Thighs Wide Shut

Extremely Loud
and Incredibly Close
Incredibly Cloying & Kinda Extremely Moving
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 120 min

When we told people we saw this movie, they had never heard of it, so we started calling it that ‘Tom Hanks 9/11′ movie.  That rang a few bells for some, but it’s hactually not fair to the film to label it like that… cause that sounds like a film no one would want to see (including us), and yet, it’s a movie you should see

Based off of the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, director Stephen Daldry and writer Eric Roth walk a fine line between overwrought and amazing, and ends up with something that’s a happy medium of the two.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a lot like other flicks Daldry has directed (The Hours, Billy Elliot, The Reader), in tone and presentation (and over doing the Oscar baiting), cept this is the only one we really liked.  You did it Daldry!!

And what’s the story September 11th morning unglory?  Tom Hanks dies in the Twin Towers, and his neurotic and curious and overly animated son (kid Jeopardy! winner! Thomas Horn) becomes even more neurotic and curious and overly animated.  He hungers for answers, and finds his question in the form of a key left behind by his dad with no known lock that it fits into.  This sets him off on (that’s an oxymoron!) a journey of discovery and self-discovery, which will not so sirprizingly, help him come to terms of departed endearment.  Won’t say much more, cause the journey here really IS the meat, and the key is simply an egg MacGuffin.  Horn is both annoying and incredible (hispecially during the scenes where he gets really amped up and we get these fabulous montages of what he’s babbling on about), and gets very solid support from mom Sandra Bullock (who’s kinda absent, in many ways, for 4/5ths of the flick), a mute Max von Sydow (was Chris Plummer not available to steal this role?), Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright

The key thing to understand here is that while 9/11 looms heavy on the minds of the characters and the viewer, it’s not really a 9/11 movie.  It’s about a boy who loses his beloved father and how much that sucks balls.  His father coulda have died in a car accident, and the movie still woulda packed an emotional punch, and you still woulda wanted to punch the kid in the face… and then hug him 9ever

moral of the story: Daldry didn’t make a movie that made us want to jump out of a window like The Hours did.  YOU REALLY DID IT DALDRY!!!

Trouble in the Message Centre: best supporting answering machine of 2011 goes to the AT&T 1710/20, WHICH IS THE SAME EXACT ONE WE OWNED IN THE LATE 90s!!!!

remembering answering machines???

Verdictgo: very high end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

EL&IC gets close to your heart in selected theaters on X-Mas and everywhere on January 20th

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

pee es – the film has one of the würst posters EVERSSSSSS

Source Code
Train Teaser
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Soooooo… there’s a train that explodes outside of Chi-town, and there’s no changing that, but the gov-mint could save future lives if they can figure out the who did it and why did it.  Enter purty boy Jake Gyllenhaal (who gets a lifetime pass from us for being in Zodiac), who’s like some amnesiac soldier tapped in box or something, tasked with finding the answers to those questions.  It’s a serious mission, he knows little about, and it’s an endless mission, that repeats over and over until his superiors (kind AND cold-eyed Vera Farmiga and a bordering on maniacal Jeffrey Wright pulling the strings) get that killer intel they desire.  Ya see, each time he gets thrust into the past, on that doomed train, he has only 8 minutes to dig deep.  Obviously he doesn’t complete the job on the first time (hottie Michelle Monaghan is a unwelcome distraction for him, and a welcome one for us!), and thus the movie is longer than 8 minutes

Just what we’ve all been waiting for: Groundhog Day with explosions!!!  Yesssss!!!!!!  And while some of the sci-fi-y stuff may be a bit too batty for lashing, and there’s sum pasted on sentimentality towards the end, director Zowie Bowie (Duncan Jones) and writer Ben Ripley‘s Source Code is one code worth cracking or breaking or sourcing or decoding or courcing or soding!!!!!!  It is!!!  Swears!!!  Who knew that the kin of David Bowie could truly make it on his own in a non-Will Smith’s children shoved down our throats kinda way!!!  His first feature, Moon, showed that the kid had talent and a cinematic eye (for Kubrick movies), but Code proves something even more important – that he could deliver quality Hollywood-type entertainment with a brain attached.  If you found Limitless to be limited (we didn’t), you won’t with Code

Thursday’s Child: father & son, in what musta been confusing times for the youngin

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Source Code bodes well today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…