Thighs Wide Shut

Be Kind Rewind
Betamaxminimum
Trailers & Mo

Michel Gondry’s ideas are getting bigger, but his films aren’t necessarily getting better. No one would ever deny the fact that he’s a true artist, in any medium really, but then again, no one would probably admit to watching Science of Sleep [TWS review] a second time. Besides the brilliant Eternal Sunshine [WS review], none of his other films have hit the nail on the head, only getting a passing grade cause they’re so cool to watch (DP’s Block Party doesn’t count). Be Kind Rewind is juss the latest to join dem ranks, but the novelty is starting to wear thin. The idea of Jack Black erasing an entire video store’s inventory of VHS tapes, forcing him and store clerk nice guy Mos Def to recreate them in a mos basic DIY kinda way (or as they call it ‘swede a film’) is rather nifty on paper, but after you see the fruits of their labor on VHS, you’ll be wishing you could skip ahead, like you can on a DVD (or should that read Blu-Ray now?). Once Gondry has had his fill of fun with his playful swedes (send ups include: Ghostbusters, King Kong, Driving Miss Daisy, Rush Hour 2 etc, etc), the story attempts to find some meaning in it all. While the conclusion is sweet and good-natured, its juxtaposition to the silliness it follows doesn’t add up to anything more than a great idea that juss looks cool. We tried to be as kind as we could, but now it’s time to FFwd to the next Gondry joint. Regardless, we can’t wait

Genius Loves His Own Company: Gondry sweded the original trailer! SWEEEDTT!!

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Gondry is always worth a Peeper, but this one is juss Sum Merit But Not Stinkin Badges

Charlie Bartlett
Student R_xchange Program
Trailers & Mo

We’re starting to grow tired of precocious young Anton Yelchin, and it has nothing to do with his weasel voice or mop top hair, although it certainly doesn’t help his case. How many times does he have to play a doe-eyed smarmy know-it-all skinny kid, endlessly cursin for a bruisin (Hearts of Atlantis, Alpha Dog)? Great question, but an even better one is why do we keep rooting for him to get his a$$ handed to him? He certainly got his just desserts in the little seen earnest mess that was Fierce People [TWS review], and it happens once again in the beginning of the very vanilla coming of age ‘comedy’ Charlie Bartlett. The two films are similar in a lot of respects, cept FP is actually interesting and CB is juss plain ole lame. Long time editor (of Jay Roach’s movies) and first time director Jon Poll certainly gives it the old high school try, and while his portrayal of teens may be a bit more realistic than what we’ve seen in cinema recently, there’s nothing visually or audibly stunning going on here to make up for the blah blah blah. Not even the supporting work of Robert Downey Jr. or Hope Davis can help to add a beat to the DULLdrums. We hope (Davis) Yelchin gets quite the licking in his next pics, as Chekov 2.0 in the new Star Trek and sum Russkie in the tATu movie

Ice Ice Daddy : Anton’s parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were a Russian figure skating team (explains a lot). His dad went on to become Sasha Cohen’s first coach. No word if papa had anything to do with these racy of pics of the adorable pixie

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): not enuff merit for badges, so this one is Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous

both films open in theaters tomorrow

Rental Round-Up Dawg: if you have as big a hard-on as we do for Fincher’s Zodiac and/(wh)or(e) the case in general then ya gotta czech out Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (tis a part of that boxset seen below). The film musta been watched by the killer him/herself cause the killer in the film is called Dr Zodiac and he sends taunting messages about his crimes to peeps all over San Fran!!!! It’s not only worth the peep for that reason, but it’s really effin entertaining AND it’s only like 73 minutes!! Plus Cesar Romero is in it and he didn’t even have to paint his mustache!!!! We hearted it so much that we’re planning to watch all of the Charlie Chan movies… even though it’s strange that they have a white dude playing an Asian fellow. At least it’s not as racist as the yellofacin’ of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s

And since there’s no originality left in this remake age, be sure to seek out Death Race 2000 in all it’s cheesy glory before the Jason Statham-Joan Allen vehicle (pun intended) hits screen this fall. Same goes for the TV series Get Smart, which gets the big screen adaptation treatment this summer with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway as Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 respectively. It was one of our father’s favorite shows and ours too. If you’ve never seen it, there’s no better time than today to start! The good folks at Time-Life released a complete collection that includes ALL 138 eps, plus a ton o’ bonuses, including, but certainly not limited to audio commentaries by creators Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, OG Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) and many more. Sadly Don Adams passed away two years ago, but he will never be forgotten!

