Thighs Wide Shut

Sherman’s Way
& Reunion
Made-For-Movie TVs
Sherman – Trailers & Mo | Official Website
Reunion – Trailer

Some movies aren’t good enuff for movie screens so they are made for TV. However, there are some movies that fall under this category, but somehow bypass that step and are basically glorified 90 minute TV shows on a movie screen. It would be one thing if these long length TV shows were something to write Santonio Holmes about, but it’s another thing when these production devalued flicks aren’t really even worth writing reviews of

First up is Sherman’s Way, an way too breezy buddy road movie with no wheels. The überly-annoying Sherman is played by the über-überly-annoying Michael Shulman. Apparently Shulman was a child actor of note awhiles back, and this is his first screen role since 2001. Based on his un-winning performance, we hope he takes another 8 years off. James LeGros (who we still believe is the same person as Jack Noseworthy) gives it his all, playing Sherman’s laidback reluctant mentor, but not even his fine work can make us say anything but NO Way

And then there’s Reunion, a Big Chillish luke-warm get together of uppity middle-agers reflecting on past good times and dour current ones. The film is loaded with oodles of ‘that guy‘s and ‘that girl‘s (Shooter McGavin, that adorable lady from The Player, that dude on Lost who was having an affair with Juliet, that dude who always plays an a$$hole, and the MILF from Aliens In America, juss to name a fuse), and plenty of dialog that probably sounded halfway decent on paper, but zeroway interesting on celluloid

If someone had a gun to yer back and forced you to pick between these two movies, you’d probably be better off taking a bullet, but we would give the slightest edge to Reunion, but only cause it doesn’t star Michael Shulman

Never Not Say Nevin Again: poor Brooke Nevin. she’s a decent actress, who’s beyond adorable, and what does she have to show for it? a run of crappy movies and TV shows, including playing the love interest of Sherman, which is a fine that should be only punishable by death

Verdictgo: both be Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous

Sherman and Reunion both open in very limited release today, although neither really needed to be released at all

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

stay pooned this Sunday for a very special posting that will make yer eyes melt and yer computer hexplode

Friday the 13th
Who Could Axe For More? Everyone!
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Jason Voorhees is back and he’s badder than ever just about the same/lame as you remember him! Producer Michael Bay and director Marcus Nispel (not to be confused with Nipsey Russell) have reteamed to remake/not improve upon another horror classic, like they pointlessly did with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (although we still stand by the claim that the TCM prequel was > than the Star Wars prequels). This is the 11th Friday the 13th movie (or 12th, if you count Freddy vs Jason) and you know they aint gonna stop making these until you stop paying to see em, or at least until they hit #13. Called a ‘reboot’ (still officially one of the wurstest/most annoying terms used in print, since at least 2006), this new and not at all scary FT13 is about as necessary as owning a They Are Who We Thought They Wereâ„¢ hat (come to think of it, owning that hat is kinda necessary). At least the moviemakers (we wouldn’t dare call them ‘filmmakers’) had the common indecency to include some solid T&A and have their refarted characters (including this dude who totally wishes he was Matt McCoughney circa Dazed & Confused and Aaron Yoo, who is also known as annoying Asian guy, but is not as annoying as this annoying Asian guy) spew dialog that was kinda sorta high-lariously written, such as ‘Your tits are stupendous!‘. Next up for Bay (and Nipsey Nispel) is a repooping of A Nigthmare on Elm Street, followed by a repoop of The Birds with Naomi Watts. What’s with all the repoops Bay? If you love these classics so much and want to introduce them to a whole new generation of moviegoers why don’t you juss re-release the originals in theaters (juss like the successful run of The Exorcist in 2000) instead of repooping all over them? Repoop!

Damsels In Dis-Dress:

gawd bless the bodies of work of Julianna Guill, Danielle Panabaker & Willa Ford… although cutie-pie mcgee/young Jeanne Tripplehorn look-alike Panabaker sadly keeps her clothes on the entire time

Verdictgo: with all this repoop talk, you’d think that this would be a no doubt repoopulous affair, but it’s not entirely unwatchable, so Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

