Thighs Wide Shut

Frozen River
Icy Hotness!
Trailers & Mo

Ray (the fiery Melissa Leo, whose like a white trash Patricia Clarkson) has got no money, mo problems. It’s days before Christmas and her gambling-crazed hubby has just skipped town with their savings, leaving her to fend for herself and their two sons (the eldest played with the utmost sincerity and maturity by Charlie McDermott). Her dreams of a double-wide trailer home don’t look to become a reality any time soon, especially if she can only feed her kids popcorn and Tang. As Ray heads out looking for her degenerate spouse, she has a chance encounter on the Mohawk Indian reservation with Lila (Misty Upham), another struggling mom whose trying to save up enuff money to care for her young boy who currently resides with her in-laws. Lila and Ray may come from opposite worlds, but their desperate times call for desperate measures that will ultimately bring them closer together, whether they like it or not. Lila’s got a connection to earn some not so easy money by smuggling illegal immigrants across the US-Canadian border by way of a river on the reservation that’s… FROZEN! If only she had a car! Ray’s got one and the two embark on the risky enterprise that will hopefully fix their monetary woes. Of course it purty much works like gangbusters for the first few runs, but as the local police start to get wind of the operation the duo keep pushing their luck for that quick buck. It’s all truly thrilling and chilling stuff, right down to the final frame, with unforgettable tender turns by both female leads, and in a year of film that’s been kinda weak, this, alongside The Visitor, ranks as one of the year’s best dramas. So if overrated film circuit darlings like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine can garner numerous Oscar nominations, why shouldn’t Frozen River? It’s wishful thinking on our part, but there’s no way it will get any cause the characters are too realistic and not quirky enuff for Academy consideration. Honest to blog!

Slap Happy: McDermott was slapped in the back of the head 52 times in as many takes by Liev Schreiber in the not so funny film The Ten

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

In Search of A Midnight Kiss
Will You Still Love Me Before Sunrise?
Trailers & Mo

It’s been over a decade since a little independent movie about life and love in LA called Swingers exploded onto the scene and captured the hearts and minds of twentysomethings across the country. In that time span, no film has come about as a worthy successor, that is until now. In Search of a Midnight Kiss treads on very similar ground, but this film keeps the laffs to a minimum and cranks up the heartstrings to 11. Kiss features a pair of friends that closely resemble the Vince Vaughn-Jon Favreau dynamic that worked so well in Swingers. Wilson’s (Scoot McNairy) the shattered soul who can’t get over his past relationship and Jacob’s (Brian McGuire) the witty tall best friend boosting his ego and trying to get him laid, and even more so after he catches Wilson beating off to a photoshopped image of his girlfriend’s (Kathleen Luong) head pasted on a model’s body. It’s New Year’s Eve day and Wilson’s eager to find someone to spend the night with. Jacob persuades him to Craigslist it up and wham, before you know it, Wilson’s got a date. When he meets up with Vivan (Sara Simmonds), she gives him 5 minutes to impress her or else she’ll move onto the next date, who’s arriving in another 5 minutes. She comes off as shallow and neurotic, but Wilson doesn’t appear to be as choosy as she is. Vivian decides to give him a go and the two wander around the deteriorated downtown streets of LA waxing both philosophically and inanely. They slowly start to grow on one another, and in turn these once annoying characters’ start to grow on us as well. Will they kiss? What do you think? But then what? Dunno, but we’re juss darn happy to be reminded that independent no-budget filmmaking is far from being dead

Kiss & Show & Telll: we totally want a midnight kiss with both Sara and Kathleen. YUM!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Sixty Six
Mazel Tov Cocktail
Trailers & Mo

