Thighs Wide Shut

Trumbo
House Un Very-American Activities Committee
Trailers & Mo

In the entire history of the Academy Awards, only once did a fake person win an Oscar (although there have been a total of 5 faux peeps nominated, most recently the Coen Bros’ boy Roderick Jaynes). The winner in question was Robert Rich and it was for writing 1965’s The Brave One. Rich actually existed (he was the producer of the film’s nephew), but his name was used as a front for celebrated writer Dalton Trumbo (perhaps best known for his novel Johnny Got His Gun). Trumbo is one of the infamous Hollywood Ten who were blacklisted in 1947 for defiantly refusing to give up any information to the House Un-American Activities Committee determined to rid the motion picture industry of Communist influence. Through his compassionate and witty letters to fellow blacklisted friends (and even one he sent to the telephone company), read allowed by such talents as David Strathairn, Brian Dennehy, Paul Giamatti and Michael Douglas, mixed with yer usual talking head interviews and archival footage and photos, this udderly compelling documentary chronicles the period that followed, where he struggled to keep his family fed by writing film screenplays under numerous pseudonyms. Eventually, with the help of a few big time filmmakers who wanted to give credit where credit was do, the barriers started to break down and Trumbo no longer had to hide behind a different name, but the damage had already been done. You have to admire Trumbo who stuck by his belief in free speech and certainly knew his write from his wrong

Blacklist Cinema: czech out the Woody Allen-Zero Mostel flick The Front, which was put together by people affected by the blacklist, including its screenwriter, Walter Bernstein, its director, Martin Ritt, and even Mostel himself

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot
Hoop Realities
Trailers & Mo

Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Jerryd Bayless and Donte’ Greene are four names purty familiar with anyone who follows basketball these days, hispecially after they were all taken in the first round of the NBA’s 2008 draft. That wasn’t always the case, unless your some crazy diehard guy who makes a living detailing the prospects of adolescents. Once upon a time, 2006 to be exact, them four + 20 other high school ballers from across the country (three others were also drafted) convened at Harlem’s famed Rucker Park for the first annual Elite 24 Hoops Classic. Adam Yauch, better known as Beastie Boy MCA, decided to document the event and profiled 8 of the players (the four mentioned above + Dukie Kyle Singler and three guys still in high school). The cinematography is delicious, the soundtrack is slammin and it’s all around a kinetic piece of work that is sure to appeal to a very wide audience. The doc works overtime by raising some valid questions about the media and overhyping of tomorrow’s stars, but we kinda wish it delved a little deeper than it did. Nonetheless, this is a good sign of things to come from Yauch, who honed his skills as his alter ego Nathaniel Hörnblowér, the music video director, according to mvdbase.com, of 18 Beastie Boys videos + their own concert film Awesome, I Fuckin’ Shot That!. And since you’re dying to know, our personal flavorite Hörnblowér vids are the animated versh of ‘Shadrach’ and the fish-eye bestness of ‘Shake Your Rump’

Tomorrow Comes Today: the third annual game is set for August 22nd. see you there

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Last Mistress
(Une Vieille Maîtresse)
Charmed & Dangerous Liaisons
Trailers & Mo

The Last Mistress, Catherine Breillat’s adaptation of the scandalous 19th-century novel by a French dude with a really French name (Jules Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly), centers around Asia Argento as a decade-long f&ck-buddy to a libertine dandy (newcomer Fu’ad Ait Aattou, with lips mo puffy than Liv Tyler and Angelina Jolie’s combined), who’s supposedly ready to leave that life and lust behind and start a new one with a virginal aristocrat (see ‘Put On The Green Light’ below). Asia won’t let him go easily, and time and time again, he finds himself right where be belongs: between her thighs. Their love knows no bounds, from literally licking their wounds to banging right next to the funeral pyre of their dead baby, and we dare you to not drop your pants watching what has gots to be one of the steamiest and sultry flicks to fog up screens this summer. What was particularly impressive about Mistress is that it’s the first film we’ve seen this year to perfectly meld Argento’s limited acting talent with her luscious other talents (read: hamazing body we pray to every night). The again, it’s not much of a challenge when her other two films were were the sloppy Boarding Gate and the silly Mother of Tears

Put On The Green Light: we want to French kiss all of Roxane Mesquida‘s public and private parts

[peep her NSFWness in French Playboy and filmjizzdom]