Push
It Comes To Shove
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Push looks 100% awesome, but makes -348386 sense and is about .001% entertaining. It’s kinda like Heroes or X-Men, where everyone and yer nana has a special power and everyone else is out to get them, yet it’s more confusing and doesn’t star Greg Grunberg or is directed by Brett Ratner. It hactually stars a sorta growns up Dakota Fanning (who draws the future like that drawer of the future from Heroes) and that dude from Amistad and that guy who’s the flaming gay brother of Jessica Alba and Camilla belle’s eyebrows, which are so hot, but for most of the movie they make her too sweaty and beat-up looking, which totally is not her steez, but later on in the movie she cleans up and looks like good old Camilla Belle and she’s the bestest belle since Albert Belle was on the O’s, justin case you plumb forgot. We can’t remember what the premise of the movie was or what anyone’s powers were (besides the power of Asians screaming) or why any of it mattered, but wethinks it inolved some sorta ongoing battle between the Movers, Pushers, Wacthers, Bleeders, Sniffs, Shifters, Wipers, Shadows and Stitchers (thanks Wikipedia!). Wonder if the Movers are also Shakers and if any Quakers are also Shakers and if any of them live in Shaker Heights, Ohio? Are you as lost as Hurley? So are we, so we’ll stop now and forever hold our peace pipe about a movie so hard to watch that it makes the new Friday The 13th look like the old Friday The 13th

We Wanna Be Her Pusher: meat 李小璐 aka Li Xiao Lu aka Jacqueline Li aka Lu Lu aka our future wife

Verdictgo: Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous

Friday and Push are currently playing at a theater new Jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Wrestler
A Camel Clutch Performance
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Every year since our Thighs have been Wide Shut we’ve been blown away by a single acting performance so blownerrific that we juss knew, without a dadow of a shout, that it would earn the performer an Oscar statuette months later. In the ’04 it was Jamie as Ray, in the ’05 it was Hoffman as Capote, in the ’06 it was Whitaker as Amin and last year, Cotillard as Rice Piaf. And your winner this year that you can bet the farm and the pharmacy on is Mickey Rourke as the washed-up wrastler Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (a fictional person, but seems more real than B Real buying some junk from the Junkyard Dog). This movie’s gots Marisa Tomei as a stripper with a big heart, and nipple rings (that you get to see!) and Evan Rachel Wood looking like a younger Marilyn Manson and Todd Barry watching porn and Judah Friedlander w/o an ironic hat, yet all of them yummy appetizers are juss that to the main course of heartburn and heartache that is Rourke’s Ram (he even drives a RAM truck!). The whole she-bang is pressing-de, which aint no sirprize coming from virtuoso director Darren Aronofsky (and from the pen of a guy who writes for The Onion, wtf?), but it also happens to be one of the funniest of the year, sharing that title with another bestest pic of the year, Gran Torino. If you aints cracking yer teets off during the deli counter scene, then you our friends, don’t deserve to eat deli meats ever!! That goes negative double to you vegetarians who aren’t our friends cause animals aren’t our friends, they is our lunches and dinners!!

Now Yer Playing With Power: The Ram was the star of an 8-bit NES video game, which he plays with a neighborhood kid in the film, but the game doesn’t look 1/2 as yumcredible as NES’ Pro Wrestling is. Long live King Corn Karn!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

The Spirit
Smells Like Latrine Spirit
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Remember how redonkeypunchoholic (that’s a good thing) Sin City was? Well, subtract all the incredible actors, spanktastic honeys, co-director Robert Rodriguez, and everything else (like 19 zillion more things) that made it the knees bees of 2005 and what yer left with is the biggest waste of optical splendor since Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow, which is the Dick Tracy for this decade (read: crap on a shtick). This giant waste that we puke of is the The Spirit, Frank Miller‘s first solo directorial project based off of the belovededed Will Eisner comic, and it doesn’t border on disaster, but on absolute boredom. Not even Samuel L Jackson’s over-overacting or Scarlett Johansson’s lack of acting talent or Eva Mendes’ photocopied ass or Kevin Arnold’s angry dad or 293938487 Edgar Stileseses can muster up anything close to what we peoples call entertainment. The only thing worth noting is Sarah Paulson‘s fine performance as The Spirit’s lady in waiting. She’s the only one in the film who can keep a straight face, and when she cries a tear for The Spirit, we cry a tear for Paulson who deserves much better (esp after the shitbacle that was the unfunny show about a unfunny sketch show that was suppose to be funny). If you can brave it through this snooze/boo fest then you should be allowed to play The Spirit in the sequel… a sequel that will never happen cause no one will care what becomes of The Spirit after seeing this burnt popcorn movie

