Thighs Wide Shut

Avatar
Your Body of Work Is A Wonderland
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

James Cameron is king of the world once again, but this time it’s one that’s far from earth (Pandora, not to be confused with the poop that was Pandorum) and spankfully far from Billy Zane’s hammy acting (Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang pick up the slack here, but aren’t nearly as hammy sangwich). His long gestating Avatar has finally hit the big screen, and with all it’s udderly franztastic CGI-motion capture bells & dazzling 3-Dimensional whistles, this baby is not only truly BIG, it’s cussin GIGANTIC! We wanted to hate on this film (the trailer didn’t wow us at all, and them blue people seemed like they wouldn’t even give themselves blue balls), but any early sign in the film of possible faltering (traces of a blah Pocahontasish plot, bad humans treat the earth poorly allegories galore + the overly-irritating Joel Moore) is quickly brushed aside as one’s eyes marvel endlessly at the visual masterpiece on display, which isn’t dull for a single minute out of it’s total of 162 of em!! You go JC!

Wanna know some plot details? Well, like humans have effed up earth and are out of oil and other resources so of courses they need to nick it from some other planet (it’s like V in reverse, but not like the new awful V!) and the planet they get their dirty hands on is one like FernGully filled with Dr Manhattan’s feline cousins. The humans want the planet’s goods at any costs, but a group of scientists led by Cameron’s olde pal Sigourney Weaver bring a humanistic element to the military’s forceful arm. Wonder if they’ll be some headbutting? One of her main helping hands dies so they enlist his twin brother (Sam Worthington, making up for that Terminator whatevs) and then they like avatar him into the DNA of like one of them blue people things (they called the Na’vi, not to be confused with Navi The Terrible Bowler) and then he basically gets in good with the real blue cat peoples, but of course they don’t trust him, and then they do, but maybe they ultimately don’t, but either way, he totally sweats the flyest one (Zoë Saldaña, hot in any color), and stuff and things and then the military folk like want to move in and do stuff and then our avatar guy is conflicted, cause he totally wants to milk them blue boobs (who doesn’t) and then they fly on things in the air and it’s breathtaking and it will take your breath away and like take your eyes to like new heights, like even mo so than Melrose Heights 9021024026! You go JC!!

Damn yo, Avatar was far from Avatarded. It was mo like Avatartarsaucelicioius! Sweet! Fun! Dazzle Dizzle! Seeing is bequeathing!! And if yer ever gonna go and see it, the theater’s the only way to go dawg go, so there you is. Eat it Lucas and go JC!!!

Zoe 102: justin case you forgot what she looks like as an actual human…

Verdictgo: can’t beeleave it weself, but Breast In Show!

Avtar opens everywear tomorrows!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Informant!
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There’s a big difference between actors and movie stars. Most movie stars blow. Matt Damon is a movie star, and yet he far from blows (he’s also Fahrvergnügen). Matty D is probably the mos endearing movie star going, and yet we take him for granted and granite. His Ocean buddies, namely Clooney and Pitt with their cocksure perma-smirks, hog all the spotlight, and yet they don’t really deserve it, at least not anymore now that they virtually play themselves from one film to the next (Vince Vaughn also suffers from the same diarrhea, and yet you people keep paying to watch him be dumb him). Well Diggty Damon may play slight variations of himself, but since he’s more of a boy next door type, obtainable to us simple folk, he is therefore someone we can easily get behind me satan. Whether he’s out-Bonding Bond as Jason Bourne, gettin serious with van Sant or having a blast in a disaster like Gilliam’s Brothers Grimm, Damon is always sharp, and as sharp as cheddar or Shannon, or even Sterling. In our humboldt opinion, he is the quintessential modern American movie star (remember, dudes like Sean Penn and Robert Downey are actors, not movie stars), and hasn’t ever been able to top his own magnificent work as the clever, calculating and Talented Mr Ripley. Until now?