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Finding Amanda
Some Things Are Better Off Lost
Trailers & Mo

Raise yer hand out there if you’re ready for Matthew Broderick to leave behind his current typecast of hateable loser, which was kick-started to a tee with Election, and return to the glory days of lovable schmoe that seemed to rule the 80s. We can’t see your hands, but we’ll assume you agree with us that enuff is enuff and if so, then you can pass on Finding Amanda. In the film, Brods is a gambler with a wife (cutie mgcee Maura Tierney in yet another nothing role) that wants him to stop gambling and he wants to make his wife happy, but he can’t stop gambling. Anywho, his wife’s niece has become a Vegas prostitute (Brittany Snow channeling Mandy Moore’s character from American Dreamzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) and someone needs to FIND her and get her a$$ to rehab or something. Horseface’s hubby volunteers himself and the guy who shouldn’t be gambling is off to the mecca of gambling. Stuff happens, stupid stuff happens, Steve Coogan doesn’t make anything happen, nothing happens, a lil more happens than what happens in The Happening, and before you know it, Ferris wises up and the credits roll. Bueller needs a day on!

Name We Want To Smoke Out Of: Jenni Blong, who’s supposedly the girl with the monkey in that Capital One ad

Verdictgo: Very Very Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

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

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Get Smart
Field Failed Agent
Trailers & Mo

If yer looking for a decent homage to the beyond classic Don Adams starring-Mel Brooks/Buck Henry created Get Smart TV series (one of our dad’s most flavorite shows) you’d be better off skipping this big screen ‘adaptation’ and instead putting a bid on one of Sports Illustrated‘s famed sneaker shoes. Dats right folks, whoever pieced together this film missed it by a lot more than ‘that much‘. Not to say that Get Smart isn’t watchable, cause it kinda is with its spot-on chemistry through casting (new Agent 99 Anne NSFW Hathaway is juss as 69able as old Agent 99 Barbara Feldon) and well put together action sequences that shouldn’t be act-shunned, but the main issue here is that this is supposed to be a comedy, and you won’t find any comedy within, even if you threw a Good Humor truck at the screen (it’s the same sh$t/ship that basically sunk the French spy spoof OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies). We pity Steve Carell. He’s too darn hamazing as Michael Scott on The Office, where he’s supported by some of entertainment’s sharpest writing, that anything else we see him in is an automatic step down (although Dan In Real Life is worth a peepage). Hopefully he’ll keep rocking the small stuff while he attempts to stay dry, sweating in the big stuff

In An Alternate Uni-Reverse: remember the opening scene of The Office‘s fourth episode this past season where, after watching bits and pieces of The Devil Wears Prada, Michael apes Miranda Priestly by tormenting Pam [watch it @ hulu]? we’d love to see the same scene done again, but with Hathaway sitting at Dunder Mifflin’s reception desk… or at least sitting under our desk. what, that doesn’t float yer boat? then maybe you wanna see the straight-to-betamax spin-off flick Get Smart’s Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control, which features the non-comic stylings of Masi Oka and this d-bag

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

The Incredible Hulk
The Incredulous Bulk
Trailers & Mo

Why does everyone hate on Ang Lee’s Hulk? Juss cause smashing things took a back seat to (oh gasp!) actual character development, does that a bad movie make? We certainly think snot, hispecially since Bruce Banner/The Hulk is one giant character study worth studying, as we proclaimed (and still do) that Lee’s take on the not so-jolly green giant was ‘the best comic book movie since the OG Batman… as long as u erase the last 10 minutes of it from your memory where Nick Nolte becomes like super lightning man or something for no reason‘. So whatta we get with this reboot (one of the wurstest words thrown around in the media today) by the dude who directed Transporter 2 and waz written by the fella who penned the Inspector Gadget flick and the crappy Brett Ratnerfied X-Men? Not one single thing that could be considered better than what was scene and herd in the first try. On top of that, it’s boring. Look, we love Ed Norton like we love our moms (his matzoh soup is probably juss as good), but he’s not as well suited as Eric Bana was (he’s also a bit too gaunt, not matter how much he worked out for the film). And Liv Tyler and William Hurt (who’s slowly becoming one of the mos annoying overactors nick goings) versus Jennifer Connelly and Sam Elliot and his bona fide mustache? Pa-sleaze. Even the action jackson in version 1.0 is dinty moore enjoyable than what went on in 2.0. Remember Hulk leaping over mountains and later tearing up the hills of San Fran? That was a lot more rah-rah sis boom ba-tastic than the crappy crap they flung at us in 2.0, which all seemed to be filmed on sum sh%tty Hollywood back lot. URGH! OK, we’ll admit, the new Hulk did have something that was on par with the old one: the CGI Hulk was juss as awful looking. If this thing gets rebooted (URGH!) for a 3.0 version, they should throw away the computer and give ole Lou Ferrigno (who makes a cameo, again) a green paint job

