there is nothing I look forward to more than compiling our annual goodbye to last year’s trends and hello to this year’s puns. The Washington Post is more professional at this sorta thing, but maybe you’re not into the whole brevity thing…

and here’s what was In Oder Aus in the ’006, the ’007, the ’008, the ’009, the ‘010, the ‘011, the ‘012, the ‘013, the ‘014, the ‘015, the ‘016, the ‘017, the ‘018  and the ‘019

BlacKkKlansman
Spike-d Punch
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 135 min

A black cop and Jewish cop go undercover as a single white minority-hating male to infiltrate a Colorado chapter of the Klu Klux Klan – and even trick former Grand Wizard and still current a$$hole David Duke into thinking they’re believers.  What a story!  And a true one, as told in entertaining fashion as BlacKkKlansman by the once relevant, then once kinda irrelevant, and now with this movie very relevant Spike Lee!

Ron Stallworth was a real black cop, who really duped the Klan, but a lot of what the movie presents is fiction to pulp up the storytelling.  The activist girlfriend and explosive racial throwdown towards the end?  Made up.  The Jewish guy who played the physical manifestation (who appeared to do most of the actual leg work) of the mouthpiece that Stallworth first presented to the Klan on the phone?  He may not even been Jewish in reality, but I see where Spike is going here with all the embellishment – doubling down on the ‘all power to all people’ to brush back against those seeking only bigotry thry white power – yesterday, today and forever.  But did he have to hammer the message so hard?

We spend about 2 hours enjoying the lighthearted and fun (that’s how it truly felt) tale of Stallworth (John David Washington, who doesn’t really give the character any depth beyond the giant prop afro) and his Jewish partner (Adam Driver, who is not Jewish) + Steve Buscemi’s brother Michael getting cozy with a bunch of actors who are allowed free reign to say a lot of nasty nasty NASTY things about blacks and Jews onscreen (Jasper Pääkkönen – whose performance stands above everyone else’s, and whose umlauts know no bounds + Paul Walter Hauser, who after this and I, Tonya, should just be cast in every movie).  They thwarted and embarrassed the Klan, and everyone in the police department (and the audience) had a good laugh about it in the end!

And then?  Spike Lee was probably upset that no one saw Bamboozled and didn’t get the message of how awful our country is on race, and so he had to tack on baiting footage at the end of white nationalists (with David Duke included) wrecking horrible havoc last year in Charlottesville.  Yes, it’s relevant to the movie that proceeded it, but its tone, its message and delivery all feel sloppy and completely unnecessary.  Come to think of it, the beginning of the film, with a clip of Gone With The Wind, followed by some racist nonsense spewed by Alec Baldwin (as a made up character with the very made up name of ‘Kennebrew Beauregard’) is out of place too.  These bookends may seek to bring focus to the bigger picture, both onscreen and off it, but it ends up muddling the movie, and the message

When the end credits started to roll, a gentlemen in the audience yelled – ‘fcuk America!’  And then when I went to the bathroom, a gentleman who obviously saw the same movie was mouthing to himself – ‘fcuking crackers!’, and I knew he wasn’t talking about Saltines

Yes, it’s OK to be upset and enraged, and we all should be, because the KKK suck and no one should spending so much of their time and energy hating other people, but I feel Spike did more harm than good by being so blatant and provocative.  The same message would have come across if the movie stuck to the fun and lighthearted delivery.  It will all only be worth it if the outrage is matched by something more important – getting people to vote to make actual change

Verdictgo: as entertainment - Jeepers Worth A Peepers | as a political statment – Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Klansmane burns crosses and bridges theater near jews and white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

who wore it best?

Topher Grace as David Duke?

or

Garrick Hagon as Biggs Darklighter

[lukewarm skywalker | moonionaire | pakula]

While We’re Young
Fountain of Youth Truths
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 97 min

Noah Baumbach cannot be stopped, and I hope he doesn’t, cause he keeps handing us charming little films that charm the little big pants off of us, and sometimes they make us cringe, but in the best possible way.  So what would happen if you took his gruff Ben Stiller Greenberg character, grounded him a bit more (but still let him be crazy after all these years), and then let his inner youth playfulness play out like France Ha?? I’ll tell – you get While We’re Young, which is like Girls, but with girls AND boys AND adults, and it’s like actually watchable (read – not horrible), and thensome and things!

