Thighs Wide Shut

Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen
Fallen From Grace (Whomever She Is)
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Transformers I was a joyful thrill ride that we never wanted to end. Sure, Michael Bay‘s expen$ive toy chest was dopey, the robot action sequences were cluttered and clunky, and the humans were inhumane, and yet we looked past all the poop, embraced it heavily for what it was, and couldn’t wait to sink our teeth into round 2. And after taking in the bigger, longer, way too longer, way way way way way too longer round 2, our thirst has completely evaporated. We’ve now had our fill of the Autobots and the Decepticons, so no more, please. Really? Yeah, really. Maybe someone should greenlight a GoBots flick and take this roboticism in a whole different direction (we still need to see Asylum’s mastercheeses). Roger Ebert’s review purty much nails a lotta our thoughts to a cross, but the new movie is a lil bit more fun than he makes it out to not be. Guess he couldn’t throw an extra star in juss for the quality Megan Fox ogling. We certainly did

At first, we rolled with the punches, and the punches were punchy, kinda like the Hawaiian Punch guy Punchy. Our old friend Sam (Shia LeBeef, whom we’ve grown to love, even as Mutt) is headed off to college, saying adieu to Ms Fox, the HJ queen and his radio DJ pal Bumblebee. His parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White, aka the fun bunch) have mixed emotions, and by the time they leave him be to party down on campus, our emotions begin to get mixed as well. Ya see, the mos enjoyable parts of this Transformer installment revolve around the humans and not the Transformers, and when yer movie’s about Transformers and they fail to deliver, let alone titillate (the two new jive talking bots are almos mo racist and a bigger disgrace than the Asian dudes from the new Star Warses), there’s something wrong with yer movie. Mad credit to the humans though (minus the military, who needs to be placed in their own movie version of Guantanamo Bay), cause without them (hey, where’d Anthony Anderson‘s character go?) this would be juss a bucket of bolts. They should spin-off the Witwicky clan into their own franchise, and make them take vacations like the Griswolds, where miss and mr adventures ensues! (Also, let it be know that we love saying the name ‘Witwicky’ allowed, but we no love saying the name ‘Mikaela’… apologies to all the Mikaelas out there)

OK, so a plot should be the least of anyone’s concern, but in all honesty, we haven’t a clue as to what the frak went on (more like went on AND on AND on). There’s like a bad robot in space and in order to resurrect some other ancient evil robot that’s been on Earth longer than Joan Rivers they need like a key or something, and Optimus Prime is like part of the key equation, but he gets hurt and is basically down for the count for about a 1/3rd of the time, and so he needs to be resurrected too. Then the action suddenly shifts to the Middle East (including a stop at Petra, where Mutt Williams’ dad and granpappy chose Diet Coke wisely), and juss when we thinks the movie’s coming to some kinda resolution, it turns into an endless hour long scene at the Pyramids of Giza with our human pals, as Mr Ebert perfectly sums up the repetitiveness, ‘running in slo-mo away from explosions‘. Explosions are nice, but the forking robots causing them is once again a mish-mash of confusing metal clashing that’s not easy on the eyes, even if you were blind. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? You can’t tell em apart, and by that point in time, who cares, cause guess who’s gonna win in the end? Hactually nobody, cept the wallets of those involved in making #2 a polished… #2

More Than Meets The Eye For Talent: if there’s one things Michael Bay’s a genius at it’s puttin on the ritz/teets when it comes to the lizadies in his movies. welcome Aussie Isabel Lucas as the latest to join the Fappin Bay ranks

Family Shy: Bay wanted Leonard Nimoy to provide his voice (again) as a Transformer, but chickened out and decided not to ask him. Nimoy is married to Bay’s cousin Susan, and no, she’s not as foxy as Megan, or even Michael J for that splatter

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Transmorphers 2 opens today at a theater near jews, muslims, goys, and even the amish

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Whatever Works
Seriously, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Woody Allen‘s European vacation, including the savory Match Point, the sultry Vicky Christina Barcelona, the fun poop Scoop, and the best of the lot, the underloved Cassandra’s Dream, was such a rousing success that it made the Griswold’s jaunt to the same continent look like a staycation. We hoped the Woodman’s sojourn would never end, but all good things come in their pants, we mean an end, and it was only a splatter of time before he returned to his native New York and park his paranoia. The question is, would his next NY-centric film continue on this new creative march, or juss be more of the same lameness that pre-littered his passport stamps, likeMelinda and Melinda, Small Time Crooksand anything else that was similar to Anything Else. And the answer is… same lameness

