Hail, Caesar!
What The Hail???
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 106 min

You sit there watching the Coen Bros‘ Hail, Caesar!, and you think to yourself – this is cool – they love old Hollywood, I love old Hollywood, they’re totally doing right by old Hollywood, and as the movie snappily moves along, you start to realize that nothing is really going on, and you’ve laughed MAYBE twice during this comedy, and by the time that Joel & Ethan’s name appear on screen to kick off the end credits, you start to question what in the film is there to actually hail?

It seems like the Coen Bros invested more time on casting, or OVER-casting (Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Alison Pill, Christopher Lambert, Fred Melamed, Patrick Fischler, David Krumholtz, Fisher Stevens, Alex Karpovsky, Clancy Brown, Robert Picardo, Dolph Lundgren and Michael Gambon‘s voice), than they did trying to construct a fluid movie.  They have ideas – WAY too many of them - and they’d maybe work if they were short films, but together as one long film – it’s juss a bunch of loving valentines with no heart

What I don’t REALLY understand, like I also didn’t REALLY understand with Inside Llewyn Davis, is if this stuff is based on real–life stuff, then why do the Coen Bros bother to fictionalize it into fluff?  They would be better off actually making a movie about the real players, instead of trying to impress us with their impressions.  It’s a waste of their talents, and a waste of our time

I mean, they obviously put a lot of thought into the movie, but I juss didn’t think too much of it.  Less is more.  They needed less of most of it, and more Alden Ehrenreich.  He gets a hail + the sets + Josh Brolin’s tuff gruff + the double dip of Tilda Swinton

Trumbo captured a similar time and themes in Hollywood, but it lacked the professional polish the Coen Bros gave Caesar.  Maybe the Coen Bros should have made Trumbo, instead of trying to make a movie that makes you feel like a sad trombone after watching it

Hail YEAH!!: it’s been awhile since we highlighted some movie hotties.  so here’s two that need hailing!!!

Natasha Bassett

&

Emily Beecham

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Caesar is a mixed salad today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Pretty Vacant 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 99 min

I read somewhere recently that ‘at this point in time you either love Wes Anderson movies or you don’t’.  I don’t believe it’s that black & white.  Personally, I love Wes Anderson, but I don’t really love Wes Anderson movies anymore.  After his career apexed with The Royal Tenenbaums, ever since, it’s been nothing but the same sh!t, with slight differences in the ‘plot’ – oh no, it’s love issues, but now it’s with daddy on a boat!  then brothers on a train!  and then there were them two misunderstood kids on an island!  and now it’s longing for the lost love of a hotel’s glory years!  

Wes’ Grand Budapest Hotel feels like his most ambitious film/diorama to date, but the only thing that’s grand is the design.  Grand sets!  Grand costumes!  Grand mustaches!  Grand use of the font Futura!  Don’t get we wrong, Budapest is fun, and mildly funny, and Ralph Fiennes‘ concierge M. Gustave H character may be Anderson’s most fun character since Royal Tenenbaum himself, but as a movie???  It’s not much of a movie.  If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie, cept there’s like 11% more F Murray Abraham!!  Come to think of it, I kinda like the F Murray Abraham bits the most, where he, as our other main character, is collecting dust in the current run-down state of the hotel, and reflecting back on the way it used to be  

I, like Wes, long for the past.  I kinda wanted to go visit that Kutsher’s place, to see what had become of the Borscht-belted Catskill ‘grand’ resort, but I think I missed my chance, as it’s scheduled for demolition.  For Wes, he did get to go back, and invented his own grand hotel with his pink and purple paintbrushes, but to what end?  Longing for something not worth longing for.  It’s a hotel that feels pretty vacant.  Who cares if it looks amazing?

Wes, it’s time to hit the reset button.  Try adapting someone else’s work (again, like you brilliantly did with Fantastic Mr Fox).  You could be an even better Baz Luhrmann than Baz Luhrmann, instead of a Wes Anderson imitator

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Budapest is pesty in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Skyfall
M Mmmmm Good
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 143 min

BOND IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!! IN HIS BESTEST ADVENTURE YET!  Not really, cause no Bond movie can complete with Bond getting married AND curling, but hey, Bond flick #23 – Skyfall aint no Quantum of Whateverness, but then again it aint no Casino Royal with cheese, but then again then again then again then again

So what is Skyfall?  Skyfall istelf is actually a something, a something we won’t spoil for you, but it hactually holds meaning, instead of being a something stupid like whatever the Quantum of Solange was is.  Oh, you want to know?  OK, Skyfall is the nickname of M/Judi Dench‘s cavernous vagina

No, but seriously, Skyfall the movie (not Skyfall the person/place or thing) is one of the more straightforward Bond flicks of recent memory.  There’s no needless & endless razzle dazzle, juss a much more simplistic, linear story that goes from point A to point B without being point-less.  Bond flicks these here days have to compete with the frantic Bourne series, but Sam Mendes & co decided not to go all Bourne again, and instead went with more of a Christopher Nolan – Batman route, exploring more of the personal side of Jamesly Bond and those who support him.  M is like Alfred, and Skyfall is like… !??#??#!???

If you’ve been dying for a Bond flick to take place mainly on the British Isles, well then, Skyfall is the Bond you have always been waiting for!  Sure, there are other locales – the opening Istanbul stuff with roof radness taken straight from Taken 2 + some Blade Runnery video buildings in Shanghai + some sultry, well-lit, well-lanterned, well-bobbed casino action in Macau + some Chernobyl-like deserted island, but this Bond and this Bond film works its mojo very mojoly back on home turf!!  Above ground, underground, in and around the actual Underground, MI6, MI7, and much moors!!  That spelling is on purpose, but we can’t tell you much MOORS than that.  SKYFALL!!! ROSEBUD!!!