Damon plays real-life whistle-blower Mark Whitacre [don’t bother clicking if you plan on seeing the film, which you probably should] in The Informant! So wait, why the exclamation mark (or is it an ‘exclamation point’?) in the title? Well, Whitacre is a slippery Tom Ripley-like character, cept he’s more awe-shucks golly-gosh, and less I’m gonna take an oar and slap you across the face with it, and Damon, playing this kinder, stoopider Ripley-like dude who’s in way over his head with this whistle-blowingness, excels like crizzzzazzy, especially spouting these funny asides about everyday life and things. + Damon’s playing the funnyman role in a movie where all the straightmen are played by funnymen (that dude from The Soup! that annoying fat guy who voiced a rat! Buster from Arrested Development! that baldy dude from 30 Rock! Biff from BTTF!!!! and although Scott Bakula isn’t a comedian, he does ruuuuuuuuule like Mercedes Ruehl!!!!!!!). All of this straight and funny is served up with a perfectly marvelous and hammy Marvin Hamlisch score, and BLAMMMM – you now sorta know, maybe not so much, why and how the film needs and has an exclamation mark/point!

But it’s not that simple, and neither is the movie itself, which does go on a bit too long even when it gets plenty interesting near the end when Damon/Whitacre keeps digging himself into a bigger hole. Credit and discredit in the same breath director Steven Soderbergh, who we deeply admire for always taking the chances that he does in moviedom, but then again, who drives us forkin nuts cause most of his movies never hit the mark (recently we were bored to tears and bored to comas with Che and The Whore Experience). Keep trying Nederbergh!! More Bubble, less burst, and of course, all the Matt Damon we can get (unless it results in Ocean’s 23-D)

Murphy’s Lawlessness: Damon as Whitacre looks egggzactly like Eddie Murphy done up in whiteface for that klisssasic SNL bit. mad creepy, yo!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Informant! tattles at a theaters near jews today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Up
yUp!
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Can the Pixar people do no wrong? No, they can’t. We don’t even like modern cartoons, but we will always pay to see a Pixar flick (Toy Story being the one to rule them all). People went balls to the wall for last year’s WALL•E, but that was only 1/3rd perfection (when faux E.T. was alone on earth). Up is about 3/5ths perfection, and thus more worthy of any Oscar talk than its predecessor possessed. Why? Cause Up is a triumph of the human spirit, not of the robot one. Sure, the kid is annoying (voiced by Jordan Nagai), and the rare bird and talking Up-dogs are a bit gimmicky (being in 3-D was hactually not gimmicky, and therefore hactually unnecessary), but the old man (Edward Asner) wears his emotions on his sleeve, and while you watch him turn from an Andy Rooney curmudgeon into an Andie MacDowell softie, you’ll probably be wiping tears off of yer own sleeve. The teariest bit of bits comes at the beginning, as we watch him and his wife montagely grow old together. That stretch of the film alone is more Oscar worthy than WALL•E and most films that win Best Picture, and if you don’t think so then you smell like Upyo

DNA-Hole In 1: Carl Fredrickson from UP Totally Looks Like Joe Paterno

so how come you haven’t b-marked TotallyLooksLike.com yets?

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Drag Me To Hell
Drag Thyneself To See This
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

After years of toiling in the mainstream, or perhaps lamestream would be a better word (still can’t get the taste of Spiderman 3 outta our mouths), Sam Raimi (and his brother Ivan) goes back to the well that has treated him and us so… well, and all hell breaks loose, spankfully. And with bigger studio dollars to match his beloved street cred/crud comes Drag Me To Hell, the movie equivalent of riding one of those cheesy Haunted House rides, where the scares are cheap, albeit scary, and outright thighlarious (we couldn’t stop larfing, and didn’t want to stop). DMTH could end up being the moist fun anyone could have in a theater this summer. Of course you have to have the stomach for it, and by it, we mean a crusty old Gypsy woman (Lorna Raver) constantly drooling ooze & pulling the hair and biting the face of the lovely Alison Lohman (the only thing more amazin than her beauty is how perfect a casting choice she was to play a younger version of Jessica Lange in the thighly underrated Big Fish). Along for the thrill ride are her boyfriend (Justin Long, using nothing but Apple products… and we wish were joking), a psychic (purrfectly over the top Dileep Rao), her shyster employer (the always shystery David Paymer) and another mystic (the creepy Adriana Barraza, who is not in fact the housekeeper from The Goonies). DMTH is bestest enjoyed in the company of (this is gonna be racist regardless of how we put it) an über-urban audience, although we were a lil put off by the couple that brought their baby to the theater when we saw it. May they be dragged to hell!!

