Thighs Wide Shut

RocknRolla
Guy Just Wants To Have Gun
Trailers & Mo

Guy Ritchie’s personal and professional life of late hasn’t been so rosy. There’s the whole Madonna/A-Rod affair, yet that pales in comparison to the awfulness that was his psychologically inert film, Revolver, which took two years to even get a US release date… and will probably take two years for us to get rid of the headache that it gave us. Since becoming the heir to Tarantino by handing in the fab Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998 and even fabber Snatch two years later (has it really been that long?), Ritchie has gotsen swept away at his own British gangsta game by deliciously rich(-ie) films like Layer Cake (directed by his ye olde producer Matthew Vaughn) and this year’s The Bank Job (starring his find Jason Statham). The question has been begged again and again (mostly by us), where have you gone Guy Ritchie? Question answered with RocknRolla (one of the dumbest film titles we’ve heard in awhile), which finds the director happily back in the (un)safe surroundings of London’s underground (poor choice of words, cause we aint talking about the tube), filled with his usual witty and twitty gunmen, double dealing each other until the end credits. Since he’s treading on common ground again, nRolla‘s not as fresh as Lock, Stock or as polished as Snatch, but it is mos certainly as fun as either of them, and we’ll take that kinda repetitiveness over the kind Kevin Smith doles out over and over

This time the MacGuffin aint no shotgun or shiny diamond, but a prized painting from a Russian real estate mogul (Karel Roden) that goes missing after he lends it to a crime boss (Tom Wilkinson, whose cockney performance as Lenny Cole is worthy of being placed on Richie’s Mt Rushmore alongside Brick Top and ‘Hatchet’ Harry) that he’s doing bidness with. This sets off a series of events with everyone and their mother (and we mean everyone, from Gerard Butler, playing the Statham role, although not as well + solid turns from Mark Strong, Toby Kebbell, Jimi Mistry and even Ludacris and Jeremy Piven for the hell of it) looking for the piece of art, and trying to steal some cash from one another in the process. While you’ve seen it all before, Ritchie does throw something new into the mix– a female character who’s more than up to the challenge of hanging with the tough boys, electrifyingly played by the beyond hotness that is Thandie Newton. We think he’s on to something here, and if he’s scrounging for another shoot’em up after his Robert Downey/Jude Law Sherlock Holmes, might we suggest an all lady gangster flick?

Girls Richie: Richie’s all about the eye candy, and tosses us tossers some lovely ladies besides Thandie. There’s Tiffany Mulheron and Quantum Of Solace Bond girl Gemma Arterton, who supposedly was born with six fingers on each hand! Eat that Count Rugen!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
A Teeny Bit Familiar
Trailers & Mo

The world has waited long enuff for the next John Hughes to arrive, and guess we’ll have to keep on waiting, cause ever since Home Alone went into sequel mode no one has been even close to occupying the teen film throne that he once sat on. Sure, there’s been some enjoyable adolescent one-off romps since the mid-90s like Clueless, American Pie, Bring It On and She’s All That (recent pics like Juno and Superbad really aren’t the Burt’s Bees Knees, so shut it), but none of them carry the teen weight and relevance that a Hughes film did. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist aims for Hughes’ territory, but the results are more like John Snooze. Sure, watching the awkward stylings of Michael Cera make cute with the always on-screen sour-puss-edom of Kat Dennings (see, or don’t, more of her perma-frowny faces in 40 Year Old Virgin or House Bunny) will be a viewing pleasure for today’s 8th thru 12th graders, but for the rest of us, the story of their courtship is juss a bunch of recycled teen movie bits you’ve seen a zillion times… the plot has them running around NYC in a Yugo (it was funnier and more ironic/moronic when we saw one in Dragnet 20 years ago) searching for a secret gig by their favorite band (Lohan did the same in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen), while they also try to locate their lost friend (straight outta the Adventures In Babysitting playbook), Ari Graynor, who practically steals the film from N&N. Sprinkle in some shitty cameos (did we really need to see the unfunny Andy Samberg as an unfunny homeless guy?) and a hip soundtrack (although we hear about mix CDs, we never see a single playlist!) and that’s purty much that. If John Hughes isn’t gonna come back to save this genre, we hope someone makes like Clifford Irving and writes a fake autobiography that lures him out of hiding so he can debunk it juss like Howard Hughes did. That may not be the mos original idea nick goings, but it’s a heckula lot more interesting than Nick & Norah, which seems to be stuck on shuffle

Nick at Nite: you can visit all the hotspots that N&N hit up with this handy dandy map here

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

RocknRolla opens today in NYC, LA and Toronto, while Nick & Norah is already playing at a theater new jews

