Doctor Strange
Mind Over Marvel
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 115 min

Prior to seeing this movie – this is what I knew about the comic book character Doctor Strange… nothing!  Well, I knew what he looked like, and figured he was guy who had a doctorate in something, but I didn’t even know if he was a good guy or a bad guy or even if he was a Marvel or a DC character.  Well, after watching his origin story – I now know who Doctor Strange is, and what he’s all about, and how I want nothing more than 894391293193 more Doctor Strange movies starring Benedict Cumberbatch.  BENEFCUKINGDICT CUMBERSNATCH!!!!!!!!!!!

BUT!!!

But, I only want to see Benedict Cumberbatch do his Strange things – solo, and not alongside the Hulk or Spidey or Captain America or Iron Man or Ironweed or Scarlet Fever or Hawkeye Pierce or Trapper John MD.  While I like SOME Marvel movies, I’m sick and tired of the crossovers and seeing the same dudes over and over and over and under and over, and not doing anything really new, or interesting, or newly interesting.  This Doctor Strange movie felt different from the rest of those Marvel movies, from tone (it was like a real movie!), and to universe (more mystical, less comic-al).  What goes on feels miles away from all that Avengers jazz, which to me, is juss a bunch of loud noises.  While the Avengers dudes destroy buildings, the Doctor Strange folks bend and fold buildings!!!

I’ll take bending/folding buildings over destroying them 9999999999999 out of 9999999999999 times

This movie was cooler and made more sense than the other building bending/folding movie – Inception.  EAT THAT CHRISTOPHER NOLAN!!!!

So, what more do you need to know besides Cumberbendi and bendi-buildings?  Mads Mikkelsen is the sh!t?  If you didn’t know that already, you SADS Mikkelsen!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Doctor Strange plays at a normal theater near you

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Imitation Game
The Code Less Traveled
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 114 min

Everyone is gay for Benedict Cumberbatch.  So when Benedict Cumberbatch plays a gay guy, does everyone get gayer than all these people???  YESS!!!!

In The Imitation Game, Bennie Cumby plays Alan Turing, the godfather of computers, and the man that broke the Nazi Enigma machine code, and shortened WWII by II years.  WHAT A GUY!!!  But he was gay, and being gay back then was not all that, like being gay is now all that.  He couldn’t wear feather boas in the streets or see Can’t Stop The Music in theaters, and ultimately it cost him his dignity and his life.  WOAH!!!

The movie is his story – becoming gay, going gay for Maths (love how British people call it ‘Maths’), then going gay for cracking codes and saving the world, then juss being gay, and getting in trouble for it.  SO GAY!!!  But all this gayness doesn’t make for a super gay movie – it’s actually a pretty straightforward tale of men (and a woman – Keira Knightley) at war and trying to end it – and it’s good stuff – juss nothing super gay that will make you shoot rainbows out of your butt

BUTT – Charles Dance – cinema’s greatest modern screen a$$hole (a SAG-HOFer) – gets to be a screen a$$hole to a cocky Cumberbatch.  I could watch them go at it ALL DAY (not in a gay way, but yes, also in a gay way).  Sadly, they don’t go at it all day, so I guess I’ll hope for Imitation Game 2 or juss a 2nd pairing between the two (although the two have been in 2 other things together but not sure they shared the screen at the same time)  

I mean, who doesn’t want to see a Benedict-Charles dance off pants off???

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
A Barrel of Halves 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 161 min

OMG, The Hobbit is back, yo!!  And this time we aint letting our eyes watch none of that 48888 frames per second junk.  And we didn’t!  24fps baby, all the way!  Cause that’s what movies are suppose to look like!  And glad we stuck to them guns for Peter Jackson‘s 5th dip into Tolkienland, cause this looked like a movie and not a video game!

OK, so what of the actual movie?  It’s first 1/2 was FCUKING awesome!!!!  Our heroes were like running thru fields and mountains and forests and fighting things big and small and gross and scary – you know, yer typical LOTR stuff.  But then the short dudes (Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and all those stoopid lookin dwarves) needed help, but don’t ask for it, but it comes anyway in the form of super-skinny-hot elves!!  There’s good ole Legolas (Orlando Bloom, back in blonde, in the only role he excels in, instead of how he is in any non-elf movie where he ex-sucks in) and this female elf who didn’t event exist in Tolkien’s realm, but Peter Jackso oh so wanted to have a token Tolkien female character, so they basically made a female Legolas, but with red hair!!!  She’s played by Evangeline Lilly, and within 2 minutes of screen time, she makes you go, Liv Tyler as Arwen who???  IT’S TRUE CAUSE SHE’S SO COOL!!  But then the elves are like not helping the dwarves by jailing them, but then with MAGIC, they aint jailed, and then our heroes are in barrels, going down a rapid-crazed river (watch this bit of making of!), and trying to barrel-away from ugly orcs!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHH YEAH!!!!  THERE’S SO MUCH ACTION AND THIS IS ALL SO MUCH FCUKING FUN!!!

