Thighs Wide Shut

True Grit
How The West Was Numb
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Is this a Coen Bros movie?  Certainly doesn’t feel like it.  Certainly doesn’t look like it.  Certainly isn’t good enough to be considered one either neither.  You call this a follow-up to the fan/Jew-tastic A Serious Man (wait, how did we not pick that to be the #1 flick of the ’09???)????  Are you serious?  About as un-serious as Yahoo Serious!!

Joel & Ethan’s take on Charles Portis’ novel True Grit (since this isn’t a remake or re-imagining of the Duke starring-Oscar winning ’69 film… which we haven’t seen… yet) is everything short of spectacular.  It’s a decent enuff movie and all, but a decent enuff movie any Tom Shadyac, Dick Marquand or Harry Ramis could have helmed.  It’s as basic as Bounty Basic.  It’s as challenging as playing a game of Uno by yourself.  It’s as clever as Cleveland’s Stadium Mustard.  It’s about as cool as checking into FourSquare, when no one really cares which pad thai place you hit up the most.  Can we recall the mayor???

9reals, is this really a Coen Bros movie?  There was about one total chuckle produced and about zero characters who could live in a Barton Fink world (the guy wearing a bear skin doesn’t count, or matter for that matter).  Like we said, the movie is fine as it is, but by the time it gets going in the third act, you might be working on your 33rd yawn.

Maybe the story itself doesn’t lend itself to any kinda awesomeness, itself: a no nonsense girl’s pa is shot dead, so the sense of non girl (an umemorable Hailee Steinfeld) hires two guns for hire, an eye-patched ruffian deputy (Jeff Bridges, being very un-Dude like, and it works!) and a two-eyed Texas Ranger (Matt Damon with a solid Redford mustache!) to round-up the murdererer (Josh Brolin, with big teef).  Can you guess at how this one turns out?  In between the forgone and forlorn conclusion, there’s some horse riding, eating by campfire, more horse riding, a few guns a fired, and Barry Pepper playing a character with the last name ‘Pepper’.  How exciting are ya?  What if we told you that the Coen Bros directed it?  What if we didn’t and you thought some else did?  Remember how killer their neo-Western No Country For Old Men was?  This was like No Thing To Write Home About For Any Young or Old Man

Dis Claim Her: OK, we hate westerns, but that doesn’t mean we can’t like them.  our mos flavorite western of all time is Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.  that counts, right?

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

True is false at a theater near jews on December 22nd

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Casino Jack
Cash Rules/Ruined Everything Around Him
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Did you see Alex Gibney‘s Jack Abramoff doc Casino Jack and The United States of Money?  The hard facts put on display seemed to defy reality: money hungry lobbyists scamming Native Americans, exploiting sweatshops in the South Pacific, whacking Greek casino boat owners, funneling cash to feed vanity Hebrew school projects, all while shaking hands and being pat on the back by US Senators and even the dude in the Oval Office.  Head-shaking unbelievableness!!!  No writer in Hollywood could ever dream up something so preposterous, so turning all this juicy material into a feature film seems like the natural thing to do, and that’s what did done happen

Director George Hickenlooper (who recently passed away) and writer Norman Snider are up to the easy task with their own Casino Jack, and while it has the production values of an Andy Sidaris flick, the results are still entertaining enough to make for a solid companion piece to the Gibney doc… which you should see first, or instead of.  You may have had a enuff of Kevin Spacey‘s dourpussedness as of late, but in the title role here, he joyfully apes it up, and we freely eats it up!   WELCOME BACK SPACEMAN (and we’re not talkin about K-PAX)!!  The rest of the names that round of the cast may not incite riots, but Barry Pepper (as Michael Scanlon), Kelly Preston, Graham Greene, Maury Chaykin (he too also passed away recently too also!), Spencer Garrett (watch his demo reel!) and Jon Lovitz, yes, JON LOVITZ, each raise their game as the chips stack up and then fall to pieces.  B-listicious!

In The Looper: George cast his Governor of Colorado cousin John Hickenlooper as a senator

This Week’s Edition of Cutiepie McGee:

Anna Hardwick may play Lobbyist #2, but in our hearts, she’s #1!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Casino gets Jacked up this Friday only in NY &LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…