Poor little Bernie (newbie Gregg Sulkin), not only does he look like My Three Sons‘ resident dork Ernie (who juss got his second bit of TWS love in a week!), but his fantasy of having the Bar Mitzvah to end all Bar Mitzvahs is in deep trouble when it’s scheduled for the same day and time as the World Cup Final of 1966. It also doesn’t help matters when his dad’s (Eddie Marsan, back where he belongs in a British drama after playing a baddie in Hancock) corner grocery store closes and he no longer has the funds for hours of hors d’Å“uvre. Everyone keeps reassuring him (including Helena Bonham Carter, doing charity work as the hottiest goth-ish goy Jewish mom EVER) that there’s nothing to worry about and how unlikely it will be for England (that year’s Cup’s host country) to make it to the champ
ionship game. Well, this wouldn’t really be a movie worth making had the English not gone all the way (shown in crisp b&w footage), so you can probably guess how well attended his rite of Jewish passage ends up being. This sometimes schmaltzy and mostly bittersweet tale is nice little break from all the other summer fluff out there, and what really allows it to come alive is the fact that it was actually inspired by director Paul Weiland‘s own tragic Bar Mitzvah’s run in with the World Cup

Paul’s Boutique: the Beatles opened up a shop to sell hippy crap in late 1967. within six months (exactly 2 years to the day of that ’66 World Cup final) the place closed for bidness and opened the doors for people to take whatever they wanted

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

America The Beautiful
Mutiny On The Beauty
Trailers & Mo

America is obsessed with beauty and it’s the media’s fault! Not really a groundbreaking statement (unless this was 1908), but that’s the gist of Darryl Roberts‘ bare bones documentary that’s poorly shot, too broad and juss way too long. Roberts finds a perfect subject that sums up his point in a 6-foot tall, 12-year-old in over her head model (Gerren Taylor) and her Dina Lohanish mum, but squanders his focus elsewhere with other topics (make-up has chemicals in them!!!) and talking heads (the Vagina Monologues LADY!!) that don’t really do anything except reinforce the first sentence in this review and use more percentages than the game show Playing The Percentages. DR, trim this sucker down to an hour and throw it on TV, not the big screen, and then maybe you’ll have a thing of beauty

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

(on) all four(s) films open in limited release today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Step Brothers
Sibling Laff Riotry
Trailers & Mo

Step Brothers may not have a strong plot, or even a grand premise to lean on, but that matters little when Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly partner up to play roles tailor-made for them: overgrown man-children acting like a bunch of buffoons scene after scene. The results are (obviously) high-larious and it makes us wonder why it took so long for someone to write a script that perfectly caters to their talents. Ferrel’s in particular have been wasted on mostly un-funny sports comedies for the past few years, although someone hit the head on the nail by casting him as the lead in the little seen drama Stranger Than Fiction (maybe he can succeed where Jim Carey has been unable to, although Carey is fantastic as a dramatic actor, but we guess the public doesn’t agree). Anywho, Ferrell and Reilly play Brennan and Dale, two unemployable, ironic t-shirt wearing spoiled brats who have yet to leave the nest (think Failure To Launch, with actual humor and no horseface). When their single parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins, nicely playing the straightmen here) marry and the foursome start a new life together in one house, the two handfuls get even more outta hand…fuls. At first, the newly minted step-brothers are at odds with one another, but then they realize they have a lot in common and become the BFFs they’ve always needed. You can imagine where it goes from here (he fixes the cable?), but like we said, who give’s a ratso rizzo‘s ass when hilarity ensues. As of now, this is not only the funniest movie of the summer, but also one of the funniest Judd Apatow-related (he’s a producer here) flicks we’ve seen. No big siprize, considering it’s only 90ish minutes and not two hours, although you still get stuck with Seth Rogen

Stepping Out: we never watched a single episode of the Patrick Duffy-Suzanne Somers shitcom Step By Step, but maybe we should have considering how superfly Christine Lakin is

