Thighs Wide Shut

The Guard
The Blue Meaningless
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 96 min

Brendan Gleeson is one giant framed bag o’ fun.  He’s witty, winsome and wears a varied wave of emotions on his most eggsalad acting sleeves.  He’s often relegated to playing the 2nd or 9th fiddle, and is rarely allowed to carry a film.  So, what if he was allowed that chance to shine in the center stage spotlight?  Could he pull it off?  What kinda question are we asking ourselves here???  Of course he can, he’s Brendan F$%king Gleeson, who’s worth about 1/2 the price of any admission!!!! And that’s what makes his starring turn in The Guard 1/2 worth seeing

What about the other 1/2?  It doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain.  The Guard is juss way too simple-minded stuff, like opening a box of Lucky Charms (or Irish Spring?).  Gleeson is an absolute joy to watch here, but we wish there was a little more to John Michael McDonagh‘s flick than ‘charming, but surly cop does the right thing against clichéd bad people, his way‘.  Speaking of McDonagh, his brother Martin also tapped into that Gleeson magic, but gave him a much better narrtive backing in his In Bruges.  If you haven’t seen that, see it, and treat The Guard as its b-side, or maybe even c-side

We forgot to mention that Don Cheadle and Mark Strong are both in this, but we almost forgot that they were in the movie altogether (we seem to have memory issues), cause they don’t really help anything along.  Gleeson doesn’t need any help onscreen, but help was needed offscreen.  Maybe they should have let Gleeson write the script and play every role.  That would have filled us with more glee, son, than the cancellation of Glee

Wee Lasses Wit Nice A$$es: we’ve previously profiled hotties Sarah Greene and Dominique McElligott, but here’s what they look like in Gleeson’s arms/our dreams

and now lets turn our attentions to newbie Katarina Cas, aka KC and her sunshine brand of hotnness!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Guard is not the most arresting thing in NY & LA this Friday, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Moon
A Space Multiplicity Oddity
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Moon is 2001 with a lot more talking, and besides a few video transmissions from Earth, the only voices we hear are Kevin Spacey‘s, as a monotone robot (big stretch for him), and Sam Rockwell‘s, and… Sam Rockwell’s (a steak sandwich, and a steak sandwich?). You hear Rockwell’s twice cause there ends up being two of Sam’s character in Duncan Jones‘ feature debut (we won’t explain why there are two cause where’s the fun in that?). So lettuce hope yer a big fan of Rockwell, and if you are, yer in for a treat cause as always, he rocks well, but this time twice as rocking… well! Jones is the son of David Bowie, the man who made space travel sound so lonely with his song about Major Tom, and like father, he’s made his own desolate space oddity, visually, and visually stunning at that. The sets, costumes, machinery, et al, owe a lot of debt to the original odyssey of 2001, + all of its 70s imitators, and it’s this throwback aesthetic that makes Moon stand out from today’s other space flicks. The poster even launches higher than most others, so eat it Space Cowboys and Apatow, who will probably make a space ‘comedy’ starring Ken Jeong about the first disgruntled Asian-American in space. Anywho, Moon‘s a trip, and spooky and mesmerizing, and kinda a make-up call for the fun, but bumpy ride that was the cinematic version of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Tell Me Wife I Love Her Very Much She Knows: Rockwell’s Earth wife is played by cutie pie mcgee and apparently mcelligott Dominique McElligott

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Food, Inc.
There Will Be Beef
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was a revelation. Food, Inc is not (neither was the movie version of talking head Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation). What, you didn’t know that the meat produced in this country is disgusting, from the way they ( ‘they’ being a handful of companies that ‘control’ the ‘industry’) feed the animals, to the way they treat them, to the way they slaughter them, to the way they process the meat, to the way they hire poor immigrant laborers to improperly handle it, to the way they have their hands all up in the pockets of the government (name one industry that doesn’t), to the way it finally gets packaged and sent to our grocery stores and restaurants and ultimately into our mouths? It has to get there somehow, doesn’t it? Sure it’s gross, and of course there are better ways to deliver quality and safe meats, as the movie points out, but to be brutally honest, we don’t care. If it aint baroque, don’t fix it. We mean, we don’t care if 34893294 zillion chickens had to be tortured in order to make fried chicken taste so forkin good. Seriously. Sure, we’re in the wrong here, but like with Super Size Me, all the doc did was reinforce our love of the meat that we’re already being force-fed. To hell with Apatow, cause we’ll eat it ourselves!

2 Die For: this probably needs to be updated a bit (Amy Ruth’s > Ms Mamie’s Spoonbread), but long live our Places To Eat B4 U Die list, which is loaded with greasy spoon spots that use gross meat. so be it!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Moon opens today in NY/LA only, while Food does the same + eats it in SF as well

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…