Thighs Wide Shut

Public Enemies
The Touchables
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Tommy guns, riding on the sides of cars and bank robberies rule the day, while hiding out, gettin drizunk and womanizing rule the night in Michael Mann‘s fun, yet not too deep look at the life of John Dillinger (a steady, but unspectacular Johnny Depp), his gangsta cronies (Faramir! Stephen Dorff!!!!!!!! + an electrifying, but little screentimed Stephen Graham as Baby Face Nelson) and the G-men who sought to bring them all down (anyone else getting sick of Christian Bale? + a scene chewing, James Cagney impression spewing Billy Crudup). Mann’s well suited for this job, having made many a memorable gun fight friendly ficks over the past 3 decades, and with a cast overloaded with talent and beauty (Marion Cotillard, John Ortiz (loves him), Branka Katic, Rory Cochrane, Carey Mulligan (loves her, and we lovesed her first!!), Giovanni Ribisi, Emilie de Ravin, Lili Taylor, Shawn Hatosy (he’s like a fake Brad Renfro), Leelee Sobieski & Channing Tatum, juss to name 1/16th of the cast), it’s a catastrophe of the highest order that the film looks like absolute hell. We aint talking about the costumes, hairdos, props or sets, cause they all are flawless, especially since they shot at the real locations, but wees talkin about how the film was shot using HD cameras and not ye olde film stock. That kinda 80s camcorder home video look worked to great effect with his gritty ditties Collateral and Miami Vice, but for a period piece like this, it almos ruined the whole affair. You probably won’t care or notice, but we certainly did, as any scene that included light bulbs or bright outdoor light resulted in a whoreriffic motion blur appearance that completely drove us insane mad batty crazy. Zodiac was also shot in HD, and that’s one of the mos beautiful, warm colored films we’ve ever seen, so what gives? C’mon Mike, next time be a Mann and make yer solid period piece movie look like a movie and not like a solid piece of shit

No Harmon No Foul: there have been several Dillinger related flicks that came before, but none of them sound that memorable, esp the TV one starring Mark Harmon, but we’re quite curious to take a look at John Milius’ 1973 entry, starring Warren Oates as JD + Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillips, Cloris Leachman, Harry Dean Stanton, and Richard Dreyfuss as Baby Face Nelson!!

Verdictgo: despite our moanin & groanin tis still Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Homecoming
A Futile Attraction
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

We pity poor Mischa Barton, and it has nothing to do with looking eggszactly like her brother Falkor. She left our beloved OC on her terms, the show fell apart w/o her, and her career fell apart w/o it (somewhere Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows are raised in disappointment). Most of her post-‘California, here we come‘ work has either gone straight to video or should have if it didn’t in the first place. Homecoming is yet another brick in her unwatchable wall that keeps growing by the year. In this amateurish movie, she plays Shelby, a girl stuck in her hometown with a mountain of debt and a mountain of love for her star quarterback ex-boyfriend (Matt Long), who shipped off to college months prior and already shacked up with a 90210 hottie mcgee (Jessica Stroup). Things come to a head, and a bore fest, when the b-friend & his new g-friend come home for… HOMECOMING and Barton thinks she can woo him back into her arms. Obviously that aint happening, and after some unhappy coincidences, Mischa traps her rival in her house, ties her up to a bed and drugs her aplenty. Sounds familiar? Yeah, we liked it too when it was called Misery, and this teen-y version is simply miserable. Sure wish that Annie Wilkes had chopped up the screenwriter of Homecoming to bits before one word of it had ever been put to paper. The only solution we see to turn around Barton’s fleeting career is to call on a voodoo priestess and bring Marissa Cooper back from the dead

Coop de Ill: there were two Marissa Cooper shirts we always wanted to get, but never did. the former Thighmistress got us this one, which always gets us odd looks by passersby (as do our manboobs)

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Died Young, Stayed Pretty
Poster Children
Official Website & Trailer

Posters sell and advertise stuff. Some are used to do just that for bands and their concerts (looky here at GigPosters.com for a ton of em). It’s an art form fo sho and the artists who art them art’nt necessarily swimming in riches and fame. Died Young, Stayed Pretty is a documentary aiming to give ’em some of dat recognition that they deserve, but it’s not nearly as interesting as director Eileen Yaghoobian‘s last name. After about 15 minutes, you get the entire picture, so for the rest of the time you get more of the same: look at this poster, OK, look at 32838 more, OK, now lets talk to the poster designer about designing them, OK, now repeat, repeat and poster, peat, re, designer, talk, poster, things, stuff, is this thing still on?, hey, there’s Frank Kozik, but why are they only talking to him for 8 seconds when he was like the semi-forefather to these poster peoples? repeat, repeat, more posters, chit chat, some wit here and there, even more posters, aiiight, wait, how come they’re only talking about today’s poster makers? what about a lil history, like the dudes in the 60s who started it all, like Milton Glaser? Oh yeah, he has his own separate doc, and peeps like Kozik and many others were dones up in another called American Artifact. So what’s the point of all this dying young and staying pretty? Don’t really know, but we think it has something to do with posters

