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…

Darkest Hour
Puff, Puff, Pass
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 125 min

How do you like your war movies?  Things that go boom?  Or do you prefer endless talking, in a cloud of endless cigar smoke?  If you prefer the latter, then STEP RIGHT UP to Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour, which can certainly talk the endless talk, but the movie has zero WALK.  OK, that’s not true – there’s a LOT of walking.  If the Winston Churchill of this movie had a Fitbit on his wrist, he would be so proud by the amount of steps taken by the end of the film 

But would the real Churchill be proud of the performance that Gary Oldman attempts?  LARGE SHOES (and not juss cause Winnie’s overweight), and Oldman can always go larger than life (or shoes), but I didn’t buy it at all.  The whole time watching, me like – is that what Winston Churchill was like?  Some dude in terrible make-up, who’s prone to overracting in order to get Gary his 2nd ever Academy Award nomination???? No thanks  

Also, in this war movie – WHERE’S THE WAR?????  What went on in Dunkirk gets a mention, and when it does, me like – man, I wish I could juss watch Dunkirk instead of this!!! 

Lost in all the blubbery make-up (and the really dumb and cheesy secretary character played by Lily James) are two things I really liked – learning what happened to Neville Chamberlain (a scared looking Ronald Pickup) after he stepped aside for Churchill, and seeing what a restrained Ben Mendelsohn looks like.  He plays King George VI, without much of a stammer, but I loved the performance.  A better acting exercise woulda been to scarp this movie and juss remake The King’s Speech, but with Mendelsohn stuttering instead of Colin Firth.  I mean, they made two Capote movies, and both were great!  They could have named the Mendelsohn one – Gawd Save The Qqqqqqqueeen

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Darkest Hour clocks in today in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Prequel Post-Cool
Official Site| Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 134 min

The best thing to ever happen to movies is George Lucas creating Star Wars

The best thing to ever happen to Star Wars is Disney becoming its keeper

Two Disney movies in and the franchise is beyond on the right path back to where it needs to be… and galaxies away from the wrong turns Lucas took with his prequels

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the prequel the fans have needed and wanted all along.  It’s no stretch to say that it’s better than Episode I thru III combined, times a zillion.  It may be rogue to say so, but I believe Rogue One is a better Star Wars movie than Force Awakens is.  It’s true!  Cause I juss said it!

So why does Rogue One work as a Star Wars movie (more so than the prequels AND Episode VII)?

• Rogue One tries to fit into the Star Wars world, without having to be too bound (and gagged) by it.  There’s no text crawl, no John Williams score, and gasp – there are actual lower-third titles telling us the locations of where we are.  For Star Wars movies to evolve – they need to break from the past, but also celebrate them.  Rogue hits the balance perfectly, and is an excellent kick off right into Episode IV

• There’s not that much Jedi stuff.  Look, we know Star Wars is what it is cause of Skywalkers, and lightsabers and hokey religion things, but after those forced-forcey prequels, and the new Rey & Kylo stuff, we needed a break from it all.  Rogue keeps the Jedi stuff to a minimum, and truly puts the ‘star’s and ‘wars’ back in Star Wars!

• People die – LOTS of them – and we’re not just talking about bad guys.  Gritty is good.  Episode IV was gritty.  Things should try to be more like Episode IV.  Episode VII was cutesy – almost TOO cutesy.  Here’s hoping Episode VIII is grittier!

• It’s OK for Star Wars to be less white.  I know, it seems like overkill trying to OVERLY make your cast a United Colors of Benetton ad, but if your actors are good, then the acting is going to be too.  All the actors cast in the film were great.  EVERYONE (well, I didn’t really like this lady and her role, but it’s probably not her fault cause she didn’t write her own dialog).  Sure, there wasn’t too much time to give the characters actual character, but Ben Mendelsohn, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen, Felicity Jones, Donnie Yen, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, and Forest Whitaker gave it their all, and in turn, I’m all for them!

• Plus, Diego Luna is super hot

• Plus, Ben Mendelsohn is such a good screen a$$hole

• Plus, Mads Mikkelsen is the fcuking best ever!!! (ok, maybe 2nd best ever – juss a tick behind the greatest living actor – Ciarán Hinds)

• Alan Tudyk‘s droid K-2SO is more like A+2SO!!

• Admiral Ackbar Raddus!

• The Death Star never looked better – or more menacing!

• Plain and simple – Rogue One looks AND feels like Star Wars – not some shiny bullsh!t imitation version of it

• Simple and plain – Rogue One was a lot of fcuking fun!

• The nods to the fans & cameos were good, even if most of them were unnecessary, but hey, us fans love being nodded at!  BLUE MILK!

• three words – stormtroopers in paradise!

wait, was there ANYTHING I didn’t like?

yeah – these rebel solider helmets, which don’t look very Star Warsy to me.  but that’s juss me.  maybe you disagree and think this movie was juss ok, or sucked, but maybe you’re juss ok, or suck!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Rogue One for all at a theater near jews and white nationalists

Next stand alone Star Wars story I want to see get made???

