Thighs Wide Shut

New York, I Love You
Heart of Larkness
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

I love New York, and so do you. If we didn’t, what kinda persons would we be? Maybe persons who are lamer than people who owned a LeCar? Speaking of things French, I love Paris, and you do too! And if you didn’t then obviously you’ve never been to the Musée d’Orsay. So many people loved Paris that they made a movie consisting of many short movies professing this love and the love that can be found within, aptly named Paris, Je T’Aime. As planned, New York was up next, same deal, but not same result. Je T’Aime was filled with half goodies and half whatevs.net, but all in all it still maintained our interest throughout. The hit to miss ratio (STILL not the same as comparing Stanley Nickels to Schrute Bucks) for New York, I Love You is much munch lower. And how could it not be when Paris had directors like Tom Twyker, the Coen Bros, Alexander Payne, Olivier Assayas, Wes Craven, Gus Van Sant, et al, and NY got stuck with Brett Ratner(!!!), Allen Hughes, and second-time short maker Natalie Portman (Scar Jo’s entry didn’t make the final cut). The large NY cast may be a bit mo namey than the City of Light’s joint (Shia LaBeouf, Bradley Cooper, Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Robin Wright Penn, Drea de Matteo, Ethan Hawke, Olivia Thirlby, John Hurt, James Caan, Chris Cooper, Anton Yelchin, Maggie Q, Andy Garcia, Julie Christie, Cloris Leachman, Eli Wallach, Burt Young and Irrfan Khan), but pretty faces cannot mask the not so pretty underneathages. And burst of all, the stories themselves don’t really feel very New Yorkie. If Woody/Coppola/Scorsese couldn’t make New York Stories work, how could 10+ directors with not as much skill do one or 10 better?

Love Is Never Having To Say You Play Sorry: what do we love most about NY? there’s too many wondrous thangs from the food, to all dem movies to the pot delievery service to choose juss one, so how about the wurstest??? hands AND thighs down – summer sweating on the subway platform. sure, it’s nice not to own a car and deal with all that crap, but endless cases of swamp a$$ shouldn’t be the reward for being more green than the rest of you folks

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

NY, I Heart You opens in limited release today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Bronson
Jail Wish
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

One day in 1972, a 22 year old man named Michael Gordon Peterson was looking for a purpose in life and found it after being jailed for robbing a post office for a grand total of £26.18 (and no, that wasn’t a very large number back then). For most, the process of living is either halted or temporarily delayed when incarcerated, but for the real life Mr Peterson, who would eventually rechristen himself Charles Bronson, it had the exact opposite effect, as the English penal system somehow liberated his warped mind, taut body and soulless-soul. When he was eventually released, it didn’t take him very long to get right back to where he belonged, behind bars, and due to his unruly hostility towards other inmates and prison employees alike (he’s been dubbed the ‘most violent prisoner in Britain’), he spent a lot of that time in solitary confinement. Bronson was released a second time and didn’t last more than 2 months on the streets before being locked up again, where he’s been ever since

Nicolas Winding Refn‘s visually and aurally arresting (pun intended?) portrait of the man starts off with a bunch o’ big bangs, and as we sat there being udderly mesmerized by this auspicious beginning, we got a gut feeling that this film could end up being one of the bestest, mos inventive ones we’ve seen this decade. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. It didn’t necessarily end with a whimper, but it didn’t really seem to go anywhere cept in the same circle of mischief in which Bronson, goes pound for pound, round and round, again and again. Going nowhere may be the point, but after watching about 30 minutes of it, you kinda want to be released from it on yer own recognizance. Such a pity it turned out this way, as Tom Hardy‘s hard-boiled, no holds barred bars holds brilliant performance as the title character is as eye and thigh opening as Carey Mulligan werk in An Education

Sorry critics, but Bronson is certainly not this generation’s Clockwork Orange, no matter how much Kubricky nods Refn throws up on the screen. Plus anyone who has a cinema brain knows that our generation’s ACO has already been made. It’s called Trainspotting, and it’s the only Danny Boyle piece that truly deserves a Best Picture Oscar

MUST Stache: Bronson/Hardy’s mustache makes us want to eat Pringles and play Tapper all day long!!!

Verdictgo: moist sad to say with all the promise it had, but Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Peter And Vandy
Well, Are They or Aren’t They?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

He’s Peter (Jason Ritter)! She’s Vandy (Jess Weixler)! Together they are Peter AND Vandy! Apart they are still Peter and Vandy! This movie is about… PETER AND VANDY! Sometimes they’re deep in love, in each other’s pants, and other times fighting about nonsensical things like using two knifes to make PB&J. OH THE HUMANITY! Writer/director Jay DiPietro presents their relationship in a low-budget, non-linear, jumpy, in love, out of love manner, and without this lil style choice, P&V woulda been juss another boy meets girl, boy loses girl, enter whatever conventional love story ending you can think of type dealio here. Well, it basically is still that, even with the ‘tricks’, and that is that

Not Coming Soon To A Theater Near Jews, Muslims or Gentiles: Peter Vandy, the biopic!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Sorta Worth A Peepers, we guess?

