Thighs Wide Shut

Jumper
The Bored Identity Crisis
Trailers & Mo

Not that anyone asked for it, but… Jumper reunites Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu, and this time, they’re leaving the lightsabers and George Lucas’ wooden dialog behind. So what can Doug Liman (Swingers, Go, Mr & Mrs Smith) do with this not so dynamic duo of Mr I’m In Way Too Many Movies and Cpt Brooding Monotone? Nothing much. A decent super ability of our main dude, who can jump to anywhere at anytime, is completely wasted by way of the clunky and overused jumping special effects, pointless characters and endless confusion as to what in the hellga is going on. Nothing is really explained, and by the end, no one would care to have it explained to them. We kinda wish we brought our own lightsabers into the theater, cause as soon as Rachel Bilson rears her not so ugly head, this muddled mess is pronounced DEAD, and we’re ready to lightsaber our ears and eyes out. Hopefully its tops at the box office bidness won’t equate to a sequel, Jumphim

Light Idea: How Lightsabers Work

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

In Bruges
High Adventures In The Low Countries
Trailers & Mo

In Bruges is indeed a dark comedy. The comedy can be found in the first two acts and is completely absent from the mightily dark last one. It’s quite a contrast that’s taxing on the viewer’s emotions, but it will definitely keep you entertained throughout. You’ll delight in the witty banter between hitmen Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, who are posing as tourists in the gorgeous titular medieval Belgium town. They take in the sights, a cute local gal, drugs and alcohol, and even befriend a racist dwarf. Then Ralph Fiennes shows up and the comedy is quickly replaced by endless gunfire and a lot of ho-hum and glum. Even though they’re hitmen and you know blood would eventually be shed, all the violence at the end seems out of place. Whatever place that is, it’s still worth visiting

Wee Man: the dwarf, Jordan Prentice, is purty darn famous, but you’d never know why. Well, he not only was the the giant bag of weed in Harold & Kumar, but also was one of seven people to play Howard T. Duck in… Howard the Duck

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

both flicks be in theaters NOW

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The Art of Shaving
Trailers & Mo

Sweeney Todd marks the 6th pairing of director Tim Burton and his muse Johnny Depp (also the 5th one with his other muse and fiancée, Helena Bonham Carter). And for those keeping score at home, including the bloody good time that is Todd, this makes a total of 5 hits and 1 near miss (that being C & The C Factory). It may not the best of that bunch, but it’s certainly one of the best films being released in this jam-packed Holiday month. Burton-Depp Statistics aside, this 3 hour Stephen Sondheim Broadway show slit down to a 2 hour audio/visual fun fest puts all the other recent movie musicals to shame. Dreamgirls was a nightmare, Hairsparay didn’t stick and Chicago was a chicagoat, but Sweeney Todd was oddly sweet. For once, the songs worked to enhance the story, not take away from it. It probably helped Burton’s cause that he cast great actors who could sorta sing instead of casting actors who could sing great. Enter Depp, Bonham Carter, and Sasha Baron Cohen (in a very brief, but memorable role as a rival barber). They may not be classically trained vocalists, but yer gonna have so much fun watching them mince words and pies that it won’t matter, so just sit back and enjoy the splatter!

Hairy Shearers: we live in one state and grew up in another, and that’s why we heart two places to get our haircut at, Seven Locks Barbershop in Merryland and Brothers Barbershop in NYC

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

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Comes Purty Close To Sucking Cox, Hard
Trailers & Mo

Spoofin aint easy. For every slaptastic Airplane! there’s about 17 boovies like Epic Movie. Even parody masters like Mel Brooks and the ZAZ trio have handed in a boatload of clunkers in their time. A ray of hope shinned mighty brightly on Dewey Cox, a take off of heavily Oscar-baited musician biopics, especially with all them notes being scripted by comedy man of the moment Judd Apatow. Yet for all its showy showmanship, spanning the birth of rock and every genre that followed it, Cox aint no symphony, just another middle of the road comedy yielding nuttin but cheap laffs (in particular the lame Jewish jokes that not even Blanche Knott would find truly tasteless). Sure, the songs John C Reilly belts are quite nifty, the costumes and scenery are beyond chewable, and Jenna Fischer has never been lovelier, but to smoke it bluntly, this comedy really isn’t all that funny. We’re sure many of you all will disagree with our assessment (the other critics already have), but if you think for one moment that the bit where Dewey meets the Beatles is tat all humorous, then there will be b(l)oo(d)!!!

Je T’aime The Savage Beast: doesn’t Ma Cox (Margo Martindale) look darn familiar? If you saw Paris, je t’aime, she starred in the best vignette of dem all, Alexander Payne’s 14th arrondissement. Watch it here

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

both Sweeney & Cox open in theaters this Friday

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Juno
Not Another Teen Pregnancy Movie
Trailers & Mo

To put it simply, Juno is a good movie. If you or FoxSearchlight want to go on thinking that it’s this year’s Oscar messiah/Little Miss Poopshoot [TWS.org review] then be our guest, cause we couldn’t care less. Sure, we won’t be the least bit sirprized when screenwriter Diablo Cody (the mos awful nom de plume mt EVERest) wins Bestest Original Screenplay at the 2008 Academy Awards, but juss cause one writes overly quirky dialog and has their characters talk on hamburger phones doesn’t mean that your the next Quentin Tarantino or even Wes Anderson, even though this is the mos Wes Andersonish movie one will see this year (Darjeeling was a bit too limiting for our tastes). As for Ellen Page, of course she’s amazing in this film, as the preggers title teen character, cause duh, she’s an amazing actress. But nomination worthy? Er maybe, but this role is not nearly as juicy as the one she had as the prey turned hunteress kid in Hard Candy, and only the Austin Film Critics seemed to notice that. You won’t be disappointed with Juno, but if yer lookin for better pregnancy yuks, Netlfix Knocked-Up [TWS.org review]