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

meat the adorable cutie pie mcgee guest star from last week’s Gossip Girl Laura Leigh. she’s a recent Juilliard grad with two first names and no IMDb profile. she’ll be appearing in some play next month starring Jason Bigggggs. we want to pinch her cheeks, both sets

Jenna Fischer has a new beau, and sadly it’s not us or Beau Bridges

Lohag’s dressing up as a lesbian for Halloween

Kenley Spears hottier than Kenley Collins

the Jonas Bros get to molest Camille Belle and her eyebrows. wonder if this plea for her hand in marriage had anything to do with it

where have you gone Joe Dimaggio? and moist importantly, where the fred funk have you gone YouTube’s ‘original size’ button?

Deconstruction of Famous Personalities

Struggling Mets Combine To Form Carlos Voltron

What is the meaning of PEZ?

Coney Island Beard and Moustache Competition

Gameboy

SFW XXX, probably not so SFW [Time Werespanko]

we’re off to B-town tonight for mad ranch sauce farts
so no postage tomorrow
so get yer stamps st else wear

The House Bunny
Rumor (Willis) Has It, This Movie Has No Hop
Trailers & Mo

Like the Playboy scented TV show The Girls Next Door, The House Bunny sends an awful message to young females that in order to succeed in this world you gotta be pretty and pretty dumb (even if they do try to say otherwise at the end of the film). If only Bunny were anywhere near as entertaining as Girls is (Holly, Bridget and Kendra + Hef appear in the film, along with some other pointless cameos like Dan Patrick, Shaq and Matt Leinart), let alone, was as short as a single episode of the giggle and jiggle fest. While the set-up about an expelled mansion bunny finding a new home as the house mother to a sorority of misfits certainly sounds like a perfect fit for Anna Faris‘ brand of dopey humor (and her Jennifer Coolidge wax lips), this ‘comedy’ turns out to be about as flat as the flat-chested women who get rejected by Mosquito Bites Magazine. The two screenwriters behind Legally Blonde attempt to strike the same women empowerment magic here (although luckily we’ve always been able to deflect their spells), but this thing is so terribly ‘vapid’ (the word people keep calling Faris’ character that she takes as a compliment) that it makes Elle Woods look like Thelma & Louise

One of the main things that irked us more than Urkel was the gaggle of girls in the sorority. They’re all such oddballs who loathe glamor and glitz that it’s hard to comprehend why they’d ever want to be in a sorority in the first place. There’s a nerdy one (Emma Stone in glasses, yum), a mute one, a dwarf, a pregnant one (Katharine McPhee, who woulda been better off starring in From Justin To Kelly 2), a tomboy hick (Dana Goodman, who eerily resembles Jeremy Renner), one covered in Joan Cusack Sixteen Candles-type protective metal (Rumer Willis, whose face scares us) and a goth with piercings everywhere (Kat Dennings, being annoying, juss like she was in The 40 Year Old Virgin). You juss knows they have inner beauty, in a She’s All That kinda way, and only Faris has they keys to unlock it. When she makes them over, Stone resembles a whored out version of Lohan and Dennings, Hillary Duff. Of course the girls have some lessons in humility to impart upon Faris’ empty mind, as she attempts to woo a normal guy (Colin Hanks… someone please explain why he keeps getting jobs, besides the fact that he’s Rita Wilson’s son). Oh yeah, and all of this shiz is goings on within the pseudo-plot about trying to raise money and find a new class of pledges before the Dean throws the sorority off campus. This could been the female answer to The Revenge of The Nerds, but instead it ended up being about as poopified as the straight-to-TV flick Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. Lamar, stick a javelin in this one, please!

Pledge Pin-Ups: meat Rachel Specter & Sarah Wright (sometimes credited as Sarah Mason), two ladies in a rival sorority who have no purpose being in this movie other than looking fine!

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Hamlet 2
Something Is Rotten In Arizona
Trailers & Mo

Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) is at his wits’ end. Having failed as an actor, unless you count that Herpes medication ad he appeared in, he’s retreated to suburban hell in Tuscon, Arizona as a high school drama teacher. To make splatters worse, due to budget cuts, and the poor critical receptions of his last few plays based off of modern movies (his Erin Brokovich was nowhere near as good as Max Fisher’s Vietnam opus), the school has decided to shut down his class by the end of the year. Yet nothing will stand in Dana’s way of succeeding, even his giant lack of talent. He decides that Shakespeare’s Hamlet tragedy needs a happy second life and drums up an abortion of a sequel complete with a rocking Jesus and plenty of Grease lightening