So, how’s Bond he-self?  Daniel Craig is smooth sailing in his 3rd outting.  He’s gruff, he’s tough, and he can deliver the cheesy one-liners with a smirk and not look like a total jerk.  He’s a great Bond.  We loves him.  Who cares if he’s 4 foot tall

So, how’s the bad guy and his schemes?  Javier Bardem as Silva is super blonde and super gay and super strange and super great.  Of course he is, he’s Javier Bardem.  As for his character, he’s interesting, but not eggzactly fascinating.  Bardem does his best with him, but he’s mainly juss some guy who looks like a muppet with blonde eyebrows who hates Judi Dench, and who would hate Judi Dench?  WHO??!?!?!?

So, what about the Bond girls?  You already met them, but you don’t know anything about them besides them being sexy playthings for Bond to gawk at and sometimes touch.  There’s secret agent/secret hotness Naomie Harris, who everyone fell for in 28 Days Later, but really hasn’t made much of a mark since then.  She’s on team Bond, and she bonds with Bond, and Gold Bonds his balls.  Sorta, not really, but she’s cool and they HINTTTTTTTTT at her sticking around in the future, which is great, cause I said so.  As for an actual main Bond girl gal, the part French, part Khmer-Chinese exotic hotty Bérénice Marlohe sultrysizes up the screen in her brief, but steamy screen time.  There’s not much for her to do here besides give pissed off looks with her mouth, but we do sorta get to see her shower!  SORTA!!

So, what about the other people?  There’s Ralph Fiennes, who always plays a smug a$$hole in movies, and here he plays a smug a$$hole, but maybe he’s a smug a$$hole with a secret nice side!  Anywho, he doesn’t do much cept doubt Dame Judi, but maybe he secretly wants to sky fall into her Skyfall vagina.  Then there’s Albert Finney.  All we will tell you about him is that he’s in this movie, and bearded, and he still has the greatest blowhardy voice in acting.  I hope he never dies.  He will, but maybe he can DIE ANOTHER DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!  And then there’s the new Q - Ben Whishaw, who has the greatest voice in acting, period!  exclamation point!   HOW CAN WE HAVE SEX WITH HIS VOICE!!!!  So, one would think that Q would pop up for like ten seconds to give Bond 10 gadgets and then disappear til the next movie, BUT THAT’S NOT THE CASE!!!  This movie has more Q & M and Ps & Qs and A&P & A&W action than all the other Bond movies combined!!!!!!!!!!  Maybe!!!!!

So, what are you waiting for to sky fall into Dame Judi Dench’s cavernous skyfall vagina???  You never know if you’ll get the chance to do so EVER again!!!!!

oh, and upon further reflection – the Adele theme song is fcuking fantastic, although the opening title sequence was 1/2 rad, and 1/2 bad

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Skyfall LANDS in a theater near jews this Friday!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1
School’s Out!!!!!!!!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks!!!  SPANK THE LORD SLODERMORT!!!!!!!!  If there was anything dragging the movie versions of Harry Potter down down down it was the 909% snooze-a-roni-ness that filled the hallowed halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Boredom!!!!!  BYE BYE DUMPHOLE!!!!!!!!!!!  Ahhhh J.K. Rowling, what took you so long to ditch the wand and finger waving adults and let the kids run rampant???????????  We haven’t read one of yer boooooks in ages, but whatever’s within yer 7th and final book The Deathly Hallows is deathly awesomes!!!!  EAT THAT DEATH EATERS!!!!!!!!!!!

We have no recollection of what happened in the last movie, The Half-Blood Prince, but apparently we claimed it was the bestest since Cuarón‘s Azkaban.  Well, that can’t be the case, even if that was the case, cause Part 1 (of 2) of Hallows IS the bestest since #3, hands AND thighs down.  Why?  See above graphpara.  Why more?  Cause 84% of this bizatch is nuttin but Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint running around a zillion picturesque English countrysides, borrowing adventures from the pages of LOTR and Narnia, but who flippin cares, cause David Yates brings the loves and not the hates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  + Dobby is even tolerable!!! + there’s a scene with like 9 Harry Potters in one room!!! + Peter Mullan!!! + Rhys Ifans (as a perfect dad to Evanna Lynch)!!!! + there’s like some sorta cartoon shadow puppet storytelling bit thingie that’s like so outta place and yet so in the right place + David O’Hara, Steffan Rhodri and Sophie Thompson do the bestest kids trying to act like adults acting since Dudley Moore pretended he was Kirk Cameron in the body of Dudley Moore!!! + there’s like some sorta digital Hermione wet dream thing where she’s like sorta naked with like digital side boobs and it makes Ron like totally horny AND angry!!!!  + her digital side boobs are like bigger than her real ones!!!! (it’s OK to say this cause she’s like 20 and stuff!!!)

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But we will admit, there be something totally not the knees bees in Potterdom: Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort.  Slain and pimple, it juss don’t work.  Don’t know if it’s the know know of knowing it’s Fiennnennes behind the mask or the fact that the mask has no clothes like that emperor that had no clothes.  We know he’s suppose to be scary, but he’s the furthest thing from scary.  Harry has better screen nemesisismsism with Snape and the Malforys than he does with the dude with no nose.  Hopefully Part 2 won’t be a part doo-doo, even though it’s obvious that Voldy will loom large, and boviously get his before he gets a new nose!!!

Wright On!!!!!: Bonnie Wright is fo’shiz the shiz, so what is mo shiz than B Wright?  um, how bout Wright + Moretz!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Potter is Deathly aware of how FRANZTASTIC it is today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…