Thighs Wide Shut

The Armstrong Lie
Fraudstrong
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 122 min

I have never cared for, nor paid attention to anything having to do with Lance Armstrong.  I’m not into cycling, the Tour de France, those Livestrong wristbands, who Lance dated, who Lance duped, how Lance doped, if he actually did it, why he would have done it, yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda cyclying zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  The media loves a good celebrity scandal – I could care less.  I’m more into serial killers and assassinations and unsolved mysteries that are actually mysterious, not athletes cheating  

Now that we’ve got that out of the way – it’s time to review Alex Gibney‘s exhaustive and exhausting (par for the course of any doc he’s made) The Armstrong Lie.  Originally launched as a puff-piece documentary chronicling Armstrong’s comeback trail to the ‘009 Tour de France, it turned into something completely different after he admitted to cheating to Oprah/the public

But something funny happened on the way to vilifying the cheating, lying scum that is Lance Armstrong – you end up rooting for the guy.  Gibney basically sez so himself – being duped on his doping, but as the doc plays out, you watch a man who juss can’t/won’t/don’t quit, and wants to make his nagging naysayers say ‘yay’ not ‘nay’, and in general – just win the damn race, and amazingly, you truly will feel sympathetic for a man who has become so pathetic  

Yes, he lied, and denied, and yes, he cheated, and did everything in his power to hide that fact, but apparently everyone else in his sport did so, AND THEM SOME.  They all broke the rules, but if the playing field is level with EVERYONE cheating, doesn’t it make it fair???  I mean, he still won those races.  Nothing changes that.  They may strip him of his actual titles, but if he didn’t win them, who did?  They next cheater in line???  And what about his foundation?  Sure, its leader and icon is a total fraud, but the money raised for awareness and support of cancer patients helped – not hurt  

The lies juss perpetually got bigger and bigger AND BIGGGGGGER, and why would he or anyone associated with him want to make the fame & fortune & winning & helping stop?  Well, now it has stopped, and where do we go from here?  Nowhere, cause we still don’t care for him or racing or duping, even if we juss did for 2 hours 

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Armstrong strong arms it into NY/LA/Austin today, and elsewhere elsewhen

Chewing The Neck Fat: there’s only one thing Gibney didn’t get to the bottom of – what’s up with Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman‘s neck????

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Fifth Estate 
Julian Fried
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 128 min

When I first saw the above photo of Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, I was like – woah! it’s Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange!!!  Then I was like, woah, he looks so weird.  And then I was like, woah, Daniel Brühl with a cool beard!  I don’t know who DB’s playing, but he’s such an amazing actor, and to have him in a movie with Cumbersnatch is gonna be like even more woaaaah!!

And so, what of Cumberbatch as Assange, with Brühl (as co-WikiLeaker Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose book the film is mostly based on) by his side, in movie form?  The Fifth Estate – a marginally convoluted, but never dull take on the rise of WikiLeaks and the faltering of Assange, directed by the guy with the odd resume consisting of everything from the goody Gods & Monsters and Kinsey to the annoying Dreamgirls and last two breaking yawn-y Twilight pics - Bill Condon

Wait, wasn’t there a documentary about WikiLeaks released earlier this year?  Why bother with a movie, when there’s a doc, right?  We gave Alex Gibney‘s lengthy doc - We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks – a spin this past week, thinking it would run info-tainmental laps around the fictionalized version of the same topic, but did not find that to be true.  The film, the doc and the actuality of WikiLeaks all have the same issue – there’s juss too much information at hand and it’s really hard to figure out how to process it, and how it should be presented.  Condon’s fictionalized take may streamline and skimp on the details, but it gives a good enuff look at the pressures involved, in pretty dramatic form.  On the otherhand, Gibney’s doc delves too deep into the material, and feels bloated.  You walk away wanting to plug the leak.  Condon’s flick makes you want to take a leak.  Whatever that means

