Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Frigid War ‘Thriller’
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 127 min

If you were a casting director and said to we, hey, you, if you could pick yer British acting (male) dream team, who’d be on it?  Well, we’d be like, hey, we’ll take Gary Oldman, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Graham, Simon McBurney and throw in Colin Firth, Toby Jones and John Hurt for really good measure (sorry Mark Strong, but yer kinda in too many movies and are kinda annoying in a majority of them).  And then if an art director was like, hey, you, what modern movies that take place in the 70s should we copy for look and style?  Well, we’d be like, hey, totally rip off the look & stylings of Zodiac, Munich and Carlos.  Oh, you mean 3 of the bestest movies of the past ten years, right?  Yes, we do mean those blam-mazing movies that everyone needs to see like 992929 times (even if we haven’t seen em that many times).  Woaaaaaah, a cast like that AND a look & style like thems, could a movie like that be humanly or even robotically possible?  IT IS!!!  It’s Tomas Alfredson‘s (he made the lesser, original Let The Right One In) version of John le Carré‘s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy!!!!!

OMG, THIS HAS GOT TO BE LIKE THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER, RIGHT?  WRONG!!!!!  It’s got the cast, AND THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY AWESOME (esp Oldman as Bill Nighy, and Benedict Cumberbatch, who’d blow minds even if he were playing a mute invisible person!!!), and the look, AND IT’S FORKING DULLTASTIC 70s GORGEOUSITY (apparently yellows & browns = the 70s), but what this movie doesn’t have is much to keep you from the beating drums of dull.  BUT HOW COULD IT BE???  Dunno, but this cold war thriller is juss too dang icy to ever warm up to.  NO WAY!!! Yes way.  Sure, it’s nice to see a spy movie that doesn’t need to resort to endless vroomy car chases and big-o bang-o explosions, but guess what, THIS MOVIE REALLY FRICKIN NEEDED SOME CAR CHASES AND EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!  It’s true.  Believe you we, the plot is not all that thick, even though it makes you think it is, and when the denouement show’s its face, it’s more like denoue-meh

moral of the story:  this ‘spy’ movie needs further TAILORING and TINKERING and SOLDIERING!!!!  shiz needed to be defrosted and did not need Tom Hardy with a crappy wig that made him look like Andy Lameberg with a crappy wig.  great actors acting great in a great looking movie does not equal a great movie.  We really want to see if the old Obi-Wan Kenobi TV version is any less tundra-y.  HOPEFULLY IT HAS LIGHTSABERS AND A DUDE WITH A BUTT FOR A MOUTH!!!

Fairbank-Weather Fan: we’ll pass on Svetlana and get svelt-hotta all over cutie Amanda Fairbank-Hynes!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Tinker aint eggzactly Tailor made this Friday in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Debt
Paid In Mostly Half-Full
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 114 min

If Ciarán Hinds is in a movie, we will want to see it, and odds are that the movie will be at least decent.  So what if a movie barely has Hinds in it?  Decency is still possible, and John Madden‘s The Debt, a remake of (what we are assuming is a far superior) 2007 Israeli film, is pretty darn decent stuff.  A little poor in execution-ville, and plenty poor in climax-land, The Debt still had enough going for it to cash in its IOU.  It’s kinda like a ghetto Munich meets The Boys From Brazil.  And even ghettoizations of those revenge on Jewish boogeymen flicks is still something of interest, cause who doesn’t love watching Jewish enemies get their due????  (hactually, we wondered if Hollywood would EVER make a film where Muslims hunted down their enemies who have wronged them.  the conclusion we came to is probably never)

And if hunting Nazis in a non-over-the-top Tarantino kinda way isn’t your cup of tea, well, you can at least revel in the unexpected hilarity of Sam Worthington ‘trying’ on an Israeli accent for size.  Eeeesh!!  The guy’s got a face for cinema and a mouth for duct tape.  Man oh man!  At least they surrounded him with some class act(or)s like (underrated) Marton Csokas and (I’ve been everywhere this summer) Jessica Chastain.  In modern day times, Hinds is Worthington (even though he looks more like Csokas), Tom Wilkinson is Csokas, and Helen Mirren is Chastain in the membrane

So the modern stuff is where we begin.  The trio are far removed from their Mossad agent days and each other, cause they’re harboring some kinda secret.  But when we get shuttled to the past, which is the juicy bulk of the film, when the 2 dudes and redheaded hottie hunt down and capture a Josef Mengele-type jackass (Jesper Christensen).  Things don’t go right, but maybe they do, but not really, cause there’s a DEBT that has to be paid or like finished or something, which leads to the ending that has promise and kinda comes up empty, but it’s kinda satisfying, enough, sorta

Hey, did we mention that Ciarán Hinds is in it???

