Thighs Wide Shut

30 Minutes or Less
Less Is… Less
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 83 min

Two dumb dudes (Danny McBride &  Nick Swardson) want to become rich, so they take an idea from a stripper to knock off one of the dude’s dads (Fred Ward), inherit his money and become rich!  In order to do so, they need 100K to pay someone to do the killing (Michael Peña), so they come up with their own idea to kidnap some random person (Jesse Eisenberg), strap a bomb to them, and force them to get the money for them!  All hell will break loose, and hilarity will ensue, won’t it?

Ruben Fleischer‘s 30 Minutes of Less sounds like the stuff of comedy dreams come true – a sharp storyline (by Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan), a killer & lovable cast, and a runtime under 90 minutes (wish more movies would follow suit).  So, why then does 30 Minutes feel like a stretch times itself by 3?  Um, cause it’s only mildly funny, and when it is funny, it’s barely funny (Netflix jokes about never watching the DVDs one gets sent in the mail seems so 2004), and yer mainly giving it charity laffs cause you think McBride is funny.  McBride is pretty much doing his Kenny Powers shtick with a game Swardson doing the Stevie Janowski even dumber sidekick thing.  And we know Eisenberg can be funny, cause he is and has (Zombieland, Adventureland), but if he isn’t given the material to be funny, he can’t be funny.  Unfunny Aziz Ansari doesn’t help matters neither.  He’s more of a comedian than an actor (cause he is), and there’s only so much of his over-exciting yelling thing one can take (maybe you dig that, but we don’t)

Sill, there are far worse offending comedies, with lesser talent that have no story to tell.  But still, this felt like a slightly better Cop Out.  What does that tell ya?  Not much AND a lot.  This has rental written all over it

Pakistan Packing Heat:

Dilshad Vadsaria

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

30 Minutes doesn’t go a long way at a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Guard
The Blue Meaningless
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 96 min

Brendan Gleeson is one giant framed bag o’ fun.  He’s witty, winsome and wears a varied wave of emotions on his most eggsalad acting sleeves.  He’s often relegated to playing the 2nd or 9th fiddle, and is rarely allowed to carry a film.  So, what if he was allowed that chance to shine in the center stage spotlight?  Could he pull it off?  What kinda question are we asking ourselves here???  Of course he can, he’s Brendan F$%king Gleeson, who’s worth about 1/2 the price of any admission!!!! And that’s what makes his starring turn in The Guard 1/2 worth seeing

What about the other 1/2?  It doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain.  The Guard is juss way too simple-minded stuff, like opening a box of Lucky Charms (or Irish Spring?).  Gleeson is an absolute joy to watch here, but we wish there was a little more to John Michael McDonagh‘s flick than ‘charming, but surly cop does the right thing against clichéd bad people, his way‘.  Speaking of McDonagh, his brother Martin also tapped into that Gleeson magic, but gave him a much better narrtive backing in his In Bruges.  If you haven’t seen that, see it, and treat The Guard as its b-side, or maybe even c-side

We forgot to mention that Don Cheadle and Mark Strong are both in this, but we almost forgot that they were in the movie altogether (we seem to have memory issues), cause they don’t really help anything along.  Gleeson doesn’t need any help onscreen, but help was needed offscreen.  Maybe they should have let Gleeson write the script and play every role.  That would have filled us with more glee, son, than the cancellation of Glee

Wee Lasses Wit Nice A$$es: we’ve previously profiled hotties Sarah Greene and Dominique McElligott, but here’s what they look like in Gleeson’s arms/our dreams

and now lets turn our attentions to newbie Katarina Cas, aka KC and her sunshine brand of hotnness!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Guard is not the most arresting thing in NY & LA this Friday, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Future
Time Stopper
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 91 min

It’s been 6 long years since Miranda July capitvated our minds and imginations with her stunning feature length film debut Me and You and Everyone We Know, and also 6 long years we’ve been foaming at the mouth in anticipation for her follow-up.  Is July’s The Future the future we’ve always dreamed of?  In a word – NO

Not for a lack of trying, and boy does July give it a try, but this trying is very trying, tiring, and an out flat annoying adventureless adventure.  If yer fan of MaYaEWK, yer gonna be very tempted to see The Future, but all it’s gonna do is make you long for the past.  We’re not julying to you.  It is truth!!  July will make you long for winter.  Enter and you’ll be stuck with the dog days of July… in July!!!

So what’s The Future all about?  July and boyfriend Hamish Linklater (July, if she was a man, with a less grating voice) want to adopt a cat, but the cat they want is sick and needs another month to get better before they can take it home.  So… in the ensuing month, July & Hamish decide to re-evaluate their lives.  They quit their jobs, and she decides to post strange dances daily to the web, while he decides to save the world thru door to door soliciting.  Their paths diverge, and the movie does too, into an inane exercise in inane exercises of quirky quirkedness.  She shacks up with an older man with a steady life (that guy David Warshofsky), while he talks to the moon and stops time.  Sounds kinda cool, but it isn’t, and to make things even more irritating, the sick cat narrates the film from a cage, with a voice that is even more grating than July’s, which is not sirprizing since July is the voice of the cat

You’d be better off locking yerself in a cage and letting a cat scratch yer ears off and eyes out than going out to see and listen to this whatever this was.  Sounds like Slit Yer Eyes Out matz, but it’s not quite at that level of awfulness.  There is some thought that she put into this, but we juss don’t like what she was thinking

The First Family of Quirk: in 4real life, July is married to director Mike Mills.  wonder if she was the inspiration for the Mélanie Laurent character in Beginners?????  who knows, but czech out this snap from their wedding.  it’s purty much how we’d imagine their wedding would look like, cept maybe with more wool sweaters and more curly-haired guests

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

The Future is past boo in NY this Friday, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Captain America: The First Avenger
Drags of Our Fathers
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG13 | 125 min

As a movie, Captain America is OK, we guess, but as a superhero movie, it’s like a Mad-Libs fill in the blanks paint by numbers road more traveled exercise in nothing newness here.  Sure, it may be a bit ‘different’ by taking place during WWII, draped in a Flags of Our Fathers look, but that’s not enuff to make up for one giant narrative void.  Here’s the story: there’s a scrawny guy (Chris Evans, who had more fun, and we did too, when he was the Human Torch), who becomes unscrawny (by way of Stanley Tucci‘s questionable German accent), and then the newly unscrawny guy needs to stop someone who may be even more unscrawnier than him (Hugo Weaving, with nothing to do but show off his crazy eyes and teeth and like shoot some blue lasers from time to time).  On team unscrawny guy there’s Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones and a band of silly looking boringest basterds (nice bowler hat & mustache, you jacka$$!!!).  Weaving’s got Toby Jones, who totally wishes he was the face melting Nazi from Raiders.  A battle ensues?  Or something?  Not really.  Can’t remember anything that actually happened in this movie, cept they tried to sell war bonds, and couldn’t sell a story

War Bondage: Al Capp, creator of Li’l Abner, and raunchy war bond posters!!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Captain is all over America and a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Double Hour
(La Doppia Ora)
Hicthcockulous
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
NR | 105 min

This movie is about some guy named Guido (Filippo Timi) who meets a girl (Kseniya Rappoport) and their future together appears to be rosier than Rosie with a roll of bounty.  Then he gets killed, and she feels guilty.  But did she have something to do with it?  And is he even really dead?  And how will a double hour (like 11:11 pm) play into all this?  Or will 1/2 of the movie be null in void when one of the flick’s many twists and turns turns out to twist all the preceding events into nothingness?  Some questions are breast left unanswered.  And some breasts are best left alone

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Double not so much your pleasure in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…