Some Ifs, Ands, and Butts: we take it back, Eva Mendes’ photocopied ass is entertaining

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Last Chance Harvey
Actually Love?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Dustin Hoffman is so good at playin a goofy schlub. Emma Thompson is so good at playing a hot classy older woman. When the two come together it’s pretty darn oh so good, first with Stranger Than Fiction and now with Last Chance Harvey. Dustin plays Harvey Shine, a goofy schlub whose life starts to get even schlubblier while in London (he loses his job, and then learns that his daughter would rather have her James Brolin stepfather walk her down the aisle), but then he has a (last) chance meeting with a hot classy older lady named Kat
e. They’re both lonely and in need of some serious smiles. Harv charms her enuff to let him walk her around London town for hours on (Howard’s) end. Kate then convinces Harv to return to his daughter’s wedding reception, and he obliges, if only she joins him. What happens next with Harvey and his daughter, with new pal Kate cheering him on, is some deeply (chicken) tender stuffs. Too bad this magic moment occurs midway thru the movie, instead of at the end where it woulda been more effective. Lessthenone, the restist is good enuff stuffs that will keep you hoping that Harvey will get the chance to break into Kate’s community chest

Can’t Wait For The Sequel: Rolling Harvey Down The Hill

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Waltz With Bashir
Ballroom Blitzkrieg
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Strip away all of the hamazin’ cartooing goings on in the animated-documentary Waltz With Bashir and all yer left with is some fuzzy recollections that some Israeli soldiers had about Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 Lebanon War. It’s no wonder that the writer/director Ari Folman went the colorful route for his autobiographical tale, cause otherwise this thing woulda been as dry as some dry armpits in needs of Arrid Extra Dry. The loose storytelling tries to make an impact on the viewer, and barely does, but it’s the cartoon that does all the impacting, and then some. It’s a true feast for the eyes, and with this scene, for the thighs. Last year’s brilliant Persepolis was able to backup its visual beauty with a compelling narrative. Bashir aint this year’s Persepolis, but then again, what is? Dunno, Kannapolis, NC?

Out of Treatment: Folman directed 3 episodes of the Israeli/original version of In Treatment, called BeTipul

Verdictgo: for your peepers it’s Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Day The Earth Stood Still
Keanu & Jennifer’s Bogus Journey
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

98.8676% of movies that are remade should have never been remade. The Day The Earth Stood Still is one of thems (who woulda guessed?!?!?!?!?!). What more needs to be said? These simple facts: the bestest part of the entire movie is something we’ve dreamed of for a long time – the destruction of Giants Stadium. Jaden Smith should not be allowed to act, unless accompanied by his father. John Cleese should be banned from serious roles (esp since his family’s surname is really ‘Cheese’). Kathy Bates would make an awful Secretary of Defense. Jon Hamm, Kyle Chandler and Robert Knepper should fire their agents for finding them such dreck to film during their TV show’s hiatuses. And finally, how come no one has found another good reason for Jennifer Connelly, a dildo and another woman’s a$$ to be in the same room at the same time again?

Don’t Express Yoself: Vulture’s Complete Field Guide to the Facial Expressions of Keanu Reeves

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

On XMas, Bashir and Harvey will join The Wreslter, already playing in limited release, while The Spirit joins The Earth in crushing your holiday spirit at a theater near jews

have a wonderful holly daze peoples!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Che
An Empty Che Stadium
Trailers & Mo | Official (Japanese) Website

Part I: The Argentine
Unwelcome To The Jungle

In Part 1 of Steven Soderbergh‘s two part Che movie, Che is in Cuba helping Cubans overthrow other Cubans who don’t have cool facial hair like they do. The main dude leading these revolutionary Cubans is Fidel Castro. He’s played by the Mexican dude on Weeds. Che is played by Benicio Del Toro. Che wasn’t Cuban. Neither is Del Toro. Che was from Argentina. Del Toro is from Puerto Rico. Del Toro was born to play Che. Much more so than Omar Sherif. He looks the part. He is the part. The part can’t save the whole. Soderbergh wasn’t born to direct a Che movie. You learn absolutely nothing about Che. Nada. Nunca (OK, you do learn that he has asthma). Guess it’s not that type of movie… that type of movie that mos people would rather see where it tells the entire extraordinary story of an extraordinary man, not repetitive chapters in one long jungle book. We see Che. We see Che with people. The peoples listen to him. He’s usually in the jungle, building Gilligan’s Isle type dwellings, teaching people how to read, treating sick people cause he was a doctor. He hides in the jungle. He eats in the jungle. He poops in the jungle. We don’t see him poop. Think of anything goings on in a jungle and Che did it. This part of Che is 58% jungle. 29% takes place in NY. The NY percentile was shot in black and white and Che is red all over… cause he’s a Communist! Nothing against jungles, but the NY bits are the most bittable bitties. Back in Cuba guns are fired. People are shot. Che and co take over cities. Catalina Sandino Moreno shows up. She worships Che. We worship her. She’s full of grace. She gives nice face. We’re bored. Crap, there’s a second part? It better be better than this part that isn’t so better!