Want Sumtang Incredible?: THAT’S INCREDIBLE!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Roman Polanski:
Wanted and Desired
A Not So Noble Roman
Trailer & Mo

Finally, a film that isn’t a remake or a reboot or even close to being repoopulous! Well it is, but not the eye slitting kind. It’s a documentary about the repoopulous trials (both literally and figuratively) and tribulations (more figuratively than literal) that befell Roman Polanski in 1977 (then age 44) after he raped a 13 year-old girl duri
ng a French Vogue photoshoot filled with champagne and quaaludes at Jack Nicholson’s house. Although Polasnki’s a jacka$$ for doing what he did, the judge who dilly dallyed over the case and ensuing media 18-ring circus is an even bigger one, so much so that it almos turns Roman into the victim. As we all know (or you should know), Polanski fled the US before his final sentencing and has yet to return. This shiz is all too repoopulous and redonkeylous to put in words, so peas seek it out and come up with yer own verdictgo

Sleazy Reading: The Smoking Gun‘s gotz the court transcript of the 13 year-old’s testimony

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Smart and Hulk are playing at a theater new Jew, while Polanski is currently airing on HBO before it hits limited theaters on July 11th

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Love Guru
Karma Chameleon
Trailers & Mo

After many years of hiding his face with Shrekdumb, Mike Myers has finally returned to the absurd character comedic formula that had worked to great effect in the past with Wayne’s World and Austin Powers… which also quickly wore out its welcome in the respective sequels. Some have welcomed this hiatus ending with open arms, while it seems most others have the knives out and are ready to root against him. We fall somewhere inbetwixt, and despite the ad nauseous marketing campaign and eye-rolling trailers, we were willing to give Myers the benefit of the doubt, juss as long as he tried his darndest to make us laff. And try he certainly does. Yes, there are a TON of flat jokes in The Love Guru that are beyond sophomoric that they border on freshmanomoric, hispecially anytime we have to read a book title or when Myers laffs at his own jokes, BUT there are numerous ones that do indeedy-do hit the mark and, against our better judgment, made us LOL. Myers’ character Guru Pitka may not be as endearing as Wayne or Austin, and the story about helping a slumping hockey player (Weeds‘ Conrad) mend his broken heart doesn’t really have a point other than displaying how much MM hearts the Maple Leafs, and Jessica Alba doesn’t show off her ass… ets and Meagan Good doesn’t wear a Hooters outfit, yet somehow, The Love Guru is not awful, or at least not as awful as you think it would be. The same can’t be said for Zohan. So go ahead, mess with this mess instead of that one

Wonderkind: have you seen that clip of Mike Meyers’ huge face superimposed over the face of a lil kid? well turns out the kid underneath is Trevor Heins, aka the highlarious ‘Beat Kids’ reporter on Wonder Showzen

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Expired
A Match Meter Maid In Hell
Trailers & Mo

Samantha Morton is the queen of playing shy and vulnerable leading ladies (see her performance in Woody’s Sweet and Lowdown), and while Jason Patric may not be considered the king (cause he doesn’t get as much work as he should, probably cause all the jerkoff parts go to the uber-annoying Aaron Eckhart), he’s certainly royalty when it comes to playing an asshole (czech him out in Your Friends & Neighbors). The two were purrrfectly cast in just such roles in Expired, an offbeat and very heartbreakingly hilarious lil flick about tough love and a lot of expired meters. Morton’s a lonely meter maid by day, who tends to her sick mom (Teri Garr, who does double duty as Morton’s selfish aunt) at night. Patric is a traffic cop with a heart of coal and a flawsome Ditka mustache. Besides a similar occupation, the two have about as much in common as George W Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but these opposites attract, no matter how many times Patric insults her with his misguided compliments. Will they live happily ever after? Guess you’ll have to see the film to get the answer, but a better question would be, regardless if they’re together or not, are they even capable of being happy period?

