Thighs Wide Shut

Hacksaw Ridge
Have No Gun – Will Travel
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
R | 139 min

Sadly this movie is not about Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Luckily it is about a different kind of an American hero – a REAL American hero… Desmond T Doss!

Doss was a dude who fought in WWII… WITHOUT FIGHTING!!! OR EVEN TOUCHING A GUN!!!  This is a true story!!!!  And Mr All(White)-American Mel Gibson tells the story the only way he knows how – blood & guts + hope & faith.  Mel, never change.  NEVER!  OK, change, but don’t

Doss (Andrew Garfield, plus himself) didn’t believe in violence, mainly cause he hurt his brother as a kid, and had a drunk abusive dad (Hugo Weaving, looking A LOT like Homer Simpson… ok it’s a stretch, but I really thought he looked like Homer in this movie)

But MS-Doss REALLY wanted to help the war effort, without the warring part, and so he enlisted in the army, while trying to remain a pacifist.  Obviously the Army wasn’t having any of this sh!t, and his commanding officers (a not awful Vince Vaughn, and Sam Worthington) basically make him eat sh!t and try to get him to quit, but there aint no quit in Doss, and so Doss goes to war as a medic with no weapon

And guess what – all those who doubted him – don’t doubt him no more when he starts saving their lives on the battlefield!

What a story!  But the movie itself wasn’t anything extraordinary, kinda ordinary actually.  Not bad, but not blammmazing.  Still, I’m glad I saw it on Veteran’s Day, and then ate a cheeseburger afterwards.  I am no hero, but I am All-American, and all for America!!! 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMrpkeSj9ls/

Eyes Before Thighs: I’m not much of a blue-eyed guy, but Teresa Palmer‘s peepers made me jeepers all over!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Hacksaw Ridge is currently playing at a theater near jews & white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Texas Killing Fields
Womann Can Do Whatever Mann Can Do
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 105 min

The air is mighty thick and the accents, not so much (Sam Worthington, who should be banned from any kind of American accent), in Michael Mann’s daughter’s directorial feature film debut Texas Killing Fields.  Ami Canaan Mann can surely strike a hazy moody cinematic atmosphere just like her papa, and while the story presented might not eggzactly be Killing it, Texas has some don’t mess with it qualities to make it a pretty good first try for you to Field [look at that, we sorta used all three words from the title to describe it!!! sorta!!!]

Sure, nepotism in Hollywood sucks (Colin Hanks), but it’s excusable if there’s talent to back it up (not Colin Hanks).  Jennifer Lynch may be not David, but if her 2008 creepy fun Surveillance is any indication of what a director’s daughter can direct, we hope more of these daughters of directors start directing, even if it’s not AS hammazing as what their daddies can do!!!  Like… Ami Canaan Mann, who shows enuff something here to make her daddy proud, and to make us hope for even more of a something more in the future!

So what is it all about?  Inspired by true events (who knows how loosely though), there’s some shady murders going round in Texas City, with bodies popping up in… THE KILLING FIELDS!!!  Cept instead of Sam Waterston and Haing S Ngor doing stuff, we get Worthington and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (this guy should be working a lot more than he does) growling around town, looking to catch the killer(s).  Alongish for the ride are underused Jessica Chastain, and Chloë Moretz, who at first doesn’t seem to have a reason to be in the movie, until she has a reason to, which we guess is reason enuff.  Throw in some Sheryl Lee and Stephen Graham scenery chewing, and that’s that, which is what it is, which is fine enuff, and stuff (read: a good rental)

Oh, there’s one other thing, Danny Boyle loved the script but passed on directing it cause the material was too dark.  We thought it could’ve been darker!!  Wonder what Danny boy woulda had done with it.  Perhaps Jai Ho-it up a bit, no?

Toasting Toast: Texas Toast is the mostest!  so how’d it come about?  the most likely mother of invention story is…

The Pig Stand‘s Royce Hailey initiated the most famous invention: Texas Toast. When he had asked Rainbow Bakery to slice his loaves of bread thicker, slabs of bread appeared that were too thick to fit in the toaster. One of the cooks suggested that they butter them and toast them on both sides. What a hit with the customers! Unfortunately, Hailey failed to patent this invention which had its birthplace at the Pig Stand on Calder, Circa 1941 [via]

Bless this man, and the Pig Stand, who apparently pioneered  drive-thru windows in 1931, fluorescent lighting in 1939, as well as the first eatery to serve fried onion rings!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Fields fills NY & LA theaters today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Debt
Paid In Mostly Half-Full
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 114 min

If Ciarán Hinds is in a movie, we will want to see it, and odds are that the movie will be at least decent.  So what if a movie barely has Hinds in it?  Decency is still possible, and John Madden‘s The Debt, a remake of (what we are assuming is a far superior) 2007 Israeli film, is pretty darn decent stuff.  A little poor in execution-ville, and plenty poor in climax-land, The Debt still had enough going for it to cash in its IOU.  It’s kinda like a ghetto Munich meets The Boys From Brazil.  And even ghettoizations of those revenge on Jewish boogeymen flicks is still something of interest, cause who doesn’t love watching Jewish enemies get their due????  (hactually, we wondered if Hollywood would EVER make a film where Muslims hunted down their enemies who have wronged them.  the conclusion we came to is probably never)

And if hunting Nazis in a non-over-the-top Tarantino kinda way isn’t your cup of tea, well, you can at least revel in the unexpected hilarity of Sam Worthington ‘trying’ on an Israeli accent for size.  Eeeesh!!  The guy’s got a face for cinema and a mouth for duct tape.  Man oh man!  At least they surrounded him with some class act(or)s like (underrated) Marton Csokas and (I’ve been everywhere this summer) Jessica Chastain.  In modern day times, Hinds is Worthington (even though he looks more like Csokas), Tom Wilkinson is Csokas, and Helen Mirren is Chastain in the membrane

So the modern stuff is where we begin.  The trio are far removed from their Mossad agent days and each other, cause they’re harboring some kinda secret.  But when we get shuttled to the past, which is the juicy bulk of the film, when the 2 dudes and redheaded hottie hunt down and capture a Josef Mengele-type jackass (Jesper Christensen).  Things don’t go right, but maybe they do, but not really, cause there’s a DEBT that has to be paid or like finished or something, which leads to the ending that has promise and kinda comes up empty, but it’s kinda satisfying, enough, sorta

Hey, did we mention that Ciarán Hinds is in it???

Hinds Wins: oh, you know nothing of Hinds and want to play ketchup?  See him in Rome, Munich, Veronica Guerin, Life During War Time AND mos def The Eclipse

Verdictgo: a mild Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Debt is cash sorta money, but not really, but kinda, today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…