Totally Got Gyped: the only Gypsy scarier than the one in DMTH is Tina Turner as the Acid Queen in the movie version of the Who’s Tommy

come to think of spit, as a whole, Tommy‘s one of the scariest movies we’ve ever seen

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Up and Hell are currently playing at a theater near jews two movies you have already seen, or should have already seen

and while we got ewe hear, peas watch the trailer for FFCoppola’s Tetro, which opens (and will be reviewed) next week

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Two Lovers
The Rapper’s Pre-Delight
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Joaquin Phoenix‘ got problems, and we’re not even talkin about the muy malo ones in his new not-so-hip-hop life, like falling off stages and I’m Not There talk show appearances (Baldwin!). In what may be his final screen performance (which means it probably won’t be his final screen performance), Phoenix’ got onscreen problems, like having the horrible dilemma of choosing between Gwyneth Paltrow (showing some NSFWness that only baby Apple gets to see) and Vinessa Shaw (a fine Eyes Wide Shut actress that Hollywood has basically ignored). His Jewish parents (mum’s played by the not so Jewish Isabella Rossellini), with whom he lives with and works for, are pushing him towards family friend Shaw, but his heart keeps pulsing for the blond goy (and which Jew’s heart wouldn’t?). Mos men enjoy the chase/challenge of bagging an out of their league honey, instead of being chased and going for the easy lay, and Phoenix’ lovable loser character (think a more attractive Marty) is apparently like most men, and his choices may ultimately lead him to heartbreak hotel. While the title might suggest plenty of physical lust and caution, Two Lovers is more of an emotional mental affair, and that’s actually OK cause the film doesn’t require it (although we’re not complaining about Gwny’s boob flash). This film re-teams Phoenix with director James Gray for a third time (the other two being the gritty ditties We Own the Night and The Yards) with a role that completely suits his reserved and awkward demeanor (also correctly put on display in Parenthood, To Die For and Quills… we woulda included The Village, but playing The Village‘s idiot didn’t involve much acting). For way too long Phoenix has been miscast in parts that were bigger than his britches and his range (we weren’t buying him at all as Johnny Cash). So now that he’s hit a walk-off home run on his way to retirement (and hobo beardsville), it’s our hearts that are broken. Maybe we’ve taken him for granted and granite, and now it’s our turn to chase him

Moby Peaches: the only musician who gets less credit than Phoenix has gots to be Moby. Years after the release of his brilliant Play all the newbie fans seemed to hit the stop button. Tis a shame cause baldy’s been bustin out killah tunes in the ensuing years. His song ‘I Love To Move In Here’ [d], from last year’s overlooked Last Night (in retrospect, it should been near the top of our bestest of ‘008 list), is featured in a sultry, dick-teasing dance scene. Listen up, and get down!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Under The Sea 3-D
Sea’s Candy
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Jim Carrey‘s voice guides us on a 40 minute 3-D IMAX adventure down under the sea down under. There aint nuttin particularly special about these 20,000 leagues here that you haven’t seen on Planet Earth or the 88 other IMAX movies that took a dive, but watching ugly camouflage fish make beautiful looking fishes their dinner again and again in 3-D isn’t the worst way to spend your hard earned dollars. As the clock winds down we wondered if there was a point to this film, other than putting smiles on the faces of kids and stoners, and there is! Carrey explains in a few sentences that if we don’t take care of our planet some of these beautiful and ugly creatures will disappear forever. Tell us something we don’t already know. Actually, don’t and juss show us more clips of ugly fishes getting their grub on!

