Thighs Wide Shut

Hereafter
Five Feet Underdone
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

What happens when we die?  A question none of us will ever know the answer to… UNTIL IT’S FAR TOO LATE!  Well, grizzled ole Clint Eastwood musta been wrestling with that very quandary himself, after wrestling a whole decade with nuttin but death (Gran Torino being the true masterpiece of the bunch, although that borefest Invictus was death free… although Apartheid did die!).  So welcome to Hereafter, a film that provides no answers either, juss some thoughts and feelings and sensations and fuzzy transmissions, and three separate storylines that will end up sloppily merging together for no better reason other than each story couldn’t possibly be worthwhile on their own!  Wait, how is this the end result of an Eastwood and scriptman Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen, anything well written in the past 5 years) duet??  Had their names been absent in the credits, then Hereafter would be a fine little piece of movie fluff, and it certainly is, but still, shouldn’t this have been a slam dunk of greatness, and not a decently made foul shot???  OK, enuff with the analogies, and enuff of the names on the marquee prejudicenessness, cause the movie is adequate enuff, even if it is, at times, super cheesy, and feels longer than Carlos

So what are the three stories?  First is the plight of opening scene typhoon (AND WHAT A DIGITAL TYPHOON IT IS!) survivor Cécile De France (that chick from that wretched French horror movie with the ending that made no sense).  She a had a mighty close brush with death, even seeing stuff like gray figures in gray clouds!!!, but lived!!!!  She tries to go back to her normal French life of being a TV presenter and banging her bearded producer (Thierry Neuvic),  but that won’t work cause she will never be normal again!!!  So she takes a break from TV and starts writing about her experiences, and in the process losing all the fame and money she had before.  Maybe if she can get a book out, maybe then she can find some peace and piece of mind!!!!!

Meet Matt Damon.  He lives in San Francisco and works on the docks cause he doesn’t want to do his old job, which was to give psychic readings to very very very bereaved peoples. It nearly ruined his life, and a chance at ever having one, and he won’t do it again, no matter how many times his receding-haired brother Jay Mohr (Jay Mohr in an Eastwood movie, WTFFFFF??? although having Richard Kind show up for a scene made up for it) tries to convince him to jump back into the game!  Then, at a cooking course (led by Bobby Baccalieri!!!!) he meets a charming young girl who totally wants to bone him and she is totally Bryce Dallas Howard.  Will he get the girl or have to keep escaping his unwanted gift again and again?????

In London, there are a set of adorable twin kiddies (Frankie McLaren and George McLaren) with a strung out mum, who they take care of more than they are taken care of.  Everything isn’t perfect, but they make it work, that is until one of the twins is hit by a car, and the weaker-willed twin can’t figure out how to carry-on without him!!!!!!  If only he had some answers!!!!  Oh yeah, there’s some side-crap with his mother going to rehab and him living with foster folks, but we’ll pay about as much attention to em as the movie does!!!  Rebarkless, the twinsies part was hactually our mos flavorite out of the three

Soooooo, these 3 stories eventually run into each other and guess what, everyone lives happily ever Hereafter!!!  Ugh!  Well, if you thought that pun was lazy, then you can’t imagine how lazy this movie is, although it’s a lot more watchable, and mos def enjoyable than whatevs that Peter Jackson Lovely Bones thang was, and there’s no bones about it!!!

We’d Never Kick Out The Jam… panoï: in De France’s absecne from the TV studio, Mylène Jampanoï takes her job, and our heart!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Somewhat Worth A Peepers

Hereafter lives somewhat happily ever this Friday only in NY, LA and East Grand Forks, MN(???), and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Nowhere Boy
Introducing… John Lennon
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

You know the story of the Beatles, and if you don’t then watch The Anthology, MULTIPLE TIMES [watch em here]!!!  But what about John Lennon’s story, before he was John ‘F&cking’ Lennon, the man, the myth, the legend we’ve all come to love, revere, worship and every other word that exists in a dictionary/thesaurus for ‘liking a sh%t-ton‘?  Yeah, what about John-boy, when he was a twee lad, a hero worshiper in his own time (Elvis, Buddy Holly), who did things normal teens did, like not care about school, and like totally care about bagging chicks?!  Yeah!  And what about his home life?!  What was the deal with him living and growing up with his auntie Mimi???  And having a loving, yet very strained relationship with his actual birth mother Julia????  Yeah, that Julia chick, who John later wrote a song for, with such telling lyrics as ‘Half of what I say is meaningless, But I say it just to reach you, Julia‘.  Yeah, what’s up wit dat??!?!!

