges

Charlie Bartlett
Student R_xchange Program
Trailers & Mo

We’re starting to grow tired of precocious young Anton Yelchin, and it has nothing to do with his weasel voice or mop top hair, although it certainly doesn’t help his case. How many times does he have to play a doe-eyed smarmy know-it-all skinny kid, endlessly cursin for a bruisin (Hearts of Atlantis, Alpha Dog)? Great question, but an even better one is why do we keep rooting for him to get his a$$ handed to him? He certainly got his just desserts in the little seen earnest mess that was Fierce People [TWS review], and it happens once again in the beginning of the very vanilla coming of age ‘comedy’ Charlie Bartlett. The two films are similar in a lot of respects, cept FP is actually interesting and CB is juss plain ole lame. Long time editor (of Jay Roach’s movies) and first time director Jon Poll certainly gives it the old high school try, and while his portrayal of teens may be a bit more realistic than what we’ve seen in cinema recently, there’s nothing visually or audibly stunning going on here to make up for the blah blah blah. Not even the supporting work of Robert Downey Jr. or Hope Davis can help to add a beat to the DULLdrums. We hope (Davis) Yelchin gets quite the licking in his next pics, as Chekov 2.0 in the new Star Trek and sum Russkie in the tATu movie

Ice Ice Daddy : Anton’s parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were a Russian figure skating team (explains a lot). His dad went on to become Sasha Cohen’s first coach. No word if papa had anything to do with these racy of pics of the adorable pixie

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): not enuff merit for badges, so this one is Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous

both films open in theaters tomorrow

Rental Round-Up Dawg: if you have as big a hard-on as we do for Fincher’s Zodiac and/(wh)or(e) the case in general then ya gotta czech out Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (tis a part of that boxset seen below). The film musta been watched by the killer him/herself cause the killer in the film is called Dr Zodiac and he sends taunting messages about his crimes to peeps all over San Fran!!!! It’s not only worth the peep for that reason, but it’s really effin entertaining AND it’s only like 73 minutes!! Plus Cesar Romero is in it and he didn’t even have to paint his mustache!!!! We hearted it so much that we’re planning to watch all of the Charlie Chan movies… even though it’s strange that they have a white dude playing an Asian fellow. At least it’s not as racist as the yellofacin’ of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s

And since there’s no originality left in this remake age, be sure to seek out Death Race 2000 in all it’s cheesy glory before the Jason Statham-Joan Allen vehicle (pun intended) hits screen this fall. Same goes for the TV series Get Smart, which gets the big screen adaptation treatment this summer with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway as Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 respectively. It was one of our father’s favorite shows and ours too. If you’ve never seen it, there’s no better time than today to start! The good folks at Time-Life released a complete collection that includes ALL 138 eps, plus a ton o’ bonuses, including, but certainly not limited to audio commentaries by creators Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, OG Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) and many more. Sadly Don Adams passed away two years ago, but he will never be forgotten!

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…