But for reals, Estate is worth your eyes and ears cause Cumberbatch plays Assange.  The movie could have been about Assange taking a leak for 2 hours, but if Cumberbatch was the one doing the urinating the whole time, it would still be beyond watchable.  And then there’s Brühl.  Dude is so good that we’d watch him take a leak for 19 hours straight.  These are truths, and we just self-leaked them 

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

take the Fifth today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s
Search For a Kool Place
Further Afield
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 107 min

Ken Kesey, The Merry Pranksters & that Further bus - for those who have read Tom Wolfe’s Acid Tested book, you probably know a thing or three about the trials and travails of that combo of peoples and vehicle.  For the rest of us illiterate, image craving bunch, probably not so much outside of those names and the fact that they did lots of drugs and stuffs, and bright colors and things!

Well, on the bus’ inaugural trip (Wolfe wasn’t on it!), from Kesey’s Cali home to 1964 World’s Fair in New York, stuff certainly did happen (like LOTS OF STUFF!!!) and all of it was filmed for a documentary… that was never made!!!!  Years later, Alison Ellwood & Alex Gibney took the 100+ hours of film and turned it into something (mostly) cohesive, with Stanley Tucci‘s voice driving the bus

While not eggzactly the most enthralling documentary chronicling 60s hippie dippie life and experimentation, Ellwood & Gibney’s Magic Trip is still a vital and important moving document, which will hold historical value for time eternal (future generations will need to see how people on LSD acted, in a time when it was legal!!!).  Even though sex, drugs and rock n roll are givens we take for granted in today’s society, it was pretty radical sh%t back then.  Educated people jumping on a wildly painted bus, taking boatloads of acid, swapping partners left and right, and to what end? Or to what beginning?

Their destination may have been the World’s Fair, but when they got there, they truly realized that all the eye opening memories were forged on that bus ride.  What a long strange trip it was indeed!  Hop on board, even if the bus has already come and gone

Bus A Don’t Move: there were two editions of the Further bus, and both are collecting dust/rust on Kesey’s farm (where his widow still lives) in Pleasant Hill, Oregon

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Trip hums along in NY & the SF area tomorrow, on demand everywhere now, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Casino Jack
Cash Rules/Ruined Everything Around Him
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Did you see Alex Gibney‘s Jack Abramoff doc Casino Jack and The United States of Money?  The hard facts put on display seemed to defy reality: money hungry lobbyists scamming Native Americans, exploiting sweatshops in the South Pacific, whacking Greek casino boat owners, funneling cash to feed vanity Hebrew school projects, all while shaking hands and being pat on the back by US Senators and even the dude in the Oval Office.  Head-shaking unbelievableness!!!  No writer in Hollywood could ever dream up something so preposterous, so turning all this juicy material into a feature film seems like the natural thing to do, and that’s what did done happen

Director George Hickenlooper (who recently passed away) and writer Norman Snider are up to the easy task with their own Casino Jack, and while it has the production values of an Andy Sidaris flick, the results are still entertaining enough to make for a solid companion piece to the Gibney doc… which you should see first, or instead of.  You may have had a enuff of Kevin Spacey‘s dourpussedness as of late, but in the title role here, he joyfully apes it up, and we freely eats it up!   WELCOME BACK SPACEMAN (and we’re not talkin about K-PAX)!!  The rest of the names that round of the cast may not incite riots, but Barry Pepper (as Michael Scanlon), Kelly Preston, Graham Greene, Maury Chaykin (he too also passed away recently too also!), Spencer Garrett (watch his demo reel!) and Jon Lovitz, yes, JON LOVITZ, each raise their game as the chips stack up and then fall to pieces.  B-listicious!

In The Looper: George cast his Governor of Colorado cousin John Hickenlooper as a senator

This Week’s Edition of Cutiepie McGee:

Anna Hardwick may play Lobbyist #2, but in our hearts, she’s #1!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Casino gets Jacked up this Friday only in NY &LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…