Let’s take a dip in the Liverpool, shall we?  Yes, we will be passing by the gates of Strawberry Fields (it is foreals people!) on this magic mystery tour, but don’t expect this to be an all out Beatles origin story, cause it’s not, it’s a semi-Quarrymen origin story! But not really, although we do get to meet and jam with Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster, that effin adorable tyke from Love Actually!!!!!) and George Harrison (Sam Bell).  If yer gonna ask where Ringo is, then you need to be Backbeated to death!!!  Nowhere Boy is purely a familial love triangle story between John (Kick-Ass‘ Kick-Ass Aaron Johnson, who kicks way more a$$ here than he did there), his uptight and well-meaning guardian Mimi (the always uptight Kristin Scott Thomas), and her flighty sister and his super-cool mum Julia (a heart-breakingly radiant Anne-Marie Duff).  Somewhere between all the hugs and shouting and secrets and lies is the sprouting of a musical prodigy waiting to turn into genius!  And since we know how history turned out for this Lennon guy, it’s a joy to watch the laughter AND the tears!  Big ups to Johnson, who is electric in Lennon’s shoes and sideburns.  Apparently the director was equally smitten with him as well.  Remember, this is the movie set where the now 43 year-old Sam Taylor-Wood fell for her now 20 year-old star Johnson!

How does the story end?  As history begins!  Ba-Hamburg!!!  But if you want the ending to the Lennon story, be sure to catch the killah and little seen The Killing of John Lennon

C’mon Ophelia Da Noise: can’t finger out which we heart more, Ophelia Lovibond‘s name or her EYES!!!???

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Nowhere goes somewhere, starting in LA/NY only tomorrow!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Diora Baird in UK’s November edish of FHM [SFW]

Let Me In
Swede Child o’ Mine Comes To America
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

In an era of vampire-overload, not much has really stood out as being exemplary, even if yer teeny Twilights and Southern-burnt True Bloods have proved to be popular beyond reasonable belief.  The chilling little 2008 Swedish film Let The Right One In (LÃ¥t Den Rätte Komma In) was a step in a better, more human direction, and yet we barely thirsted for the blood lust put on display (maybe it was that unforgettable yucky crotch shot that left a bad taste in our eyes!).  A darling of the critics and winner of numerous awards, Hollywood took notice too and decided to give the material a spin on our shores, with Cloverfielder Matt Reeves helming the ship.  The time remains in the 80s, the holm has been shifted from Stock to Los Alamos, New Mexico, but everything else pretty is much the same (the snow! the eerie lighting and dull colors!  the killer pre-hipster hipster wardrobes!), although any sorta Swedish fishes have been replaced with Now & Laters (one of our personal flavorite candies), and thankfully no crotch shot.  And so????  Although it’s basically a carbon copy,  Let Me In > Let The Right One In

YES, the remake works the material better than the original Swedish entry!  And no, the answer has nothing to do with reading subtitles vs not!!  So how then? Somehow, someway, the connection between the bullied, timid, lonely mortal Owen (The Road‘s Kodi Smit-McPhee, dang, this kid sure loves dark material!) and his mysterious, distant and equally lonely immortal new neighbor/playmater Abby (Chloe Moretz, who is the very definition of kick-ass, and the true star of Kick-Ass) is juss stronger, in English, and in New Mexico!!  Maybe it’s the magic in Smit-McPhee’s scared wider-eyes??  Or the uncanny charm of Moretz’ crooked smile???  Put those together and that kind of bond is WORD!!!!!!!  Then there’s all the bonus goodness, like Richard Jenkins, who plays her guardian devil, and occasionally dresses up like a ghetto Zodiac, and is involved in an amazingly filmed car crash scene, from the point of the view of the auto’s interior!  Or how about the always dependable Elias Koteas, who’s dressed eggzactly like Kubrick on the set of The Shining?  Can’t hurt!  And how about the main bully (Dylan Minnette)??  Um, bestestestest teen a$$hole cruising for such a bruising since Scut Farkus, that coonskin capped chap in A Christmas Story!!!!  Let yerself into Let Me In, regardless if you saw the original or not!