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Step Up 2 The Streets
410h Yeaaaaaah!!!
Trailers & Mo

Had we never been entranced slightly amused by Step Up 1 [TWS review] you wouldn’t be reading this right now. And if you never saw Step Up 1, you probably shouldn’t bother with its sequel, which really has nothing to do with the first one, other than the locations and a brief dancing cameo by Channing Tatum (G.I. Joer Duke). The cast refresh for SU2TS is a good thing, although the faux Channing Tatum isn’t as charming as the real thang, and going from Rachel Griffiths to this d-bag is beyond a Step DOWN. And the plot? Who cares when there’s plenty o’ gyratin’ and ass-shakin’ to be done (esp in that hot wet scene at the end), that’s all nicely packaged in a PG-13 kinda way. This baby is (Balti)more or less the bestest/worstest dance sequel since Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, even if it make about as much sense as Giuliani’s presidential campaign. What more is there to say cept Briana Evigan > Jenna Dewan, duhvs!

we hope to see Evigan (who reminds us of a younger version of Lisa Sheridan) again and again

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): sorta Jeepers Worth A Peepers, but only if you enjoyed SU#1

Cloverfield
The Who Cares Which Project
Trailers & Mo

85 minutes of shaky camera work is quite the assault on the eyes. But we’d choose that torture 4 zillion outta 4 zillion and 1 times instead of listening to the character ‘Hud’ babble on for any longer than 3 seconds. The special effected destruction of NYC was purty darn cool, but giving it the backseat to the perils of a few lameazoid twentysomethings was the wrong way to go. So what woulda been the right way? A film adaptation of the classic game Rampage. Not a total loss, cause we’d totally bang Odette Yustman in that hole in her shoulder. YUMM-O!!

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

both flicks be in theaters NOW

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
(4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile)
Bucharestless
Trailers & Mo

And the worst date movie of 2008 is… 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days! Why? One word: abortion. Urggggggggh. Always a hot topic worth exploring, but it always makes for the mos uncomfortable night at the cinema. Vera Drake was as cuddly as an abortion flick could get, but after digesting last year’s engrossing and gross doc Lake of Fire, we’ve had about enuff of the subject. Once you’ve see a real aborted fetus on screen, do you really need to see a fake one? Please don’t answer that, but if yer looking to dump or get dumped by your significant other, take em to this and tell it’s the mos romaniatic movie ever. And it won’t be a total lie since it was made in Romania

Not To Be Confused With: Arrested Development’s 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of…

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Untraceable
Offline
Trailers & Mo

We never saw FeardotCom, but if we put it and the run-of-the-millibyte cyber-crime capper Untraceable to a blind taste test, would anyone notice the difference? Actually, would anyone be willing to even take this test? Hell, if someone was forced to watch both in back to back sittings, we’re sure they’d go blind! Not to say that Untraceable is unwatchable, cause it’s not, but it’s uninspired, unthrilling, and may or may not be sponsored by the un-cola. You know there’s something not quite right when the biggest thrill in the movie is cheering on the torture of Colin Hanks

Take 2: BWE came up with a better idear… Unreadable

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Michael Clayton
Sadly Not About The Tampa Bay Buc
Trailers & Mo

Big bidness, bad practices, and whistling blowing. Apparently that trio is a winning recipe for Academy Award recognition. It’s been proven before with the smoothness of Silkwood, the bestness that was The Insider and the boobs of Erin Brockovich (Ellen Burstyn’s thumbcredible work in Requiem for a Dream was so hosed that year for the Best Actress statuette). Guess it didn’t hurt to give the formula another go, but while Michael Clayton may be well intentioned, it’s kinda formulaic to say the least. Sure the acting is top notch, Tommy Wilks has never been better, Tilda Swinton finally gets a meaty role that people will actually see, and George Clooney excels without having to resort to his trademark smirk and head bobbing, but how can a movie try to be relevant if it has nothing new to convey? Don’t know the answer, but maybe Shiva, the god of death, does

