Thighs Wide Shut Thighs Wide Shut

Wednesday, July 15

Adolescence & Peppermints

Harry Potter and
The Half-Blood Prince
Give Me Puberty AND Give Me Death
Trailers & Mo | Official Website



The Harry Potter movie universe aint kids stuff no mo, as our beloved trio of heroes + red-headed sistah are taking on bigger responsibilities and ripening into sum mighty tasty fruit (whomever had the foresight and fivesight to cast Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and the A thru Z dorable Bonnie Wright, sea-b-low, should be pat on the back every ten seconds for the rest of their lives). It used to be all about the adults teaching the kids whimsical potions and flizzy flizzum flazzum, and for the audience, it felt a bit like being in school. Now the teachers are receding even mo into the background (although new teach Jim Broadbent and the brief wordless appearance of Finchy from The Office were both a delight) and the real fun is juss beginning with our newly bar and bat mitzvahed teens discovering real human emotions, like totally sweating mens and womens (the flight of fancy with Cho Chang doesn't count). Hammazin how a few pubes make everything a lot more interesting

Harry Potter's 6th cinematic adventure feels more like a real movie and less like a, well, Harry Potter movie. If you can't read between that line, then lemme-us put it into plain Engrish: David Yates' second stab (he did a solid enuff job before with Order of the Phoenix) at Rowling's mega-franchise is TOPs of the Hogwart's class... which much love and respek of course to Cuarón's Azkaban. Tis nice to see the series hitting on all cylinders in his hands, while finally maintaining a bit consistency (wish the Redskins' managment won't take note of this) as we head into the deeper and darker corners of the opus (Yates is currently directing the last book into two movies, and that is a sure sign of great things to come). Half-Blood Prince may be upper crust in terms of HP sauce, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a walk-off home run in normal movie stuffdoms...

The first two hours of the flick are slick and paced perfectly, as we build to some explosive ending, but then the curse that's dogged down the 5 previous entries rears its fugly head. Each book doesn't exactly have an explosive ending (OK, the one where the wicked hot dude from Twilight bites it was purty sweet). It's all hactually one long story stretched thin over 7 parts, with new characters and tricks being sprinkled in each time. Sure, there's a big character shock to the system at the end of this one (who had a fargin clue that Professor McGonagall was secretly banging Hagrid???), which we somehow never had revealed to us even after all this time (we stopped reading after the 3rd book), but it didn't eggzactly come off as shocking. Maybe that's cause there's always unfinished bidness to be carried over to the next installment, and it ends up being the same unfinished bidness after lame unfinished bidness: stop Voldemort. Obviously that won't be the case in the finale, as we're sure they'll stop him (which will hopefully lead to some celebratory champagne showers and BJs & HJs between the wizards), but it's this ho-hum ending after hum-ho repetitive ending, which also usually involves the reveal of whatever the title means, that keeps this saga from being Star Wars or LOTR 4eva memorable

Spreakin of Voldy, Ralph Fiennes with a melted face isn't scary, but his 16 year old screen version is straight up bone chillin. In flashbacks, Frank Dillane plays Tom Riddle and he's as creepy as listening to Radiohead's 'Creep' while watching Creepshow and eating crêpes... with cobwebs!! And if that doesn't make a lick & lack of sense & cents, then lettuce juss say that he's as creepy as the boys from The Boys From Brazil. Yet this Potter flick aint about boys, it's about another bad creation: Boyz II Men

Gin Rummy, Ginny Yummy: she's more ginger and delicious than ginger ale, she gives Harry something more wooden to hold than his wand, she loves the Orioles and she's Bonnie Wright in all the right wright ways. not a single TWS Potter review has omitted her name in the name of love, so why she would stop now, especially since she's finally 18

she's so classy lookin

but thankfully, not classy lookin in a Freddie Blassie kinda way

puppies

sweater? yes, we sweat her and her sweaterpuppies

YUMbrella

YUMbrella (reprise)

she loathes me, she loathes me not?

she loathes me not!!

Verdictgo: in the realm of Potter, and dat's all dat matters, tis a Breast In Show


Somers Town
English & Pole Vaulting
Trailers & Mo | Official Website



We've sprayed it before, and we'll slay it again: any movie written and directed by Shane Meadows is well woolworth yer attention AND is beyond thunderdome, and since he's so effin money bags mcmulligan and we guarantee such grandiose statements, beyond the astrodome as well. If his name is unfamiliar, you should remove that 'un' AwarrenSAPP and start elsewhere (This Is England, Dead Man's Shoes and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands), but that doesn't mean for a second that his 71 minuted simple & pleasureful Somers Town isn't as masterful as what came before. It would help in particular that you at least see This Is England before you hit the Town, so you can track the development of Meadows' brilliant discovery and little screen persona, the rough and tumble realist actor Thomas 'Tomo' Turgoose. In Somers Town, Turgoose plays... Tomo, a runaway who has arrived at the titular London nabe, and strikes up an unlikely bond with a motherless Polish immigrant teen (a wonderfully accented Piotr Jagiello). The two put an end to their summer boredom by working odd jobs, causing much mischief and falling in love with the same waitress (Elisa Lasowski). Not every thing they try works out in the long run, except for the most important one of them all, their friendship, the fastest and bestest ship on land! And here's a word to the wise: if a modern black & white movie makes it into a theater, it's probably worth seeing. same rule applies to documentaries, but they're allowed to be in color

Luck Luck Goose: peep Tomo's audition at age 13 that started it all. can't wait to see him keep growings ups & ups

Verdictgo: Breast In Show


Potter 6 opens today at a theater near jews, while Somers Town clowns it up in NY only, and maybe soon in yer neck of the woods, and eventually available on Film Movement DVD

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed...



# Adolescence & Peppermints