Back In The Che: the early exploits of Che’s life were put on display in the solid Gael García Bernal starring Motorcycle Diaries. After watching the film we were thirsty for mo Che and wanted to see another movie that continued the rest of the story. Soderbergh wasn’t able to fulfill that wish (or our other wish for him to stop working with Julia Roberts in general). Spanfulkly there’s always Wikipedia to fall back on when films fail to inform us of things we want to be informed on

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking Badgers

Part II: Guerrilla
Borelivia

Part II is not better than ezra or Part I. If you muss see one part of this monster(ous) film, see Part I and skip Part II. Part two has no NY distractions to split up the action. The action in Part II is 98% of Che doing the same exact things that he was doing in the jungles of Cuba but now he’s doing them in the mountains of Bolivia, but with less disciples and less success. Why is he here? Do people want him here? Do they juss wanna join the Che Guevara Cool Facial Hair Club For Men? Dunno. Never really explained well. Lola from Run Herself Run is in it. She’s a foreigner called Tania helping the cause (see ‘Patty Cakes’ below). Why? No clue. Back to the mountains. Che is walking. Che is talking. Che is taking a dump. Sorry, you don’t get to see any dumps in Part II either. You do get to see Catalina Sandino Moreno, but only for like 8 seconds. You don’t get to see her naked, or poop. What a waste. This second part is so beyonds borings and thunderdome that it makes Wendy & Lucy look like a movie where Jason Statham puts porters in trans! You know Che movie is mad sleepy and hollow when you want Che to die within the first 1/2 an hour of a 3290493 hour movie cause then the movie would be over. You walk away from this epic snoozefest and can’t figure out if Che was a good or a bad man. You actually can’t figure out anything about Che other than he was able to live better in nature more better than the Swiss Family Robinson. Why is this movie (when seens together as one) 4 +++ hour longs and filled with basically nothings? Cut out 4 of them hours and the +++ minutes make a hamazin short movie! Oh yeah, Matt Damon cameos in this part. Luckily Scott Caan doesn’t appear. On second thought Scott Cann could have brought some funs to Bolivia. We want Sodbergh flicks more like Bubble, not like ones that burst

Patty Cakes: kidnap victim-turned Symbionese Liberation Army sympathizer Patty Hearst took on the nom de guerre of Tania, in honor of Che’s helper friend chick. Skip this Guerrilla flick and instead czech out the doc Guerrilla, all about Patty’s plight

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Che is currently playing as one long arsed movie in NY/LA for one week only. It will open as two movies in major cities on 1/9/09 and then elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Rachel Getting Married
Squirms of Endearment
Trailers & Mo

It’s been quite a long time since Jonathan Demme made a narrative film worthy of praise. 15 years to be exact, as Philadelphia was his last fictional work of note, which was quite an hamazin’ follow-up to the bestness that came a year before, Silence of The Lambs. While he’s excelled recently with a pair of documentaries (Jimmy Carter Man From Plains and The Agronomist), big budget Hollywood fluff like The Manchurian Candidate and The Truth About Charlie have been questionable choices for a man of such great talent, even the latter being repoopulously ridiculed by Marky Mark and Ari Gold on Entourage. We can now table such discussions as Demme surges back big time with the little ensemble family drama Rachel Getting Married, which has now sirpassed the funtastic Married To The Mob as his finest ‘married’ movie of balls thyme

