Thighs Wide Shut

Silver Linings Playbook
Bipolar Opposites Attract
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 122 min

David O Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook is a great great great American film.  It’s like American Beauty but less pretentious and more American.  It’s like David O’s own The Fighter, but more fun and funnier.  Not even Jennifer Lawrence‘s dour sourpuss stizz can halt its amazingness.  She, for the first time in our eyes, hands in an actual performance that isn’t a total snoozefest, and its incredible!  IT’S TRUE!!!!  Chris Tucker isn’t even the most annoying thing in the film.  What is?  NOTHING, cause if you pair Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro in a movie, it’s obviously going to be something worth seeing.  OK, so it has only happened twice – first, with the crizzazzy Limitless & now with Playbook (the time where pre-fame Coops asked De Niro a question on Inside The Actor’s Studio doesn’t count), but still, Cooper/De Niro in 2016!!!!

So what is the Silver Linings Playbook? Bradley Coops is a bipolar man that has just returned home after an extended stay at a mental facility, who wants nothing more than his wife & previous life back, but that aint happening anytime soon, even if he’s under the delusion that it is.  In order to get better, Coops wants to see the silver lining in everything… AND USE IT AS HIS PLAYBOOK!  He gets help and support from his parents, De Niro & Jacki Weaver (she, the tuff & ruff & gruff Aussie mum in Animal Kingdom), even if he may have inherited his crazy from them.  Weaver doesn’t have that much to do besides bake & hug, but her smile is a comfort every time it is shown.  De Niro on the otherhand, is actually acting, as a character who lives & breathes, instead of juss showing up for a paycheck.  He is fantabolous, especially when he gets all itchy about his beloved Philadelphia Eagles, gambling & good luck charms.  DON’T YOU DARE MESS WITH HIS JUJU!!!!!

And while Coops also gets solid support from folks like Anupam Kher, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham & Julia Stiles, he finds the most help from a kindred battered spirit in the form of Katniss Everdeen J-Law.  Her husband recently died, and she too wants to put her life back together.  This movie is really about Coops and J-Law moving forward in life, together, even if they seem like two ingredients in a recipe for disaster.  While the outcome may be a tad predictable, and a bit more dancy than Hugh, the journey is so dang earnest and honest and awesome that it actually pays to discover something so undiscoverious.  That isn’t a word, but this movie is so great that it’s forcing us to make up words.  We hope this wins lots of awards.  We hope you do too

summary of all fears – there’s a movie that Jennifer Lawrence is in that we don’t hate and/or hate her in it, which automatically makes it a MUSS MUSS MUSS SEEEEE!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Silver Linings is gold in limited release this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Hangover Part II
Hung Out, Too Dry
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 102  min

The Hangover I was purty darns good (remember kids, we usually don’t say such nice things about modern comedies!).  Its sequel, not at all.  It’s one thing to repeat the entire plot (in a new, more exotic setting!!!), but it’s another to not come through on the only thing that matters – jokes that cause laughter.  Don’t know if the script was rushed into being, or perhaps the writers (Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong, along with director Todd Phillips) honestly thought that they had constructed something truly hilarious, but the only souls laughing here are the studio heads, all the way to the bank with the buckoo-bucks we handed over to them for this uninspired and tired effort.  Who’s game for a third one?  Probably everyone but the audience!!

You know your comedy doesn’t work if you can’t make any use of Zach Galifianakis‘ talent.  Wonder what Zachy thinks of the script, especially since this material is 9 feet beneath him + the fact that he sorta hates the hand that feeds him.  It’s not like the acting is bad (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms do what is asked of them), well, unless we’re talking about the ‘acting’ of half note ‘actor’ Ken Jeong (who makes awful novice Mason Lee look like Charlton Heston), and the direction is fine (it does resemble a thing that we call a movie), but 1nce again, it comes down to this – THERE ARE NO LAUGHS.  Well, that’s not not entirely true.  There were probably 2 of them (‘K’ as in knife, is one of them), and of course none came from the tongues of Ken Jeong, poor bland Justin Bartha, a wasted Paul Giamatti, or that smoking monkey that’s suppose to be hilarious cause it’s a monkey that smokes!!  Ha, ha, ha.  So funny that we forgot to laugh