yeah, we know this has nothing to do with anything
but she is a nice

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

American Teen
Reality Check This Out
Trailers & Mo

Hannah, Mitch, Megan, Jake and Colin. They may not have lives as wonderful and glamorous as Lauren, Audrina, Brody, Heidi and Spencer, but they certainly have ones that are more steeped in a reality more common to us plebeians than what’s on display in the plastic universe of The Hills. So who the hell are these kids that we juss mentioned and why should you be watching their problems instead of Lauren’s tough ones like which hot guy should she lead on? They be five high school seniors, who run the stereotype gamut from queen bee-atch to jock to arty outsider to straight-up dorkus malorkus (complete with grodier to the max skins issues worser than Noriega and Norv Turner‘s faces combined), living and learning it up and down in their final year before they escape the Warsaw, Indiana ghetto and head off to college. Documentarian Nanette Burstein (co-director of The Kid Stays in the Picture)’s candid look (minus any drugs or alcohol) at their lives inside and outside the school’s hallways is so darn natural and sincere that it almost feels like it was manufactured in Hollywood, complete with a script by John Hughes (see ‘Poster Haste’ below). High school is such an awful and awkward place to be, even for those of us who had a gay olde thyme, but being reminded of all the bullsheet that comes along with it sure makes us glad that we don’t ever have to go back there (although the day ending at 3 could be worth a return trip). While each kid gets their fair share of screen time, the real star here is Ms Hannah Bailey. She’s the one most eager to leave John Mellencamp’s ‘Small Town’ life (and boy is it ever, with purty much zero minorities/diversity) behind for good and you’ll not only be rooting her on, but probably falling in love with her too. Hey Hannah, if yer reading this, will you marry us me? If not, we’d totally settle for dreamy Mitch

Poster Haste: in our mumble opinion, American Teen has juss sirpassed Soderbergh’s The Good German as bestest poster homage of balls thyme

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Baghead
Paper Thin
Trailers & Mo

A man with a bag over his head roaming the deep and dark woods. That image is sum SCARRRRRRRRRRRRRRY stuff indeed, but the possible chills and thrills (and recycling lessons) that come with it are improperly used when in the hands of the Mumblecore Duplass brothers. Their latest low adventure in lo-budget-fi, which finds four struggling actors holed up in a cabin fleshing out a script about a bag-headed killer that may or may not becoming to life before their very own eyes (and poor ab-libbing skills), can’t decide whether it wants to be a comical Blair Witch Project or a nightmarish Swingers. Turn
s out it’s juss a poorman’s hybrid of the two. Enter the theater if you dare, but we recommend you put a bag over yer heard sans holes cut out

Rajun Cajun: the brothers Duplass were inspired in part by the New Orleans Saints fans who wore brown paper bags over their heads during the 1980 season when they went 1-15. the whole trend (along with the name ‘Aints’) was created by late local sports commentator legend Buddy Diliberto, who once said he’d wear a dress if the Saints ever won the Super Bowl

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Tell No One
(Ne Le Dis à Personne)
French Dip In The Lake
Trailers & Mo

A man (François Cluzet, who looks like a French Dustin Hoffman) and his wife (Diving Bell and the Butterfly honey Marie-Josée Croze) go skinny dipping in a lake late one night. The woman gets out of the water, screams and disappears. The man attempts to come to her rescue but is knocked out cold. Eight years pass and the man is trying his best to move on in life without his wife. Then, two bodies are dug up around the same lake where all the shiz went down and old wounds suddenly become fresh again. The man becomes a suspect and at the same time receives a cryptic email that leads him to believe that his wife may actually be alive. So now he’s on the run (including the best freeway film version of Frogger since Bowinger), not only trying to prove his innocence, but trying to figure out if his wife still breathes. It’s a solid lil mystery that does slow down a bit here and there, but when the final enigma is unraveled, you’ll still be putting the pieces together well after you’ve left the theater. It’s no Vertigo, but you should still vertigo see it

Mental Rental: if you enjoyed this lil French fry, try With a Friend Like Harry... on for thighs

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Brothers opens EVERYWHERE today, while Teen and Baghead join Tell No One in limited release

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Boy A
The Pity of Lost Children
Trailers & Mo

