Thighs Wide Shut

Invictus
An Afrikaaned Job
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Any movie that features Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, a role his DNA was bourne to play, should be a slam down, touch run, home dunk, wham bam bam wham thank you for all the Academy Awards ma’am, righty right? Attach Clint Eastwood as the director, the man who got Freeman his long overdue Oscar for his werk in Million Dollar Baby, and the above should have been true tenfold and been more of a powerhouse than Penfold’s pal Danger Mouse, righty righty right right? YES IT CUSSIN SHOULD HAVE BEEN!! Alas, that’s not what Invictus is

While it woulda been easier, and munch bud wiser to have given us the whole Mandela story, all we gets instead is a pie slice, specifically when he first came into office and thought the best way to unite the minority oppressors and the majority oppressed was by embracing something that one group loved and the other loathed: the national rugby team (headed by Matt Damon, who probably stole his South African accent by watching Lethal Weapon 2 eleven zillion thymes)!! Sounds like it shoulda been sumtang quite inspired and inspiring, but this aint no Apartheid Hoosiers, and so it aint neither inspired nor inspiring!!! WHAT THE GEORDI LAFORGE?!?!?!? Invictus coulda been the third leg in the triple crown of hammazin 2009 South African cinema (District 9 & Skin being the other two), but this tired sports movie (it’s not even close to dethroning the best Rugby movie, The Sporting Life) is all backwards passes and no goings forwards

Rugby Goes Up: parents juss don’t understand. often them old peoples juss think video games have nuttin to teach kids, and while moist of the time they’re probably right, sometimes theys wrongs. how else do you think we learned the rules of rugby? by playing Rugby World Cup 95 on Sega Genesis, that’s how, so eat it parents!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Invictus is currently not so invictorious at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

FACT: The Addams Family pinball game is the best selling pinball machine of all thyme. it’s also simply the bestest. but you already know this, rightums?

2nd places goes to Haunted House & 3rd to Baby Pac Man, neither of which can be found at the spot of fun in NH

+ Addams Family Pinball Restoration

+ The Mamushka!!!

Happy 51st B-Day to Tennis For Two

the world’s second ever computer game. OXO was the first
[via CBS Sunday Morn/Gizmo]

Tyson
Uppercuts & Downercuts
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

A Mike Tyson documentary that doesn’t bother to mention his 8-bit/5th-best NES classic Punch-Out!! (or Michael Scott’s prank phone calls for that splatter) is an automatic failure. James Toback‘s Tyson doesn’t go there, but if we can get over that faulty fact, then you’ll probably be able to too, cause this profile straight from the horse’s mouth of the Last Lord of The Ring is the funniestest and moist touchingestest movie we’ve seen since Gran Torino. What can we say, we love a man of words, even if their racist (Eastwood’s Asian barbs are still boning are funny) or malapropped 8 days a week (Tyson twice made playful use of the word ‘skulduggery‘… btw, bestest Tyson quote of balls thyme: ‘I guess I’m gonna fade into Bolivian‘). If yer looking for an in-depth look back at his life and career, you may want to look elsewhere, cause this doc aint about depth of facts, but of feelings, and you’ll be feeling his pain, from the punches in the ring, to the ones that came from outside of it. Regardless of what you think of him going in, you’ll feel sympathy for this devil coming out, and maybe, juss maybe, you’ll let him eat your children

They Got Game: play Nintendo/Tyson’s Punch-Out on-line + Sega’s James ‘Buster’ Douglas Knockout Boxing (which sold about as many copies as minutes of fame he had) too!!

Verdictgo: sure, it runs a lil long, even at 90 minutes, but this shiz is totes pelling-com, so low end Breast In Show, but Breast In Show lessthenone

The Informers
Walking On Empty
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Bret Easton Ellis is ell a gifted and talented writer. The movies made from his books haven’t been so gifted, even if they’ve been loaded with talented people (we don’t care what you say, American Psycho the movie SUCKED when compared to American Psycho the book, which has gotz to be one of the greatestest American novels ever written, so eat it Faulkner!). His loosely connected short storied Informers (another book we hactually read) unfortunately continues this trend, leaving the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder, Lou Taylor Pucci, Rhys Ifans, hot newcomer Jon Foster, and the ageless Chris Isaak, with not much to do, cept sit around and look beautiful and bored, as their shallow and vapid characters are unseamlessly being tied together. You’ll probably be more bored than they are (although we weren’t bored by perky cutie Cameron Goodman). We knew it wasn’t working as we were watching it, yet it did kinda sorta stick with us after we left the theater (doesn’t 12 minutes afterwards count for something). You can skip it (along with its poster, which has gots to be worstest poster of the year), and instead watch the hammazin unrated trailer again and again, and pretend, like us, that the movie rocks the cashbar. It’s really sad that Brad Renfro‘s final performance ever will best be known as that movie where Amber Heard’s NSFW scenes are better seen than anything else seen or heard from within