Hinds Wins: oh, you know nothing of Hinds and want to play ketchup?  See him in Rome, Munich, Veronica Guerin, Life During War Time AND mos def The Eclipse

Verdictgo: a mild Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Debt is cash sorta money, but not really, but kinda, today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Graduating On Time
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG13 | 130 min

before we tackle 7.2, lets look back on what we said about 1 thru 7.1, in which we barely remember a thing about any of them.  cause lets be honest, these stories are pretty much one long continuous cliffhanger for one final ‘epic’ showdown (MORE LIKE SLOWDOWN) with Voldemort, or something!!!

Sorcerer’s Stone & Chamber of Secrets – Chris Columbus was king of the poo/boo/snoozefests to the Zth degree

Prisoner of Azkaban – the greatest third movie ever

Goblet of Fire - admirably carries the torch with badder baddies, diggty dragons, tentacled mermaids, tentacled trees, and the seeds of young love

Order of the Phoenix – Yer not going to be amazed, but yer not gonna walk away disappointed neither.  I don’t think anyone’s cryin that the quidditch season got canceled this go around

The Half-Blood Prince - Harry Potter’s 6th cinematic adventure feels more like a real movie and less like a, well, Harry Potter movie.  Hammazin how a few pubes make everything a lot more interesting

Deathly Hallows: Part 1 - The Deathly Hallows is deathly awesomes!!!!

OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so what about 7.2??  Feels rushed (all 8 of them did), but that’s better than it feeling slow (none of them were), but STILL, it was a very very very very very very very satisfying ending to set of movies that was always pointing towards a big ending, even if it took forever to get there (in a non-slow way, but 8 movies is a lot of movies!)

but this is the way you go out.  no one wants 283838 false endings like in LOTR III or juss being awful in general like Star Wars III, or feeling unmade like Leonard Part III.  we want closure and closure is what Potter 7.2 did.  CASE CLOSURED!!!!!

Also, it was well shot, with like nice camera angles and lighting and thingies!!!!  Yeah David Yates!!!

Also, Voldemort had a cinematic purpose for once!

Also, we love it when Hogwarts gets its a$$ kicked, cause school is boring!!!

Also, the movie was kinda scary (those banking goblins were creep-a-rooni)!!!

Also, Professor McGonagall’s breaking out her wand was ALMOS cooler than when fake digital Yoda broke out his lightsaber (or when Yaddle whipped out her dick)!!

Also, the #1 actor in our hearts (Ciarán Hinds) was in it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, there was a WET-ish T-SHIRT CONTEST (too bad Hermione has zero boobs)!!!

And although we’ve poo-pooed on Chris Columbo’s name left and right, for making the first 2 movies berry vanilla, he does get credit for casting Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, and somehow they magically grew into decent actors, great kids, and our pals 4life!!!!!!

still can’t believe that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are really twin brothers, Dumbledore is Dudley Dursley’s father, the entire Weasley family dyes their hair, Moaning Myrtle is actually less moany than her mother Moaning Mona, and that Rita Skeeter give sloppy hand jobs!!!!  SO MANY REVELATIONS!!!!

Never5get: when ‘they’ made Hermione’s boobs bigger

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Potter 7.2 is a movie you’ve already seen if you’ve seen Potters 1 – 7.1, so you don’t even need to know where it’s playing

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Rite
Diet Rite
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Father Gary Thomas is a real exorcist [read this interview!].  Matt Baglio wrote a book about him being a modern exorcist called The Rite. All this has been turned into a movie by Mikael HÃ¥fström (1408), but Father Thomas’ name has been changed to Michael Kovak (boring Colin O’Donoghue, who can barely open his eyes), probably to protect him being associated with this mostly blah movie.  If you run out and see this, you may need to be exorcised of boredom!!!

At first, Father Kovak’s struggle with faith and family (mortician father Rutger Hauer) holds our interest, all the way from his reluctance to enrolling in a seminary, to being coerced by Toby Jones into exorcism school at the Vatican in Rome.  When in Rome… teacher Ciarán Hinds (our mos flavroite actor going, besides Javier Bardem) sees something in the doubting Father K, he sends him off to learn from the master, Anthony Hopkins.  Hopkins takes him under his wing, and immediately has him assist in some de-demonizing.  So far, not so bad

Then things get convoluted, dumbfounded and juss plain dumb (and boring!) when they meet a boy who has a mysterious horseshoe imprint on his chest, and then Father K starts seeing and hearing things, and then doesn’t have sex with journalist Alice Braga, and then Hopkins starts acting strange (he smacks a child!!!!) and unleashes his own special style of hammy acting (like a more polished Nic Cage type dealio), which has diluted his performances as of late.  By the time Father K finds his faith (and Hopkins calms down), you’ll have long lost yours!!!

All Rite: Marta Gastini is one of the possessed peoples in this movie, and it’s no wonder, cause we’d love to possess her too!!!!