The pairing of Larry David and Allen, for his 40th gig as a writer/director, seemed like a stroke of genius, so how then did the finished product turn out to be such a whiff? Slain and pimple, Whatever Works doesn’t really work. It’s mildly amusing, but devoid of any real laffs, even if you wait the entire movie in vain for em. The script was supposedly an old one (is that why it feels so dated?) he had written with Zero Mostel in mind, but Mostel died before he could get it in motion, and it’s probably for the best, as it leaves the wonderful Front as the two’s only cinematic collaboration. David, who’s not really an actor, does a fine enuff job as misanthrope Boris Yellnikoff, but the role, basically a more perturbed version of Allen’s usual nervous nelly screen persona, doesn’t seem to fit into the world that the rest of the movie’s characters live in. Them other characters are sunny and delightful, and the actors playing them try their best with what they’re given. There’s Evan Rachel Wood, basically doing an Amy Adams impression as Boris’ southern Lolita belle Melodie St. Ann Celestine, Patricia Clarkson, as Wood’s conservative mother turned sexually awakened artist, Ed Begley Jr, as her uptight dad who has his own sexual awakening, and The Tudors‘ dreamboat Henry Cavill, who tries to steal Melodie away from Boris. Christopher Evan Welch also gets to show his face after playing the part of VCB‘s narrator. Yet w/o Boris in the picture, the film wouldn’t even be mildly amusing, it would be z-musing, as in snoozzzzzzzzzzzzzzze fest ’87

So, what happened here? Did Woody loose his resurgent mojo on the flight back to JFK? It’s kinda hard to question a man who puts something new out each and every year, even if it doesn’t exactly feel new. Spankfuly, for his next joint Woody’s going back to the old country, and dragging Kidman, Watts, Brolin, Hopkins and Pinto along with him. We haven’t given up completely on his ability to churn out quality NY stories, so for now we’ll juss say, cheerio, but be back soon!

Goying With Our Emotions: NY Mag has a nice little article about the dying brand of Jewish humor that Woody and Larry bring to the table, but outside of Heebs, we doubt many people really care. the only thing goys really need to know about Jewish humor (that will never die) is some good ole Yiddish words and terms, so they too can kvetch like the chosen peoples, or at least understand what they’ve kvetching about. here’s 40 words to get ya started, and here’s two of the greatestest posters of balls thymes

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Til Megadeth Do Us Part
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There are so many documentaries out there about those who have made it, but what about those who are less fortunate, who haven’t quite made it and are forever stuck in obscurity still trying to get to the top? Gawd bless the dreamers, for they give us hope that anything’s possible, even when it isn’t. That’s the story of Canadian trash metal band Anvil, and although Sacha Gervasi(writer of The Terminal and an upcoming Herve Villechaize biopic)’s doc is the story of Anvil (sez so in the title), it’s more about the story of Anvil today than the complete history of Anvil. Guess there’s more humor and sadness looking at their current state of affairs than dwelling on their past, when fame was in their grasp, but were never able to grab hold of it. The line-up has changed over the years, but the core (Jew) duo of lead singer/guitarist Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and drummer
Robb Reiner juss don’t know the definition of quitting, even if that’s what they probably should have done ages ago. Now that the film has found a nice sized audience, setting the twitterverse a blaze with gushing mentions, and the band has been asked to open for AC/DC on a couple of dates next month, quitting no longer is a viable option. Yet when the attention dies down, will they go right back to shmosville? Anvil is mos def worth a peepers, but if yer looking for bigger dreams and perhaps even more heartbreak, czech out The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Chasing Ghosts and In The Realms of The Unreal (and if yer really hard up, here’s a nice list of docs to keep ya busy)

Burn In URL: be sure to czech out Anvil’s website, which looks like it was hobbled together by Mennonites from 1807 (we mean that as a complement), which includes hot merchandise and medium rare photos

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Whatever Works is not working today in NY/LA only, while Anvil is hammering it home in select cities across the country

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Moon
A Space Multiplicity Oddity
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Moon is 2001 with a lot more talking, and besides a few video transmissions from Earth, the only voices we hear are Kevin Spacey‘s, as a monotone robot (big stretch for him), and Sam Rockwell‘s, and… Sam Rockwell’s (a steak sandwich, and a steak sandwich?). You hear Rockwell’s twice cause there ends up being two of Sam’s character in Duncan Jones‘ feature debut (we won’t explain why there are two cause where’s the fun in that?). So lettuce hope yer a big fan of Rockwell, and if you are, yer in for a treat cause as always, he rocks well, but this time twice as rocking… well! Jones is the son of David Bowie, the man who made space travel sound so lonely with his song about Major Tom, and like father, he’s made his own desolate space oddity, visually, and visually stunning at that. The sets, costumes, machinery, et al, owe a lot of debt to the original odyssey of 2001, + all of its 70s imitators, and it’s this throwback aesthetic that makes Moon stand out from today’s other space flicks. The poster even launches higher than most others, so eat it Space Cowboys and Apatow, who will probably make a space ‘comedy’ starring Ken Jeong about the first disgruntled Asian-American in space. Anywho, Moon‘s a trip, and spooky and mesmerizing, and kinda a make-up call for the fun, but bumpy ride that was the cinematic version of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Tell Me Wife I Love Her Very Much She Knows: Rockwell’s Earth wife is played by cutie pie mcgee and apparently mcelligott Dominique McElligott