BOSSK TO THE FUTURE!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Place Beyond The Pines
Brooding Broods
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 140 min

Derek Cianfrancespainengland knows pain and unhappiness, and he has no issue serving it up thru the face of Ryan Gosling, and we have no problem with any of that cause if you don’t love Gosling’s face you either cannot love or don’t have sight.  If you saw their first heartbreaking pairing – the 4th best film of 2010 – Blue Valentine – you knows whats wees sqwaking bouts, and you should so be inclined to see their second pairing, where Gosling plays a motorcycle stuntman who finds out that Eva Mendes is having his baby, so he decides to like help and stuff, even if he has no money, and Eva doesn’t want his money even if he had some, and she’s living with some black dude anyways, and he has a crying dagger tattoo, so you know this situation aint great, cause who wants your child to be the son of a dude with a crying dagger tattoo??

To spell out how the rest of the movie is spelt is to spelled out too much.  There are basically three movies in this single movie.  The first movie centers on Gosling robbing banks, with an assist from that creepy awesome Australian dude with that lisp - Ben Mendelsohn.  It’s like Drive meets Point Break.  In the second movie, policeman Bradley Cooper pops in and then this thing turns into Copland meets Copland.  In the third movie, time passes and Bradley Cooper has a son (Emory Cohen) who’s like The Wackness and stuff.  I really really really can’t tell you ANYTHING that links all of these mini-movies into the one movie, cause you shouldn’t know anything, but you should know that all three movies are worth watching, even if the culmination of them don’ts necessary add up to a hill of beans/pines, in, around or beyond them

Oh and Dane DeHaan is in this movie and Dane DeHaan is the greatest brooding actor of his generation.  Long may he brood

Oh, and this Mike Patton song is the knees bees

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

–

Trance
Doctor Mindbender
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 101 min

Danny Boyle‘s Trance is like Derek Cianfrancespainengland’s Place Beyond The Pines in that we can’t really tell you all that much about it, cause if we did, it would semi-spoil the mindfudge that Danny Boyle tries to fudge our minds with.  This movie’s kinda Inception-like, but you don’t have to do that much thinking and over-thinking for something that doesn’t really require much thought in the end.  This is minor Boyle, but still, minor Boyle is better than most people’s major stuff.  He’s incapable of making awful movies.  We’re sure A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach will be the greatest movies of all time if we don’t watch them for 50 years (but probably not)

Anywho, James McAvoy plays the Ewan McGregor role, the guy we root for, but is this the guy we should be rooting for????  Or is it Frenchie Vincent Cassel?  Or hypnotist Rosario Dawson, or should we say hypno-tttttttttttttitties, cause you get to see them AND HER BUSH!?????  HOW COULD YOU NOT TRUST A WOMAN WHO SHOWS HER BOOBS and BUSH ON THE SILVER SCREEN????  Maybe we shouldn’t trust any of them.  They all want a stolen piece of art that maybe they stole or didn’t, or did they?  TRANCE TRANCE TRANCE TRANCE!  or something

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Pines & Trance do the dance currently in limited release elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Killing Them Softly
More Like Talking Them Lotsly
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 97 min

Two foolish hoodlums (that wily scuzzy awesome Australian guy with a lisp - Ben Mendelsohn & that guy who had a mustache in Argo and has some horrible accent thing going on here - Scoot McNairy) go for a quick score and end up with more trouble than the score was worth.  Aint that always the truth?  The lead up to the score, and the score itself are top notch cinematic stuff, AND TENSE!, but the rest that follows in the fall-out is about as interesting as listening to politicians from 2008 talk about the failing economy.  Oh wait, that IS what happens.  We get to hear GW Bush & Obama & McCain blab on and on about the economy in the background, while we try to stay awake listening to Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini and Richard Jenkins blab about mob economy, hookers and killing in the foreground.  Sounds eggciting, dunnit?  It’s not.  Not even seeing Ray Liotta get his a$$ beat down by Vinnie Delpino from Doogie Howser can make up for the unexciting talking that keeps getting talked

No real shock here in the blahdum, since this movie was made by Andrew Dominik, the dude who gave us The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford aka The Great Time Robbery.  We are audiences of action, not words.  Give us action, not words.  And give us more than 8 seconds of Sam Shepard, and give us less than zero seconds of Vincent Curatola, that annoying guy from The Sopranos who is annoying here too cause he’s annoying.  Oh, and there’s one woman in the entire movie and she’s a hooker, and she gets so bored by James Gandolfini talking that she gets to leave the movie.  Wish we could have done that.  Or wish the movie jettisoned Pitt and all the other tough talkers and juss let Ben Mendelsohn shoot drugs and people, and perhaps shoot his mouth off, as he was the only character worth listening too, even if he was always talking shiiiiiiiiiiiit

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Softly aint so hard in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…