Thighs Wide Shut

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
The Rites & Wrongs of Spring
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

After watching the so-so Coco Before Chanel, which was filled with nuttin but horse riding and flirting and horse flirting, we were direly curious to find out what actually happened to Coco during Chanel. You know, the period in her life were she designed clothes and became and icon and stuff and things. Director Jan Kounen and writer Chris Greenhalgh‘s Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is definitely an answer to what we were looking for, maybe not eggzactly THE answer, and so this is what happened during Chanel:

Coco Chanel, as you know, was a designer. Igor Stravinsky, as you may also know, was a composer. One day they cross paths, years pass, then they cross again, and another day after that Igor and his Russian wife and kids move into Coco’s country estate so he can work in peace and then some mo days pass and then one day Igor starts banging Coco and some other day after that Igor’s wife catches wind of it, but there’s not much she can do about it, cause she’s sick (and apparently has no eyebrows), so more lustful days pass and then wifey can’t stands it no mo and stuff and things, and then eventually, mo STUFF and THINGS! Somewhere in there, Chanel #5 is born, and the whole time, Igor has a killer mustache

True to its characters and their tumultuous relationship, the film is both cold and remote, which at times can be disengaging to the viewer. And yet, the film lingers on in our minds, weeks after seeing it. Maybe it’s cause Anna Mouglalis as Coco oozes major league attitude and sexiness, herspecially when compared to what Audrey Tautou did in her shoes. And dear ole Mads Mikkelsen, who’s usually resigned to playing badass bastards, is juss a quiet bastard here. We/I mean, who cheats on a sick wife with no eyebrows (played with much pity & sorrow by Yelena Morozova)??? But he looks so good in a mustache, even though he also looks kinda strange with a mustache, and so we kinda root for him and his mustache

But still, CC & IS left us wanting more of the Coco story. Does this mean we have to wait for Coco after Chanel for the complete picture that we seek?

Mon Chéri Poppin: Anna Mouglalis has eyes that can melt mens thighs

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Coco & Igor make mostly purty music together in NY & LA only, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Brief Brilliance & Not Much Else, With An Incredible Cast
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Timothy Hutton, Dominic Cooper, Ben Gibbard, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, Lou Taylor Pucci, Bobby Cannavale, Will Arnett, Will Forte, Christopher Meloni, Denis O’Hare, Josh Charles and Frankie Faison (woooah!). None of these men are physically hideous, but what comes out of their mouths could be perceived as hideous, especially when heard thru the ears of a woman (Julianne Nicholson), a woman with a broken heart, who interviews them mens as a graduate school project that doubles as a way to understand why and how her heart was smashed to peaceses. Still with us? Well that’s about all you need to know since any other plot divulging would involve the contents of the interviews. Some of the men’s tales will prick up your ears, particularly Cooper’s, Charles’ and Faison’s, but the rest will go in one ear and come out the other. Is this thing on? Is there anyone out ear? From David Foster Wallace‘s 2000 collection of short stories of the same name, first time writer and director (and producer, and he acts in it too, but it’s not his first time acting) John Krasinski (The Office‘s Jim, for you thick ones out there) translates his words onto the screen and the results feel more like a book reading than something resembling a movie (The Penis Monologues?). We haven’t ever read a page of Wallace, but maybe he’s just one of those authors whose works are literary genius, but ultimately unfilmable (like anything by Kurt Vonnegut). Nice graduate school try Halpert, but your jest-ure is far from infinite

Officemates: besides episodes of The Office, no other cast member has directed a full-length film, eggcept for Jenna Fischer. her LolliLove mockumentary, about handing out lollipops with messages on the wrappers to homeless people, is an absolute travesty of a mockumentary of a sham of a mockumentary of a travesty of two mockumentaries of a sham

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coco Avant (Before) Chanel
Coco Puff Piece
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Coco Before Chanel shows us the first act in (non-Portland) trailblazin designer Coco Chanel‘s life, but it may have been better off focusing in on the other 2/3rds during her more colorful period: Coco During Chanel. Audrey Tautou ‘uglies’ herself up as the title character, and while this gamine is game, the game’s writer/director Anne Fontaine has hatched one which isn’t all that amusing to play. Most of the action centers around the independent woman’s dalliances with men in the French countryside, resulting in her handing out blue balls (her patron, a fingernails on chalkboard annoying Benoît Poelvoorde) and receiving blue nips (Alessandro Nivola, doing his best Jonathan Rhys Meyers impersonation), and while that’s all nice and interesting, all we do as an audience is sit and wait patiently for the moment where she finally hits it big (we believe they call that the ‘payoff’). When the moment does arrive, the film is racing for the credits, and we’re left wanting more. Not the ‘wanting more’ in a good way, but as in we want something a lot more than what we just watched. Had the picture broadened itself to include her entire story Coco Before Chanel coulda been one of the more remarkable female biopic of this decade, alongside the likes of Frida and La Vie en Rose, but it didn’t, so feel free to change the chanel

Coco Vin-Vin Situation: thanks yous Ms Chanel, for making things/boobs like this possible

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coco opens in NY & LA today, while BIWHM tries to get pretty in NY only

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…