Foster Love Child: we still vom at the thought of Ellen Page boning beau Ben Foster

CLASSy Touch: the chemistry teacher is played by… DJ Cut Chemist

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

Atonement
About As Thrilling As Atoning On Yom Kippur
Trailers & Mo

We know this flick is based off of some highly-acclaimed novel of the same name, but if the filmmakers really wanted to make a brilliant film out of it, they shoulda kept on building on that thumcredible tense momentum goings on in the first hour (think Swimming Pool with no Ludivine Sagnier nudity) instead of turning the rest of the film into a purty darn boring and depressing version of A Very Long Engagement [TWS.org review]. What a waste of high-brow entertainment, although twas nice to see what K Knightley would look like wheneth getting railed against a bookshelf

The Name Game: eyeopening newcomer Saoirse Ronan has a name we’d love to see on maqrquees for decades to come, but can anything top her castmate’s birth name of Benedict Cumberbatch, a 2006 Fenella Woolgar Bestest Names Award winner? We thinks snot!

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

August Rush
December Snooze
Trailers & Mo

For the death of us, we can’t seem to finger out if August Rush is the wurstest or second wurstest Robin Williams film of the year. The other one in the equation is License to Wed [TWS.org review], a comedy, with Williams starring as an annoying priest, that wasn’t remotely funny. Rush is a drama about a magically musically gifted orphan seeking his parents, where Williams plays a meaner and greedier Fagin, and isn’t at all very dramatic. Both are pure dreck and easy candidates for our Death to Smoochy Award, which not so ironically was named after the wurstest Robin Williams movie featuring Edward Norton in a purple costume

MILF: we have no idea which character Meagan was, but we totes wanna hop on her screen mom, played by Deirdre Lorenz

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

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Revolver
Shooting Itself In The Foot Scene By Scene
Trailers & Mo

Remember that up and coming hot shot director that went by the name of Guy Ritchie? We vaguely do, but coincidentally ever since he married Madonna all that potential greatness, put on display in Lock, Stock and its bigger and better follow-up Snatch, has vanished more mysteriously than DB Cooper! What followed was that unnecessary remake tripe starring his wife, which no one saw, and now Revolver, a movie that is so gone dog awful its American release was delayed by two years so we could probably forget about all that negative press it received during its UK run. We don’t even know where to begin ripping this movie a new mama casshole cause the movie itself had no idea how to begin, middle or end! By the time the story tries to take shape with its heady ideas in the last act you’ll probably be too busy trying to pick stuff out of your teeth with a ticket stub to even notice. We give Ritchie credit for trying something a lil different, but he shoulda juss stuck to his guns, literally, by continuing to make clever capers like the ones from that pre-Madonna era (pun maybe intended?). Hopefully his next one will do the trick, but with a name like RocknRolla, the prospects could be more dim than brother Dim

Get Ritchie Quick: we all know Madge can’t act, but that doesn’t stop Guy’s short BMW film, The Hire: Star, from being enjoyable

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

Revolver opens in select theaters today
and elsewhere hopefully neverwhen

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Before The Devil Knows Your Dead
All In The Family Plot
Trailers & Mo

12 Angry Men, Fail Safe, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network. That is da short list of udderly franztastic Sidney Lumet films. Some feel that the 83 year old filmmaker’s latest, Before The Devil Knows Your Dead, deserves a spot right next to em. While I believe it’s too early to make such claims as that, I will say that this is easily one of the year’s best films. I mean, where else are you going to find Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and the great great great great great great great Albert Finney giving it their all with a fabulous story to tie it together? And that story, YEAH BABY!!!! Hoffman and Hawke play two brothers strapped for cash who decide to knock off a mom & pop jewelry store… that happens to be their mom and pop’s jewelry store! Of course nothing goes right and the rest is pure cinematic magic. Along for the ride are some solid supporters, like Aunt May Parker, that awesome Irish dude, that awesome dude who aint Irish, scary German Guy and Marisa Tomei, who finally gives us some non-body double NSFW love that I’m sure will be A-B repeated JO matz for decades to come (pun intended). What more could one ask for? How about 21381283 mo flicks with Marisa Tomei non-body double NSFW love that I’m sure will be A-B repeated JO matz for decades to come (pun not intended)

IMHO: Sindey’s breastest work of dem all? His daughter Jenny and her redonkeydonk bazingies!!!

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

Bella
Don’t LeGoSee This
Trailers & Mo

The Italian word ‘bella‘ means ‘beautiful‘, and the Mexican film of the same name attempts the same translation with audiences, but it ends up quite snoozeiful. Oy yoy yoy yoy yoy to the Jenna von Oy^th degree! I dunno what rock of crack the people were smoking at the ‘006 TIFF when they gave it their Choice Award, but it mussa been some purty darn good shiz cause this schmaltz fest aint even worthy of a 4am showing on the Hallmark Movie Channel. The MPAA should change the rating from PG-13 to NC-117 so no one will have to watch this. The only eggception should be for insomniacs lookin for some Rip Van Winkle type zzzzzzzzzs

Dirty Landry: the only thang bella goings on here is hottie Ali Landry, who happens to be the wife of director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde. Can’t figure out if that’s an upgrade or not from her former hubby, Mario Lopez

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Slit Yer Thighs & Eyes Out Repoopulouzzzz

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…