A majority of the film centers on putting the play together, with the help, or lack thereof, from his rowdy class mainly consisting of a bunch of yo boys and girls, and is filled with some dreadful lame bits of humor as seen in the trailer (people running into things! gay jokes!). It almost feels as dead as The House Bunny, but as soon as the curtain rises on the actual production, the film comes alive and makes up for any shortcomings that came before it. Coogan’s manic energy (which reminded us a lot of Paul Dinello’s Geoffrey Jellineck character from Strangers With Candy) saves the production, both liguratively and fiterally. The rest of the cast try their best to keep up with him, but their characters are either underdeveloped (esp the students, but we didn’t let that stop us from continuing our rising love for Melonie Diaz, last seen in Be Kind Rewind), purposeless (Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler and David Arquette) or wasted (Elizabeth Shue… playing ELISABETH SHUE!), that this puppy is purty much a one man show. To see or not to see may be the question, but if you do go, juss remember the play’s the thing!

As We Like It: dude, Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, is so bangin

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Henry Poole Is Here
Take A Dip In The Holy Water
Trailers & Mo

Henry Poole Is Luke Wilson, a mopey man looking to drown his sorrows with alcohol in the new sunny neighborhood he juss moved into. One day his nosy next-door neighbor Esperanza (Adriana Barraza, returning from Mexico after almost killing Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s kids) notices the face of Jesus on the exterior wall of his house and all heaven and hell breaks lose. While she’s convinced that it’s a sign from above (muss be the blood dripping from it), Henry, who simply wants to be left alone, takes it a sign of annoying things to come. Soon the holy rollers start rolling in (including a priest understatedly played by George Lopez), looking for a miracle (including this girl, whose face is 80 zillion times scarier than Rumer Willis’) to cure all their ills. Some of dem ills do get cured, including the muteness of his other neighbor’s (Radha Mitchell) daughter (Morgan Lily, perhaps the mos adorable lil girl ever!), yet Henry remains unconvinced, even as he starts to fall for her (Radha, not the daughter you sick-o-phant). Why is he so against these possible acts of Gawd? It’s as if he doesn’t believe in hope and faith (no, not that TV show that no one ever watched). OK, so the ploting and conclusion is quite obvious and is pieced together a tad too unevenly, and the soundtrack is beyond awkward (Blur’s ‘Song 2’, aka the Wooo-Whoo song, is played as Luke attempts to remove the Jesus face with a hose), but director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, Mothman Prophecies and Pearl Jam’s ‘Jeremy’ video), who’s using the film as therapeutic way to help get over the loss of his beloved wife, provides enuff spiritual enlightenment to earn our praise

Pareidoliamania!: now you can make your own miracles at home with the Jesus pan!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Bunny and Hamlet 2 join Henry P in theaters mos everywhere today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Frozen River
Icy Hotness!
Trailers & Mo

Ray (the fiery Melissa Leo, whose like a white trash Patricia Clarkson) has got no money, mo problems. It’s days before Christmas and her gambling-crazed hubby has just skipped town with their savings, leaving her to fend for herself and their two sons (the eldest played with the utmost sincerity and maturity by Charlie McDermott). Her dreams of a double-wide trailer home don’t look to become a reality any time soon, especially if she can only feed her kids popcorn and Tang. As Ray heads out looking for her degenerate spouse, she has a chance encounter on the Mohawk Indian reservation with Lila (Misty Upham), another struggling mom whose trying to save up enuff money to care for her young boy who currently resides with her in-laws. Lila and Ray may come from opposite worlds, but their desperate times call for desperate measures that will ultimately bring them closer together, whether they like it or not. Lila’s got a connection to earn some not so easy money by smuggling illegal immigrants across the US-Canadian border by way of a river on the reservation that’s… FROZEN! If only she had a car! Ray’s got one and the two embark on the risky enterprise that will hopefully fix their monetary woes. Of course it purty much works like gangbusters for the first few runs, but as the local police start to get wind of the operation the duo keep pushing their luck for that quick buck. It’s all truly thrilling and chilling stuff, right down to the final frame, with unforgettable tender turns by both female leads, and in a year of film that’s been kinda weak, this, alongside The Visitor, ranks as one of the year’s best dramas. So if overrated film circuit darlings like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine can garner numerous Oscar nominations, why shouldn’t Frozen River? It’s wishful thinking on our part, but there’s no way it will get any cause the characters are too realistic and not quirky enuff for Academy consideration. Honest to blog!