As a young kid, Jack Burridge (a pleasure to meet you Andrew Garfield) did a very bad deed and had to pay his dues in prison. Now he’s of an adult age with a new identity and released to a world he knows little about, or at least how to act in it, considering his formative years were spent behind bars. The learning curve for this sweet, yet highly guarded and tortured soul is mighty steep, but with the help of his passionately devoted counselor (cpt o’ bestness, Peter Mullan) he’s got a job, a place to live, and more importantly, someone to lean on with all these growing pains (sadly, none involving Boner Stabone). Watching him trying to fit in with new mates (drinks and ecstasy don’t mix well, especially if you’ve never done either) and wooing someone to mate with (he tells a girl he just met that he’s in love with her) is some of the mos heartbreaking shiz we’ve seen all year. Eventually he starts to gain some confidence and begins the arduous task of putting his troubled past behind him, but will he truly ever be free of his past? That’s a question that’s almos as franztastic as the movie itself! Although the title of this film perfectly suits the action within (it’s the name given to children criminals as to help conceal their identities), they could have easily retitled it Boy A+

Boy A to Girl A: according to wikipediaaaa, the film/book may have been inspired by the cases of Sakakibara Seito, Mary Bell and the murderers of James Bulger

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Brideshead Revisited
Rite-Styles of the Rich and Infamous
Trailers & Mo

Did we fall asleep watching Atonement [review] and wake-up a year later watching Brideshead Revisited? Sure feels like it, with both high-brow films featuring pre-World War bratty rich kids (chameleon supreme Ben Whishaw and cutie supreme Hayley Atwell) running around some grandiose English countryside estate and falling in love (yes, both the sister AND brother) with a dashing commoner (dependable Matthew Goode), who in turn hits a roadblock when a dismayed member of the family (an underused Emma Thompson) intervenes and casts him off. Atonement‘s lovers were torn apart by lies and war, Brideshead‘s by a family’s deep devotion to Catholicism butting heads with an atheist. Sounds like Atonement would be the more scrumptious of the two, since religion is about as sexy as the ancient booer, but it turns out that Brideshead is better food for thought, since Atonement was nuttin but pining, so much so that in belonged in a pine forest instead of a theater. Brideshead Revisited is the second adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s book. The first was an 11-part TV mini-series starring Jeremy Irons and this film attempts to cram the same amount of material into 2 sprawling hours. At times it feels a bit choppy and not fully fleshed out, but we’ll take a Cliff Notes version over 659 minutes of Jeremy’s Iron

Revisited Revised: the film has seen its share of casts come and go, including the likes of Jude Law, Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connely and our boy (in name only) Benedict Cumberbatch flirting with the roles

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

WALL·E
Environmentally Sound
Trailers & Mo

The first 30 minutes of Pixar’s WALL·E, where our nuts and bolts title hero roams a desolate and deserted Earth, is a bona fide masterpiece. It ventures into a world of gloom and doom not usually seen in cartoons aimed at kids (well, since Dr Seuss’ The Lorax), and it’s all visually, as well as mentally stunning stuffs. But then our lonely robot trash collecting pal finds love with an iPod girl robot and then himself in a spaceship with obese lazy humans and an eco-friendly tale to spiel, and that’s where the film’s jets lose a lot of its propulsion. WALL·E goes from brilliant one-man band to background player with a troupe of characters that are not even remotely as interesting as he is. Obviously they have to cute this thing up to keep the kiddies in their seats, but imagine what this coulda been had they left WALL·E alone, with a whole extra hour of wonder and discovery (and him saying his name over and over, which is way cooler than the way his iOuttaTuned girlfriend sez it)? It woulda been something to not only write home about, but phone home too

Jedi Mind Tricks: WALL·E‘s sound effects and robot voices were created by big audio dynmo Ben Burtt. Burtt was a former Skywalker Ranch-hand, creating the ‘voice’ of R2-D2, the heavy breathing of Darth Vader, the hum of the lightsaber, and least importantly, the silence of Ebenn Q3 Baobab in Episode I

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Man On Wire
Towers of Power
Trailers & Mo