Buc The Trend: other Tampa Bay Bucs whose names also deserve a movie… BJ Askew (a porn star with multiple personalities), Cato June (a prequel about the Green Hornet‘s partner and the awesome summer month when he learned to kick ass!), Luke Petitgout (with a name like that, does it even matter what it is about?) and Jeremy Trueblood (a Najavo chief becomes the first Native American IN SPACE!!!)

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Taxi To The Dark Side
It’s Not Fare
Trailers & Mo

The message is quite clear, but that won’t stop filmmakers from saying it again and again: Ever since we started chasing the bad guys in a post 9/11 world, shiz has be beyond awful, and thunderdome. Well if Road To Gitmo or No End In Sight wasn’t enuff to boil yer blood 11 times over, then you may want to take a ride with the Taxi To The Dark Side. It’s another eye and thigh opening look at the US’s shady policies and dirty dealings, this time zeroing in on how we handle supposed terror suspects off our shores, and in a lot of cases, in excruciating detail. Taxi leaves behind director Alex Gibney’s flashy stylings that worked so well in his brills Enron doc, and instead goes for a more straight-forward approach. We were a lil disappointed at the lack of flash, but nonetheless, Gibney (who also exec-prod-ed No End In Sight) gets the point across, and that’s all that really matters

Rummy Cube: Donald Rumsfeld has built up quite the IMDb resume since 2002. Sure, mos of his screentime is jus
s recycled archival footage, but besides Billy Mitchell, is there a better villain going in documentaries these days than DR?

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Clayton and Taxi are already in theaters, and Untraceable and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days will join them tomorrow. Also opening is The Air I Breathe [trailers], which we saw at the Tribeca FF and said… ‘We’ve all seen Crash and therefore we’ve all already seen The Air I Breathe.’

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Charlie Wilson’ War
Making An Afghanistand
Trailers & Mo

The tale of how former House Rep Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks back in fun mode), Texas socialite Joanne Herring (the always annoying Julia Roberts) and CIA Agent Gust Avrakotos (P.S. Hoffman who is the very definition of a best supporting actor) orchestrated the ‘largest covert operation in history’ during the Soviet war in Afghanistan is so beyond extraordinary that one could easily believe the whole thing was drummed up by Dustin Hoffman’s uber-producer character from Wag The Dog. And by the way the movie based on that very true story zips right along, with typical Aaron Sorkin talky flair and cruise-control direction by Mike Nichols, one could still buy into the notion that it’s all fictional. Fo reals or fo reels, it don’t matter, cause Charlie Wilson’s War works well enuff as an entertaining political flick that doesn’t hit you over the head with its message. The same can’t be said of a bunch of other flicks released this fall that all fizzled at the box office. Who knew that the Cold War could be such a hot genre? Here’s hoping the next war that gets the cinematic greenlight is the Cola one!

Cowpoking This Cowgirl: War is loaded with hotties, including Charlie’s 4 angelsz, but how bout that belly-dancer, eh? Well that jazzlin lil girl is nun other than Dallas Cowboy coach Wade Phillips’s own lil girl Tracy, whom we told u bout during our NFC pee view back in Zeptember

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Savages
Old Age Moan
Trailers & Mo

Sorry folks, this isn’t the long awaited biopic about brothers Ben and Fred that you’ve been anxiously waitin all dem wondrous years for. What it is is a sweet and dreary lil story about a brother and sister (independent film’s reigning king and queen, PSH again, and Laura Linney) forced back into the life of their neglectful father (Philip Bosco, handing in some Oscar-worthy work) after he smears poo on a wall and has nowhere to call home. They have to find him a home and shuttling their dementia-ridden patriarch between hospitals and nursing homes is the name of the game for this dramedy. The laffs here are well needed to balance the sad parts, although the film coulda been more memorable had dem parts been a wee weepier. The Savages is writer/director Tamara Jenkins’s follow-up to her delicious Slums of Beverly Hills… a movie released almost a decade ago. Lettuce hope she doesn’t take another Terrence Malick-like sabbatical before making her next delightful triffle