Maid In The Shade: nobody dances around a pole, a parking meter one at that, better than Australia’s Surfers Paradise Meter Maids

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
A Starter Kit With Missing Pieces
Trailers & Mo

Kit Kittredge is the fourth movie based off of the Americal Girl dolls/books/super money making machine franchise that chronicles 9 year-old girls growing up during key eras of American history. The first three flicks were made for TV, and this frills and brain free depression era adventure, starring Abigail Breslin in the title role, woulda been better off had it too hit up the smaller screens instead of the big one. Although not a Disney movie, this baby surely feels like one as it’s about as complex and risque as an Air Bud flick. Not even throwing in such adults as Stanley Tucci, Wallace Shawn, Julia Ormond, Joan Cusack, Glenne Headly and Jane Krakowski can bring any sense enjoyment to this blah-ze affair. Granite, we aint no 9 year-old girl who loves scary dolls that can be found in Norman Bates’ house, so this movie wasn’t made with us in mind. For those with daughters out there, we sympathize with you cause there aint many options out there during the summer of male dominated popcorn pleasers. While Kit may not be a riveting piece of cinema by any stretch of the imaginasian, you could probably do no worse than bring your girl to this. At least Kit’s a role model and not a troll model

KITTsch: how to go about making yer own KITT car

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Guru is playing at a theater near Jews, while Expired & Kit open today in limited release

Rental Round-Up Dawg:

Corey Feldman’s big screen debut, McDonalds employees rocking those sweet green unis, Mary Steenburgen in love with a time traveler that isn’t Doc Brown, the Murder She Wrote font, Exorcist IV and HG Wells hunting down his friend Jack The Ripper. What one movie could contain all of this amazingness? Time After Time. Isn’t it time you watched it?

The Onion Movie is like a poor man’s Kentucky Fried Movie, so in terms of the sketchy spoof genre, it shoulda been called Kennedy Fried Movie. There be some good bits, like the Britney Spearsishish singer and Steven Seagal as Cockpuncher, but the rest of the gags are either clever, but not funny or juss plain not funny. Yer better off watching Fox’s other never released laff riot Idiocracy instead

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Happening
More Like The Unhappening
Trailers & Mo

There’s never a dull moment, but nothing at all that interesting going on in M Night Shyamalan’s latest trifle, The Happening. You’ll be more thrilled by his previous lackluster effort, Lady in the Water [TWS review], than you will be by this, which is easily his weakest effort to date. The saddest bit of it all is that nothing really happens, unless you count one ‘jump out of your seat’ moment, endless scenes of people running from the wind and trees, and Zoey Deschannel handing in one of the worstestest performances we’ve seen this year. Had someone else directed this quarter-baked environmental disaster flick, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but audiences expect more outta M Night, and the audience we were watching it with starting booing as soon as the credits rolled. Do yourself a flavor, skip this and Netflix The Mist, where sh%t actually happen(ing)s

He’s Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today : Clerks clerk Brian O’Halloran plays a jeep driver, although you’ll only see his eyes looking through a rear-view mirror

Verdictgo: in terms of a M Night movie it’s Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

My Winnipeg
You Can Never Leave Home Again
Trailers & Mo

My Winnipeg is director Guy Maddin‘s beautifully constructed, and often hilarious love/hate poem of the town he has called home since birth. Mixing civic fact and fiction with his own family’s follies, Maddin, with his signature silent era film look in tow, creates his own surreal dream-like take on Manitoba’s capital city, past, present and future. His Winnipeg is a colorful place (shown in gorgeous black & white), filled with dark snowy nights, sleepwalkers, frozen horses, seances, man pageants, elderly hockey legends forever playing in the abandoned arena of the Jets [watch it’s demolition here] and his crotchety mother. What’s true and what’s false isn’t important, cause the mythology he presents is so filled with affection and energy that you’ll want to believe every bit of it

Up Chuk: wees suckers for any hockey player who has ‘chuk’ in their last name, and the Jets had two flamous ones, Dale Hawerchuk and Keith Tkachuk

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Encounters at
The End of The World
The Science of Nature and The Nature of Scientists
Trailers & Mo

