Thighs Wide Shut

Creation
Missed Conception
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Can’t figure out what’s more baffling, the fact that there really hasn’t been a film made to this point on how Charles Darwin came to pen his game changing book On The Origin of Species or that when one finally came to the surface it would deal a lot mo with his family’s health and soul issues than a bunch of turtles on the Galapagos Isles (i.e. what we assume mos peoples would rather see). The regal Beagle ship and said adventure do make a few brief bon voyages in Jon Amiel‘s cinematic adaptation of Darwin’s great-great-grandson’s bio on him, but as the title of said bookie-book suggests, there was more to Darwin’s life and work than observing and reporting in nature, as he apparently did a lot of observing and reporting in an environment closer to home… namely in his home!

Paul Bettany plays Darwin, and while he pours his usual intelligent demeanor and passion into the un-intelligently designed (get it?) role, apparently someone didn’t put enuff passion into making Darwin’s receding hair look quite right on Bettany’s noggin. That’s hactually juss one of numerous misfires that keeps Creation from breathing life into this creation tale about the creation of a book about creation!!! One big ole obstacle in Darwin’s life, and in turn in the movie, is his deeply devout wife (played rather unconvincingly here by Bettany’s own wife Jennifer Connelly). She cannot eggcept the path his work is taking him down, herspecially in regards to their faith and that’s the Catch-23 CD is stuck in. Quite the conundrum, yet we didn’t personally care about these personal conflicting conflicts that conflicted Darwin. Add to all that an endless haunting by his deceased daughter (a toothy Martha West… btw, don’t you hate it when reviewers use the word ‘toothy’ to describe an acting performance when all it really means is that the actor’s teeth stick out more than mos other peoples do????) + Darwin’s own battles with swine and wine flu and you’ve got one creepy and ad nauseum nauseous family drama that would excel elsewhere if it were not a story about Charles Darwin and his book to end all other books of Eli!!! We want more turtles!!! Nature, not nurture!!!

You Filthy Old Soomka: Darwin totally loved himself some tits & ass. the word ‘ass’ appears 6 times in his On The Origin of Species, while ‘breast’ gets love times 5

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

Creation slightly devolves in limited release starting today, where jeepers worth a peepers Soundtrack For A Revolution sings along

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Book of Eli
Better Deso-Late Than Never?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

The sky has fallen, and so has civilization. A man takes to the road, heading anywhere but here, in search of kind man mankind, while also being one of the sole preservers of it. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. Hactually don’t, cause you have, moist recently with the munch better Viggo Mortensen traveled Road, but that didn’t stop The Hughes Bros from heading down the same beaten path with their Book of Eli, a flick more concerned with knife-wielding gunplay, than exploring humanity in inhumane circumstances. The smarter ones of this genre usually try to go there, but that doesn’t mean for a second that the Hughes’ Sergio Leone tinged Children of Men knock-off (the rowboat scene made us cringe with déjà vu) aint entertaining & purty to look it, cause tis is, it’s juss not as deep as it’s necessarily trying to dig. Can you dig?

The man on the westward walk be Denzel Washington (nice to see him at work with the Bros), and nothing will stand in his way, not even an overly hammy Gary Oldman, channeling his Léon: The Professional jerkassedness persona or a slightly out of place Mila Kunis, to wherever he’s going and why he’s headed there. The motives (and result) we aint allowed to divulge, but you can probably guess that it has something to do with a book (and not juss any book!), Eli, and the the. When Eli reveals its reveal, it turns out to be about as shocking as Heidi Montag’s daily plastic surgery itinerary. A repeated viewing with the prior knowledge of said reveal won’t likely produce any dividends (like it did with The Village, which went from Village idiocy to a Village Pantry, overstocked with deliciousness), and that’s a true testament of how half-baked this Book of revelations reads

A Ray of Hope: we’re huge fans of the huge Ray Stevenson (he plays one of Oldman’s right-hand men), and yous probably are too if you ever saw HBO’s brilliant, but canceled Rome. well there’s good news out there that apparently even we somehow missed… a Rome MOVIE is in the werks!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Eli opens today at a theater near jews, where the not so gr8, but not as awful as everyone’s making it out to be Lovely Bones finally rolls out