Keeping You Well Informed: never 5get the best/wurstness that is Snow’s ‘Informer’ [d|vid] + the Jim Carrey parody, which isn’t as thighlarious

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Tyson & The Informers are both currently playing in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Haunting In Connecticut
Funeral Parlor Games Without Frontiers
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There are two kinds of horror movies these daze: ones that are gross out gorefests like Saw and ones that are Michael Bay produced remakes of killer classics. Both kinds are usually not worth see-Sawing. The remakes makes re-sense to us for being, but they never improve upon the source material and are thus less-point. So how comes no one makes horror movies like the old ones that work, but piece it together using fresh or unused material? The Haunting In Connecticut is thankfully a decent recent answer to that question, as this (loosely) based off an actual true story feels more like one of those olde classics, ala The Exorcist or Amityville Horror, even if it isn’t necessarily a classic in its own right

The Snedeker family, renamed in the film as the Campbells (with mum and pop played by Virginia Madsen and Martin Donovan), move into a big olde creepy house that was once a funeral parlor that doubled as a hot spot for vomiting ectoplasm. The rent’s cheap, so they don’t really care about its shady past, as they have bigger fish to fry, like dealing with their teenage son(Kyle Gallner)’s cancer and his treatments at a nearby hospital. The son moves into the basement and that’s when the visions, slamming doors and other thangs that go michael bumpus in the night start to happen. At first only cancer boy experiences the house’s deep dark secrets, and eventually the whole family joins in on the not so fun. Of course these folks shoulda moved out at the first sign of trouble, but they don’t, then shiz gets worse, then Elias Koteas comes into to sprinkle holy water on the place, and then more shiz gets even more crazy worse (& a lil overdone) and then… Zardoz guess you may have to see the movie to find out

Strife As A House: the current owners of the house are none to happy with the all this new unwanted attention and the unwanted (living) visitors that comes along with it

Verdictgo: Jeepers Creepers Worth A Peepers

Goodbye Solo
Bestest Solo Since Han
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane) is a glass half full Senegalese cab driver in North Carolina, who’s ambition in life is to become an airline steward and support his young family. The grizzled old man saying goodbye to him is glass mostly empty William (Red West, a member of Elvis’ Memphis Mafia). The two strike up an unlikely friendship as William hires Solo to take him to a mountain range in a few weeks time, with no questions asked. Leading up to their final fare well (get it, cab fare, farewell!), chatty Solo does his best to raise a smile on the grumpy gus, while finding out the cause of his grumpy gussedness. The story itself is as thin as the cast of 90210II, but this baby succeeds on the subtle power of the two leads’ performances. Solo‘s director Ramin Bahrani aint no household name, and probably never will be, but that shouldn’t (house)hold you or anyone else (from your household) back from seeing this brilliant humanist film, or his other strong previous efforts (Man Push Cart and Chop Shop). Solo is currently rocking a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. If that ringing endorsement for this bromance aint good enuff for you, then juss go ahead and waste yer time watching pufflepuff stuff like I Bore You, Man

Bitched @ Swirth: we’re setting the odds at 3 to 1 that when Jared Harris is 73 years old he’ll look eggzactly like Red West

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Guest of Cindy Sherman
Standing In Shadows of Groantown
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Paul Hasegawa-Overacker (aka Paul H-O) went from obscure art scene outsider, with his 90’s NY public access TV show Gallery Beat, to ultimate scenester insider, when he became photography icon Cindy Sherman‘s companion for 5 or so years. He was living out his ultimate fantasy, flying with Sherman across the globe and hobnobbing with the crème de’ le’ crème of snobby von snobbyensteins (although Julian Schnabel wasn’t much of a fan, but then again, does Schnabs like anyone?), but being her +1 took its toll on his psyche and their relationship as well. This incredibly fun documentary gives us a rare insight it what it’s like to be that other person, who often gets told by cameramen to stand aside on red carpets, and is forced to sit at separate tables at bourgeois dinners far away from their loved ones. This expose, co-directed by the sunny H-O, focuses more on the Guest than Sherman, but there’s plenty goodies to go round about the ironically camera-shy artist and her work to make this a dual purpose bio an absolute treat

Step Up: one of Sherman’
s former stepdaughters is Gaby Hoffman, better know as Uncle Buck’s lil niece and the lil girl in Field of Dreams

Verdictgo: Guest In Show

Solo and Sherman open today in limited release, while Haunting opens at a theater near Jews