The Sapphires 
It Can’t Help Itself – Sugary Pie Honey Too Much
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG 13 | 103 min

Oh wow, there was a real-life foursome of Aboriginal gals who were so good at singing, but unloved by Australian white folk that the girls took off for Vietnam to sing to US troops during the war!!!!  That one sentence, including the exclamation points, is about as excited as the movie wants you to be while watching it.  Well, if your idea of a movie is a shoestring plot with zero drama, barely strung together with Motown songs you already love, with some, for once, MUCH NEEDED comic relief from Chris O’Dowd (usually we need relief from him), then The The Sapphires is for you!!  The only time the movie gets real, and deep, and remotely moving is when title cards come up at the end to tell us about what became of the real women.  Too bad that everything that came before it was like drinking Velveeta thru a Pixy Stix stick.  OK, ok, sure, it’s impossible to truly hate on this sugary-sweet movie, but it’s OK to pass on it too, especially since you can do much better, like (re-)watching The Commitments, which is pretty much the same thing, cept with better filmmaking, acting, songs, humor, and Irish people (sorry Mr O’Dowd, but it’s true)

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Sapphires don’ts exactly sparkle in limited release this Friday 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Stoker 
Bram Flakey
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 98 min

Korean director Chan-wook Park has given in and giving filmmaking the ole Hollywood try.  The Oldboy (not Old Joy) dynamo (or so we hear, since we’ve never seen one of his movies) takes a script by Wentworth Miller (yes, that Wentworth Miller) and hands in something that’s notable, but not really that noteworthy.  What does that mean?  Zero idea, but we also kinda sorta have zero idea what to make of the result – Stoker

Stoker is about a mother (Nicole Kidman) and a daughter (Mia Wasikowska) trying to move on after their hubby/daddy (Dermot Mulroney) dies in a mysterious car accident.  Out of nowhere comes his dashing brother (Matthew Goode), who’s more into flirting than grieving.  He has eyes & designs on both ladies (the mother’s game, the daughter’s glum), and a wide perma-smile that spells something fishy.  So what happens?  Moody moodness, lovely cinematography and editing, some pop-ins from Alden Ehrenreich and Jacki Weaver, and not much else.  There’s a reveal towards the end, but it’s not too revealing, and then some stuff happens, and then something else happens, which doesn’t seem to jive with anything, and then the movie ends, and I was like, whaaat?  And then I was like OK, well, whatever, nevermind

Gangster Squad
The Un-Untouchables
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 113 min

Gangster Squad is gangster garbage… that looks nice.  Hate to say it, cause it’s so awful to say, but this movie needed more human tragedies to happen in order to keep it out of theaters.  Then again, watching Emma Stone’s eyes on a giant screen can make any terd look like a diamond

here’s how the movie went down, in gif form

Sean Penn yells and uses his fingers a lot.  He keeps saying that he owns Los Angeles, but nobody cares except for Josh Brolin’s stupid face

what Sean Penn forgot to mention is that he looks like a sh!tty cross between Dick Tracy’s Flattop & Mumbles

–

enter Emma Stone, who is SMOKING

HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

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the LAPD be like we need to stop Sean Penn so we need a squad – A GANGSTER SQUAD!!!

throw me a shotgun, cause that’s what gangster squads do!!

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but how are they gonna stop Sean Penn when he so angry about how bad his fake nose looks?!?!?!

and why did he need a fake nose? his normal nose is good enuff to be a bad nose

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and he so pissed that Emma & Ryan are gosling

but America would have Stone-Gosling love in every movie if Hollywood would only give it to us in every movie. GIVE IT TO US HOLLYWÃœRST!!!

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man, Sean Penn is SOOOOO pissed cause the movie’s script is so AWFULLLLLLLLLLL

lines like ‘I’m a cop, and I carry a badge, and I serve AND protect, and {insert clunky generic 40s cop talk here}‘

–

Gangster Squad sure has their work cut out for them

better throw me some more shotguns to stop angry Penn!!!

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although you cannot stop angry Sean Penn, you can only hope to contain him

but how do you stop this movie?

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but please never stop Emma Stone being Emma Stone

every man on earth would fcuk her. even gay dudes would

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if that recap made zero sense, that’s what it’s like watching this movie.  The guy who wrote the screenplay is also penning the plays of screen for Lethal Weapon 5, The Justice League + the Logan’s Run remake. heaven AND hell help us.  someone needs to gangster squad his writing hands!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Gangster Squad is currently the angriest Sean Penn movie at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Not Fade Away
Don’t Put Another Quarter In The Jukebox Baby
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 112 min

Remember how the last few seasons of The Sopranos seemed to be nothing but the characters sitting at home watching TV and us watching what they were watching on TV? Well, Sopranos creator David Chase does the same thing in his feature film debut, Not Fade Away, but replaces the mob with a 60s crappy cover band struggling with struggling

This is suppose to be a love letter to a time and a place and its music, and it looks and sounds nice and all, but it’s more like a plain ole letter that has a bunch of pointless paragraphs.  But the movie isn’t a letter, it’s a movie, and it’s actually not much of anything, except a collection of scenes – scenes that fall into one of 3 categories –

1) band practice

2) the dorkable lead singer tries to score with Bella Heathcote (who WOULDN’T try that??)

