Thighs Wide Shut

how in the House of Mirth did we miss the non-denominational non-phenomenon that went on and on and on that went by the nom Celebrity X-Ray Photo/Breast Enhancements? [NSFauxW]

Paraguayan javeliner Leryn Franco

American javeliner Lamar Latrell

Jemaine chooses his jemaine (wo)man

you are not what you own: Dischord Records goes digital

Gavin Rossdale’s daughter shows us her BUSH [NSFW]

I Left My Death Star in San Francisco

Zodiac letter receiver Melvin Belli as Star Trek‘s Gorgan [Time Werespanko]

the movie poster quiz [Ross At Our Balls]

geeky stained glass windows [b3ta]

and

slides from a les ghetto IBM presentation about crappy computers of the future!

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
A Latesummer Night’s Sex Dramedy
Trailers & Mo

The two names that proceed Barcelona in the title are two American tourists BFFs who are spending a month long holiday in Spain’s second largest city before heading back to reality. Vicky (Rebecca Hall, with the film’s finest performance, which is saying something considering how great everyone else is), essentially the Woody Allen character here, is the straight-laced one with her future well planned out, including her upcoming marriage to a boring NYC finance guy (Chris Messina). Cristina (Scarlett Johansson, who always exudes sexy, and awkward acting) on the other hand, is the free spirit, ready for whatever adventure comes her way. One night, while the two are dining in a restaurant, a famed local painter named (Don) Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) approaches them with an offer to whisk them away for a whirlwind weekend of fine wine, art and fornication. Cristina is overly charmed and ready to jump in, and while Vicky is hesitant at first, she ultimately agrees to join them. Juan Antonio guns for Cristina, but she gets very sick after a heavy night of drinking, forcing him to spend the next day and night with Vicky. She tries her best to resist his charms, but this is Javier Bardem we’re talking about! The two tryst it up, leaving her shaken and stirred. The threesome return from the weekend, and Cristina and Juan Antonio pursue a steamy relationship, while Vicky starts to second guess her life’s plan and pending nuptials, finding a good ear in an expat who’s been in a similar situation (Patricia Clarkson)

It sounds like there’s enuff drama here to fill up the rest of the film, but things get a lot more interesting when Juan Antonio’s ex-wife and soul mate Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz, whose English keeps gettin better flick by flick, but is at her best when speaking in her native Spanish tongue) reenters his life and lights the screen on fire. She’s down in the dumps and Juan A has no other choice but to let her live with him and Cristina. It’s an fragile grouping from the get go, but by looking at the image above, you juss know things will eventually get a lil bit saucy between them. Yes, there’s a ménage à trois between beautiful peoples Bardem, Cruz and Johansson, but before you pack yer Kleenex and Jergens lotion and head off to the theater with yer pants around yer cankles, please note that this hot action occurs, sadly, off screen, save a lil smooching d-tease. Don’t let this panty bunching prevent you perverts from seeing Woody Allen’s latest European Vacation, which is dripping with plenty o’ luscious lust-er, and gorgeous scenery that isn’t flesh-based

While not as brilliant as Match Point, or as goofy as Scoop, or as gripping as the vastly underrated Cassandra’s Dream, VCB is still an enjoyable romp around the Iberian Peninsula. The more the Woodman stays away from Manhattan, the less his movies feel like… a Woody Allen movie, and after a decade of mediocrity, this is a mos welcome sojourn. Must be something in the Old World’s water that has the ability to tone down his usual New World neurosis and output something that feels fresh, yet still retains a hint of the Allentown we all love to keep visiting year after year. VCB‘s got more charm than a 24 pack of Charmin, so break out the rolls and wipe this baby up!

Voice Male: the film’s narrator, Christopher Evan Welch, is most well known for providing the voice of Tails in the cartoon The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog when he was a kid. these days, you can hear his growns up vox on many an audiobooks

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

A Girl Cut In Two
(La Fille Coupée En Deux)
An Obtuse Astute Love Triangle
Trailers & Mo

Lovely TV weather gal Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier, for once, not in NSFW mode) has gots some men issues. She’s the part-time mistress of a renowned French author (François Berléand, last seen as the police detective in Tell No One), who totally enjoys a good tumble under the sheets, but he can’t really commit to her, being married and taking frequent trips to an high-brow sex club. Then there’s the wealthy brat Paul (Benoît Magimel), who will stop at nothing to win her affection, although he only seems to love himself, and his hamazin hair. As the author starts to pull away, tearing Gabrielle’s heart… IN TWO, she finds uneasy comfort in Paul’s arms. While Paul may have won the prize, he can’t help but feel like sloppy seconds. This leads him to do something quite dastardly that we won’t reveal here. The plot is hactually based on what this man did to Madison Square Garden (version II)’s architect (don’t click one the first link unless you want yer milk spoiled), and it isn’t even the first time these events have been fictionalized. It was the subject, mos famously, of the 1955 film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing and the 1975 novel Ragtime. French New Wave director Claude Chabrol blends the love tragedy in Girl with some nice bits of humor, and shows that for a septuagenarian juss like Allen, he isn’t showing any signs of rust. And while we’re still figuring out what exactly happened at the end, we suggest y
ou start at the beginning

