Thighs Wide Shut

Love & Mercy
Heroes and Villains
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 120 min

Depending on how much you love the genius of Brian Wilson will determine how much you love Love & Mercy.  I LIVE for Brian Wilson, so I loved Love & Mercy.  It’s not perfect, and what is besides Popeyes fried chicken, but Brian Wilson wasn’t perfect either, but his music is, and his hair was too

The film zig zags between two periods of his life…

Period 1 focuses on the time when he made Pet Sounds, and then Smile, and then slowly descended into madness.  This Brian Wilson is emobodied heart and soul by Paul Dano

Paul Dano does Brian Wilson SO well, I wish he would spend the rest of his life being 60s Brian Wilson

Paul Dano as Brian Wilson, can we be friends and just hang out and sing about surfing, but not actually surf???  I LOVE YOU!!!

herspecially loved Loved LOVED the parts that showed Brian Dano in the studio making music magic.  It looked like this, but in Paul Dano’s body

and loved AND feared the bits where Brian started to lose it.  SH!T WAS TUFF, YO!!!

–

Period 2 captures Brian Wilson in his alive but kinda vegetated state from the 70s/80s on, when he was under the overly watchful eye AND grip of Dr Eugene Landy – who basically turned Brian into his slave.  Dude was horrible

and horrible dudes are always played by Paul Giamatti , and sometimes with a toupée!

and older, moldier Brian Wilson is now played by John Cusack

when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was instantly psyched, but I was like, why is John Cusack in this, and why is he the older Brian Wilson?  Why don’t they juss let Paul Dano be both the youthful AND the worn versions of Brian Wilson???

well, those thoughts were thrown right away after watching Cusack do an EGGGGGGGGGGSALLLENT job of being the 2nd period Brian Wilson.  Although I wouldn’t want Cusack to live the rest of his life as 70s/80s Brian Wilson, as I do with Dano and the 60s one

Anywho, a woman comes into the picture and complicates things for all – mainly to the dismay of Dr Landy, but for betterment of Brian’s saneness-ness .  This woman (Melinda Ledbetter) saves his life, and eventually becomes his wife (spoiler!)

Gawd only knows what HE would be without HER!

And she’s played by Elizabeth Banks and Elizabeth Banks is great in this!

moral of the story – Brian Wilson had mighty mighty highs, and mighty mighty mighty lows, and Bill Pohlad‘s movie gives us it all – harmonies and warts, in living color, with much blues  

Surf’s up kids, catch a wave on this and have FUN, FUN, FUN (even though most of it isn’t fun) til the daddy takes the t-bird away!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Love & Mercy is surf’s up yours, currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Maps To The Stars
A Fine Line Between Glove & Hate
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 112 min

If you ever wanted to see what a David Cronenberg Mulholland Drive would look like, you gots it in his Maps To The Stars, a tale of nasty Hollywood players and their hidden secrets and desires spilling all over each other.  There’s washed-up and vulnerable actress (Julianne Moore), who’s haunted by her dead mom (Sarah Gadon), but finds renewed hope in new assistant/burn victim (Mia Wasikowska), who’s back in town after many years away, and about to wreak quiet havoc on her self-help guru dad (John Cusack), mom (Olivia Williams) and bitter teen star brother (Evan Bird).  Add in Robert Pattinson as a hunky limo driver + a lot of movie talk + a lot of creepiness, and everything goes wrong, and it feels (mostly) oh so right.  Incest is best, but it’s the würst, and Mia Wasikowska and Evan Bird are the bestest!!!!  EVAN BIRD!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Creepers

Stars get geographic currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Injustice Is Served, Then Swerved
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 132 min

If The Help met Forrest Gump it would look a lot like Lee Daniels‘s The Butler – an overly eager to please & overly sentimental look at an actual dude who actually butled at The White House through EIGHT administrations, and how the civil rights era unfolded before his (in the form of Forest Whitaker), all those the Presidents’ (John Cusack with a pointy nose! Alan Rickman with a squint! Liev Schreiber on the shitter! Robin Williams being serious! and James Marsden being AMAZINGS AS JFucK!!!!!!) and society’s eyes, with plenty of artistic licences to spare  

The film covers a LOT of ground, and tries to shove every last bit o’ black history into it (who knew that the fictionalized version of the butler’s son – played by David Oyelowo - was involved and attended EVERY single movement & event ever – the Greensboro sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, MLK’ assassination, Blank Panther meetings, anti-Apartheid rallies, the recording sessions for Michael Jackson’s Thriller), but what it didn’t need to do is waste too much time on the butler’s home life, which it did, which was a waste, which means there’s WAY too much Oprah Winfrey in this movie, and all she does is drink, then play around, then doesn’t, then complains about her butler husband not being around, then happy to have him around, and then meeting Jane Fonda and then whatever dot net  

Still, the movie does what it sets out to do, even if it feels like a whitewashed wikipedia version of the Civil Rights era (strange that white guy - Danny Strong – scripted such an African-American story).  Anywho, props de leon go out to the butler’s butler pals Cuba Gooding Jr, Lenny Kravitz and Colman Domingo who SERVE the film well, even if the film is a lil tooooo self-serving

The Raven
While I Nodded, Nearly Napping, Suddenly There Came A Crapping
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 111 min

With the success of those mostly sucky, kinda watchable Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes flicks, it was only a matter of time before some other ye olde classic literary figure got the hyperetic overblown big screen treatment.  Apparently it was Edgar Allan Poe‘s turn to create riches, which makes sense, since the master of the macabre has endless fodder in his cannon to make a big boom boom.  So why then does James McTeigue‘s Raven feel so un-Poe-tic, and makes for a mostly big boo boo????  Hactually, it’s no real sirprize tat all, considering that James McT’s the same guy who took V Is For Vendetta and made it L Is For Lames-ies

Thanks to John Cusack‘s energetic performance as EAP, The Raven is sorta kinda a little bit watchable, but ultimately it’s just a meandering and pointless and kinda boring made up adventure about the guy who gave Baltimore’s football team a name. So what’s the story? Well, apparently some dude is obsessed with Poe’s writing and decides to murder people, just like how people are murdered in Poe’s writings!  Hmmmm, this could sorta work as a movie thing.  Then Poe’s lady (the overly teethy Alice Eve) is kidnapped by the killer, so the stakes get doubled!  Poe aint alone in this battle.  He’s got this annoyingly scowling inspector (Luke Evans, who might have permanently damaged his brow from all the scowling he done does) leading the charge, and he will not be stopped until he can stop all of this.  Sadly, it takes way too long to stop, and the hunt for the killer juss aint all that interesting, even if the reveal of the killer is sorta kinda interesting.  Oh, and Brendan Gleeson is in this for some reason, cause why not, it’s Brendan Gleeson!  But they don’t let him be funny, which is sorta Brendan Gleeson’s thing, sorta

moral of the story – Poe is cool.  The Raven, not so much.  Eversnore!

Bitched At Swirth: when you can’t get Jake Gylennnahhaallllalalllnnal, get Carter Oliver Jackson-Cohen

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

The Raven flaps & yaps its wings today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…