Poster Haste: outside of movie posters and this set dedicated to Yiddish words, here lie our mos flavorite posters mt EVERest (with much respek to Uncle S & Rosie the R)

Verdictgo: for poster addicts only, so Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Enemies be already playings at a theater near jews, while Stayed Pretty gets ugly in NY only, and Homecoming will soon be leaving screens in NY, LA and KY?

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

it was the best of times, it was the breast of times. OK, so there weren’t a lot of breasts to be had and fondled on our most recent trip to the ye Olde Country (didn’t happen on the last one 4 years ago neither), but that didn’t stop us from partying like a cockstar and a rockstar and a rollstar, and fulfilling our wildest wet dreams of visiting some of Kubrick’s choice Clockwork locales, and the whole reason why this trip slap-happened in the first place…

Blur
Hyde Park
July 2nd

dat’s right folks. Damon, Alex, Dave and Graham, back together again, like they always should be (all dough we didn’t so mind the Gorillaz and the Good, The Bad & The Queen side projects in the interim), belting out all klissasics in the very park that inspired the song (and album) Parklife

‘She’s So High’
‘Girls & Boys’
‘Tracy Jacks’
‘There’s No Other Way’
‘Jubilee’
‘Badhead’
‘Beetlebum’
‘Out Of Time’
‘Trimm Trabb’
‘Coffee & TV’
‘Tender’
‘Country House’
‘Oily Water’
‘Chemical World’
‘Sunday Sunday’
‘Parklife’ (with Phil Daniels!!)
‘End Of A Century’
‘To The End’
‘This Is A Low’
‘Popscene’
‘Advert’
‘Song 2’
‘Death Of A Party’
‘For Tomorrow’
‘The Universal’

all we can say to that set list to end all set lists is WOW (all dough we had our own set list in mind… see the comment at 16:44… that’s 4:44pm to us and yous, when the concert was first announced back in December), cause we really can’t remember that much else since we were more wasted than an American education, but that matters little cause we danced, like on a wave of emotion, romanced. if yer looking for a more concise wrap up from an American’s point of view, peep the Snob’s review from the show on the 3rd

if only we didn’t drink so much GAYmers pear cider cause maybe our memory wouldn’ta been in such a hazy shade of summer, but irregardless, we’d never take back the 100+ high-fives we give the blokes and the birds and the bees and the bidness

no one had any idea what our shirt meant since they don’t have Mountain Dew over there (or air conditioning or Kleenex or napkins or proper beef or Hispanic people and their fine food). odd looks were probably also had for the dudes sporting the Seahawks, NY football Giants and Phoenix Suns tees + the 2 Mets and the (current ugly) Blue Jays hats

and now for some random pics from the rest of our short and not so strange trip…

sadly no pigs or other animals were harmed in the taking of this curvy pic

people think American food sucks, well try getting a good pizza anywhere outside of the US (or Italy) and then talk to us. OK, so we’ll admit that we did eat Dominos whilst there, but we didn’t trust the English pizzerias for one second. apparently the big style over there is ‘American Hot’, cause you know how all of us crazy folks over here love the combo of hot peppers & ‘roni. hactually, maybe we should cause the Dominos version was quite tasty, but sadly their idea of an XL pizza is our equivalent of a kid’s meal

our English mate was mad pissed at us when we told him that these crumpets are what we refer to as English Muffins, which obviously doesn’t eggist in their neck of the woods. he proceeded to tie us up and throw us in some nooks and crannies and then we told him that their beef sucks and so we were even

the proper fi and chi helped to ease our need for some local ‘good’ cuisine. the mashed peas were delish, juss like yer mom’s crotch. we also had curry twice, and to be honest, it’s juss as good as we have it here. Britain’s bestest foods will always remain thier crisps (potato chips) and chocolate bars (Chomp Bars in particular)

we think this is what they call ‘Japanese food’

that’s right, Dallas is the American home of chicken AND pizza! then again, in NY we have Dallas BBQ, and those two don’t necessarily go hand in hand job with each other, so what does anyone know?

