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Friday, May 22
Easy Virtue
Noël Coward
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
A dashing young Englishman (Ben Barnes, being a little less wooden here than he was playing Narnia's Prince Caspian) is swept off his feet by a brash, independent American (Jessica Biel, not proving too much in a blond wig with dyed hair), and after a whirlwind marriage, it's off to meet his snooty family (buttoned-up Kristin Scott Thomas, permadrunk Colin Firth, and nosy sisters Katherine Parkinson and Kimberley Nixon... more on her below) at their vast countryside estate. It quickly becomes apparent that the American aint too fond of the fam's quaint uppercrustednessness (cept she does take to black sheep Firth) and in return, they aint too fond of her truth, justice and American ways (cept for Firth, duhvs course), and so a bunch of misbehaving rolls out and a comedy of manners ensues. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's purty much the set-up for like 50% of all British movies involving Americans, and this one is 51% fun and 49% run of the mill. Based off of a Noël Coward play, writer/director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) keeps the affair light and breezy, while the witty one-liners pop out to little or no effect on the audience's end. Most of the chuckles are served up by the manor's manservant, played with much reserved verve by Kris Marshall (the dude in Love Actually who went to America to have threesome with Ivana Milicevic, January Jones, and Elisha Cuthbert & also seen in the beyond thighlarious Death At A Funeral), who in our humboldt opinion, deserves a break out role a little bit more than Timberlake's ladyfriend does. Easy Virtue is certainly easy on the eyes, with it's lush green settings and dainty flapper wardrobes, but had it been a lil bit more difficult, it also might have been a lot more virtuous
Welsh's Great Juice: there may only be 50 women in all of Wales, but we'd have to agree that cutie pie mcgee Kimberley Nixon is probably the top of them hots! can't wait to see her in Cherrybomb, where she pops Ron Weasley's cherry!!
Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges
New World Order
Paranoid Park Rangers
Official Website + Trailer
The sky is falling, the sky is falling! That's what many a conspiracy theorists are saying, claiming that there's a... NEW WORLD ORDER at hand, pulling all the strings (juss like Bela said) behind the scenes, and yet, not that many people are listening to them. Luke Meyer & Andrew Neel's thighopening and fascinating doc introduces us to a handful of these American truth seekers and a lil bit about their causes (ringleader and entertaining radio loudmouth Alex Jones, 9/11 disbelievers Luke Rudkowski and newish convert Seth Jackson, and Jack McLamb, a former cop who lives in fear with guns up in the mountains). The film plays fair by showing them on and off their soapboxes, which makes 'em look like half whack jobs, and half juss regular concerned citizens who demand answers. New World Order raises a lot of valid questions, and you might also start demanding some of dem answers yerself. That's a hella lot more useful than Mel & Julia's Conspiracy Theory ever twas
JF-KO-ed: no one questions authority like Oliver Stone does, so there muss be no better place for conspiracy theorists to vacay other than Oliver Stoneland (this never gets old)
Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers
Virtue opens today in NY & LA, while New World Order causes disorder in NY only, but will air on IFC next Tuesday
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed...
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