Dimension Films: 3-D is all the rage, but 4-D looks outrageyier! we mean, where else are you gonna see Elmo poop Skittles above yer head?

Verdictgo: for the kiddies/stoners Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Two Lovers and Under The Sea 3D open in limited theaters today

and until next thyme the balcony i
s clothed…

He’s Just Not That Into You
She’ll Be Into It, You Just Won’t Not
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There’s a wildly popular book that we haven’t read called He’s Just Not That Into You (which is based off of a line of dialog from a wildly popular show that we didn’t watch called Sex & The City) that explains to women the most obvious truths about men and their actions and how they don’t want to bang you. The fact that a tonz of ladies out there couldn’t figure that out on their own, from the fact that they weren’t being banged, and had to be told thru a book makes us want to cry (and bang some women, but not necessarily those particular ladies cause we’re not that into you). Anywho, for those who never took on this reading assignment (most men, women who get banged, people who can’t read, people who hate people), here comes a dumb downed motion picture version that’s basically 19 generic romantic comedies rolled into one giant generic romantic drama (or were they aiming for comedy? hard to tell since it wasn’t funny or very dramatic). Anywho, it appears that director Ken Kwapis has access to an amazing casting director and has some sorta of vendetta against paying audiences cause all he wants to do is hand in films with scripts that were written in urine, in the snow, and everyone knows that urine in snow tell the worstest stories!! First Kwapis tortured us with License to Wed (aka I Now Pronounce You One Giant Piece of Sh$t) and now he’s back, but at least he had the good sense to leave Robin Williams on the sidelines this poo around. We’ll give Kwapie a minor pass in general since he’s produced episodes of The Office, one of if not the best show goings on the telly

The movie focuses on straight white ladies and the straight white men they either want to bang, are banging, or aren’t banging enuff. What, gay, Asian, black and purple womensz don’t have love problems like straight white womenz have? And who cares about straight white ladies’ problems hispecially since straight white people be more out than the Bull Moose party. Letttuce meet our lovebirds and how they’re all loosely related and loosely developed, shall we? There’s poor lil Ginnifer Goodwin, who’s more clueless than a person who once owned the board game Clue, lost it, and is now Clue-less. She can’t score with Kevin Connolly cause maybe he only dates ducks cause he talks like a duck. Anywho, Kevin’s trying to bang Scarlett Johansson, cause she looks like a lion and has an enormous rack, but she’s totally sweating Bradley Cooper (who kinda looks like a porn star), a married man married to Jennifer Connelly, who isn’t a man, but she works with Ginnifer and Jennifer Aniston and like twenty other ‘innfers. Aniston has been with Ben Affleck for ages but he’s not the marrying kind cause his old lady was J-Lo and after she took up with that ghoul Marc Anthony his pride was hurt and he knows that Aniston in real life will never end up marrying anyone so he juss strings her along cause he’s just not that into marrying her. Anywho, Justin Long is a wise bar owner who sells Apple products at a discount price. He also avoids banging his hostess Busy Philipps cause he’s a bit too busy AND philipps. Long takes Ginnifer under his wing and helps her learn to fly. They’re perfect for each other, but the characters won’t realize this until the end credits begin to roll, which doesn’t happen until the 1283819 false endings finally become true endings. Drew Barrymore is in the movie for no real reason other than the fact that she’s got a killer smile and she’s a producer of the film and that she totally wasn’t into that dude who wanted to have a date with her cause no one is into that guy. Kris Kristofferson and that gay dude from My So Called Life pop their heads in from time to time and we’re happy to see them working, but we’d rather see a movie where the two of them are lovers and own a glass blowing factory. Stuff happens in this movie, yet nothing really happens, bonds are made and hearts are broken, and white people are white people, so why should this movie be? Sorry, but it weren’t juss that weren’t into it just not, although czech out a ladies opinion on the film from our gal pal over at the bestest Bachelor Bloggg

Nodds & Bends: lil Morgan Lily > Eli Lilly + The Morgan Library, extra Chihiro Fujii apparently does some NSFW extracurricular activities, and Jocelin Donahue definitely earned the role of ‘Cute Girl’