E Femme Rule: Paul’s sisters are quite the cutie patooties. pay love and respek to Clémence Bretécher and Charley Fouquet

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Anita O’Day:
The Life of a Jazz Singer
Not All That Jazz
Trailers & Mo

Anita O’Day led a mos colorful life. Nicknamed The Jezebel of Jazz, her unique voice has stood the test of time (peep Ms O’Day at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival kick out the jams ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ and ‘Tea For Two’), even dropping her last album right before she passed on at age of 87. She’s been as highly revered as such other legends as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn, sang alongside sum luminary musicians like Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton, and had more than her fair share of professional and personal highs (she loved to drink and smoke marijuana) and lows (and dabble with heroin and multiple husbands as well). This basic documentary, pieced together over 4 years by her adoring manager Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden, shines when the camera’s pointing at Anita, but the rest of the other surrounding pitter-patter will probably only eggcite the diehard fans, which leaves the uninitiated feeling that if it don’t mean a thing, it juss aint got that swing

Hat Tip: although currently not available on DVD, don’t forget to seek out Hats Off, about another classy olde dame by the name of Mimi Weddell

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

all three films open in limited release today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

the Summer Olympics aint nearly as cool as the Winter ones, but nuttin is as hotttt as this above snap of German Judo honey Romy Tarangul, on display with 3 other damen in the latest issue of the Fourth Reich’s Playboy [NSFW via w/Leather]

even more Steve Gutenberg articlage, including tales of being trapped on Long Island by a woman who has a myspace page for her cat!

a preview of Lucy Pinder’s 2009 calendar, complete with annoying watermarks! [NSFW]

Thomas Turgoose’s first audition. who? shut yo mouth and Netflix This Is England already

Melissa Theuriau Topless and Pregnant, but not necessarily in that order

Montana man ‘solves’ Zodiac ciphers, but has yet to crack the mystery that is Steve Cyphers

Корчим рожи muss be Russian for smooshing an Asian baby’s face

death from my old stomping, i mean “pooing” grounds

it’s a tarp

CakeFarts.com [NSFW via Cruisespanko]

[HORROR-SHOW]

Tropic Thunder
The Perfect Storm
Trailers & Mo

If you haven’t heard about Tropic Thunder by now, you’ve probably been living under a rock or living in Iraq. Well, for those who fall under them two sedimentary categories, this film is a film within a film in the process of being filmed, although some of the events in the film are actually happening, within the film’s world of reality, yet the actors playing actors think it’s all for the film (to put in simply, it’s a Vietnamese ¡Three Amigos!). A confusing mouthful to spray the least, but this baby’s all about self-reflexivity (the faux trailers at the beginning rival the ones in Grindhouse), and moist importantly, unleashing the hilarity, at the expense of the Hollywood Studio system. After an endless summer of middling (Step Brothers, Love Guru) to mostly forgettable comedies (Zohan, Get Smart and Pineapple Express), Tropic Thunder roars in, offending in all the right ways, as the sharpest laff riot we’ve had the pleasure of seeing seen since last year’s Death At A Funeral and Hot Fuzz

You know ya got something mighty special on hand when both Ben Stiller (playing the blue chip actioneer Tugg Speedman, who’s desperately seeking respectability) and Jack Black’s (farting it up as Jeff Portnoy, a Eddie Murphy/Chris Farley love-wild-child) overacting doesn’t over do it, like it has in the last 7 annoying comedies they’ve appeared in. Stiller’s stellar work in particular (also the film’s director and co-writer, along with Justin Theroux?) restores his status as the modern day king of satire (at least until ZAZ relearn how to be funny), last put on glorious display in Zoolander and seen at it’s all time bestness on the short-lived, but long-loved The Ben Stiller Show (we wished he was able to fit the ‘Platunes’ musical number from Oliver Stoneland in somehow)