P&V are together and apart in NY & LA today, while Bronson bides its time in NY only

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Invention of Lying
Lying Is Not Trying
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Ricky Gervais‘ first foray into leading man territory resulted in the lackluster Ghost Town. Granite, that picture’s lameness wasn’t his fault, as he was the only one keeping it from being a complete sappy disaster, but we expected a lot more from the fella that embodied one of the greatest characters of this century, David Brent. So we cut him some slack and figured his next turn, this time doing the (co-)writing and directing himself, would finally bring this comic treasure’s talents to a much deserved wider auidence (we don’t wanna even think about how many people have NOT seen the UK’s Office). Little did we know that his high concept (in a world where everyone tells the truth, Ricky G tells the first lie, and then tells many more to gain wealth, fame, booty, etc) low conceptualization (you get ALL these amazingly funny people in yer movie and give them, and yerself, nothing remotely funny to say or do?? OK, outside of maybe 3 gags) Invention of Lying could possibly top Ghost Town in terms of forgetablenessness. Perhaps Gervais’ secret weapon for comedic success is his writing partner Stephen Merchant. He was left out of Town, and makes only a brief appearance in Lying (with Barry from EastEnders!), so before we cast off Gervais’ motion picture prospects for good, letteuce see how his & Merchant’s Cemetery Junction functions

Merchant-Ivory Tower of Power: in our minds, the impossible has become possible… the US Office has sirpassed the British one in almost all respecks. nice then that they let Gervais and Merchant write one ep, ‘The Convict’, and direct another, ‘Customer Survey’

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Lying is currently playing at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Bright Star
More Boretic Than Poetic
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

John Keats (Ben Whishaw, always at home in period piece garb and dialog) was a poet. That much we already knew. Apparently he totally sweated his landlady’s daughter (Abbie Cornish, as cute as a peach AND a plum!), never got to bone her cause back then people didn’t usually bone people they weren’t married to and he couldn’t marry her cause he had no money prospects and then there’s the whole thing about him dying at the not so ripe age of 25. That much we didn’t know, and now that you know, the only thing yer missing from the picture is the two of them lying in a field of flowers, against a tree, on top of trees, on a couch, on the floor, doing not much else besides a lil kissy kissy here and there, and flubvs course, since this is about a poet, his muse and his poetry, saying sweet nothings. There is no question that Jane Campion has pieced together quite the gorgeous looking film on love without the lust. There is a question as to how much you can take of the sweet nothings that ultimately lead to nothing but heartbreak. Waiting turns out to be not such sweet sorrow. Keats’ BFF Charles Brown (David Gordon Green-grasser Paul Schneider, doing his wurstest Scotty from Star Trek impersonation) is yet another thorn in the lover’s doomed affair. He wants Keats all to himself, in an intellectual way, but based on the way he treats women and fondles Keats’ balls, it might be in a sexual way as well. Hactually, anyone who encounters Keats in the film instantly becomes enamored with him (esp Cornish’s fam, featuring that kid from Love Actually, Kerry Fox and lil newcomer Edie Martin), well, everyone cept for us. Poetry in motion? More like poetry in motionless!

Bonfire Crotches: Abbie Cornish Hornish-dawg is juss one of the 31 beyond beautiful ladies that make up The Vanities Girls

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Bright Star is currently playing in limited release at a theater probably near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Brief Brilliance & Not Much Else, With An Incredible Cast
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Timothy Hutton, Dominic Cooper, Ben Gibbard, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, Lou Taylor Pucci, Bobby Cannavale, Will Arnett, Will Forte, Christopher Meloni, Denis O’Hare, Josh Charles and Frankie Faison (woooah!). None of these men are physically hideous, but what comes out of their mouths could be perceived as hideous, especially when heard thru the ears of a woman (Julianne Nicholson), a woman with a broken heart, who interviews them mens as a graduate school project that doubles as a way to understand why and how her heart was smashed to peaceses. Still with us? Well that’s about all you need to know since any other plot divulging would involve the contents of the interviews. Some of the men’s tales will prick up your ears, particularly Cooper’s, Charles’ and Faison’s, but the rest will go in one ear and come out the other. Is this thing on? Is there anyone out ear? From David Foster Wallace‘s 2000 collection of short stories of the same name, first time writer and director (and producer, and he acts in it too, but it’s not his first time acting) John Krasinski (The Office‘s Jim, for you thick ones out there) translates his words onto the screen and the results feel more like a book reading than something resembling a movie (The Penis Monologues?). We haven’t ever read a page of Wallace, but maybe he’s just one of those authors whose works are literary genius, but ultimately unfilmable (like anything by Kurt Vonnegut). Nice graduate school try Halpert, but your jest-ure is far from infinite

Officemates: besides episodes of The Office, no other cast member has directed a full-length film, eggcept for Jenna Fischer. her LolliLove mockumentary, about handing out lollipops with messages on the wrappers to homeless people, is an absolute travesty of a mockumentary of a sham of a mockumentary of a travesty of two mockumentaries of a sham

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coco Avant (Before) Chanel
Coco Puff Piece
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Coco Before Chanel shows us the first act in (non-Portland) trailblazin designer Coco Chanel‘s life, but it may have been better off focusing in on the other 2/3rds during her more colorful period: Coco During Chanel. Audrey Tautou ‘uglies’ herself up as the title character, and while this gamine is game, the game’s writer/director Anne Fontaine has hatched one which isn’t all that amusing to play. Most of the action centers around the independent woman’s dalliances with men in the French countryside, resulting in her handing out blue balls (her patron, a fingernails on chalkboard annoying Benoît Poelvoorde) and receiving blue nips (Alessandro Nivola, doing his best Jonathan Rhys Meyers impersonation), and while that’s all nice and interesting, all we do as an audience is sit and wait patiently for the moment where she finally hits it big (we believe they call that the ‘payoff’). When the moment does arrive, the film is racing for the credits, and we’re left wanting more. Not the ‘wanting more’ in a good way, but as in we want something a lot more than what we just watched. Had the picture broadened itself to include her entire story Coco Before Chanel coulda been one of the more remarkable female biopic of this decade, alongside the likes of Frida and La Vie en Rose, but it didn’t, so feel free to change the chanel

Coco Vin-Vin Situation: thanks yous Ms Chanel, for making things/boobs like this possible

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coco opens in NY & LA today, while BIWHM tries to get pretty in NY only

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…