+ her ‘aunt’ is played by the bountiful Maria Grazia Cucinotta (of The Fap Is Not Enuff fame)

Verdictgo: the wrong outweighs the rite, so gotta go with Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Rite goes off today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

the year was 2010.  movies were shown.  a lot em had to do with women in trouble, some blurred the lines between fiction and fact, a bunch were needlessly retrofitted to 3-D, and in the end, they were all juss a bunch of movieses.  18 of these flicks were bester than the others, and in our mumble opinion, we giveth you…

The Barely Legal Eighteensies

1) Black Swan

Natalie Portman masturbates!!!  that single sentence is enuff bestness for being bestest of the year bestnness worthy, but how about the meticulous Darren Aronofsky accomplishing the impossible task (more so than making a movie about the making of a website interesting) by making a movie about the ballet udderly mindblowing???? we haven’t been this psychologically broken since Jacob’s Ladder!  she WAS perfect! so was Vincent Cassel

2) Fish Tank

Coming of age in plastic America is for wussies, but coming of age in chavish England is sum real tough shit.  juss ask Fish Tank‘s heroine Mia Williams.  Hactually don’t ask her, and simply watch and marvel at Katie Jarvis’ embodiment of her heart & soul, and in the process hand in the finest performance of any actor we saw this year, in one of the most vastly under-seen dynamite films of the year!!!

3) Enter The Void

Once you enter, you will never exit, and if you are able to somehow exit, we’re sure the gift shop would be filled with nothing but hallucinogenic neon cum drops.  Still want to enter?  Who knew that Gaspar Noé could out Gaspar Noé Gaspar Noé!?!?!?!  This one will be talked about for ages, even if we never want to see it again, EVER.  had we hactually enjoyed it, it probably woulda been our true pick for #1.  9reals

3.5) Dogtooth

Saw this one a lil too late, but it’s never too late to add the 3.5th bestestest movie of 2010 to the breast of list, cause dude, DOGTOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4) Blue Valentine

You Always Hurt The One You Love

5) Carlos

319 minutes never felt so well used.  Carlos is the little brother of Zodiac & Munich, and those are 2 of the finest films of the past decade!! now can someone make a killer Patty Heart flick?

6) I’m Still Here

We saw it before the jig was up, and even with the knowledge that it was all hoax, we still want to believe in the self-loathing and destruction of Joaquin Phoenix.  This is Spinal FAT!

7) The Social Network

It was great and all, but it’s still no Zodiac

8) Waking Sleeping Beauty

The House of Mouse stewed in a black cauldron for quite awhile, until the beast was magically turned back into a beauty once again.  If you’ve ever seen and loved a single Disney cartoon, you owe it to yourself to watch this amazingly honest tell-all

9) The Red Riding Trilogy

To the North, where they did whatever the bloody hell they wanted to do!!!  Part 1, In the Year of Our Lord 1974, was the cream of the trilogy crop, but all 3 puzzle pieces are required for optimal picture quality

10) Best Worst Movie

A title that’s more apt than Apt Pupil, even if you’ve never even heard of Troll 2 before.  No worries, as they catch you up on the forgettable then and the unbelievable now, and it’s all for a wonderful eternity.  George Hardy, best wurst dentist/actor EVER!!!!!!

11) Exit Through The Gift Shop

What is art?  What is a documentary?  What is Banksy‘s next cinematic move? And WHEN can we see it???

12) The Eclipse

Two things you are unaware of: Ciarán Hinds is the greatestestest living actor AND The Eclipse is 28393902 bajillion times better than anything having to do with vampires, werewolves and the pointless girl they all want to bang

13) Another Year

‘a film by Mike Leigh’ is all you need to know

14) The King’s Speech

We still want to give this movie a giant hug

15) Let Me In

The rare ‘American remake is better than the foreign original’ type dealio!!!!!

16) The Agony & The Ecstasy of Phil Spector

Courtroom drama is flawlessly juxtaposed with some of the mos eternal music ever recorded, and we all finally learn what the deal with this is/was!!!!! #BenWallace

17) Life During Wartime

It’s a sequel of Happiness, with all new actors AND vibrant colors!! how did this work??  dunno, but it did!!!

18) Step-Up 3-D

Even more so than Jackass, this is why 3-D was re-invented. BFAB 4 Life!!! 10reals!!!!!

and now for the…

Honor Blackmanable Mentions

127 Hours (look ma, no arm!), Animal Kingdom (bloomin onions!), Cyrus (John C Reilly & Jonah Hill were made for each other), The Ghost Writer (free Roman Polanski!!), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Män Som Hatar Kvinnor) (guess what, she has a dragon tattoo!!!), Harry Potter 7.1 (best since #3!!!), Heartbreaker (the inevitable American remake will suck), Jackass 3-D (duh), Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (what she said), The Tillman Story (operation freedom of information), Somewhere (it’s Lost In Translation, but hactually really darn good!), Toy Story 3 (duh pt 2), TRON 2 (bestest Daft Punk video everrrrrrr), Vincere (2 facist, 2 furious), When You’re Strange (faces come out of the rain!!)

stay pooned for our final Movies 2010 installment, when we drop a bunch of awards on people like it’s a hot lunch!

perv-iously on Thighs Wide Movies

2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
& 2002