Thighs Wide Shut

The Ides of March
The Snoozes of October
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 101 min

We’re fans of great actors doing great acting, and sometimes that’s juss enuff to make a film work, but other times, like with the George Clooney written/directed/starringed Ides of March, it’s not even close enuff.  If this were a movie made for $4 and starred a bunch of people without arms and legs, maybe this woulda been something, but The Ides of March is a exercise in nothing.  It feels like an even more pointless and boring Contagion, aka – hey look, we’ve assembled this amazing super awesome cast and we’re gonna make a movie like it’s the first time we’ve ever made a movie with the most basic story of stories, and juss when you think it could go somewhere deeper, it goes somewhere like nowhere, or like pretty much anywhere a movie has taken us before!  Zzzzzzzzzzzz

OK, so it’s well known (is it??) that we’re no fans of George Clooney (and his dumb face) (and not so great acting), but as a director (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night & Good Luck, and even Leatherheads), he has shown some chops, but here he’s directing stale air.  If this political ‘potboiler’ were released in 1492 AD, it still wouldn’t make any kind of splash.  Why?  Cause the story is a bore-y.  Want lame fake politics?  See The Ides of March!  Want juicy real politics?  Rent Primary Colors

And the story is???…  Ryan Gosling is a hot shot campaign guy working with honest Philip Seymour Hoffman to get Clooney (in quadruple smug mode, spewing endless ‘I’m such a righteous man’ diatribes, which he probably wrote himself) into the White House (dream on buddy).  The rival camp, headed by Paul Giamatti, aims to steal Gosling for their own team, so Gosling gets conflicted!!!  That’s where any bit of interesting interest starts and ends.  Luckily Evan Rachel Wood‘s thighs are wide open, and Gosling drives into her!  Then Gosling starts learning some truths, like how Evan Rachel Wood may not be a holy virgin (and has a man’s name), and other stuff (that you won’t give 9 sheets about).  And then??????????  Wish the answer was ‘Zardoz‘, cause then it woulda been something instead of some kindergarten attempt at making a political statement

Slain & pimple, Ides of March don’t amount to much.  Maybe this shoulda juss been a movie about Paul Giams and Phil Sey Hoffs squaring off in a battle of angry fat guys, where they take turns yelling at each other, but in the end, become BFFs and celebrate their BFFship by taking a bath together (no, this isn’t our fantasy, but if this was a movie, you’d pay to see it like we would)

No He Can’t: nice poster!!!  NOT!!!!  yer not the white Obama, and yer also not the second coming of Cary Grant.  please leave our eyes alone

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Ides of March is out of step today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Drive
Motive Auto
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 100 min

Everything about Drive is so f%cking cool – the 80s snyth pop, the toothpicks, Albert Brooks‘ nice-guy-asshole asshole nice-guyedness, that satin scorpion jacket, the lighting in the elevator on Carey Mulligan‘s adorable face, the use of the Risky Business font, Ryan Gosling‘s clenched leathered fists, Christina Hendricks 8 seconds of screen time, balancing the audio between the police scanner and the basketball game, that creepy rubber face mask, Bryan Cranston‘s limp, Nino’s delicious menu, Oscar Isaac‘s sudden fall, strippers watching hammer time, Ron Perlman‘s annoyingness properly used, handshakes, hand holding, and pretty much every single choice director Nicolas Winding Refn made to make Drive drive

What about the script?  It was aiiiiight, but this baby’s all style (AND DETAILS!!!), and has enough substance that you should substance abuse this

This is what all 5 Fast & Furiouseses should have been

Get out of your dreams and into a car to see Drive!

Drive-ing Map: thanks to Movieline, when now know where all of Gosling’s pit stops are, including where Nino/Vincenzo’s Pizzerias is/are!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show 

Drive wees crazy at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Crazy, Stupid, Love.
It’s Not So Complicated Too
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 118 min

Are you a fan of Steve Carell(‘s sad sack funny guy shtick), Ryan Gosling(‘s serious hotness), Julianne Moore(‘s less is moore approach) and/or Emma Stone(‘s beyond sexy Daisy Duck eyes)? If yer a human being living on planet earth and go to the movies, then the only answer can be ‘yes, to all the above‘.  If not, you might be Hollywood Elsewhere.  Crazy, Stupid, Love is not crazy, nor is it stupid, and nor nor did we out right love it.  BUT, if you love (or even juss like) Carell, Gosling, Moore and/or Stone, then you will dig on them digging on each other.  Here’s another litmus test –  Did you like It’s Complicated?  If you did, you will like CSL.  Nuttin fancy, juss cute people making cute.  No harm, no foul.  Lots of smiles, and if there aren’t smiles, you know eventually that those frowns will be turned upside down

So what’s this movie about?  Who even cares, but we will say that there was a lil bit of a twist that even took us by sirprize!!!  And that sirprize isn’t that Josh Groban is pretty decent at playing a dork, or that Kevin Bacon is beyond decent at playing an unlikable person, or that Analeigh Tipton is solid at being awkward, or that Marisa Tomei can make good use of a bad useless role, or that John Carroll Lynch really is the Zodiac, or that Jonah Bobo has an odd name and should totally play a young Brian Wilson in that 5thcoming biopic

Crazy Stupid Hot Chicks: there were plenty on hand, but we’d like to get our hands on these two the mostest!!

Crystal Reed

&

Karolina Wydra

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Stupid isn’t so at a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Blue Valentine
Putting The ‘Mar’ In Marriage
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Heartbreak & ache never felt so painful, and perhaps never looked so good, as it does in Derek Cianfrance‘s Blue Valentine.  We saw this over 2 months ago, and it is STILL tearing our insides out.  We dare you to not walk away feeling the same.  TRIPLE DOG DARE YA!!!!  Flick begins with Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams‘ (both handing in their bestestest performances to date!!!!) marriage in freefall.  The death of the family dog doesn’t help matters, and neither does that ominous, haunting yet fantastic Grizzly Bear-led soundtrack.  A ill-fated, drunken trip to a seedy motel with a future-space themed room (see below) aint the cure neither (for the couple, and apparently for them basterds over at the MPAA).  Where did their love go so wrong?  Luckily we’re treated to the happier, more tender moments of their union in flashback, but when we’re brought back to the unpleasant present, that shiny happy people shiz only makes for more blue on the Blue.  The Notebook can eat Blue Valentine‘s a$$, and so should you!

Heartmake Hotels: haven’t been able to figure out if B Val‘s theme motel hactually eggsists, but does it really matter when the Madonna Inn and its 110 themed rooms does???

but they don’t have a future-space room!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Valentine plays the Blues in NY & LA only this Wednesday, and expands to more cities January 7th

+ no time for a belated review of a movie that was released 6 months ago, but The Agony & Ecstasy of Phil Spector [trailer] is a great wall of sound AND sight!!  to know him is to love him!!!  and he hates Tony Bennett & loves Ben Wallace’s afro!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…