Slap Happy: McDermott was slapped in the back of the head 52 times in as many takes by Liev Schreiber in the not so funny film The Ten

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

In Search of A Midnight Kiss
Will You Still Love Me Before Sunrise?
Trailers & Mo

It’s been over a decade since a little independent movie about life and love in LA called Swingers exploded onto the scene and captured the hearts and minds of twentysomethings across the country. In that time span, no film has come about as a worthy successor, that is until now. In Search of a Midnight Kiss treads on very similar ground, but this film keeps the laffs to a minimum and cranks up the heartstrings to 11. Kiss features a pair of friends that closely resemble the Vince Vaughn-Jon Favreau dynamic that worked so well in Swingers. Wilson’s (Scoot McNairy) the shattered soul who can’t get over his past relationship and Jacob’s (Brian McGuire) the witty tall best friend boosting his ego and trying to get him laid, and even more so after he catches Wilson beating off to a photoshopped image of his girlfriend’s (Kathleen Luong) head pasted on a model’s body. It’s New Year’s Eve day and Wilson’s eager to find someone to spend the night with. Jacob persuades him to Craigslist it up and wham, before you know it, Wilson’s got a date. When he meets up with Vivan (Sara Simmonds), she gives him 5 minutes to impress her or else she’ll move onto the next date, who’s arriving in another 5 minutes. She comes off as shallow and neurotic, but Wilson doesn’t appear to be as choosy as she is. Vivian decides to give him a go and the two wander around the deteriorated downtown streets of LA waxing both philosophically and inanely. They slowly start to grow on one another, and in turn these once annoying characters’ start to grow on us as well. Will they kiss? What do you think? But then what? Dunno, but we’re juss darn happy to be reminded that independent no-budget filmmaking is far from being dead

Kiss & Show & Telll: we totally want a midnight kiss with both Sara and Kathleen. YUM!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Sixty Six
Mazel Tov Cocktail
Trailers & Mo

Poor little Bernie (newbie Gregg Sulkin), not only does he look like My Three Sons‘ resident dork Ernie (who juss got his second bit of TWS love in a week!), but his fantasy of having the Bar Mitzvah to end all Bar Mitzvahs is in deep trouble when it’s scheduled for the same day and time as the World Cup Final of 1966. It also doesn’t help matters when his dad’s (Eddie Marsan, back where he belongs in a British drama after playing a baddie in Hancock) corner grocery store closes and he no longer has the funds for hours of hors d’Å“uvre. Everyone keeps reassuring him (including Helena Bonham Carter, doing charity work as the hottiest goth-ish goy Jewish mom EVER) that there’s nothing to worry about and how unlikely it will be for England (that year’s Cup’s host country) to make it to the champ
ionship game. Well, this wouldn’t really be a movie worth making had the English not gone all the way (shown in crisp b&w footage), so you can probably guess how well attended his rite of Jewish passage ends up being. This sometimes schmaltzy and mostly bittersweet tale is nice little break from all the other summer fluff out there, and what really allows it to come alive is the fact that it was actually inspired by director Paul Weiland‘s own tragic Bar Mitzvah’s run in with the World Cup

Paul’s Boutique: the Beatles opened up a shop to sell hippy crap in late 1967. within six months (exactly 2 years to the day of that ’66 World Cup final) the place closed for bidness and opened the doors for people to take whatever they wanted

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

America The Beautiful
Mutiny On The Beauty
Trailers & Mo

America is obsessed with beauty and it’s the media’s fault! Not really a groundbreaking statement (unless this was 1908), but that’s the gist of Darryl Roberts‘ bare bones documentary that’s poorly shot, too broad and juss way too long. Roberts finds a perfect subject that sums up his point in a 6-foot tall, 12-year-old in over her head model (Gerren Taylor) and her Dina Lohanish mum, but squanders his focus elsewhere with other topics (make-up has chemicals in them!!!) and talking heads (the Vagina Monologues LADY!!) that don’t really do anything except reinforce the first sentence in this review and use more percentages than the game show Playing The Percentages. DR, trim this sucker down to an hour and throw it on TV, not the big screen, and then maybe you’ll have a thing of beauty

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

(on) all four(s) films open in limited release today

until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

we don’t care about your supposed half-sister or possible duet with Lilly Allen or really anything that has to do with you anymorsel. well, that’s not entirely true, as we do tune in every week to watch your mother worry about overexposing your lil spoiled sister Ali by overexposing her at every chance she gets. even though you’ve been replaced by Cody as our mos flavorite Lohag family member, how could we not wish you the breast and frightest on your 22nd burstday today. and we offer these three bits of advice: keep the hair red, eat some food and keep away from the cameras until the first two tasks have been accomplished

previously in heLL:

Just Her Luck

A Hairy Domed Companion

Eating Is Fundamental