Thighs Wide Shut

Alien: Covenant
Fassbender²
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
R | 122 min

I returned from 2 weeks away in Italy, and after a night of attempting to reset my biological clock (it didn’t work), the next morning, the only thing I wanted to do (besides laundry) was see the new Alien movie - Alien: Covenant.  But I think I forgot to brush up on Prometheus before seeing it.  Oooops.  Kinda woulda helped!!!

Speaking of Prometheus, why did everyone hate that movie so much?  Cause the humans were dumb and did dumb things?  Well, what would you have done on a planet you’ve never been too????  Also, who wants to see a movie where smart astronauts avoid getting killed?  Aren’t the Alien movies all about watching humans getting killed by aliens in the most horrific ways possible??? And did everyone forget about how scary and captivating the movie was, and how there was an alien in our hero’s body and she c-sectioned the thing the fcuk out of her and it literally was like the most insane thing ever??????????????

Anywho, Covenant is the next prequelish chapter in Ridley Scott‘s continued attempt to properly resurrect the franchise, while raising new big questions, and introducing us to new dumb humans (welcome Billy Crudup!)  Luckily, the smartest ‘man’ in the room remains Michael Fassbender, and… Michael Fassbender.  No spoilers here, but lets just say, double the Fassbender, double the twisted fun!  And while the new crew includes a nice mix of actors from Demián Bichir to Danny McBride (not as comicy reliefy as you’d think), you know this one’s gonna be all about some short-haired lady, who’s probably going to have a high survivability rate – hello Katherine Waterston!!! 

Yes, hello!  Waterston seems to be in everything these days, but I would say any movie where she is wearing clothes, is a failure, cause she can totally be in a movie without clothes [NSFW]

But there’s something about her in Covenant that doesn’t exactly click, and we don’t feel for her, like they way we did for Prometheus‘ Noomi Rapace.  Oh yeah, whatever happened to her?????  And what’s up with the white engineer dudes?  And the black goo?  And this and that?  

Covenant has more to say than Prometheus, but I don’t necessarily think it’s AS good – but remember, I really liked Prometheus (and you probably didn’t).  The day after seeing the new one, I revisited the Prometheus and I like it more now than I ever have!!!  I mean, again, c’mon, the good doctor gives herself a cesarean section and the thing that comes out of it sucks on one of those white engineer dudes and becomes a fcuking insane alien!!!!!  WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT???  There are aliens in this Alien movie, and we sorta now know how they came to be, and how we came to be, and it’s both beautiful and unnerving, and these are prequels making us think – not making itself STINK

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Covenant agrees with you at theater near jews AND white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Jackie
To Live and Die With Dignity
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
R | 100 min

I’ve missed Natalie Portman, and I feel like she hasn’t really done anything post-Black Swan, which somehow was 6/7 years ago.  Yes, I know she was in Thor and in that dumb Ashcan Kruncher flick, and other stuff, but those were juss movies, not films.  Natalie can obviously pick and choose whatever she wants to do – she’s earned that right – but being such an incredible actress means she has a responsibility to take on incredible roles

I’d like to say that Natalie Portman’s proper follow-up to Black Swan is Pablo Larraín & Noah Oppenheim‘s Jackie Kennedy film, where she somehow is even more graceful, tortured and emotionally wounded than when she was as a ballerina bent on finding perfection.  Jackie is not perfect (it’s close, but there’s not enough grassy knoll for me :), but it is what it needs to be, and Portman as Jackie IS perfection

Throughout the course of the film, Jackie goes from white swan, to white swan covered in blood, to even whiter swan, and by the end of it all, I somehow I felt more compassion for Portman (as Jackie), then I actually do for Jackie Kennedy, for enduring and rising above the horrific death of her husband, and the leader of the free world

What the country went through is incomparable to what Jackie went though, but in a time of much awfulness, she had the right mind to plan a sendoff for JFK worthy of royalty, and cement his legacy and place in history for eons to come.  What Jack Kennedy accomplished in office wasn’t much (he didn’t get a chance to put man on Uranus), but what Jackie Kennedy accomplished in giving dignified life to his death was more than a lot, it was Camelot!