Savage Beasts: speaking of Ben and Fred, the two have appeared together three times, once on each other’s hit shows disrespectively and on the big screen in the shit movie Little Monsters

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)
Some Children Left Behind
Trailers & Mo

If you’ve seen The Others then you really have no reason to see The Orphanage. Everything’s purty darn similar, from the film’s titles, to the big olde creaky house, to the worrisome mother looking after her odd child, and even down to the solid production values. The only big differences are the spoken language and the nagging fact, besides a few doors slammed, that The Orphanage isn’t that scary. Don’t know what it’s trying to be, but if it’s aiming for something else, it aint working, juss jerking. Shame too, cause that kid with the fubared potato sack mask had the potential to be the biggest and baddest boogeyman since Leatherface sliced it up in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This film was presented by Guillermo del Toro. Maybe it shoulda been directed by him too

A Mother From Another Others?: oddly enuff, Belén Rueda, who plays the worrisome mother, co-starred in Others director Alejandro Amenábar’s Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside), aka our #1 flick of 2004

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

The Orphanage opens tomorrow in limited theaters

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The Art of Shaving
Trailers & Mo

Sweeney Todd marks the 6th pairing of director Tim Burton and his muse Johnny Depp (also the 5th one with his other muse and fiancée, Helena Bonham Carter). And for those keeping score at home, including the bloody good time that is Todd, this makes a total of 5 hits and 1 near miss (that being C & The C Factory). It may not the best of that bunch, but it’s certainly one of the best films being released in this jam-packed Holiday month. Burton-Depp Statistics aside, this 3 hour Stephen Sondheim Broadway show slit down to a 2 hour audio/visual fun fest puts all the other recent movie musicals to shame. Dreamgirls was a nightmare, Hairsparay didn’t stick and Chicago was a chicagoat, but Sweeney Todd was oddly sweet. For once, the songs worked to enhance the story, not take away from it. It probably helped Burton’s cause that he cast great actors who could sorta sing instead of casting actors who could sing great. Enter Depp, Bonham Carter, and Sasha Baron Cohen (in a very brief, but memorable role as a rival barber). They may not be classically trained vocalists, but yer gonna have so much fun watching them mince words and pies that it won’t matter, so just sit back and enjoy the splatter!

Hairy Shearers: we live in one state and grew up in another, and that’s why we heart two places to get our haircut at, Seven Locks Barbershop in Merryland and Brothers Barbershop in NYC

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Breast In Show

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Comes Purty Close To Sucking Cox, Hard
Trailers & Mo

Spoofin aint easy. For every slaptastic Airplane! there’s about 17 boovies like Epic Movie. Even parody masters like Mel Brooks and the ZAZ trio have handed in a boatload of clunkers in their time. A ray of hope shinned mighty brightly on Dewey Cox, a take off of heavily Oscar-baited musician biopics, especially with all them notes being scripted by comedy man of the moment Judd Apatow. Yet for all its showy showmanship, spanning the birth of rock and every genre that followed it, Cox aint no symphony, just another middle of the road comedy yielding nuttin but cheap laffs (in particular the lame Jewish jokes that not even Blanche Knott would find truly tasteless). Sure, the songs John C Reilly belts are quite nifty, the costumes and scenery are beyond chewable, and Jenna Fischer has never been lovelier, but to smoke it bluntly, this comedy really isn’t all that funny. We’re sure many of you all will disagree with our assessment (the other critics already have), but if you think for one moment that the bit where Dewey meets the Beatles is tat all humorous, then there will be b(l)oo(d)!!!

Je T’aime The Savage Beast: doesn’t Ma Cox (Margo Martindale) look darn familiar? If you saw Paris, je t’aime, she starred in the best vignette of dem all, Alexander Payne’s 14th arrondissement. Watch it here

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

both Sweeney & Cox open in theaters this Friday

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…