Thighs Wide Shut

Harry Potter and
The Half-Blood Prince
Give Me Puberty AND Give Me Death
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

The Harry Potter movie universe aint kids stuff no mo, as our beloved trio of heroes + red-headed sistah are taking on bigger responsibilities and ripening into sum mighty tasty fruit (whomever had the foresight and fivesight to cast Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and the A thru Z dorable Bonnie Wright, sea-b-low, should be pat on the back every ten seconds for the rest of their lives). It used to be all about the adults teaching the kids whimsical potions and flizzy flizzum flazzum, and for the audience, it felt a bit like being in school. Now the teachers are receding even mo into the background (although new teach Jim Broadbent and the brief wordless appearance of Finchy from The Office were both a delight) and the real fun is juss beginning with our newly bar and bat mitzvahed teens discovering real human emotions, like totally sweating mens and womens (the flight of fancy with Cho Chang doesn’t count). Hammazin how a few pubes make everything a lot more interesting

Harry Potter’s 6th cinematic adventure feels more like a real movie and less like a, well, Harry Potter movie. If you can’t read between that line, then lemme-us put it into plain Engrish: David Yates‘ second stab (he did a solid enuff job before with Order of the Phoenix) at Rowling’s mega-franchise is TOPs of the Hogwart’s class… which much love and respek of course to Cuarón‘s Azkaban. Tis nice to see the series hitting on all cylinders in his hands, while finally maintaining a bit consistency (wish the Redskins’ managment won’t take note of this) as we head into the deeper and darker corners of the opus (Yates is currently directing the last book into two movies, and that is a sure sign of great things to come). Half-Blood Prince may be upper crust in terms of HP sauce, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a walk-off home run in normal movie stuffdoms…

The first two hours of the flick are slick and paced perfectly, as we build to some explosive ending, but then the curse that’s dogged down the 5 previous entries rears its fugly head. Each book doesn’t exactly have an explosive ending (OK, the one where the wicked hot dude from Twilight bites it was purty sweet). It’s all hactually one long story stretched thin over 7 parts, with new characters and tricks being sprinkled in each time. Sure, there’s a big character shock to the system at the end of this one (who had a fargin clue that Professor McGonagall was secretly banging Hagrid???), which we somehow never had revealed to us even after all this time (we stopped reading after the 3rd book), but it didn’t eggzactly come off as shocking. Maybe that’s cause there’s always unfinished bidness to be carried over to the next installment, and it ends up being the same unfinished bidness after lame unfinished bidness: stop Voldemort. Obviously that won’t be the case in the finale, as we’re sure they’ll stop him (which will hopefully lead to some celebratory champagne showers and BJs & HJs between the wizards), but it’s this ho-hum ending after hum-ho repetitive ending, which also usually involves the reveal of whatever the title means, that keeps this saga from being Star Wars or LOTR 4eva memorable

Spreakin of Voldy, Ralph Fiennes with a melted face isn’t scary, but his 16 year old screen version is straight up bone chillin. In flashbacks, Frank Dillane plays Tom Riddle and he’s as creepy as listening to Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ while watching Creepshow and eating crêpes… with cobwebs!! And if that doesn’t make a lick & lack of sense & cents, then lettuce juss say that he’s as creepy as the boys from The Boys From Brazil. Yet this Potter flick aint about boys, it’s about another bad creation: Boyz II Men

Gin Rummy, Ginny Yummy: she’s more ginger and delicious than ginger ale, she gives Harry something more wooden to hold than his wand, she loves the Orioles and she’s Bonnie Wright in all the right wright ways. not a single TWS Potter review has omitted her name in the name of love, so why she would stop now, especially since she’s finally 18

she’s so classy lookin

but thankfully, not classy lookin in a Freddie Blassie kinda way

puppies

sweater? yes, we sweat her and her sweaterpuppies

YUMbrella

YUMbrella (reprise)

she loathes me, she loathes me not?

she loathes me not!!

Verdictgo: in the realm of Potter, and dat’s all dat matters, tis a Breast In Show