3) the dorkable lead singer gets into a verbal spat with his dad James Gandolfini

The movie is basically like 1), then 2), then 3) then 1) then more 1) then maybe like 3) followed by two 2)s and then more 1) cause it makes perfect, but 3) thinks yer life is a giant waste so he needs to yell at you again, but maybe I can get some sympathy with 2), and when that’s done, it’s time to 1) 1) 1), cause if they don’t, HOW ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE IT?  

Well, in the very end, it doesn’t matter, cause the movie has an ending that’s ever worser than the ending to The Sopranos.  The lead singer’s sister appears out of nowhere on the streets of LA and says like America invented the bomb and rock n roll, but only one will last forever and then she dances or something and the movie ends.  Dreadful ending.  And all that came before it is whatever on rye why?  

The whole movie felt like a not as awesome and very much too longer version of the Wonder Years episode where Kevin helped form the high school band The Electric Shoes (the characters in NFA and WY were both inspired to start a band after seeing The Beatles on Ed Sullivan).  I’m deadly serious here folks –  NFA was EXACTLY like that Wonder Years episode, except it’s got more years, and has much less wonder

but in the end, NFA was not SO BAD, cause the movie was filled with 64% of BELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLA AND HER EYESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Note Fade Away is currently playing in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

LONG LIVE THE ELECTRIC SHOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Les Misérables
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 157 min 9ever long

[the following contains spoilers, like THIS MOVIE IS UNBEARABLY BORINGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.  sorry, had to spoil it for you]

Snooze Valsnooze (Hugh Jackman) stole some bread or something so he’s stuck in hard labor jail that’s basically a place where men pull ropes and get rained on.  His main adversary is Javsnooze (Russell Crowe), who hates him cause he’s a better Australian singer than he’ll ever be.  One day, Snooze Valsnooze escapes and then finds asylum in a church, but then he steals stuff from the church, is caught, but the priest lies for Valsnooze, which makes no sense, unless the priest wanted to sleep with him, but he doesn’t, cause he’s not a small boy [PRIEST JOKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Then years pass and Snooze Valsnooze now has a new identity and owns some sort of sewing company that employees a comely but really poor Snoozetine (Anne Hathaway), who can’t stop crying cause she has a daughter that she needs to feed, but needs a job to feed her, but she can’t really do her job cause she can’t stop crying, so basically she’s the world’s worst employee.  Snoozetine gets fired (SHOCKER), so she sells her hair and her teeth and her body, and sings a song about dreaming and basically dies, then dies.  Is this a dream or a nightmare???  Snooze Valsnooze feels bad that she died cause he’s a thief with a heart of gold, and a voice of platinum!!!, so he takes Snoozetine’s daughter Snoozesette (younger version played by Isabelle Allen & older version by Amanda Seyfried), but then Snooze Valsnooze has to run away cause Javsnooze smells his faux sewing ruse, so Snoozesette lands in the hands of Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett (Sacha Baron Cohen & Helena Bonham Carter, the only BRIGHT spot in 9 hours of dark and dreary bllllaaaaaahhhhhhhness), who are like slimy innkeepers who also sing cause the musical play theater play musical said they had to

Anywho, Snooze Valsnooze returns to take his faux kid back from the comic relievers, and he does, and then Valsnooze and Snoozesette get new identities like ‘Boring Valborings’ & ‘Boringsette’, and then hide in some little Hobbit house in a graveyard or something.  Then a fake French Revolution happens and that annoying redhead who faux bedded Marylin Monroe (Eddie Redmayne) sees Boringsette walking around Francetown and instantly falls in love with her, but he’s being secretly loved by Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett’s real daughter (Samantha Barks), but her story doesn’t matter, even though she’s hot, and how is it that that annoying redheaded guy has two women who want to bang him??  He’s so lame that even his left hand refuses to beat him off

Anywho, the half-assed revolution begins by the dirty French people throwing furniture into the streets, and then the army shoots all of them, cause the furniture pile is a giant mess.  Most of the revolutionaries die (SPANK DAWG, cause it means the movie’s closer to ending), but Boring Valborings saves that annoying redhead cause he knows that he would be a good person to bang his faux daughter Boringsette for eternity.  Then he feels ashamed for some reason and disappears, and then Javsnooze reappears and is ashamed or something (mainly cause of his singing voice) so he kills himself, and then Boring Valborings dies, but right before he does, he gets to see Boringsette’s face one last time (see below)

Think that was what the movie was.  Wait, WHAT THE FCUK WAS THAT?  That story is not even a story, and it’s stretches longer than turning the 310 paged Hobbit book into 3 Hobbit movies.  Les Snooze feels like 19 Hobbits.  It tastes like boring.  It’s so fcuking snoozy.  Sure, it’s well made and stuff, but so are guns, and guns kill people.  Les Misérables will kill any joy you have in your body.  Who wants to see a movie like that, with singing?  Only Gaspar Noé’s allowed to do that, without singing.  Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!

[disclaim-her – I have never seen the musical on Broadway, and now, never want to, ever. long die Snooze Valsnooze!]

Why didn’t they just turn this gif into a 157 minute movie?

or shoot it in 48fps so it looked even faster than our eyes and brain can handle!!!!

Amanda Seyfried’s eyes > everything > tiramisu

Verdictgo: Next To Zero Dark Merit But All Snoozy Badges

Les Misérables is doling out comas at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…