Portman also accomplishes something that wasn’t important or needed – reminding me how much I love Love LOVE seeing her on the big screen

Bonus points to the film for somehow turning Greta Gerwig into a real human being.  Never seen her so un-loopy and restrained.  And props to Peter Sarsgaard for giving new life to RFK, without going haaaard on the look or accent that most others usual do in Bobby’s shoes.  Also, Billy Crudup and John Hurt are quiet great as listeners for Jackie

Also, we finally have a definitive Jackie movie.  before Portman, all we had was this…

YES!

Verdictgo: Portman is Breast In Show, but the film is Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Jackie is way JF O-Kay at a theater near jews AND white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

20th Century Women
It Takes A Boarding House To Raise A Child
Official Site| Trailer & Mo
R | 118 min

I love the Talking Heads, but I think I forgot how much I truly loved them until I heard their music in Mike Mills‘ 20th Century Women, and then, like what happened to the characters in the movie itself, it felt as if it were the first time I had ever heard the Talking Heads!!  And I was like WOAH!!!  This STUFF ROCKS!!  And my head and body couldn’t help itself, and grooved to the music!!!

And that experience of hearing the Talking Heads for the first time was kinda like seeing this movie for the first time – I was like – WOAH, there’s something to this movie! It warms my heart and touches my soul!  And my head and body are grooving to it – big time!!!

But this movie isn’t about discovering the music of the Talking Heads – it’s about an adolescent boy (Lucas Jade Zumann), without a father figure, who shares a bohemian lifestyle in a Santa Barbara residence with a strong, loving mother (Annette Bening), his schoolgirl crush (Elle Fanning), a super cool photographer gal (Greta Gerwig), and a handlebar-mustached handyman (Billy Crudup)

This boy is on the path to becoming a mini-man, and in turn, he’s starting to drift away from his mother’s grasp.  She feels the distance beginning to widen, and so she enlists the help of the two ladies and handyman to mold him into a modern man.  Guess what happens?  It’s not juss the boy who learns and grows – but EVERYONE involved too!!

It’s actually not as cheesy as it sounds, and in a movie that could have easily gone too cutesy and way too quirky, it stayed the course of being juss a lovely lovely lovely little film  

For some reason, in my brain, it was like watching a 70s version of Six Feet Under, complete with a complete ending juss like Six Feet‘s fantastic/2nd to none complete complete ending!

The movie even made me grow!  I grew a 2nd pair of ears and haven’t stopped streaming the Talking Heads on Amazon since I saw the movie.  How 21st Century Man of me!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

20th Century is foxy for in limited release 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Spotlight
All The Priests’ Children
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 127 min

Every great newspaper deserves its own great movie.  The Washington Post got All The President’s Men, The San Francisco Chronicle got Zodiac, and (although I haven’t seen it) The New York Times got the doc Page One: Inside The New York Times.  There are a lot of other great great newspaper films, but they are all fictional (or fiction guised as something sorta based in reality, ala Citizen Kane).  It’s actually kinda weird that there aren’t more films about big time stories published by big time newspapers.  Anywho – Spotlight shines a bright light on The Boston Globe – and the lid they blew off the priestly-pedophiled sexual scandals that plagued the highly Catholic Boston area for eons

Thomas McCarthy‘s cinematic journey of this investigative journalism triumph is a triumph itself.  The outcome is obvious (any doubt that the paper wouldn’t win the day by getting the word out), but getting from point A to point B was an absolute thrill – even if it mainly consisted of phone calls, interviews, trips to the library, repeat, repeat, repeat.  The movie never skips a beat, and is pulse-pounding from the get go, to the get stop.  Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d’Arcy James (and his MUSTache), Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup are ALL fantastic.  Raping children is not fantastic, but this movie is ALL fantastic.  It is a muss see for anyone who has eyes, and even for people who don’t

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Spotlight shines bright currently at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…