Documentary filmmaker Stiller and producer wife Naomi Watts aren’t having a midlife crisis, but all their friends are having babies (including Ad-Rock Adam Horovitz!!!) and they aren’t, or doing much of anything, so they’re looking for something fun and new.  They find it in hipster extraordinaire couple Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried.  Driver wants to make docs like Stiller, and Darby makes ice cream.  Stiller and Watts eat them up, take them under their wings, but it’s really Driver and Seyfried who take the ‘older’ couple under their wings – introducing them to a world where bike riding with a dope hat, hip-hop dance classes, VHS movie watching, and tripping balls on ayahuasca are the new normal

Things go well, until, well, they don’t, and Stiller starts to see a rusty lining in his dip in the fountain of youth.  Join them + Charles Grodin, Brady Corbet and Ryan Serhant (perfectly playing a douche-wad just like himself) as they search for youthful truths, and adult realities

Oh, and nice Scott Rudin cameo there!!

Verdictgo: MOS DEF Jeepers Worth A Peepers

feel Young at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

meet the new Star Wars VII cast, and what we guess will be their roles…

 

John Boyega as Sando Calrissian

Sando grew up in Cloud City, living under the shadow of his dashing father Lando.  Sick of hearing his father’s glorified stories about the Battle of Taanab and endless late-night partying with Nien Nunb, Sando left home to make it on his own.  Since then, he has become a legendary pilot, and an even bigger scoundrel AND player than his father ever was.  He currently holds 14 death sentences on as many planets, and has won the last 3 World Series of Sabacc titles

–

Daisy Ridley as Hope Solo

When parents Leia and Han tell their daughter Hope that they love her, she always replies, ‘I know’.  But does she?  HOPE so!!!  Hope, like her mother and grandmother before her, is one of the most independent women in the galaxy.  When she’s not getting straight A’s at Coruscant University, she devotes a lot of her free time to the Refugee Relief Movement.  And if she has any additional additional free time, she makes her own bathtub blue milk, from her great Aunt‘s secret recipe.  The force is slightly strong with this one, although she’s only a half-breed, and gets her ‘shoot first’ mentality genes directly from her pops

–

Adam Driver as Darth Brooks

Not much is known about Darth Brooks, but what is known is to stay the fcuk out of his way.  Brooks employs the rare tri-lightsaber, which can not only slice opponents with ease, but galactic pizzas as well!

–

Oscar Isaac as Dweezil Zapple

When it comes to Jizz music, there no musician more on top of his game than Dweezil Zapple.  Sadly, the rest of the galaxy doesn’t realize that.  Stuck playing coffee shops and bounty hunter bars on remote planets, Dweezil keeps on keeping on, waiting to make a breakthrough.  Sales of his last album weren’t promising, but an opening slot on the Max Rebo tribute band’s latest tour is.  To make ends meet, Dweezil moonlights as a droids dealer.  His most popular seller is R7-D4

–

Andy Serkis as Grand Toff Fee

After the destruction of the second Death Star, the Empire was in shambles, until Grand Toff Fee rose thru the ranks and righted the ship.  He is currently overseeing the construction of a third Death Star, and promises that this one will be indestructible, and will not have a shield generator located anywhere near any muppets or midgets

–

Domhnall Gleeson as Obi-Thwoo Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi was perhaps the greatest and most dedicated of all the Jedis, but everyone has their faults and weaknessess.  Obi-Wan’s was prostitutes, and he would use the force to force himself upon endless hookers, without paying them a dime or spices.  Well, one of these forced situations, with a Mos Eisley red-lighter named Sxxixty Nyne, resulted in a bastard child that Obi-Wan never knew about.  Nyne tried her best to raise her son, Obi-Thwoo, but being the son of whore didn’t provide much of an opportunity for him, and so she sent him to the Jedi Academy on his 10th birthday.  Obi-Thwoo was a quick study, and soon become as good a Jedi as his father before him.  But apparently he couldn’t escape his genes either – as he got involved in a scandalous affair with Yaddle that threatened to destroy the Jedis forever

–

Max von Sydow as Galactic Emperor Vax mon Ydow

Emperor Vax mon Ydow is one of the most malicious and vicious men in the entire galaxy.  He has been known to set up meetings, and then not show up.  BASTARD!!!  One of his biggest priorities as Emperor, besides killing all the Jedi, is to figure out a better system of visual communication other than the ye olde glitchy hologram

–

so there you have it.  will this be the bestest Star Wars ever????  probably not, but it will probably be 129393939 billion times better than the last 3 Lucas gave us.  HOOOOORAY!!!!!!!