But of course the fun never lasts, and the rest of the movie is far from a blast.  We inch toward Smaug and his dragon’s lair, and even if he’s voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, it can’t change the fact that the rest of the journey to him is such a slog.  The river ride ends and then our little friends still have miles/kilometers to go, but first they must take a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnng diversion in some lake port city where Stephen Fry is kinda awesome perfect as the lake port city’s master, and this dude with teef is his annoying helper, and theys trying not to get spied on by Stephen Colbert, and like try to get this human - Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) – to help them, but zzzzzzzzzzzz, and things and stuffzzzzzz.  Alas, they finally get going and go to the mountain where the dragon and Uncle Scrooge’s gold is be, and get some gem the dwarves need is be.  Fire from dragon goes whooooooooosh, and then the little dudes run around.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  WE SO CLOSE, but – CUT TO BLACK.  Movie ends with the least cliffy-cliff-hanger steak ever cooked.  Zzzzzzzzz.  WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BARRELS OF AWESOMES????

>Whatevs, we’re totally in for #3, but #2 was totally 1/2 meh and 1/2 YEAH.  It needed more Ian McKellen being an old beardo, and Lee Pace looking hot in with his treebranch crown, and stuff, AND BARREL RIDES!!!!  But I can’t really complain too much.  This is the 5th Peter Jax JRRRRRR Tolkien joint, and it far from sucks.  CAN GEORGE LUCAS SAY THAT ABOUT HIS STAR WARSESESES??   NO HE CAN’T CAUSE HIS NECK IS TOO FAT FOR HIS THROAT TO LET HIS MOUTH SPEAK WORDS THAT NO ONE CARES TO HEAR!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Smaug is making a hobbi-ton o’ money at a theater near jews

Bitched At Swirth – Middle Earth Edition: yep, dwarf Aidan Turner totes looks like a midget Ian Somerhalder with long hair, but we got one better for ya… 

orc Bolg & Kellan Lutz

 

orc Bolg & Kellan Lutz

 

orc Bolg & Kellan Lutz

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…

12 Years A Slave 
Chain In The A$$
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 133 min

Whatever you does, do not bring your significant other to see Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave, unless you want to go 12 years without having sex.  A most important movie, filled with zero fun, and has about as much rewatchable-ness as Schindler’s List done doesn’t (which means you’ll never want to watch it EVERRRR again).  Actually, after seeing 12 Years, I’ve now had enough of the slavery movie genre.  No mo fo me.  Add it to the list of non-starters, alongside Holocaust pics + westerns + rom coms + anything with vampires or zombies + anything directed or presented by Guillermo del Taco

12 Years is truly important, cause it fo reals happened – it’s what happened to a born-free black man named Solomon Northup, wrongfully turned into a slave.  This story, based on Solomon’s own book, certainly needed to be told (it was once before), but I don’t know if I needed it told to me.  I’m not one for turning a blind eye to things that are horrible in history, but I also wasn’t eggzactly all that interested in having my senses blinded and numbed completely.  Maybe the point is that watching something so hard to take should be exactly that, but c’mon man, couldn’t they have at least cut out 1/4 of the whipping and yelling and awfulness and made this excruciating experience only 90 minutes long???  We know that Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor, FINALLLLLLY with a meaty role to match his acting might) will become a slave, and then 12 years later, not be a slave.  And so we’re forced to watch him go from 0 to 12 years, without a clue as to which year we’re in.  If only there was a countdown ticker, so we could get excited about crossing the finish line of this torture-fest 

But hey, look at all those famous actors playing horrible people!!  Solomon gets conned by Scoot ‘Poop’ McNairy! & Taran Killam!, and sold into slavery!  Where he’s chained up with Michael K Williams!  Then sold by Paul Giamatti! To Benedict Cumberbatch!  Who’s plantation-hand Paul Dano! is out of hand and forces Benedict to send Solomon to the much more evil plantation owner (and McQueen regular) Michael Fassbender!  And his nasty wife Sarah Paulson!  Well, at least he can find some sympathy in slaves Lupita Nyong’o! (don’t know who she is, but won’t be soon forgetting her performance), and former slave or something Alfre Woodard!  Don’t worry, things get better once (the film’s producer) Brad Pitt! and his Amish beard show up!  Maybe Brad can save the day!!  But where’s Clooney????  Why can’t the whole Ocean’s 12 crew free the slave of 12 yearss??  Oh yeah, and oh, look there’s Beasts of the Southern Wild alumz Quvenzhané Wallis AND Dwight Henry!  Man, slavery has never been so well cast and acted!  

Am I better for seeing this film?  Maybe better off not.  But what’s been seen was seen, and it aint going away, from my head, or from history.  And oh, that final scene – a scene that packs a super-HEAVY emotional punch that’s equally AS punchy as Captain Phillips‘ UNFORGETTABLE final scene wiz was, making the torturous torture ALMOS worth letting yerself get tortured by

But c’mon McQueen, when are you going to make a ‘happy’ movie?

Verdictgo: hard to watch, but still – Jeepers Worth A Peepers

12 Years is how long it will feel like sitting in a theater watching this, tomorrow in NY/LA/DC/Chicago/ATL/Toronto, and elsewhere elsehwhen

oh, and here are some previous the würstest date movies EVER, reviewed on TWS –  Amour, Towelhead, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Babysitters, Vera Drake & Lake of Fire 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…