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Up In The Air
Recycled Air
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

What’s the big deal here? Is there some deep meaning or humanitarian effort we missed amongst the corny dialog and Scott Tissue basic story/toilet paper? Isn’t this juss a reheated/refarted In Good Company? Would there be any applause about this hum-ho Jason Reitman ho-hum movie about people being laid off had people been not mads laid off in real life? Can Up In The Air even be classified as realistic? Can you name one Ivy League grad that uses luggage from 1833? How come not a single flight flown/shown aint at all delayed? Have these peoples even flown out of New York? Is George Clooney really trying really hard to act here or can he only be his smarming movie star self, again and snoozgain? Do we even care? And what about that useless love bit between he and Vera Farmiga? Could he not see that all she wanted was a frequent flied f#ck buddy? Think maybe he shoulda robbed the cradle of perky Anna Kendrick instead? Maybe not? Isn’t there one movie every year that everyone loves and we love to hate? Is this it? Think so? Have any of you peoples who loved this seen the much more poignant Capitalism: A Love Story? Didn’t think so

TWA T&A: there aint nuttin more bootyful in the land of airports than Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal at JFK

Verdictgo: (even though we make it sound Slit Yer Thighs Out…) Very Little Merit AND No Stinkin Badges

Air is currently deflating the hype at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Invictus
An Afrikaaned Job
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Any movie that features Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, a role his DNA was bourne to play, should be a slam down, touch run, home dunk, wham bam bam wham thank you for all the Academy Awards ma’am, righty right? Attach Clint Eastwood as the director, the man who got Freeman his long overdue Oscar for his werk in Million Dollar Baby, and the above should have been true tenfold and been more of a powerhouse than Penfold’s pal Danger Mouse, righty righty right right? YES IT CUSSIN SHOULD HAVE BEEN!! Alas, that’s not what Invictus is

While it woulda been easier, and munch bud wiser to have given us the whole Mandela story, all we gets instead is a pie slice, specifically when he first came into office and thought the best way to unite the minority oppressors and the majority oppressed was by embracing something that one group loved and the other loathed: the national rugby team (headed by Matt Damon, who probably stole his South African accent by watching Lethal Weapon 2 eleven zillion thymes)!! Sounds like it shoulda been sumtang quite inspired and inspiring, but this aint no Apartheid Hoosiers, and so it aint neither inspired nor inspiring!!! WHAT THE GEORDI LAFORGE?!?!?!? Invictus coulda been the third leg in the triple crown of hammazin 2009 South African cinema (District 9 & Skin being the other two), but this tired sports movie (it’s not even close to dethroning the best Rugby movie, The Sporting Life) is all backwards passes and no goings forwards

Rugby Goes Up: parents juss don’t understand. often them old peoples juss think video games have nuttin to teach kids, and while moist of the time they’re probably right, sometimes theys wrongs. how else do you think we learned the rules of rugby? by playing Rugby World Cup 95 on Sega Genesis, that’s how, so eat it parents!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Invictus is currently not so invictorious at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Uncertainty
Two Defaced
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Seen Sliding Doors? Then you’ve already seen a sorta better version of writers/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel‘s Uncertainty. On a lovely July 4th morning, a couple (Lynn Collins and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) stand on the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge and flip a coin to decide whether they head to Brooklyn or to Manhattan. Oh the craziness!! Instead of seeing how one side plays out, we get to see both!!! Goody gum drops!!! Sounds like a doubling of our pleasures, but the two stale tales (one about family dynamics, the other a sore Eagle Eye wrong man on the run thingie), aren’t that compelling enuff to justify your participation in this film school exercise. A muss only for Olivia Thirlby completists

Mos Deaf: J Gordon-Levitt has been tackling tough topics as an actor pretty much since birth. one of his first roles was playing a school kid on Family Ties who totally thinks deaf kids suck [watch]

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Uncertainty opens today in limited release and is currently playing on-demand. Also, forget that 2012 opens today as well!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…