Werner Herzog knows a thing or seven about man and his fragile relationship with nature. His films (Fitzcarraldo) and documentaries (Grizzly Man) have explored that idea ad infinitum, and with his uneven, yet engaging Encounters, he takes his probing eyes and didactic husky voice to Antarctica, to find out what the dealio. The ‘encounters’ he has down there with scientists, travelers and other inquiring minds works best when they’re out playing in the snow, but every time we’re indoors, Herzog’s mocking commentary is usually more interesting than the words his interviewees are providing. At least he knows to focus more of the attention on the breathtaking landscape of Antarctica and not on its breathless soundscape

Bowled Over: the main US base of operations down there is McMurdo Station. It aint got much, but it does have a bowling alley!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Quid Pro Quo
Spell & Wheelchair Binding
Trailers & Mo

While we saw the ending coming a kilometer away, it didn’t hold us back from being completely intrigued by Quid Pro Quo‘s story of a paraplegic public radio reporter (the vastly underrated Nick Stahl) investigating an underworld of able-bodied people who wish they were disabled, who finds love and a lot of heartache (with The Departed‘s Vera Farmiga, and her haunting blue eyes) in the process. Director Carlos Brooks may not be hitting an outright home run with his first feature, but he shows great skill and promise in piecing together this odd detective story to give this and his future endeavors a look

We Hate He: jerk actor Jacob Pitts is well on his way to joining Charles Dance & James Woods in our Screen Asshole Guild – Hall of Fame

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Das Happening is playing at a theater new Jew, while Encounters, Winnipeg and Quid are in limited release

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

how was yer weakend? were you sweatin balls like wees were in Nueva York? a huge middle fingers goes out to anyone claiming they like the summers here cause they blow worse than Rob Schneider as an Arab taxi driver, although the summer means that fooball is juss around the corner. who-ray!

here’s what we did this tweakend
in reverse order

Gnarls Barkley
Fillmore NY at Irving Plaza
June 8th

[mo pics, things, stuff @ BVeegs]

To celebrate the 150th Myspace Secret Show, Gnarls Barkley (with The Battles opening, although we missed that part) got the crowd (including our boy Just Jack) to sweat to their oldies as well as many of the new hot tunes off of their rawkin Odd Couple album. The show was very similar to the last time we caught em 2 years ago, although luckily there was no spandex crotch madness abound. One thing we don’t really understand is why so many people left after ‘Crazy’ was played. First of all, these guys are far from being a one-hit wonder, since all their songs rule the school (hispecially ‘Going On’), and secondly, that song has reached a ‘Stairway To Heaven’ level of overplayednessness that it’s not even fun to listen to anymo. Even if the posers didn’t stick around for the encore to hear ‘Smiley Faces’, we doubt they or anyone for that splatter walked away w/o one

Belmont Stakes
Belmont Park
June 7th

If you’ve never attended a leg (or thigh) of horseracing’s Triple Crown, you owe to yerself to do so. We’ve only been to the Belmont Stakes, but once visited Churchill Downs, and it’s an amazing place, even without all the derby derbs shiz goings on. Belmont Park isn’t as glamorous (read: it’s a dump hole), but we dare anyone not to enjoy a day at the races, herspecially when a horse has a shot to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed affirmed it up back in 1978. Well, so much for that Big Brown (read BB’s private journal here), whose new nickname is Big Boo, which is also our nickname for the NY Football Giants. Anywhozitz, here’s some snice pics we found on flickrrrr since our camera blows worse than Rob Schneider in any movie

Reprise
Writer’s Blockbuster
Trailers & Mo

Reprise is like the Norwegian equivalent of Run Lola Run or Trainspotting, with a crew of good looking cats trying to figure out what life’s all about, a hip poster and soundtrack (Joy Division and Le Tigre), and a certain raw energy and style that only seems to exist in modern European cinema, but peas don’t expect a non-stop frantic pace or the outright beyond bestness of either (we mean, c’mon, those were easily two of the grrrrrreatestest films of the 90s!). While Lola and Tspot dealt with crime and punishment of ones body, Reprise centers on two aspiring BFF writers (eggsalad work from both of the leads, Anders Danielsen Lie and Espen Klouman-Høiner), who have their share of ups and mainly downs on the path of fulfilling their literary dreams. This is a gem of a film that makes a fine alternative to all the superheroes and horsefaces currently clogging multiplexes nationwide

She Gives Us Norwegian Wood: all hail Viktoria Winge, who plays the long suffering, moon-faced g-friend of one of the writers

[click above for full NSFWness]
Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Reprise is currently playing in limited release

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…