and yes, we even ate at Maccy D’s on the 4th of July, in the very same country we gained our independence from. had no idea wha the fork a Miami Melt was, but had to try it. and even if it didn’t taste like an old Jewish Cuban bottle of sun tan lotion dressed in pastels, it was still purty effin and geeing good. LONG LIVE AMERICA(n food)!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we have an American friend living and working over there and he was glad to spend the 4th with another of his kind. and what would ya know, as we strolled in the Heath of Hampstead, we spotted 6 clueless UKers ‘trying’ to play American football, and being Americans, we barged right in and showed them a thing or 7 about our game. we both played QB, and both of us couldn’t get any of them to run a play. we’d be like, take 10 steps and turn around. they kept running beyond 10 steps, and by the time they turned around, they didn’t understand that you had to put your hands out in order to receive the ball. it was like playing with 2 year olds, but we’ve seen 2 year olds play better football then these fellas. but ya know what, good for them for even trying, as most of these pale people on the Isles hate American football and only like soccer cause they hate things that are really cool like endless commercial time outs and punting! it’s kinda sad how soccer is not big back home. it’s even more sad that we have a basketball league that’s called ‘professional’

and
nuttin sez HAPPY 4TH OF JULY quite like seeing Benny Andersson of ABBA fame and his kick ass beard bust out some Swedish jams in the Heath! we only caught 4 songs, but him and his folk group did play ‘I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do’. man, ABBA are truly the forking balls. they really need to reunite, for the sake of their fans, and wear those tight tight tight assed satin outfits, but not for the sake of their balls and ba’ginas

guess since this was a Swedish affair they had to cover up the fact that the meatballs are usually Italian

nope, she wouldn’t let us inspect her carpet to see if it matched the drapes

man, are our arms tired. nice to be back in the States, but England is the effin shaz-natz and if you’ve never been you owe it to yourself to (and if yer in college and can, study abroad there like we did), but don’t expect to eat like we do back here in the land of plenty… of napkins

not so simple goal in life: visit the shooting locations of A Clockwork Orange

in pardickular and moist importantly, where the bum got a blurp blurp beat down from Alex and his droogies

which is located at the Wandsworth Bridge Roundabout, Wandsworth, London

and even butter than the real thing and morererer importanter than anything (even the Redskins and our parents), where Alex shows Dim & Georgie who’s the effin boss man (eat it Springsteen!) with some ball busting action at the Flat Block Marina

which is located at the Southmere Lake in Thamesmead South
which was also used in the ’96 flick Beautiful Things
& the ’73 Peter Sellers flick The Optimists
& the Kaiser Chief’s video for ‘Never Miss A Beat’

MISSION BEYOND ACCOMPLISHED & THUNDERDOME!!!
(with a huge thanx and spanx to our mate Paul who we forced to drive us all over the place. bless his thighs and his soul)

so where do we go from here (besides telling you about the yumcrdible Blur show and sharing the rest of our England pics?)? what’s the next dream to make a reality? easy, and no ponds have to be crossed for this one: Twin Peaks hot spots. Diane, warm up the coffee and cut me a slice of apple pie, cause this will happen like a man in a smiling bag!!!

it’s been 4 long and hard (that’s what we said) years since we 24 Hour Party Peopled, so tis about time to push this baby to 25 hours. ironically enuff, our pond-crossing jaunt to the country we gotz our independence from will force us to celebrate our Independence Day there (eat it Brits!), but it’ll all be totally effin woolsworth it, cause we’ll be living out a dream that we’ve creamed of for ages and rages: seeing (a reunited) Blur play in their own backyard

and if thyme allows, we hopes to accomplish another dream

visit sum of dem Clockwork Orange sites (aka #1 movie mt EVERest), although if we do, our photographic results won’t be as real horrorshow as this guy’s

current pictures of the Washington Coliseum, site of the Beatles’ very first American concert

vids of 8 outta the 28 total songs Blur played in their first comeback gig this past Saturday night. these men are far from charmless

justin case you somehow missed this: Creed Bratton from The Office was once Creed Bratton, guitarist for the very popular 60s rockers, The Grass Roots. peep him out in these TV appearances for their klassic hits ‘Let’s Live For Today’ & ‘Midnight Confessions‘ (he’s on the left side of the screen in both clips)

an Eartha Kitt starter kitt, including her delicious and not as creepy cover of Donovan’s ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ [d] meow!

Classic Records as Penguin Books!

munch on all these versions of Weed‘s retired theme song ‘Little Boxes’

Top 10 Animated Music Videos of All-Time

& 1992ness 2 never forget: Smart E’s ‘Sesame’s Treet’