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Food, Inc.
There Will Be Beef
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was a revelation. Food, Inc is not (neither was the movie version of talking head Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation). What, you didn’t know that the meat produced in this country is disgusting, from the way they ( ‘they’ being a handful of companies that ‘control’ the ‘industry’) feed the animals, to the way they treat them, to the way they slaughter them, to the way they process the meat, to the way they hire poor immigrant laborers to improperly handle it, to the way they have their hands all up in the pockets of the government (name one industry that doesn’t), to the way it finally gets packaged and sent to our grocery stores and restaurants and ultimately into our mouths? It has to get there somehow, doesn’t it? Sure it’s gross, and of course there are better ways to deliver quality and safe meats, as the movie points out, but to be brutally honest, we don’t care. If it aint baroque, don’t fix it. We mean, we don’t care if 34893294 zillion chickens had to be tortured in order to make fried chicken taste so forkin good. Seriously. Sure, we’re in the wrong here, but like with Super Size Me, all the doc did was reinforce our love of the meat that we’re already being force-fed. To hell with Apatow, cause we’ll eat it ourselves!

2 Die For: this probably needs to be updated a bit (Amy Ruth’s > Ms Mamie’s Spoonbread), but long live our Places To Eat B4 U Die list, which is loaded with greasy spoon spots that use gross meat. so be it!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Moon opens today in NY/LA only, while Food does the same + eats it in SF as well

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Outrage
Closet Cases Opened
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There are gay people everywhere! In sports! In politics! In cars! In utero! In Uranus! But back to the politics thing… There are indeed gayz people in politics, but it’s not so crystal Pepsi clear as to who is boner fide gay cause our country isn’t all that lady gaga for gaylord perrys, which is totally stoopid cause gay people are juss like you and we, but they like to make love more than you do, and usually do it with people of a similar sex. Anywho, back to the/our point: there are gay people in politics. Unless them gay pols are comfortable in their own skin, like takin it in the MASShole Congressman Barney Frank, mos keep that kinda hot button info in the closet (like MJ shoulda done with this video). Now staying closeted is understandable cause our country is totally gay, but in a lame way, not in a gay way, but it is completely uneggceptable when such people end up with voting records that are steep deep in opposition of gay rights and recognition. And that’s what Kirby Dick‘s doc is all about, the outting of several Washingtonian playas (sometimes with flimsy evidence and hearsay, although it’s interesting to hear what they say, including Jim McGreevey) who need to be outted by others cause they may be gay and if they are indeed gay then why are they so against gay people? That’s what most openly gay people want to know, and they are OUTRAGEd!! And even if yer straighter than George Strait, it’s umpossible for you to walk away not feeling the same way

Hip 2 Be Full Circle: every time we hear the word ‘hypocrisy‘ (as heard in the film about a flozen times) we think of the early 90s Michael Franti fronted group, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and every time we think of them we think of their incredible Dead Kennedys cover(ish) ‘California Ãœber Alles‘ [d] (this particular version is a remix that appeared on the DK tribute album Virus 100)

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

What Goes Up
(this is too ez) …Must Come Down
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Remember teacher turned Challenger astronaut victim Christa McAuliffe? If you lived in the 80s you moist certainly do and if you didn’t live in the 80s, then have you truly lived? Seriously, have you? We had New Coke, Max Headroom and Max’s Video from The Lost Boys and you didn’t. Sorry, we got off track here, so back to the point: there are gay people in politics. Wait, we already went there, done that, been went done. OK. What Goes Up is not really about Christa McAuliffe, although she’s the background that keeps us slightly interested as to what’s going on in the foreground. Reporter Steve Coogan arrives to McAuliffe’s New Hampshire hometown, days before the shuttle’s launch, and as soon as he’s settled in to town, so does the film, and anything cinematic about it. Coogan meets and gold bonds with a bunch of kids who are deeply wounded after their beloved teacher suddenly dies (wait, this is a story about 2 dead teachers?), and the wordy word fest begins and never ends and the film reverts back into it’s original source material, a play. By the intermission, you’ll probably have had enuff (fythighs – movies don’t have intermissions anymore… last one we remember with one was Spike Lee’s Malcolm X… speaking of, here’s an online article about that movie from 1991!! was there even an internet in 1991? was there life before the internet? actually there was, it was the 80s and Max Headroom was drinking New Coke)