Somers Town
English & Pole Vaulting
Trailers & Mo | Official Website
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We’ve sprayed it before, and we’ll slay it again: any movie written and directed by Shane Meadows is well woolworth yer attention AND is beyond thunderdome, and since he’s so effin money bags mcmulligan and we guarantee such grandiose statements, beyond the astrodome as well. If his name is unfamiliar, you should remove that ‘un’ AwarrenSAPP and start elsewhere (This Is England, Dead Man’s Shoes and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands), but that doesn’t mean for a second that his 71 minuted simple & pleasureful Somers Town isn’t as masterful as what came before. It would help in particular that you at least see This Is England before you hit the Town, so you can track the development of Meadows’ brilliant discovery and little screen persona, the rough and tumble realist actor Thomas ‘Tomo’ Turgoose. In Somers Town, Turgoose plays… Tomo, a runaway who has arrived at the titular London nabe, and strikes up an unlikely bond with a motherless Polish immigrant teen (a wonderfully accented Piotr Jagiello). The two put an end to their summer boredom by working odd jobs, causing much mischief and falling in love with the same waitress (Elisa Lasowski). Not every thing they try works out in the long run, except for the most important one of them all, their friendship, the fastest and bestest ship on land! And here’s a word to the wise: if a modern black & white movie makes it into a theater, it’s probably worth seeing. same rule applies to documentaries, but they’re allowed to be in color

Luck Luck Goose: peep Tomo’s audition at age 13 that started it all. can’t wait to see him keep growings ups & ups

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Potter 6 opens today at a theater near jews, while Somers Town clowns it up in NY only, and maybe soon in yer neck of the woods, and eventually available on Film Movement DVD

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
We Don’t Need No Education
Trailer & Mo!

Slain and pimple, Phoenix is eggzactly what one would expect from a 5th big screen outting for Harry Potter and his posse of tweens with wooden sticks. Yer not going to be amazed, but yer not gonna walk away disappointed neither. Long gone are the zzzzzz inducing days of Chris Columbus’ Potters 1 & 2, as newbie David Yates‘ Phoenix easily rides the coattails of Alfonso Cuarón’s masterful Azkaban [TWS review] and Mike Newell’s steady as she goes Goblet [TWS review]. I stopped reading the books after Ass-Ka-Ban, so to me, the films’ plots and pacing are usually a bit jumbled and confusing. I guess that’s to be eggspected when you cram 896 pages of kiddie-lit into 138 minutes of cinema. While I’m sure there’s sum good stuff that they left out of the flick, I don’t think anyone’s cryin that the quidditch season got canceled this go around. What we are treated to is more of everything. More darkness, more action (both the fighting and loving kind… but no HJs yet!), and duhvs course, more characters. While they’re too many to name, and some are down right lame (like Hagrid’s half-brother giant Grawp), there were two that stood out as mos welcome additions. A new book/flick always signals a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and none have downright owned the screen like Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake [TWS review])’s Dolores Umbridge did… some say mos wicked teacher since Miss Viola Swamp took over for the missing Miss Nelson! And I dunno what to make of odd ball Luna Lovegood (played by Potter obsessed girl Evanna Lynch), but I cannot stop thinking about her… yet not in the way I think about Ginny Weasley! Redheads forever!!

IMess: only in IMAX will you see Hermoine’s boobs grow larger

Extras! Extras! See All About It: is there anything better than Willow, Mrs Peel, David Brent AND Daniel Radcliffe chewing up the scenery in Extras?

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Jeepers Worth A Peepers•

SiCKO
Rescuing 911
Trailer

Slain and pimple, SiCKO is eggzactly what one would expect from a 5th big screen outting for Michael Moore and his natural good looks (this would be flick #6 if we were including his Canadian Bacon, but we aint, so eat some bacon ands shut up!). No other documentarian is the showman that Moore is. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s at the top of the field, cause he isn’t… ever hear of Fred Wiseman? Didn’t think so. Anywho, bein a showman like he is juss means that no one can grab people’s attention like he does, which is his bestest and wurstest attribute. Fahrenheit 9/11 [TWS review] was quite the attention grabber, but it backfired since it was only preaching to the choir. So with SiCKO, his pseudo-exposé into America’s health care system, Moore preaches to a larger choir, which doesn’t require the love of donkeys or elephants. While you can’t fault the man for raising awareness on the issue, you can for the half-assed way he does it. If yer looking for something in-depth, wait for 60 Minutes or John Stossel‘s mustache to go knockin’ on the HMOs’ doors, cause all yer gonna get with Moore are opinions, with little to no facts to back them up. He shows us how socialized medicine is such a wonderful thing in other countries, but he doesn’t really investigate how those systems work or are funded, besides saying that the gov-mint takes care of it. Raising questions is one thing, but attempting to find the answers is another. Remember folks, sometimes less is more, unless yer Michael Moore, where more is juss… more hot air

IMDb Sweeney: besides being the not so secret star of all of his docs, and Canadian Bacon, for that splatter, I’m sirprized his acting resume only has 3 other titles on it

Steal His Movie: seriously, he doesn’t care if you download his movie off the internets! [Rutgers Hat lover]

