Thighs Wide Shut

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Frigid War ‘Thriller’
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 127 min

If you were a casting director and said to we, hey, you, if you could pick yer British acting (male) dream team, who’d be on it?  Well, we’d be like, hey, we’ll take Gary Oldman, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Graham, Simon McBurney and throw in Colin Firth, Toby Jones and John Hurt for really good measure (sorry Mark Strong, but yer kinda in too many movies and are kinda annoying in a majority of them).  And then if an art director was like, hey, you, what modern movies that take place in the 70s should we copy for look and style?  Well, we’d be like, hey, totally rip off the look & stylings of Zodiac, Munich and Carlos.  Oh, you mean 3 of the bestest movies of the past ten years, right?  Yes, we do mean those blam-mazing movies that everyone needs to see like 992929 times (even if we haven’t seen em that many times).  Woaaaaaah, a cast like that AND a look & style like thems, could a movie like that be humanly or even robotically possible?  IT IS!!!  It’s Tomas Alfredson‘s (he made the lesser, original Let The Right One In) version of John le Carré‘s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy!!!!!

OMG, THIS HAS GOT TO BE LIKE THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER, RIGHT?  WRONG!!!!!  It’s got the cast, AND THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY AWESOME (esp Oldman as Bill Nighy, and Benedict Cumberbatch, who’d blow minds even if he were playing a mute invisible person!!!), and the look, AND IT’S FORKING DULLTASTIC 70s GORGEOUSITY (apparently yellows & browns = the 70s), but what this movie doesn’t have is much to keep you from the beating drums of dull.  BUT HOW COULD IT BE???  Dunno, but this cold war thriller is juss too dang icy to ever warm up to.  NO WAY!!! Yes way.  Sure, it’s nice to see a spy movie that doesn’t need to resort to endless vroomy car chases and big-o bang-o explosions, but guess what, THIS MOVIE REALLY FRICKIN NEEDED SOME CAR CHASES AND EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!  It’s true.  Believe you we, the plot is not all that thick, even though it makes you think it is, and when the denouement show’s its face, it’s more like denoue-meh

moral of the story:  this ‘spy’ movie needs further TAILORING and TINKERING and SOLDIERING!!!!  shiz needed to be defrosted and did not need Tom Hardy with a crappy wig that made him look like Andy Lameberg with a crappy wig.  great actors acting great in a great looking movie does not equal a great movie.  We really want to see if the old Obi-Wan Kenobi TV version is any less tundra-y.  HOPEFULLY IT HAS LIGHTSABERS AND A DUDE WITH A BUTT FOR A MOUTH!!!

Fairbank-Weather Fan: we’ll pass on Svetlana and get svelt-hotta all over cutie Amanda Fairbank-Hynes!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Tinker aint eggzactly Tailor made this Friday in limited release

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…