While the film qwikly loses it’s luminosity, it’s bright young cast doesn’t fade out for a second. There’s Hilary Duff (we love that she keeps trying like crazy to shed her ye olde Disney ways with edgier roles, and for the most part of her young career, it’s been working), Olivia Thirlby and Josh Peck (another Disney alum), and yes those last two were in The Wackness together and this film is kinda like that film cause it’s a bit wack, but it also has a lil bit of jazz hands, at the hands of Molly Shannon, so it’s also a bit like Coogan’s mildly amusing, but ultimately underwhelming Hamlet 2. What Goes Up is like The Letness Wackham 2. You bet it is! Sure wish writers Robert Lawson and Jonathan Glatzer (also handling the directing duties) brought McAuliffe’s tragedy to the front of the line, cause her story deserves its own movie and this movie coulda been that movie. Also, another movie wethinks this movie shoulda coulda would been would revolve around the nutty ultradynamic duo of Ingrid Nilson and Andrea Brooks. They’re like the Grey Gardens gals, but both young and out of the house, and as we all know, girls are more fun outta the house than they are in the house (see Rachel Ray’s $40 A Day as an example vs her unwatchable shows where she’s stuck in a studio). C’mon, tell us you don’t want to see a whole movie based around this character…

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

What Goes Up opens today in limited release, where Outrage is already fortunate

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Easy Virtue
Noël Coward
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

A dashing young Englishman (Ben Barnes, being a little less wooden here than he was playing Narnia’s Prince Caspian) is swept off his feet by a brash, independent American (Jessica Biel, not proving too much in a blond wig with dyed hair), and after a whirlwind marriage, it’s off to meet his snooty family (buttoned-up Kristin Scott Thomas, permadrunk Colin Firth, and nosy sisters Katherine Parkinson and Kimberley Nixon… more on her below) at their vast countryside estate. It quickly becomes apparent that the American aint too fond of the fam’s quaint uppercrustednessness (cept she does take to black sheep Firth) and in return, they aint too fond of her truth, justice and American ways (cept for Firth, duhvs course), and so a bunch of misbehaving rolls out and a comedy of manners ensues. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s purty much the set-up for like 50% of all British movies involving Americans, and this one is 51% fun and 49% run of the mill. Based off of a Noël Coward play, writer/director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) keeps the affair light and breezy, while the witty one-liners pop out to little or no effect on the audience’s end. Most of the chuckles are served up by the manor’s manservant, played with much reserved verve by Kris Marshall (the dude in Love Actually who went to America to have threesome with Ivana Milicevic, January Jones, and Elisha Cuthbert & also seen in the beyond thighlarious Death At A Funeral), who in our humboldt opinion, deserves a break out role a little bit more than Timberlake’s ladyfriend does. Easy Virtue is certainly easy on the eyes, with it’s lush green settings and dainty flapper wardrobes, but had it been a lil bit more difficult, it also might have been a lot more virtuous

Welsh’s Great Juice: there may only be 50 women in all of Wales, but we’d have to agree that cutie pie mcgee Kimberley Nixon is probably the top of them hots! can’t wait to see her in Cherrybomb, where she pops Ron Weasley’s cherry!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

New World Order
Paranoid Park Rangers
Official Website + Trailer

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! That’s what many a conspiracy theorists are saying, claiming that there’s a… NEW WORLD ORDER at hand, pulling all the strings (juss like Bela said) behind the scenes, and yet, not that many people are listening to them. Luke Meyer & Andrew Neel‘s thighopening and fascinating doc introduces us to a handful of these American truth seekers and a lil bit about their causes (ringleader and entertaining radio loudmouth Alex Jones, 9/11 disbelievers Luke Rudkowski and newish convert Seth Jackson, and Jack McLamb, a former cop who lives in fear with guns up in the mountains). The film plays fair by showing them on and off their soapboxes, which makes ’em look like half whack jobs, and half juss regular concerned citizens who demand answers. New World Order raises a lot of valid questions, and you might also start demanding some of dem answers yerself. That’s a hella lot more useful than Mel & Julia’s Conspiracy Theory ever twas

JF-KO-ed: no one questions authority like Oliver Stone does, so there muss be no better place for conspiracy theorists to vacay other than Oliver Stoneland (this never gets old)

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Virtue opens today in NY & LA, while New World Order causes disorder in NY only, but will air on IFC next Tuesday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…