John Grisham’s Jizzum (aka Verdict): Moore bashing aside, the issue is the issue so dis shiz be Jeepers Worth The Peepers•

and if you haven’t already dunn so, peep the trailer to what will be one of the wurstest movies of the year

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire
He’s Growns Up and He’s Growns Up and He’s Growns Up
View Trailer

In an age oversaturated with purposeless Star Wars flicks and endless super hero dribble, there aint nuttin more dependable in the hero department than a Harry Potter flick. And how could one ever complain about a film that pleases a broader range of ages than a Yes & Know quiz and game book? It’s purty much umpossible to take one of JK Yummings books and turn it into crap on a stick… although Chris Columbus came close to turning us all into Rip van Winkles (not to be confused with Rob van Winkle) with the first two joints. Luckily for us all, threesome king Alfonso Cuarón was brought in for ‘the greatest third movie ever‘, which left the bar raised purty darn high for Goblet director Mike Newell, who brought us such forgettable pu-pu splatters as Mona Lisa Smile and Pushing Tin. But Newbie admirably carries the torch with the forth installment. This Potter goes deeper, darker, and somewhat even sexier. Everything seems to have matured, much like the lil actors themselves… and by ‘lil actors’, I aint talkin bout Warwick Davis.

I read the first three books, but didn’t even bother tackling this 734 paged behemoth. I figured what kid’s book could be worth that much investment of time? I mean Ellison’s brills Invisible Man is a bit over 600 pages, and I struggled to the finish line with that in the 11th grade. But I’m kinda kicking myself in the grundle for not reading Goblet, cause I’m sure many a lil plotlines were cut out so it wasn’t a 5+ hour movie, like the silent Napoléon. But what wasn’t omitted was pretty effin meaty: badder baddies, diggty dragons, tentacled mermaids, tentacled trees, and the seeds of young love (I too would raise my wand high for Cho Chang over Fleur Delacour, but I still hold out hope for Ginny). All of which are sorta eye candy filler for the real juice we’ve all been waitin for: a throwdown showdown with the resurrected Lord Voldemort, which should easily remind anyone of Luke’s landmark encounter with Darth in Cloud City, although boviously not as momentous, cause that was friggin the bee season’s knee season. And anything worthy of that comparison, is mos def a MUSS C. Final big ups go out to Michael Gambon, who makes a butter Albus Dumbledore than the dear and deceased Richard Harris, the Weasley twins, who actually provide more comic relief than their bro Ron, and the use of tentacles, without being all dirty Japanese and stizz.

Recommended for those who like: Jack Torrance’s chill spot, 8th grade dances, and legions of Bulgarian wizards-in-training who look like Eric Balfour

Possible Porno Name: Hairy Penis and The Throblet of Desire

Unsatisfied with this? Netflix Addams Family Values

Further Fun: ‘This Is The Night’ by the Wyrd Sisters, but not these Wyrd Sisters [d-lode]

Is it juss me, or is it hapsolutley recockulous that we set a side one day each year to celebrate the talents of movie director/writer Chris Columbus? Don’t spank me wrong, the man has warrick dunn some good in the past, but from the early 90s on, he’s been more worthy of crucifixion, than adulation for screen fiction. The first 2 Harry Potters? Poo/boo/snoozefests to the Zth degree. Bicentennial Man? Could there be a worser call than having Robin Williams play a robot gayer than all the gay robots combined? The list doesn’t really go on and on, but I’m not really jumping and jazzing all over meself for his next joints, like the one named after a Pavement album or this one, which has the schmaltzyiest plotline, described as a, “about a temperamental head coach who ends up adopting a kid. By becoming a father, he learns to be a better man and a better coach and he takes his team to the Super Bowl.” Dear Gov-mint. Please repeal this holiday and instead bestow the honor of a day off of work for a more worthy director, say, Savage Steve Holland, of Better of Dead, One Crazy Summer, and Shasta McNasty fame. Howevs, if you peeps MUSS revel in all thing C Columbus, may I recommend you spend this day with some of his finest works like…

• There is something seriously wrong with Brooke Shields’ mother. I can’t fathom how anyone would ever let their 12-year old daughter star in Pretty Baby, the controversial Louis Malle flick about a daughter of a brothel prostitute who has her virginity sold to the highest bidder, and later marries a man maybe 3 times her age. That may not sound so bad, but B Shields’ prepubescent assets are fully on display numerous times. YIIIIIIIIIIIKES!!! I felt so dirty watching it that I had to shower 17 times afterwerds. [NSFW proof, for you dirty dirty p-philes]