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Fanboys
The Force Is Not Strong With This One
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Remember seeing Spaceballs back in the ’87 and thinking it was the mos genius spoof of the Star Wars galaxy, but later in life came to realize it really wasn’t all that funny and was hactually (gasp) purty darn lame (look, we love ‘we aint found shit‘ as much as the next guy, but
the movie aint nearly as good as you remember it)? The same won’t be said of Fanboys cause we don’t need the passage of time to figure out how purty darn lame this Star Wars-fused comedy is. The events in the film take place in the year leading up to The Phantom Menace‘s release as our freaks and geeks (the new Jimmy Olsen, that skinny kid, the voice of Gossip Girl, one of those kids from The Girl Next Door, and Dan Fogler, a huge comic talent waiting to explode… if only someone could get him a decent script) will stop at nothing short of breaking into Skywalker Ranch to catch a sneak peek at it (and their motivation to do so is cause one of the characters is dying, yet they treat that fact so lightly that we thought it was a joke). Their excitement of the first new Star Wars film in 16 years is certainly understandable, since we all felt the same way, and had this movie been made in 1998/9, maybe this mild mannered Lucas love affair woulda worked, but as we all know the new Star Wars episodes ended up sucking and who really wants to celebrate a movie that celebrates the release of a movie that shouldn’t have been released. That aside, the film never takes full advantage of its golden opportunity to riff on Star Wars fan culture. Sure, there’s some yucks (and by some, we’d say a total of 4 laffs) to be found when referencing the old films, but it’s no mountain that hasn’t been climbed before, like with Family Guy‘s overrated ‘Blue Harvest’ episode or Robot Chicken’s roast. As for the Billy Dee Williams, Carrie Fisher and William Shatner cameos? They woulda been better off starring in a Cash 4 Gold commerical with MC Hammer and Ed McMahon than wasting their time with Fanboys. You shouldn’t either and instead juss gaze at its hammazin (Apatowish) poster. Then again, what are we to expect from a movie that has Seth Rogen playing two different roles? One Seth Rogen is enuff, but two? That’s way too much Seth Rogen for anyone to handle

Dex’s Diner: never forget Jedi Chefs!

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Coraline
Dread Buttons
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

The stop motion magic from the dude who gave us The Nightmare Before Christmas is back, and after working with the zany creations by such loony bins like Roald Dahl and Tim Burton, he’s returning to weirdo alley again by tackling a Neil Gaiman book, but this time the stakes are higher, cause this baby’s in 3-D (it’s like watching that Scarecrow GE commercial thru a View-Master)!!! Lil Coraline (not ‘Caroline’, but juss as sweet as the one in Neil Diamond’s song, who looks like a claymated Punky Brewster and is voiced with perfect pitch by Dakota Fanning), and her family just moved to cloudy Oregon, where her days are filled with loneliness and boredom. Mom (Teri Hatcher, actually better heard here than seen anywhere) and pop (the PC guy… wonder who’s gonna win the battle of MAC vs PC at the box office this weekend?) won’t give her the time of day, let alone cook her something decent to eat. Then one day Coraline finds a portal to an alternate world that’s just like her own, yet in this new one she’s the center of her parents attention, and the home cooked meals can’t be beat (plus she gets to listen to the voices of Ian McShane and Keith David). Everything’s perfect in this idealized place, but maybe a little too perfect (and what’s with everyone having buttons for eyes?). Cracks begin to show and Coraline becomes caught between two worlds. The proceedings are a lil too strange, cold and creepy for most tykes to fully enjoy, and while some parents may feel the same way, it’s hard to pass up a gloriously vivid color paletted 3-D adventure that will make you wish you were ‘shrooming your balls off

Giants of Industry: originally They Might Be Giants were to create numerous songs for the film’s soundtrack, but only one teeny 28 second song made the final cut

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Not That Into You and Coraline open thighs wide, while Fanboys hits up limited theaters today

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…