The film also contains strong performances from Nick Nolte (duh), Matthew McConaughey (finally taking a break from all the rom-com crap, as Stiller’s agent), Tom Cruise (sure to be a crowd favorite as the balding greedy studio boss, who cusses a lot… the cussing isn’t funny, but seeing Tom Cruise out of his element is) and lesser known talents Brandon T. Jackson (the Booty Sweat guzzling Alpha Chino) and Jay Baruchel (straightman Kevin Sandusky), who do a fine job keeping up with the big names on the poster. Steve Coogan (the film within the film’s short-lived director) and Danny McBride (the F/X guru) make less of an impression here, but then again, there’s not enuff room for everyone to shine when Robert Downey Jr (Aussie chameleon Kirk Lazarus, donning some Al Jolson blackface and spurting many a blaxploitation isms) is chewing up a majority of the scenery. Like with Iron Man, Tropic Thunder would be a solid movie w/o the services Downey, but it’s elevated to new heights with him at the forefront. Mos comedies get overlooked come Oscar time, but RDJr’s work is so unbelievable (we shook our heads in disbelief for every frame he was in) that he will rightfully deserve any recognition that’s coming to him for being ‘the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude!‘

National Lampoon: Downey and Stiller both appeared in another Hollywood satire called That’s Adequate. By the looks of the trailer, it doesn’t look adequate enuff to watch on BetaMax. Fo further Thunder madness check out Rain of Madness

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

The Clone Wars
The Clone Lamer
Trailers & Mo

The Clone Wars is the second cartoon called The Clone Wars, which chronicles the much mo interesting events that lie between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, cept this one is less cartoonish than the first set and more CGI heavy/muddled like the recent movies. It’s basically the first three episodes of the series that will air this fall on Cartoon Network and this serves as one giant marketing campaign for it. If you were a fan of the new films (today’s youth and adults with no taste) and their pop corny dialog, you’ll probably eat up this expansion of the Star Wars universe (sirprizingly the script was not written by Lucas, although it’s equally as refarted as anything he’s done), but for the rest of us Ep I-III detractors
, this is juss more bantha poodoo that will make you want to throw up and wish that we never grew up

You can juss tell that something’s amiss right off the bat when it begins with a Warner Bros logo instead of the infamous 20th Century Fox one, and in lieu of the famous yellow crawl (make your own here) we get (mis)treated to a voice over that reeks of game over. While we do see some familiar faces, and hear some familiar voices (Christopher Lee, Samuel L Jackson and Anthony Daniels are the only ones who lent their talents), all the new stuff blows more goats than Yaddle. Obviously this stuff is aimed more towards the kiddies (herspecially the female ones), but is that any eggscuse to introduce the two mos awful and irksome characters since Jar Jar Stinks? First there’s Anakin’s female Padawan Ashoka (voiced like she was Hannah Montana by David Eckstein’s wife), who calls the elder Skywalker ‘Sky Guy’ and often refers to R2-D2 as ‘Artooie’. URGH, what the frak is this, Jedi Teletubbies? And then there’s Jabba The Hutt’s gay uncle (or is it aunt) Zero The Hutt. He/she is dressed like a Mardi Gras whore and apparently is the third character to strap on Truman Capote’s nasally voice in as many years. It’s the mos unforgiving and laffable thing to hit this galaxy since Padme showed her future hubby the holophotos of her playing with walrus children (Lucas was right, for once, to delete the scene). All in all, it’s still Star Wars-related, so it is semi-watchable, but this new venture will probably work a lot better when it hits the small screen, so until then, feel free to sith thru this rubble

Space Pirate Booty: Padme’s curves were nicely drawn (although not as nice as they is in these NSFW shizies), and the face behind her voice, Catherine ‘Cat’ Taber, needs to have her face, and body shown a lot/hot more

Faptooine 4eva!

Verdictgo: Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Fly Me To The Moon
Winged Degradation
Trailers & Mo

Fly Me To The Moon is billed as the first ever animated movie for 3-D. Guess we’ll have to wait for the second feature to add the adjective ‘good’ into that sentence. Not that this 3-D adventure of three flies sneaking onto Apollo 11’s journey to the moon isn’t cool to gape at (for the first 5 or so minutes, before the novelty starts to wear off), but it’s juss that the flies don’t make for very engaging characters to care about. The filmmakers may have been better off if they ditched the pests altogether (or have Mr Miyagi swat them with chopsticks) and instead concentrate on the astronauts (Buzz Aldrin‘s voice adds a bit of authenticity to the project). Actually, parents may be better off showing their kids something with real substance and wonder like the top doc In The Shadow of The Moon. There is one thing monumental about the project and it has nothing to do with it’s dimension: Christopher Lloyd finally gets to become a member of the McFly family, adding his vocals for the Grampa McFly character

Hot Buzz: we often tout Ali G’s interview with Aldrin, where he informs him about horses on Venus, but lest we forget about his yumcredible cameo in the Simpsons‘ ep ‘Deep Space Homer’

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Thunder opens everywhere today, while Wars and Moon will open this Friday at a theater near Jew

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…