Thighs Wide Shut

The Campaign
On The Trail Mixed Bag
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 85 min

With The Campaign, Jay Roach has now made as many average political movies (Recount + that Sarah Palin one) as he has Austin Powerses (when one AP was enuff).  The rest of his resume consists of 2 up and down/frown Focker flicks, Mystery, Alaska, the mostly lacking Dinner for Schmucks, and something called Zoo Radio.  Lets just say that Mel Brooks isn’t losing any sleep over this oeuvre.  But what are we saying?  We haven’t said anything!  But what we’re gonna say is that Jay Roach makes unmemorable films that contain very memorable laughs.  The Campaign?  Forgettable, but it certainly had its [funny] moments.  Is that enuff?  Sure, why not

Pit Will Ferrell against Zach Galifianakis in a single movie and dare it to be unfunny.  WE DARE YOU!!!!!!  They both play two inept dudes running for some North Carolina congressional seat.  Their ‘heated’ race and ‘nail-bitting’ election are udderly uninteresting, when we guess they could have been, but the hi-jinks Will & Zach toss our way guarantee to make The Campaign a worthwhile staple of cable TV airings in the decade to come.  Is that enuff? Sure, why not

But we expect betterbester of our comedies.  The satire could have been more biting, instead juss being nibbly.  And when you have a campaign staff consisting of such heavies as John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd and Brian Cox, but have them do nothing but fake smile and shake hands, you know that bester is possible.  Dylan McDermott, as a stealthy taskmaster, and Karen Maruyama, as an antebellum sounding maid, boost the approval ratings a bit, but the whole affair is a tight race that’s almost too close to call, if it’s worth your time or not.  Is that enuff? Maybe not, but you could always juss re-watch Election instead

InnHERspace: Katherine LaNasa is out of this orbit hot

so much so that she’s been married to Dennis Hopper AND French Stewart, and now is engaged to Grant Show

Verdictgo: loooooooooooooow end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Campaign swings into a state near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Found Link
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 105 min

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is by far the scariest of all the 7 Apes movie (Tim Burton’s mistake was scary for a different reason), and maybe even the third best ever, after the orginal and Escape from the Planet of the Apes.  YES!!!!!  This is how a prequel should be done – add to the series (it’s like Conquest, but done betterer), not take away from it (Hannibal Rising) or add nothing new (X-Men: First Class) or juss be plain insulting (Star Wars, cough, cough)

The storyline wasn’t overly complicated, and the direction (by Rupert Wyatt) was good enough, but what makes this Apes rise high is the quality caliber of acting put on display, by the humans (James Franco, John Lithgow, and from the little that Freida Pinto, David Oyelowo, Brian Cox and Tom Felton get to do) and by the humans who were motion captured to pretty close perfection as CGI chimps (Andy Serkis, the king of kong and all other creatures who aren’t really there).  If you watch the originals, they feel kinda cheesy, and we’re not just talking about the ape masks.  When you watch this one, cheese is nowhere to be found

We dug Apes cause we could believe the apes.  Not their cause (although animal cruelty does suck though, right Nim?), but that they were really apes, aping up more feelings than juss wanting a banana.  CGI shiz is still not eggzactly where it needs to be (neither is the internet, so nobody’s perfect… yet), but we’ll take this Planet‘s fake terrain over most other CGI clusterfudges of the past few years

All hail Caesar, and hopefully for many movies to come!

The GrApe Escape: there’s no denying how yumcredbile the original Apes is, but Escape from the Planet of the Apes may be the most fun.  watch why!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Worth A Peepers

Apes is pre-cool at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Red
Spies Like Rust
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Look, it’s old famous people shooting guns!!!!  Sweeeeet  …for all of about 10 minutes!!!!!!  A bit more fun than The Expendables, and a lot lot lot less fun than The Losers, Robert Schwentke‘s movie adaptation of the Red comic mini-series is nothing more than an incredible collection of incredible actors sitting around twiddling their thumbs/guns, as the flick goes from zero to one in 111 minutes.  That ‘one’ is a killer lil shoot-out bit toward the beginning of the film [watch it here], and after being treated to that kind of tongue-in-cheek redonkey-donkness, we’re denied anything else equally as yummy the rest of the way.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

There’s some sort of plot about a plot against some former CIA and military peoples, like Bruce Willis (he keeps getting more dashing with age, and skinnier too?), Morgan Freeman (somebody free this man from schlock like this!), John Malkovich (the movie’s lone bright spot, but there’s not nearly enuff time dedicated to his character) and Helen Mirren (why isn’t she a ‘Dame’ yet?).  And while the plot and the plot never truly thicken or make sense or amount to something worth caring about, we have to watch them get ‘chased’ around America by Karl Urban (love this guy) and his superior Rebecca Pidgeon (wait, is this a Mamet movie?).  Throw in a civilian love interest for Willis in the cuteness form of Mary-Louise Parker (strutting her smile, which is something she never does on Weeds), some help from the always boisterous Brian Cox and hindrance from the always annoying Richard Dreyfuss, and Red sounds like it should glow bright… red, but it doesn’t, cause it’s more like pink, and therefore needs sum mo cooking before it could be considered well done instead of well dumb, and not dumb in a fun or good way

Getting Graphic: enuff with comics and especially graphic novels getting turned into live-action snoozers.  why not keep the graphic stuffs graphical?  worked like a charm and then some for Persepolis.  might we suggest that Art Spiegelman’s Maus go that route?  Holocaust + comics = Oscar gold, right?

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Red blushes today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Good Heart
Bar None
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

The Good Heart is a European-tinged American movie made by a European (Dagur Kári), but would have probably worked a lot better had it been a European-tinged European movie made by anyone but an American.  Translation: The Good Heart is neither the, good, or hearty on these here shores.  What it is is one fine Euro-fied American mess and a giant waste of the re-pairing of Brian Cox and Paul Dano, who first tangoed so well together in the tuff L.I.E. We usually lay blame of a film’s failure to work on the director and/or writer, and while Kári, who acts as both here, deserves a lot of the discredit, especially with his beyond obvious finale, the main repellent is the usual money bags mcgee Cox.  Given too much curmudgeony duty as a crusty and musty ole barkeep, for apprentice Dano to absorb his barbs like a bored brick wall, Cox sucks balls!!  No wonder they give Andy Rooney only a few minutes cause any more than that would be purge overkilll!!  Also, any movie that kills a cat by way of hanging, with no whyme or reason deserves to be hung out to dry

Thighs Wide Nottie: Isild Le Besco‘s the film’s hottie.  if we don’t bother plastering her face and rack on this site, than she is no hottie #fact

Verdictgo: we liked how the film looked, juss not much else, so a very loooow Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Heart goes pitter-splatter in NY/LA only tomorrow, but already avails on VOD, Amazon, X-Box, Ps3 and other stuffs

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…