From a character rich script by Sidney Lumet‘s daughter Jenny (not to be confused with his other daughter Amy, most famous for putting her giant rack on display at the 2005 Academy Awards), Demme throws an intimate wedding party (including such guests as Fab 5 Freddy, Roger Corman and Robyn Hitchcock… guess Jimmy Carter wasn’t unavailable) that’s almos as catastrophic and more unnerving than what transgressed in Meet the Parents. Anne Hathaway achingly plays Kym, the Gaylord ‘Greg’ Focker role here that’s eons away from the kiddie stuff she’s done before, and while you’ll feel just as sorry for her as you did for Ben Stiller, there aren’t many laffs to ease her or our pain. Kym’s been in and out of rehab for ages, ever since a tragic event in her adolescence, and she’s coming back home to celebrate, although ruin might be a better word, her sister (Rosemarie DeWitt, aka Mad Men‘s Midge Daniels)’s nuptials (to TV On The Radio‘s lead singer Tunde Adebimpe). While her family’s happy to see her at first, including her overly cautious pop (stage actor and Elmo pal Bill Irwin, who shines bright) and his cold and distant ex-wife (Debra Winger, who’s been sorely missed in the world of cinema), Kym quickly shifts the attention from her sis’ happiness to her unhappiness, and all hell breaks lose. There is light at the end of this dark tunnel, and the actual wedding is soulful and so gorgeous that you’ll wish you were invited. Rachel is dynamite stuff and is right up there with The Visitor, Mister Lonely, Towelhead and Frozen River as some of the mos touching and affecting films we’ve seen this year

Corny Stalk: Anne, beware of ESPN’s (un) The Talented Mr. Roto, who may need a restraining order cause he’s obsessed with you

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Blindness
See No Evil No See
Trailers & Mo

After City of Gawd and The Constant Gardner we’ve come to eggspect nothing but the best from director Fernando Meirelles. Blindness, adapted from the celebrated book by José Saramago, may not be on par with either of those last two brilliant films, but it comes awfully darn close. Blindness is about an unnamed city dealing with the outbreak of an unexplained… BLINDNESS epidemic. The blindness keeps getting passed from one poor soul to another, and eventually becomes such a major problem that the government quarantines the inflicted in an abandoned hospital. They’re basically left on their own, and if you can imagine the blind leading the blind, then you’ll have a purty good idea of how bad shiz will get. Luckily the wife (Juliane Moore) of a blind optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) can see, although not everyone is aware of this, and she does her best to make order out of the chaos, while trying to hold onto her sanity in the process. This cast is rounded out with remarkable performances by Gael García Bernal,
ef=”http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001999/” target=”_blank”>Maury Chaykin, Danny Glover, Alice Braga, Yusuke Iseya and Don McKellar, who also wrote the screenplay

While this supposedly unfilmable film may be a bit muddled in the story and message delivery department, probably due to the fact that the novel was written in a stream-of-consciousness prose, we dare you to name another film this year that equals its beauty, or is as mesmerizing or stomach turning and churning as Blindness is. Actually Rachel Getting Married fits that bill, but it’s not about a dystopian society and we’re major suckers for that genre so take that! This is kinda like a junior Children of Men, which in our opinion, could be one of the bestest movies of the decade. This isn’t even close to being one of the best of the decade, but it’s close to breaking our top ten of 2008. Others don’t seem to agree and we hope they go blind

Blinded By The Light: while we haven’t seen The Miracle Worker or City Lights, here are six pics about blindness we recommend you viddy well… Tommy, Dancer In The Dark, Ray, The Village, Manhunter and Blind Date. OK, so Blind Date isn’t about blind people, but it IS about dates that are blind!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Humboldt County
Puff, Puff, Pass
Trailers & Mo

Peter(Jeremy Strong)’s a recently failed and disillusioned med student who needs to lighten up, and does so by lighting up. After a one night stand with a singer named Bogart (Fairuza Balk), he follows her to the Nor-Cal county in the film’s title, which if you weren’t aware is HIGHly known for it’s cannabis growing. The next day she ups and leaves, and leaves him with her wacky tobaccy family (Grima Wormtongue, Ruth Fisher, Doug from VCB). The fish out of water eventually learns how to walk on high land and is soon chillaxing and waxing about life with these granola barflys. While it may be a bit more realistic of a pot movie than Pineapple Excess was, Humboldt is like taking a hit from a cashed bowl. If you don’t know what that means, you probably won’t be interested in Humboldt, but if you do know what that means, you should juss stay home and pack a freshie

Building Bridges: Lawrence Bridges makes his acting debut with Humboldt, but the dude has a lot of other talents, including casting Brad Pitt in his first commercial, a Pringles spot

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Rachel joins Humboldt in very limited release, while Blindness opens thighs wide

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…