You Can't Handlebar The Truth

Bronson
Jail Wish
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

One day in 1972, a 22 year old man named Michael Gordon Peterson was looking for a purpose in life and found it after being jailed for robbing a post office for a grand total of £26.18 (and no, that wasn’t a very large number back then). For most, the process of living is either halted or temporarily delayed when incarcerated, but for the real life Mr Peterson, who would eventually rechristen himself Charles Bronson, it had the exact opposite effect, as the English penal system somehow liberated his warped mind, taut body and soulless-soul. When he was eventually released, it didn’t take him very long to get right back to where he belonged, behind bars, and due to his unruly hostility towards other inmates and prison employees alike (he’s been dubbed the ‘most violent prisoner in Britain’), he spent a lot of that time in solitary confinement. Bronson was released a second time and didn’t last more than 2 months on the streets before being locked up again, where he’s been ever since

Nicolas Winding Refn‘s visually and aurally arresting (pun intended?) portrait of the man starts off with a bunch o’ big bangs, and as we sat there being udderly mesmerized by this auspicious beginning, we got a gut feeling that this film could end up being one of the bestest, mos inventive ones we’ve seen this decade. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. It didn’t necessarily end with a whimper, but it didn’t really seem to go anywhere cept in the same circle of mischief in which Bronson, goes pound for pound, round and round, again and again. Going nowhere may be the point, but after watching about 30 minutes of it, you kinda want to be released from it on yer own recognizance. Such a pity it turned out this way, as Tom Hardy‘s hard-boiled, no holds barred bars holds brilliant performance as the title character is as eye and thigh opening as Carey Mulligan werk in An Education

Sorry critics, but Bronson is certainly not this generation’s Clockwork Orange, no matter how much Kubricky nods Refn throws up on the screen. Plus anyone who has a cinema brain knows that our generation’s ACO has already been made. It’s called Trainspotting, and it’s the only Danny Boyle piece that truly deserves a Best Picture Oscar

MUST Stache: Bronson/Hardy’s mustache makes us want to eat Pringles and play Tapper all day long!!!

Verdictgo: moist sad to say with all the promise it had, but Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Peter And Vandy
Well, Are They or Aren’t They?
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

He’s Peter (Jason Ritter)! She’s Vandy (Jess Weixler)! Together they are Peter AND Vandy! Apart they are still Peter and Vandy! This movie is about… PETER AND VANDY! Sometimes they’re deep in love, in each other’s pants, and other times fighting about nonsensical things like using two knifes to make PB&J. OH THE HUMANITY! Writer/director Jay DiPietro presents their relationship in a low-budget, non-linear, jumpy, in love, out of love manner, and without this lil style choice, P&V woulda been juss another boy meets girl, boy loses girl, enter whatever conventional love story ending you can think of type dealio here. Well, it basically is still that, even with the ‘tricks’, and that is that

Not Coming Soon To A Theater Near Jews, Muslims or Gentiles: Peter Vandy, the biopic!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Sorta Worth A Peepers, we guess?

P&V are together and apart in NY & LA today, while Bronson bides its time in NY only

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…