• Amy Ruth’s on 116th St has the mos bestest southern/soul food that one can find in Manhattan. Do yerself, but not yer arteries, a favor and get yer fried chicken smothered in gravy, next to a giant waffle loaded with cinnamon, ‘nanas, and pecans. The title heart attack hotness was previously held by Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too. Next on the list, Sylvia’s. [CityShirt]

• The Redskins may not be going 16-0, but will probably finish 15-1. OK, that may be a bet far-fetched, but they are actually a legit squad [WaPo]

• tATu may be faux lezzies (and faux tanners), but faux lezzies, are still better than no lezzies at all [Spencer 4 Mire]

• My mom may be the world’s biggest Hedwig & The Angry Inch fan. So much so, that her and pa came up this past Saturday to see mastermind John Cameron Mitchell introduce the film for all of 5 minutes at the MOMA. Bless you momoosky. And for that lets spread the love. [d-lode the bestest song ‘Wig In A Box’, or the Pirate version]

• Trainspotting helped Sinbad O’Connor realize that hard drugs and babies climbing on the ceiling are not good things [IOL]

• Earnest Byner exercising makes a good animated gif [Speed Fit]

• William Fichtner and his 4 by forehead looking fabulous in What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

• Tennis scoring is rooted in medieval numerology [Straight Dizzle]

• There’s a chance none of us have to pay to see Keira ‘I beat off to you’ Knightley in Pride & Snoozefest [EW free screening]

and although Elisha still may be the Cuthbestiest ’round

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

As mentioned in this week’s Box Office Bidness report, this installment of Harry Pothead is the greatest third movie ever, and it’s the best of the series too! Read: a Muss C. Thank gawd they kicked Chris Columbus to the curb in favor of Alfonso Cuarón. I mean, how could any movie be that amazing coming from the director of both Stepmom AND Bicentennial Man (aka Der 200 Jahre Mann in Germany). Grant it, Adventures In Babysitting is one of my all-time favs, but the name Chris Columbus is synonymous with borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring.

Anywho, enuff about him and more about Hermione “Her-money” Granger. Yep, she’s a little bit older, but not old enuff to start making outlandish sexual remarks about like some 17 and 11/12th year olds we all know and love. And anywayz, I’m more of a Ginny Weasley kinda guy meself (must be the red hair). The Hogwarts crew is supposed to be 13 in this flick, but they all have mustaches already. Ron/Rupert Grint looks and sounds like he’s 32. And Dudley Dursley has morphed into Paul Benedict/Harry Bentley from TV’s The Jefferson’s (see picture below). As for Harry/Danny Radclifffe, well, he still looks like a 7 year old, but he’s gettin’ more heteroflexible by the minute. And what’s Draco Malfoy’s story? They turned him from a brooding badie into a giant pussy. He got sucker-punched by Her-money and all he did was run away.

As always, the rest of the cast is rounded out by some of Britain’s breast. Casting Gary Oldman as Sirius Black is one of the most inspired choices since they picked Judge Reinhold to play Fred Savage’s papa in Vice Versa. Michael Gambon is more than adequate replacing Richard Harris as the beloved Dumbledore and major big ups to my man David Thewlis (go Netflix Naked) as this year’s dead man walking/Professor of the Dark Arts. And who could forget about Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, and Maggie Smith. Without that trio, these movies would fall apart.

But all the credit in the world must go to Alfonso Cuarón. He went from directing sexy threesomes in 2001’s Y tu mamá también to reviving a franchise that didn’t need reviving. He even threw in a great sequence where Her-money runs scared into Ron’s arms and then Harry joins in on the love-fest by putting his arms around her. Could Cuarón be foreshadowing to a future threesome between this bunch? No comment from me… until Her-money/Emma Watson turns 18. [Link via F.U.B.A.R.]

Harold & Maude

I’m a movie fanatic, if you couldn’t tell, but it took me this long to see the classic H&M… no, not the Old Navy for hipsters. This movie f-in rocks out without any cocks out (can you say Muss C?). And thank the maker for no nudity, cause it involves an improbable love story between a 20-year-old suicide obsessed male (Bud Cort) and a septuagenarian zesty lady (Ruth Gordon), set to an amazing score by pre-Yusuf Islam, Cat Stevens. I thought Rushmore director Wes Anderson was an f-in genius, until I saw H&M and realized that he basically rips off/pays homage to director Hal Ashby’s sense and sensibility every go around (See The Royal Tenenbaums for a perfect example of his Ashbyesque ways). I won’t say much more other than Bud Cort wears some of the flyest jackets ever and has one of the most peculiar faces known to man. And a very special mention has go to go out to Harold’s pestering mother, played to purrrfection by an actress with one of the coolest names ever: Vivian Pickles.