Thighs Wide Shut

Never Let Me Go
Spare Parts
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

We could stare at Carey Mulligan and her imperfect perfect lil British face 4evers.  She’s more adorable than a child hugging a teddy bear in a field of sunflowers graced by 9 rainbows.  We never want to let her go!!  Amazing how only 5 years ago she was 2nd (or maybe even 5th) fiddle to Keira Knightley, playing one of her sisters in Pride & Prejudice (we were charmed by Mulli back then, well before any of yous was!!!!), and now the food chain is reversed with Carey as top dog, as seen in Mark Romanek‘s (director of the über-creepy über-awesome One Hour Photo) film version of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s novel Never Let Me Go

The trailer purty much gives away the goods, about young students being groomed at a posh school (headed by classy dean Charlotte Rampling) for something other than being model citizens when they’re adults.  SPOILLLSLSLLSERS ALERTS!!!  One rogue teacher (Sally Hawkins) spills the beans to her students that their actually being raised for vital organ donations, to end diseases and save lives!!!  But love gets in the way for students Mulligan, Knightley and the spastic Andrew Garfield (your next Peter Parker/Spider-Man), and they quickly realize that they don’t want to have their lives cut short.  You’d think they’d want to run away, but they don’t.  They simply stay in place and let whatever happens happen, and that’s the main problem with this beautiful, yet emotional devoid flick.  The characters are helpless, but don’t really help themselves, and in turn don’t really help the audience engage in their struggle.  It’s like Logan’s Run-ning on Empty, and with no cheesy sci-fi robots, like Box!!!

Our (Doppel)Gäng(ers): there be some mad casting geniuseses out there, especially when it comes to Carey Mulligan movies.  in An Education, they rightfully cast older look-a-like Cara Seymour as her mum, and in Never Let Me Go, found a gem in younger look-a-like Izzy Meikle-Small!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Never Let Me Go is currently stalled in NY & LA only and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Brief Brilliance & Not Much Else, With An Incredible Cast
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Timothy Hutton, Dominic Cooper, Ben Gibbard, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, Lou Taylor Pucci, Bobby Cannavale, Will Arnett, Will Forte, Christopher Meloni, Denis O’Hare, Josh Charles and Frankie Faison (woooah!). None of these men are physically hideous, but what comes out of their mouths could be perceived as hideous, especially when heard thru the ears of a woman (Julianne Nicholson), a woman with a broken heart, who interviews them mens as a graduate school project that doubles as a way to understand why and how her heart was smashed to peaceses. Still with us? Well that’s about all you need to know since any other plot divulging would involve the contents of the interviews. Some of the men’s tales will prick up your ears, particularly Cooper’s, Charles’ and Faison’s, but the rest will go in one ear and come out the other. Is this thing on? Is there anyone out ear? From David Foster Wallace‘s 2000 collection of short stories of the same name, first time writer and director (and producer, and he acts in it too, but it’s not his first time acting) John Krasinski (The Office‘s Jim, for you thick ones out there) translates his words onto the screen and the results feel more like a book reading than something resembling a movie (The Penis Monologues?). We haven’t ever read a page of Wallace, but maybe he’s just one of those authors whose works are literary genius, but ultimately unfilmable (like anything by Kurt Vonnegut). Nice graduate school try Halpert, but your jest-ure is far from infinite

Officemates: besides episodes of The Office, no other cast member has directed a full-length film, eggcept for Jenna Fischer. her LolliLove mockumentary, about handing out lollipops with messages on the wrappers to homeless people, is an absolute travesty of a mockumentary of a sham of a mockumentary of a travesty of two mockumentaries of a sham

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coco Avant (Before) Chanel
Coco Puff Piece
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Coco Before Chanel shows us the first act in (non-Portland) trailblazin designer Coco Chanel‘s life, but it may have been better off focusing in on the other 2/3rds during her more colorful period: Coco During Chanel. Audrey Tautou ‘uglies’ herself up as the title character, and while this gamine is game, the game’s writer/director Anne Fontaine has hatched one which isn’t all that amusing to play. Most of the action centers around the independent woman’s dalliances with men in the French countryside, resulting in her handing out blue balls (her patron, a fingernails on chalkboard annoying Benoît Poelvoorde) and receiving blue nips (Alessandro Nivola, doing his best Jonathan Rhys Meyers impersonation), and while that’s all nice and interesting, all we do as an audience is sit and wait patiently for the moment where she finally hits it big (we believe they call that the ‘payoff’). When the moment does arrive, the film is racing for the credits, and we’re left wanting more. Not the ‘wanting more’ in a good way, but as in we want something a lot more than what we just watched. Had the picture broadened itself to include her entire story Coco Before Chanel coulda been one of the more remarkable female biopic of this decade, alongside the likes of Frida and La Vie en Rose, but it didn’t, so feel free to change the chanel

Coco Vin-Vin Situation: thanks yous Ms Chanel, for making things/boobs like this possible

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coco opens in NY & LA today, while BIWHM tries to get pretty in NY only

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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