We live in a post-9/11 world where the Twin Towers are now a symbol of man’s frowning achievement. That wasn’t always the case, and Man On Wire helps us to remember a time when the buildings inspired only awe, and wasn’t partnered with the bombastic word ‘shock’. We saw this hamazin’ doc about high wire walker Philippe Petit’s endless preparation and goosebump-inducing execution of his walk between the towers months ago at the Thighbecca Film Festival, and it’s awe has yet to leave our minds. It’s finally hitting theaters and this is one death-defying act you gotta see to believe

Run For Cover: peep New Yorker magazine’s clever 5th annie verse airy of 9/11 cover featuring Petit

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Boy A opens in NY only today, Brideshead and Man On Wire open on Friday in limited release and WALL·E, hell, you’ve probably already seen it so we don’t need to remind you that it’s playing at a theater new Jews

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Dark Knight
And To All, A GREAT Knight
Trailers & Mo

The Joker is done, finished, as good as dead. He’ll be forever locked away in a movie character Arkham Asylum, until someone dares to break him free again. That’s the only suitable punishment for one of fiction’s mos notorious villains, and it’s all Heath Ledger’s fault. Ledger is so darn deliriously delicious and rightfully spooky as the smeared make-up clown prince of crime that it will take eons for any future Batman movie to foolishly let another actor don that purple suit. Yep, the hype is beyond justified, cause he’s that amazing in the role (although we still have special places in our heart reserved for Cesar Romero’s sinister painted mustache and Jack Nicholson’s comic stylings). Sure, his death adds a layer of gravitas to what has got to be one of the finest performances of the decade, but had he lived, his A-list status card could have never been revoked. Most of us already knew how brilliant of an actor he was, but there were plenty o’ non-believers out there who never took to him like he did to that jean jacket in Brokeback Mountain. If there had to be a going away present, then this was the best possible one to receive. Thank you Heath. You gave and we took and then you were taken away from us all. You will be missed, but never forgotten. Oh wait, this isn’t a Heath Ledger tribute-tary, but a review of Christopher Nolan‘s much anticipated follow-up to his thinking man’s Batman Begins [TWS review]…

Hollywood is currently oversaturated with comic book crimefighters saving the day (and more importantly to the studios, their bottom lines). It’s come to a point where they’re all starting to blend together into one messy pile of capes and crusading (yesh, Iron Man rocked, but that was all because of the casting), and once again, Nolan’s anti-superhero superhero movie saves the day. The Dark Knight plays more like a real movie than a summer blockbuster that it doesn’t even belong to that league of ordinary gentleman. It’s not only superior to Begins, and it may be a bit early to declare such declarations, but it’s certifiably one of the bestest superhero films mt EVERest, which isn’t such a tall task considering how many unFantastic Fourish flicks get released each year. There’s so much going on here with the eight zillion characters (we totally believe in Aaron Eckhart and his face-time), infinite exposition, eggciting explosions, rad gadgetry and other delectable goodies that it’s hard to take it all in and fully appreciate after one single viewing (we totally need to see it in IMAX). There are also more false endings than LOTR: Return of the King, and yet it matters little when watching cause you’ll never want the film to end (it’s like 3 films for the price of 1!). We’re still not huge fans of the un-gothic look of Gotham City (Tim Burton’s finest contribution to the Batman world), but such a complaint seems so lori petty when everything else is, as Harry Osbourne might say, sooooooo gooood

PostHASTEumously: we all know it’s highly likely that Heath Ledger will get a posthumous Academy Award acting nomination next year. if that’s the case, he’ll join the shortlist of others nominees who passed on before the big show that includes Jeanne Eagels (The Letter), James Dean (twice, for East of Eden and Giant), Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), Ralph Richardson (Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes), Massimo Troisi (Il Postino) and Peter Finch (Network), who’s the only one of the bunch to win

Alter Ego: Maggie Gynhenahhehahayl, who replaced Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, will next step into Franken Berry’s giant pink shoes, in ThighGlass Entetainment’s first feature about as the second biggest icon of General Mills’ monster-themed breakfast cereals (Count Chocula is #1 bizatches!!!)

