Thighs Wide Shut

Battle of The Sexes
Net Gain
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 121 min

There’s a lot of good and goodness in the Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris‘ movie take on the event and events that led up to the infamous 1973 Battle of the Sexes tennis match between old man Bobby Riggs and young Billie Jean King.  You will laugh!  You will cheer!  You will love all the wigs and false teeth (well, maybe not as much as I did)!  And when it’s over, you’ll be like, oh, that WAS nice.  Women had it tough, and they still do!  My, how times have changed, but they really haven’t!  

But you won’t be like, oh man, that was the greatest movie I’ve ever seen about tennis (Strangers On A Train? Match Point?)

But you will go, man, Steve Carell is so good at being funny AND dramatic AND being so real!  To me, he’s having the serious career that Jim Carrey should have had!  Oh man, Jim Carrey, why don’t you have like 11 Oscars already!?!??!

And when you see Emma Stone in Billie Jean’s genes, you’ll be like, OMG, I totally want to bang Emma Stone as Billie Jean King!!!!  And when you see this hairdressing scene where a hairdresser (Andrea Riseborough) runs her hands thru Emma Jean King’s hair and they make eye-bally faces at one another, you’ll be like – HOLY FCUK, I juss creamed myself watching this hairdressing scene!!!  It’s like the hottiest hairdressing scene EVER!!!! (granted, we’ve never seen Shampoo, but it’s probably hotter than anything in it)

Come for the tennis, and then literally COME watching this hairdressing scene!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Sexes is game, set, snatch in limited release this Friday, and at a theater near jews and white nationalists on September 29th

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Breaking The Fifth Wall
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 119 min

Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s Birdman is be like…

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Michael Keaton is an actor who was once a superhero

and now is like nothing or something

&

a superhero kinda like Condorman

&

his daughter is Emma Stone

who’s like a strung out/sarcastic Daisy Duck

&

Keaton’s trying to put on a Broadway show
in hopes of reviving his career

but it kinda goes like The Producers
with Zach Galifianakis as the hybrid lovechild
of Zero Mostel & Gene Wilder

&

one of his costars is a jerky Ed Norton
who’s out to spoil all the fun
and steal the spotlight

(and Andrea Riseborough is kinda doing the same thing)

which makes it feel a little About Eve

&

the fragile Naomi Watts is about to break

&

all of it seems like one giant artistical battle
like totally like Black Swan yo!

but not nearly as freaky or freakin awesome

&

but its got shades of the creative long-take editing of
Hitch’s BRILLIANT Rope

&

the even more creative and longer takes of
Alfonso Cuaron’s BRILLIANT Children of Men

&

luckily Amy Ryan is our center of gravity
and source of comfort

so what does it all add up to? an interesting movie with great technique, with a story that kinda grows old after an hour

glad to see Keaton back in action, but Oscars??? psssshah – this aint no Bettlejuice, or even Johnny Dangerously, so if he wins this year, it’s a make-up call for not winning for them roles

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Birdman is fly enuff in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Shadow Dancer
In The Name of The Undercover Mother
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 101 min

Collette (Andrea Riseborough)’s got a tough life that’s about to get tougher.  Born of an Irish Republican Army friendly family (which tends to happen when yer lil brother gets mistakenly gun downed by British soldiers), Collette is tasked with blowing up a London Underground station, but the plot fails, she’s caught, and then caught with a tough decision to make – be a single mother headed to jail for 25 years or be an agent MI5 and spy on her own family and friends.  What to do, what to do?????

James Marsh takes a break from making UMcredible docs/two of my favorite films of the past decade (Man On Wire & Project Nim) to make a serviceable little film about The Troubles during in the 90s (Marsh is SO dang good about evoking specific times and places – see also his Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980).  And just when you thought that they ran out of movie ideas about the IRA, here comes something new that isn’t exactly like all the others flicks that proceeded it. I appreciated that Shadow Dancer focused more on the characters than the movement itself, and the quiet performance by Riseborough shines through because of it. She’s paired with MI5 agent Mac (Clive Owen), who goes above and beyond his duty to protect her, when his agency (headed by Gillian Anderson) may not be as keen to do so  

Can Collette trust Mac?  Can Mac trust Collette?  Can Collette’s IRA brethren trust her?  Can you trust that there’ll be a happy ending?  Of course not, it’s a tale about Northern Ireland, where happy is about as commonplace as sun is in the forecast

Shadow on you tiny dancer!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Shadow casts its spell in NY & LA & On-Demand tomorrow and elsewhere elsewhen

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Oblivion
Lost At Earth
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
PG-13 | 124 min

It’s the future, and it’s bad, cause Earth is barren, and the only people left on it are Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough (hello again Ms Thang!).  Their job is to make sure that all the robot probes are in working order, before they call it quits and head back to the mothership hovering above in space, where Melissa Leo‘s annoying voice barks southern-fried orders at em, sugar.  But things get complicated when a spaceship crashes and one of the survivors (Olga Kurylenko) gives Tom Cruise a wicked case of Déjà vu, and a boner.  The truth is ultimately revealed (with help of wise-ole/check cashing Morgan Freeman), and it feels like 1238381288 other bad future movie reveals that you’ve already seen before  

Director Joseph Kosinski is so good at making the future look cool as sh!t, but not so cool when he tries to pair it with a lukewarm script.  Same thing befell his Tron: Legacy, but it’s OK, cause sometimes a bad future looking mighty good is good enuff, and oblivionus to the rest!

Verdictgo: low end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Oblivion is future-present in a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…