Hail, Caesar!
What The Hail???
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 106 min

You sit there watching the Coen Bros‘ Hail, Caesar!, and you think to yourself – this is cool – they love old Hollywood, I love old Hollywood, they’re totally doing right by old Hollywood, and as the movie snappily moves along, you start to realize that nothing is really going on, and you’ve laughed MAYBE twice during this comedy, and by the time that Joel & Ethan’s name appear on screen to kick off the end credits, you start to question what in the film is there to actually hail?

It seems like the Coen Bros invested more time on casting, or OVER-casting (Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Alison Pill, Christopher Lambert, Fred Melamed, Patrick Fischler, David Krumholtz, Fisher Stevens, Alex Karpovsky, Clancy Brown, Robert Picardo, Dolph Lundgren and Michael Gambon‘s voice), than they did trying to construct a fluid movie.  They have ideas – WAY too many of them - and they’d maybe work if they were short films, but together as one long film – it’s juss a bunch of loving valentines with no heart

What I don’t REALLY understand, like I also didn’t REALLY understand with Inside Llewyn Davis, is if this stuff is based on real–life stuff, then why do the Coen Bros bother to fictionalize it into fluff?  They would be better off actually making a movie about the real players, instead of trying to impress us with their impressions.  It’s a waste of their talents, and a waste of our time

I mean, they obviously put a lot of thought into the movie, but I juss didn’t think too much of it.  Less is more.  They needed less of most of it, and more Alden Ehrenreich.  He gets a hail + the sets + Josh Brolin’s tuff gruff + the double dip of Tilda Swinton

Trumbo captured a similar time and themes in Hollywood, but it lacked the professional polish the Coen Bros gave Caesar.  Maybe the Coen Bros should have made Trumbo, instead of trying to make a movie that makes you feel like a sad trombone after watching it

Hail YEAH!!: it’s been awhile since we highlighted some movie hotties.  so here’s two that need hailing!!!

Natasha Bassett

&

Emily Beecham

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Caesar is a mixed salad today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Inside Llewyn Davis
That Darn Cat
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 105 min

I don’t get it. I get that this movie’s about an unlucky folk singer named Llewyn Davis, who’s an amazing musician, but can’t catch a break, or even a cold, but beyond that, what’s it all about Coeny Bros? No, seriously, what is this movie about?  Cause to me it’s about NOTHING.  Is it a tribute to some real forgotten folkie named Dave Van Ronk, who had an album called Inside Dave Van Ronk? Apparently so. But what do we learn about him or his faux self? NOT A FCUKING THING. And what do we care about in this movie? Not much. Sure, we sorta want success to come to Llewyn (a superb Oscar Isaac), but the bleak tone sez it aint in the cards, so why should we care?  The only thing we sorta care about is the cat (or cats) Llewyn lets inside his life.  But a movie about caring for cats, that’s well shot, and has a slickly-produced T Bone Burnett soundtrack, and not much else really isn’t much of anything.  You keep thinking that it may turn into something, being from Joel & Ethan, but if anyone else made this movie, people would be totally WTFing this movie instead of BS praising it.  It’s beautiful, but forgettable.  We already forgot about it.  It makes Todd Haynes’ cryptically dreamy I’m Not There look like a fluid dose of reality.  Don’t go Inside.  Go outside and do something else

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Llewyn is currently strumming in select theaters

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

from the whhhhhhhhhhaaaat files:

Addams Family + Tag Team = ‘Addams Family (Whoomp!)’ ??????????????????????????????

yeah, we all knew that MC Hammer got his groove on with the Fam, but nobody whoomped to the above trick!!!!! you can WHOOMP the people once, but you can’t do it twice.  WHOOMP, THERE IT WASN’T!!!

+

from Carter Burwell, the Coen’s go to composer, comes whatever this was from Psycho III

Burwell provides his own notes on scoring the film and working with director/star Anthony Perkins

side note: Psycho III‘s Jeff Fahey refused to go full on nude for one scene, so he covered his bits with lamps.  yes, LAMPS!!!  [WATCH, but kinda sorta NSFWish]

and while we’re talkin mussssic, FOR ONCE…

this AXE ad is nice and saucy and spray-y and whatevs

but

DID YOU HEAR THAT ANGELIC CHORAL/ORCHESTRAL VERSION OFAIR’S ‘SEXY BOY’??????? – EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: download empee3 of the Fallen Angels’ cover of ‘Sexy Boy‘!!!

EXCLUSIVE: WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and so does Fahey and his hot lamps!

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…

A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop
(San Qiang Pai An Jing Qi)
Romancing The Coens
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

It takes a lot of balls to remake a revered and belovededed film.  Usually the remaker isn’t even close to worthy of such an undertaking, and their results are closer to more worthlessnessness than opening a Woolworth’s Five & Dime.  Even done up by the hands of someone more accomplished, and James Worthy, there’s no guarantee that they can make a remake work.  Remember Gus van Sant’s take on Psycho?  We certainly hope not!!!!  Remember the Coen Bros’ Ladykillers?  You get the idea.  Speaking of… afer seeing The Coen Bros‘ Blood Simple at Cannes twnetyish years ago, (worthy) Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) thought about giving the same story a go, but change the time and place, and add his usual flair and spin of the color wheel.  Amazingly, the Coens’ OKed the idea and what we have here is A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop

If you’ve seen Blood Simple, then you purty much know what to expect (an über-jealous bidness man’s wife is stepping out on him with one of his employees, so said bidness man hires someone to bump them off, but the hired gun doesn’t kill em, AND THEN…), and if you haven’t seen BS, then you have no real reason or incentive to see Noodle, you noodle-head!!  But if you HAVE seen it, then you can certainly give its eastern brother from another mother a whirl (walk, don’t run)!  And while the pacing and atmosphere are kept in tact (but somehow feels a little slower than Simple), the style is all its own, with a dash of hit or miss humor.  It’s kinda worth seeing juss for Zhao Benshan‘s brief, yet unforgettable appearance as a googly-eyed police captain.  LOOK AT THIS FACE!!!!!  Maybe they shoulda scrapped the whole remake idea and made a flick all about his character, doing like Chinese Keystone Kop shaz with like chop sticks and ninja stars or any other Asian stereotypes one could think of!!!

North American Scum: remakes of American films are rarer than a rare steak cooked with the juice from the back of that upside-down plane stamp, but nones of them will ever top the blatant rip offs that are Turkish Star Wars or Bollywood Superman!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers, but only for superfans of Blood Simple

Noodle goes slurp in NY/LA only this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…