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Take
Execution of Staying Power
Trailers & Mo

Ana(Minnie Driver, doing that annoying annoying thing she did so poorly in Good Will Hunting)’s life sucks. So does Saul(Jeremy Renner, always solid as a do-bader) ‘s. Ana’s child is annoying and she’s poor and her screen-hubby is Pam’s ex Roy and sh&t stinks. Saul has a crappy job and owes money to some bookies and his dad is nuts or something and things AND stuff. One day, their poopy existences cross paths and things get even poopier. Saul’s looking to get some qwik cash and by accident, kills someone near and dear to Ana’s rattled heart. We know this cause the film keeps shuttling back and forth between the past event and the present, where Saul is awaiting his execution. It’s torture for him, but even more so for us as we’re served a heaping plate of not so mellow melodrama that will make you beg for a lethal injection STAT! But in the very end, the two meet eye to eye, to promote the film’s main message about restorative justice, and all the pain and suffering that came before it is redeemed, for both the characters and its audience… that is if you can even sit around long enough to watch it

Backside Drivers: to hell with mousy Minnie, cause we’re all about her sister KATE!! and did you know that their mum, Gaynor Churchward (née Millington), was their dad’s mistress and that she was a model, although she looks like one of the undead dudes from Beetlejuice or the Jolly Dwarf Beetlejuice? she also published some cookbook with other models, like George Harrison & Eric Clapton’s poon du jor Pattie Boyd

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking Badges

The Dark Knight is playing at a theater near Jews, while Take kicks it in NY only today

Rental Round-Up Dawg:

Before you get yer theatrical Mulder & Scully on next weekend, you gots to czech out the newly released DVD The X-Files: Revelations. The 2-disc set contains 8 hand-picked eps by Chris Carter and Exec-Proder Frank Spotnitz that are a supposed ‘essential guide’ to their second feature film. Each ep has an introduction explaining why it was chosen for the disc. Hopefully more studios will release sets like these leading up to a small to big screen adventure so we don’t have to see the whole series (even if we should)

You know we’re gonzo about Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson [TWS review], but we mentioned there was another doc out there with what seemed to be bigger and better talking heads (the same ones from Gonzo + the likes of Ed Bradley, Benico del Toro, Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Busey, et al). We gave Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride a look and beyond the grizzly good narration by Nick Nolte, there’s not much here to blog home about, unless yer looking for chat after chat about the two movies based on his life and writings, Where The Buffalo Roam and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Gonzo is required viewing and this one, not so much

Any doc by the Brothers Maysles is probably worth watching. Hopefully you’ve already seen the Stones’ blues in Gimmie Shelter and Jackie O’s crazy cousins in Grey Gardens, and add their fly on the wall of sound and picture feast Salesman, about door to door bible peddlers, to that list as well. Yumm-o!

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Hancock
More Like HanPOPPYcock
Trailers & Mo

And the most misleading trailer of the year goes to… Hancock! What looked like a kooky fun anti-superhero superhero flick delivers such promised goods for the first third, and then ugliness rolls in with unpromised bads for the rest of it. The idea of a reluctant alcoholic superhero who decides to turn his life around is a solid one to run with, but when you exhaust it so quickly, there’s nowhere to run cept out of steam. It was enjoyable to watch Will Smith play a deplorable character for once, and then it wasn’t when the script made a 180 degree turn into poopsville. And what’s up with Charlizezzee Therszszzzoseeon? She’s in the trailer for a total of 4 seconds, yet she plays a major role in the poopsville part. What kinda major role? Well, since it’s so redonkeylous, we’ll tell you. She’s like Hancock’s superhero soul mate or something who has been hiding her abilities as a suburban housewife to Michael Bluth. She used to run around the globe for hundreds of years with Hancock, but at some point, he got hurt and amnseiad or something like that and he doesn’t remember her, but then he does or something and then they realize that when they occupy the same space their powers are about as powerful as Powers Boothe asking for a booth in a restaurant that only has tables. Do you follow that? If so, follow us out of the theater and into another one playing anything but this

