And So The Story Begins…

The Hurt Locker
Shiz Is The Bomb, Yo!
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

And so the story begins… a few years ago, in a vacant Baghdad street, three US Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialists (Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty and Guy Pearce) and their faulty robot assistant are attempting to diffuse a bomb waiting to go boom, while local residents, who may or may not be the bomb placers, look on in the distance. Don’t want to ruin anything, but lettuce juss say that one of the soldiers aint gonna be around for the long haul, and it’s the one with the highest star wattage (a quick exit happens to another star later in the movie, which is such a great trick on the audience, ala Janet Leigh’s unexpected early demise in Psycho). Right off the bat the intensity level is cranked up to 11, and besides a few scenes of R&R, the intensity never dips below 10 (you’ll need a cigarette post-screening to calm yerself down, even if you don’t smoke)

So after Guy Pearce is blown to smithereens in the opening scene (oh crap, we did ruin it for ya), a new unruly cowboy bomb squad leader is brought in, and played in a beyond star-making turn by Jeremy Renner (you may have seen him be an asshole before in North Country or Take, or in the stuff listed in ‘Mad Man’ below). His subordinates, Mackey and Geraghty (both eggsalad in their own right), don’t take too kindly to his unconventional gung ho ways, especially since it could also get them all blown to smithereens (but not while listening to The Smithereens’ ‘A Girl Like You’). To them, it’s a tough job that someone’s gotta do, but for Renner, it’s something much more- an addiction that he continuously needs to feed. Hurts so good!!

Director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) and writer Mark Boal (penner of the underseen In the Valley of Elah)’s Hurt Locker is without question the definitive Iraq War-related movie of our time. Surely took long enuff, after all the flubs and duds that came before it (, Rendition, Redacted, anything else Re-poopulous). Hell, we’ll even go out on an artificial limb and say that it’s the bestest war movie we’ve seen since Full Metal Jacket (sorry Ryan, yer Shaving Privates production was technically awesome, but it was all a lil too cutesy for our tastes). So if you have the choice this weekend, do yerself a flavor and choose Hurt Locker over that other explosions in the desert clusterfudge

Mad Man: Renner has appeared in several commercials over the years, including ones for Bud Light, Coors Light, 7-11 and Duracell. he also pops up in Pink’s video for ‘Trouble’

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Surveillance
Several Things Wicked This Way Comes
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

And so the story begins… darkness, murder, blood splattered everywhere, and a ravaged girl appears out of nowhere looking for help. No, this isn’t Ronette Polaski’s grand entrance that set the disturbing tone for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, but the opening move of the serial killers that run rampant in his daughter Jennifer Chambers Lynch‘s wickedly delicious (maybe not so) long awaited follow-up to her notorious Boxing Helena. Surveillance is a Rashômonesque whodunit, with several disheveled characters recounting their version of the same grizzly story of what eggzactly happened on a desolate stretch of road earlier in the day (including solid supporting work from lil Ryan Simpkins, Pell James, Mac Miller and “http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0652783/” onclick=”(new Image()).src=’/rg/castlist/position-16/images/b.gif?link=/name/nm0652783/’;” target=”_blank”>Cheri Oteri… yes, the long lost Cheri Oteri). Listening to their tales are FBI agents Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman (that’s more of an odd combination than John Cocktoston’s Scotch-Romanian name or his parents, but hey, it works!). These J Edgar Hoovers aren’t cut from the same clean cut cloth that daddy’s Agent Cooper was, and her sheriff (Michael Ironside) and deputies (mustachioed Kent Harper, also the co-writer, and a superb French Stewart… yeah, remember him?) aren’t eggzactly any town’s finest, unless you count shooting civilians’ tires out so they have an eggcuse to harass them

As is the case with Hurt Locker, Surveillance is a relentless, heart-pounding affair that won’t loosen its grip go until you let it (even if we hactually guessed the resolution early on). It’s possibly a bit more intense than Locker, not necessarily better, and strangely enuff, more thrilling and twisted than her father’s recent output. Maybe he should take a page out of her book, instead of the other way around. Remember, it was Jen who wrote The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, not daddy!

Private Lynching: David Lynch has two other children from two different relationships, sons Riley and Austin Jack, who appeared in Inland ‘Unwatchable’ Empire and as Mrs Tremond’s magic grandson in Twin Peaks

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Chéri
Languishious Liaisons
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

And so the story begins (based on the books by Colette)… with our narrator briefly telling us about some of Europe’s mos notorious courtesans during the Belle Époque era, before turning our attentions solely on the long-winded tale of Lea de Lonval (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her beloved younger titled lover (Rupert Friend). At first, it’s mostly amusing to watch their relationship blossom from a fling into a full-on multiple year affair, but after they’re torn apart by an arranged marriage (to the adorable Felicity Jones) that was set-up by Lea’s old rival and Chéri’s annoying mother (a VERY annoying Kathy Bates), it turns into an eternal waiting fest, as Lea sits around and pouts and pines and pines and pouts, repeat, repeat, replete. Urgh! You know the two are gonna reunite at some point, for butter or wurst, and by the time we get there, 18 hours later, we wish the two had never met and that the narrator had picked one of the other more scandalous whores to chronicle. Don’t know if anyone was clamoring for a Dangerous Liaisons reunion between its director (Stephen Frears), writer (Christopher Hampton) and star (Pfeiffer), but we got one anyway, which doesn’t mean you have to watch it, especially when you can get so much more + Asia Agento NSFW heaven in The Last Mistress

You Got The Silver: Anita Pallenberg has a minor role in the film (and was also recently seen in Harmony Korine’s brilliant Mister Lonely as The Queen), and is best known for having a major role in the lives of the Rolling Stones. She first started off shacking up with Brian Jones, and then left him for Keef, eventually giving birth to three of his kids. Rumor has that she also rizzle razzled with Mick. no word on if she touched Charlie Watts’ sticks or not

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Chéri opens today across the country in limited release, while Hurt Locker and Surveillance (also available on-demand!) hurt it up in NY & LA only

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…