Thighs Wide Shut

Last Christmas
Wham! Bam! Mostly No Thank You Ma’am?
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 103 min

For 18/19ths of this movie (which I brought an infant in a stroller to!!!  BEST DAD EVER), I was like, this is worse than a Hallmark Christmas movie!!!!  THERE’S NOT EVEN A SINGLE GAZEBO IN THIS FILM!!!  AND MICHELLE YEOH, WTF??  WHY ARE YOU SUCH A SOURPUSS PRISS IN EVERY MOVIE NOW (co-starring Henry Golding)?????  GO AWAY MICHELLE YEOH!!!!  Crazy BITCH Asian, amirite????

But then a twist happens around the 18/19th mark and the plot is revealed to be the lyrics to the title Wham! track and I was like, WOAH!  THIS MOVIE IS NO LONGER AWFUL!  It’s a joy!!! And hey, look, there’s Andrew Ridgley!!  Who sadly was not dressed up like this…

or this

Jitterbug!

Verdictgo: NOT AWFUL!

Chistmas Lasts at a theater near jews and white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Crazy Rich Asians
Can’t Buy Me Love or Entertainment
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 121 min

I didn’t read the book Crazy Rich Asians (I’m into non-fiction, not made up malarkey), but I always like a good love story, and the one between Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and Nick Young (Henry Golding) is a good enuff love story, albeit a pretty typical one (commoner finds a prince, who so happens to be crazy rich, so differences must be overcome – AND THEY DO!)

But the rest of the movie?  Pomp(us) and circumstance that is Baz Luhrmann-Gatsby-esque, but is hardly AS fun, and sadly, zero funny, which is what the movie sorely needed.  Sure, there’s ‘comic relief’, in the form of a raunchy playboy (‘Silicon Valley’s Jimmy O. Yang), Rachel’s BFF (Awkwafina), and her BFF’s dad (Ken Jeong), but nothing comes across as comical or a relief (which is not hard to believe, considering how un-funny Ken Jeong is) 

All we get is cartoony side characters who hardly make a mark, and worse, a yawn-y ‘evil’ mother (Michelle Yeoh) with stares more icy than these icy stairs.  You can’t please her!  And in turn, the movie didn’t really please me 

It’s a hard to believe that Jon M. Chu, who directed both the THIGHly entertaining Step Up 2 The Streets AND Step Up 3D, couldn’t make and shake and bake moves with this material.  It’s not really rich material to begin with (we need more Joy Luck Clubs, and less of this), but I’ve seen more entertaining Hallmark movies with 1/128929292929th the budget

Count me out for the sequel.  I’ll stick with the original crazy rich Asians…

Verdictgo: the lowest Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges possible

Rich Asians are pretty mild at a theater near jews and white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…