Birds of Prey: Cara Buono shows her face and hot bod as Faye Miller on Mad Men, but as Owen/Kodi’s absent onscreen mom, they barely even show her face!!!  luckily we do get to look at Sasha Barrese, and even get to see her boob!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Let Me In sucks blood but doesn’t suck at all at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Social Network
Turn On, Log In, Cash Out
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Cocky Boston college kids get rich beyond their wildest dreams and hot chicks beyond their wildest wet dreams, thanks to a lil backhandedness and most importantly, brains!!  No, we’re not talking about Ben Mezrich’s fun book Bringing Down The House about the M.I.T.ers who beatdown Vegas, and the not-so fun movie adaptation 21 starring Kevin Spacey, but we ARE talking about another Mezrich work, and it too apparently involves Spacey. Ben’s Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal has been given the big screen treatment (Spacey as Producer), with overly whip & whit-smart dialog by Aaron Sorkin, and the unnecessary for this material directing greatness of David Fincher (who employed Spacey in Se7en).  And the results?  No, it’s not the Citizen Kane of the 21st century, the movie that defines a generation, or even the best of the year (a lil too early to tell, being September and all + there’s Fish Tank and Enter The Void?????), but it’s 3983283484 times the movie 21 was and it’s directed by David Fincher, so therefore it’s beyond beautiful and utterly fantastic (Ben Borings Buttons was an exception to HE RULES!!!!), although it’s no Zodiac, which IS one of the best movies of the past 10+ years, so there!  We will say that it’s probably the bestest internet related movie since the birth of the internets!!  INTERNETS!!!!!

So what’s the story of The Facebook anywayszz?  Is it even all that interesting and worth telling?  As a whole, no, but the real life characters involved and their strained relationships with one another are worth the exploration/exploitation.  There’s the face of the Book, the crafty/shifty Mark Zuckerberg (the always cerebral, and for once spiteful Jesse Eisenberg!), and all those he left in the dust on the way to zillions, who, in turned sued his pants off, like his former BFF and initial investor Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, of Andrew Garfield Minus Andrew Garfield fame), and his over-privileged business partners of all of 8 seconds who’s ideas he nicked, rowing twins Cameron Winklevoss & Tyler Winklevoss (a perfectly WASPy Armie Hammer pulling double duty, who even met the real twins he played!) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella).  There’s also the woman (Rooney Mara, the American Lisbeth Salander) who broke Zuck’s heart, and in turn motivated him to think big, and the man who stole his, Napsterer Sean Parker (a decent Justin Timberlake, although wethinks Mark-Paul Gosselaar should be getting all of his roles), who pushed him to think even bigger!

And yet the real stars aren’t the actors, but the mood makers.  Word em ups to Sorkin, and his whirlwind and sirprizngly funny script.  Hear, hear big time to Trent Reznor(!!!!) and Atticus Ross and their haunting, pulsating score.  And the eyes have it for cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, who makes Harvard’s campus look like the next haunting grounds of… THE ZODIAC!!!  And speaking of Zodiac, is there any active director more on top of his game than Fincher?  Is he 5reals?  Can he figure out a way to direct 10 movies a year????  Seriously, how’d Ben Buttons turn out to be such a missfire?  Can he direct Zodiac again???  No, seriously, can he?  Cause if Social Network walks away with the Best Pic Oscar on February 27th, which wouldn’t be a shocker or undeserved, why can’t/didn’t Zodiac?????  IT DIDN’T EVEN GET ONE NOMINATION!!!!!!!!!  Doesn’t matter, cause they Academy Awards never get it right.  Always a bunch of make up calls or juss too late on everything and everyone.  See Danny Boyle and his Trainspotting vs him and his gold-statuette minted Slumdog Millionaire as a perfect example

ZODIAC!!!!

And oh yeah, nice to see Zodiac alum John Getz as Zuck’s lawyer!!!

and oh yeah,

ZODIAC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Become A Fan: of these Social hotties!!!

Brenda Song

Felisha Terrell (not Owens)

Caitlin Gerard

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

The Network gets wired at a theater near jews this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…