Viola Davis

Naomie Harris

Nicole Kidman

Octavia Spencer

Michelle Williams

Extremely Loud
and Incredibly Close
Incredibly Cloying & Kinda Extremely Moving
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 120 min

When we told people we saw this movie, they had never heard of it, so we started calling it that ‘Tom Hanks 9/11′ movie.  That rang a few bells for some, but it’s hactually not fair to the film to label it like that… cause that sounds like a film no one would want to see (including us), and yet, it’s a movie you should see

Based off of the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, director Stephen Daldry and writer Eric Roth walk a fine line between overwrought and amazing, and ends up with something that’s a happy medium of the two.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a lot like other flicks Daldry has directed (The Hours, Billy Elliot, The Reader), in tone and presentation (and over doing the Oscar baiting), cept this is the only one we really liked.  You did it Daldry!!

And what’s the story September 11th morning unglory?  Tom Hanks dies in the Twin Towers, and his neurotic and curious and overly animated son (kid Jeopardy! winner! Thomas Horn) becomes even more neurotic and curious and overly animated.  He hungers for answers, and finds his question in the form of a key left behind by his dad with no known lock that it fits into.  This sets him off on (that’s an oxymoron!) a journey of discovery and self-discovery, which will not so sirprizingly, help him come to terms of departed endearment.  Won’t say much more, cause the journey here really IS the meat, and the key is simply an egg MacGuffin.  Horn is both annoying and incredible (hispecially during the scenes where he gets really amped up and we get these fabulous montages of what he’s babbling on about), and gets very solid support from mom Sandra Bullock (who’s kinda absent, in many ways, for 4/5ths of the flick), a mute Max von Sydow (was Chris Plummer not available to steal this role?), Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright

The key thing to understand here is that while 9/11 looms heavy on the minds of the characters and the viewer, it’s not really a 9/11 movie.  It’s about a boy who loses his beloved father and how much that sucks balls.  His father coulda have died in a car accident, and the movie still woulda packed an emotional punch, and you still woulda wanted to punch the kid in the face… and then hug him 9ever

moral of the story: Daldry didn’t make a movie that made us want to jump out of a window like The Hours did.  YOU REALLY DID IT DALDRY!!!

Trouble in the Message Centre: best supporting answering machine of 2011 goes to the AT&T 1710/20, WHICH IS THE SAME EXACT ONE WE OWNED IN THE LATE 90s!!!!

remembering answering machines???

Verdictgo: very high end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

EL&IC gets close to your heart in selected theaters on X-Mas and everywhere on January 20th

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

pee es – the film has one of the würst posters EVERSSSSSS

The Help
Maid In America
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 137 min

We’re not super big on southern styled movies revolving around sassy women doing sassy things in sassypants (never have seen Steel Magnolias, Driving Miss Daisy, or Green Fried Tomatoes), but we do like us some sappy movies that make us cry and semi-revolve around pie and fried chicken.  The Help is just such a movie, but this one’s got a message, about dicey race relations or something, but with a hope for a better tomorrow, or something!!!  And guess what, WE LOVED IT TO TEARS!!!!!!!!!  NOW FEED US SOME FRIED CHICKEN, NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Based on the runaway bestseller of the same name by Kathryn Stockett (that we haven’t read a word of, snatchurally), no-name writer/director Tate Taylor takes the story about the stories of two black maids (stoically solid, and Oscar-worthy Viola Davis, and an outrageously enraged Octavia Spencer) and the one white woman (not even fugly wigs can make Emma Stone un-hot/awesome) ‘brave’ enuff to tell their stories, and makes all these stories about stories of stories well worth telling and watching… even if they never happened, and even if some have accused the movie of candy-coloring & white-washing elements of the Civil Rights era.  So what if Skeeter (Emma Stone’s stoopid character’s name) is the white vehicle for these oppressed black women to be courageous and let them have their say?  It’s a freakin movie, and one, FOR ONCE, that’s appealing to both white AND black audiences!!!  Name another movie that is… that isn’t a crummy Eddie Murphy movie!!!????

Maybe The Help is lame, and we’re juss over-loving it cause it’s a summer Hollywood movie without any superheroes, and we’re beyond sick of summer superheroes.  Or maybe it’s not lame cause The Help has super heroes, but the only special powers they use are kindness, caring and compassion!!!!  (this review is starting to sound as sappy as the movie is, but WHO CARES!????).  Maybe The Help works cause Julia Roberts isn’t in it?  Maybe cause it juss looks great and feels right?  Maybe cause peeps like Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson and Sissy Spacek are supporting acting the sh#t outta it?????  Maybe the movie is juss a great fracking movie, with tenderness, laughter and has pie AND fried chicken in every 5th scene????? MAYBE!!!

Maybe we need help, but maybe you need to see The Help

Help Wanted:  here’s someone we’d like to see in a French maid outfit – former James Franco flame…

Ahna O’Reilly

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Help helps itself to a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…