Hangover 10: Kim Lee

not to be confused with Lee Kim

Verdictgo: Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous

be a teetotaler and stay away from yer local theater showing The Hangover II

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Limitless
Ride This Baby Sky High
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Do yerself a favor and shut off yer brain as Bradley Cooper ups his IQ quotient in Limitless.  Let him do all the thinking and you’ll be free to sit back and do nothing but udderly enjoy Neil Burger‘s rollercoaster ride of expedited ladder climbing.  Now we’re not saying that this is in any way a smart film, but it’s certainly the most fun we’ve had in a theater in this still young year (those fractal zooms are a real treat for the eyes!).  Plus any movie in this day and age that utilizes Robert De Niro‘s talent, instead of belittling it, has got to be something worth watching, no?  But don’t let his second billing fool you, as he’s not in the movie as much you’d think he would be

So what’s this all about?  Cooper is a writer with a serious case of brain block, and a book deadline beyond past due.  One day, he runs into his skeezy ex-brother-in-law (skeezy Johnny Whitworth) and he offers a solution to his problem, in the form of an unknown designer drug, promised to expand the mind by using all those unused parts.  And so it does, and he finishes his book in record time.  His publisher’s impressed, and now Cooper is too, and wants more of this perfect drug.  Problem be that his ex-bro-in-law got himself murdered, but Cooper finds his secret stash and its off to the races… and riches!!!

He turns his attentions to financial wizardry and starts making bookoo bucks, lickity split.  Finally, all of his wildest dreams are coming true, including the re-swooning of his former flame Abbie Cornish, and the attention of Wall Street bigwigs (DeNiro), but of course all of this is gonna come at a price, right???  How long can he keep this brain game up, and what happens when he runs out of the pills??  And what about that money he borrowed from that ruthless Eastern European dude (a delicious Andrew Howard)?  And why does his ex-wife (Anna Friel) look like a strung-out junkie?  And why might he be headed in that downward direction too????  Forget the questions, and like we said, shut that brain off and simply relish in this hot dog.  Plus yer gonna wanna see one of the bestest AND sillest use of a child’s legs in an action sequence EVER

Neil Burger Should Not Be Confused With: Neil Hamburger? btw, we’re dying to know what Neil Burger thinks of hamburgers

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Limitless is MORE today at a theater near jews this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

fractal zoom!!!!!

The A-Team
The Zzzzzzzzzzzzz Team
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

As a youngin, we loved ourselves us some Stephen J. Cannell & Frank Lupo TV version of The A-Team.  Haven’t watched it since then, so either the show hasn’t aged well and this unwanted big screen version (were people really clamoring for one, 17 years after the fact?) apes and confirms that, or the movie itself is juss another sorry eggscuse for making cash from a dormant brand name, without honoring the brand (The Brady Bunch Movie is the gold standard on how to do it properly)?  Maybe both?

Maybe it was doomed to fail regardless since it didn’t star Mr. T.  And why didn’t they let Mister Mr do his thing, especially over the charmless Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson? T wouldn’t have needed to do any crazy stunts in his old age, besides drive the van and maybe hit people with it.  And while the rest of the casting choices were inspired (Liam Neeson sure relishes them stogies, Bradley Cooper is a perfect doucheboat and Sharlto Copley is more zany than his name suggests), nothing else here is.  Things go boom, but fizzle, Jessica Biel has boobs but always is a boo, and anyone is a pitiful fool if they spend one penny or more than one minute watching this horse pi$$

The ‘J’ Stands for J’awesome: Ubu, sit on this!!  The Stephen J. Cannell Productions logos!!!!

Verdictgo: Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous,

A-Team steams like a pile of hot dog poo at a theater near jews (not for long)

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…