Cameo-flage: Hancock producers Akiva Goldsmith and Michael Mann both make cameos as bidness executives. It marks the first time Mann has been credited for being in front of the camera, but maybe Hancock woulda benefited a bit mo with him behind it

Verdictgo: this should be Slit Youreffic, but we’re getting soft in our old age so Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Gonzo: The Life and Work of
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Cheer & Loving On The HST Trail
Trailers & Mo

The life (which ended with a tragic suicide in 2005) and work of the gun totting, non-stop drug and alcohol ingesting, gonzo journalist extraordinaire Hunter S Thompson could easily fill 24 hours in documentary form. So to cram all the fear and loathing into 2 measly hours and try to paint a full portrait of the man and the myth of the man he created and could never cut loose is an impossible task to tackle. Hot doc director of the moment Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, our pick for 7th best of ’05, and this past year’s Oscar winning Taxi to the Dark Side) is certainly up to the challenge, even if the strokes we get are pretty broad. Colored with a wide spectrum of interviews, from politicians he glorified and vilified (George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, and Pat Buchanan, filling in for the dead Nixon), literary compadres in awe of him (Tom Wolfe, Rolling Stone honcho Jann Werner), to loved ones who had to live with his Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle (his two wives and son Juan), and brought to life through the trippy drippy artwork of his collaborator Ralph Steadman, and in his own words, read aloud by Johnny Depp (who perfectly captured him in Terry Gilliam’s rightfully manic Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas flick), Gonzo is a fantastic film sure to capture the attention and imagination of HST novices and textpert experts alike. What a time for docs about writers who shaped and were shaped by the eras they lived in. This would make a great double feature with Trumbo, another muss see, so buy the ticket and take the ride (which is the name of another doc on HST with purty much the same set of talking heads that we haven’t seen and therefore cannot compare or comment on)

From Hunter To The Hunted: The Smoking Gun‘s gots the police report from HST’s death scene and here’s a nice article about his loony funeral from editor and friend Douglas Brinkley, who also appears in the doc

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

The Wackness
Down In Smoke
Trailers & Mo

1994 was a formative year near and dear to our hearts, and apparently that’s also the case with writer/director Jonathan Levine. He pours his love (and some hot tunes, like Biggie, the Wu-Tang Clan and Nas) of that more mellow time into The Wackness, but we didn’t necessarily pour ours into his tale of a NYC weed peddling yo boy’s last summer of discovery before he heads off to college. Our hip-hoppin protagonist Luke Shapiro (Drake and Josh kid Josh Peck… btw, no Jews name their boys ‘Luke’) is actively courting the stepdaughter (Olivia Thirlby, ready to break out of the shadow cast by being Juno’s BFF) of a bong-rattled psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley, doing his best Cheech and Chong song) he’s dealing to. While Luke dispenses the dope (via his awful Rastafarian imitating dealer Method Man), the doc dispenses his wisdom of love, life and his own failings on him so he doesn’t fall down the same hole he’s currently in (with wife Famke Janssen, who has such a nothing role, you’ll forget that she was even in the film). It all comes off as being sincere, but it also goes on and on and on, hispecially the spaced-out stylings of Kingsley’s character. When we see these screenings, they hand us press notes that usually detail the making of the film. The notes for The Wackness contained a timeline for 1994 that evoked a better picture of what life was l
ike back then than what we saw on the screen. Had Levine sprinkled more of the real-life events into his fictional ones (besides a bus w/a Forrest Gump poster on the side) it woulda worked a lot better. Maybe you all should read the press notes and skip the flick. Then again, they don’t hand these babies out to just anyone, although we think they should, cause in the end, aint wees all critics?

Aguirred Taste: we love us Douglas J. Aguirre’s typecast resume, which seems to be an endless career of playing some sort of law man. In The Wackness he plays a ‘Desk Officer in the Prison’

Verdictgo: it’s like Kids lite, so Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Hancock and Kit Kittredge [review here] open at a theater new Jew today, while The Wackness rawks out tomorrow and Gonzo on the Fourth of Jew-lie in limited release

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…