Thighs Wide Shut

Ready Player One
Props Culture
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 140 min

At the close of last year, I bemoaned that The Post was material not worthy of Spielberg’s talents.  He’s a great history teacher, but I prefer him as a science(-fiction) professor.  Take his Lincoln, his Bore Horse, his Bridge of Thighs (two of which were good movies), and erase his names off of them.  Let someone else direct those movies.  Give me more of his The Adventures of Tintin.  Did you see that movie?  It was STUNNING.  I wanted him to make 239239239 more of them.  He didn’t, but hey, my post-Post prayers have been answered in his big screen version of Ernest Cline‘s Ready Player One book (which I sadly didn’t read, but now maybe should have).  THIS is the kind of movie Spielbergo needs to direct.  This material isn’t beneath him, nor above him – it suits and fits him perfectly like a Power Glove

Spielberg made his mark in the 80s.  Ready Player One is a movie/book love letter to that time, and even to the movies he made and produced (Back To The Future!  Jurassic Park).  And it feels like a Spielberg extension of the leap he took when he finished Kubrick’s A.I..  A.I. was his love letter to Kubrick, and it didn’t feel like a Spielberg movie whatsoever, and that’s part of what makes it such an incredible undertaking and end result.  I mean, look at this!

And with RPO, Spielberg is free of Kubrick’s ghost and essentially makes his own A.I.

Now I’m not going to say that RPO is perfect – it’s not – it does better with the virtual gamer sh!t than it does with the reality real world stuff, and the ending was kind of a meh drop off, but it’s one fcuking hell of a visual ride that must be taken on the big screen.  My jaw was dropping endlessly, and my eyes kept popping out, not believing the unbelievable things it was seeing (spoiler alert – The Shining stuff alone is worth the price of admission).  It’s like a Tintin adventure for the modern and future-modern times.  Most importantly – it just works.  It works, where other films like it should have worked but just didn’t, like Speed Racer, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Tron: Legacy, Sucker Punch, and even Back To The Future II

And what really worked for me was that it’s a movie that takes place in 2044, but it feels like an 80s movie.  The good guy is our Marty McFly-type (Tye Sheridan, who made his debut with Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, a visual feast as well), the bad guy is straight out of any 80s movie evil corporate boardroom (Ben Mendelsohn, who should be in EVERYTHING), and the ghost hanging over the whole affair (not Kubrick) is a cross between Steve Jobs and Louis Tully (Mark Rylance, nailing the nerdy awkwardness, kinda like he was Mitch from Real Genius).  Not sure how 80s Olivia Cooke‘s character was, but I love her and her eyes, and it had to be said

Spielbergo, I’m ready for more, player.  So why are you bothering with remaking West Side Story?  Are you too close to George Lucas to touch a Star Wars movie?  You wanna remake something?  REMAKE THE PREQUELS!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Player One is Ready for you today at a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Tree of Life
Endless Days of Heaven
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 138  min

What is The Tree of Life?  Is it life?  Is it tree?  Is it of?  Is it Terrence Malick‘s masterpiece above all of his other masterpieces or close to it? Is it 2+ hours of trying to be good/tuff dad Brad Pitt saying ‘hit me‘?  Is it 32 minutes of Sean Penn looking glum and tired, as his walks around cool modern buildings in Texas AND dusty western vistas?  Is it trying to compare wonderful and volatile mother nature vs wonderful and fancy-free mother nurture (Jessica Chastain), who obeys her husband, adores her children and our maker, runs on beds and sometimes floats on air?  Is it playful and mischievous, like their three sons (Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler and Tye Sheridan)?  Is it the bestest planetarium footage not seen in a planetarium?  Is it really that sunshiney every 8 seconds? Is it Sunday thru Saturday Evening Post beyond picture perfect looking? Is it really only released in a 2-D version?  Is it the most thoughtful dinosaur movie that isn’t a dinosaur movie?  Is it truly meaningful or is it juss a bunch of phooey baloney or is it both?  Is it poetry in motion?  Is it motion in poetry?  Is it one long montage meditation trying to pass itself off as a movie? Is it even a movie?  Is it over our heads?  Is it the 2001 II we’ve all been waiting for?  Is it American, while feeling and being foreign cause American flicks are barely this ambitious and beautiful anymore?  Is it possible that some other movie could one-up this and win Best Picture?  Is it possible you will hate this cause of its loose narrative?  Is it possible yer an idiot if you boo this?

Is it all of these things?  Is it not?  IS IT???

House As A Life: let the pilgrimages begin!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Tree is miracle growing in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…