Thighs Wide Shut

The Light Between Oceans
The Shore Thing
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 132 min

The summer bummers of moviedom is officially over, and the season of actual good movies is upon us, and what a way to kick the season off with Derek Cianfrance‘s The Light Between Oceans!

WWI is over and shell-shocked survivor Michael Fassbender is looking for steady work.  He looks no further when he becomes a lighthouse keeper off the coast of Australia.  He enjoys the quiet solitary job and life, but things aint so quiet or solitary no more when a lovely lady of the shore - Alicia Vikander – anchors away on his heart!  She literally wants to marry a lighthouse keeper AND DOES (and the two actors fell in love f’reals on the set)!!!  They try for kids but miscarriage and become very disparaged.  Then a dead man and an alive baby wash up on their lighthouse shores and change everything!!  EVERYTHING!!! They assume the parentage of the orphaned child and life moves on.  BUT DOES IT???  What about the baby’s mother???  To say anything more about the plot would be saying more about the plot, but all I’ll say is that Rachel Weisz is in the movie too, and the trailer spoils the movie, so don’t watch the trailer

I don’t know much about who Derek Cianfrance is as a person, cept he’s a guy who makes movies – and I fcuking love him cause of the movies he makes!  His debut – Blue Valentine – is still giving my heart painful palpitations (in a good bad way), and his follow-up - The Place Beyond The Pines – is another painful place I think of fondly.  And with his third feature - The Light Between Oceans – all I can say is SURF’S UP, YO!  Actually, that’s not all I can say.  I would say that this is somehow his LEAST painful movie (but don’t worry pain-freaks, there’s still plenty of pain to ‘enjoy’ here), but perhaps it is his most beautiful film yet!  So beautiful that I don’t juss want to marry the lighthouse keeper, I want to marry that fcuking lighthouse too!

Verdictgo:  Breast In Show

Oceans sets sail today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
Whip Smart
Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 104 min

Sometimes there is actual truth in advertising – as is such when a documentary called Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made documents the past, present and future of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation – which is, without a doubt, the greatest fan film ever made.  If you’ve never seen it – you need to.  You really do!  I had the good fortune of seeing the film 5 years ago and it blew my childish mind, and met the (now) adult guys who made their childhood dreams by remaking their favorite film, starting in 1982… and never really finishing it

The filmmakers and stars - Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb and their friends – did as much as they could on their small allowances, availble resources, and summers off from school – but never completed the airplane scene (you know, with the explosions and shirtless Nazi brute getting his head chopped off).  Time passed, relationships fizzled, the boys became men, married – with children, but the itch was still there – to finish the Adaptation once and for all, and so the boys did a Kickstarter – raised funds, completed the airplane scene – and finished the film.  BOOOM!  Sounds like a walk in the park, right?  Well, to get from the start to this finish was not only a labor of love, it was a laborious love with MANY a skipped and stop heartbeats

All of this, AND MORE, is covered in the fun fun fun documentary (that I actually saw 5 years to the very day that I saw the Adaptation!!!!!!), based on Alan Eisenstock’s book of the same name, and all of this AND that continues to blow my childish mind.  What these kids did, and what these adults have done continue to endlessly inspire me and inspire endless awe in my eyes, mind, heart and soul, endlessly – WITHOUT END!!!!!  They lived out their childhood dreams, while children!!!  Something most of us have never done.  BLESS THESE BOYS (men)!!!

The original film they made sometimes plays in theaters, but is now finally available on DVD and digital download [disclosure – I actually helped to put the disc together for them in my day job], and if you buy it, you help to support these guys who deserve your support (because I said so!).  Maybe they’ll take the money and remake Zardoz.  MAYBE!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Raiders! is found ark art currently in limited release, and the fellas are touring with the doc, so see them in your city!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream
Streit From The Heart
Official Website, Trailers & Mo
Unrated | 100 min

Tradition is tradition – even if tradition has to modernize to adapt to a modern world.  Passover is one of the oldest holidays, and matzah (or matzo for those who spell it that way) has been the food of Passover forever, and for the past century, Streit’s Matzos has been one of the major companies supplying the tasteless holy crackers to practitioners.  While their competitors have been bought up big larger corporations, and they’ve seen increased newer competition from cheaper brands abroad, the STILL family-owned AND run Streit team have been keeping it real, baking in the very same New York City – Lower East Side factory since day one!

But times have changed.  Their customers left the neighborhood years and years ago, and so with it, most of the heavily Jewish businesses that were there to support the community.  And while gentrification has greatly changed the heart and soul of the nabe, nothing could alter the Streit’s way.  Sure, they had outgrown the archaic factory in which they occupied, and the cost of doing actual business meant that they had to charge their customers more than they’d like to, but tradition is tradition – right?

Michael Levine‘s lovely new documentary Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream over-examines the company’s struggle of staying true to the past, while trying to be realsitic about the present and future.  And while the same argument is made over and over, it didn’t matter much to me having the same paradoxical point hammered home again and again – cause you enjoy meeting and spending time with the family and their factory workers (who are like their extended family) over and over, and going up and down and back and forth thru their the labyrinthine factory, cause this is matzah history – living and breathing!

Take a bite of this doc, even if matzah has no taste, and even if you’re aren’t Jewish – cause you don’t have to be Jewish to love a good American story, about family, and crackers!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Matzo matzgoes here and there in very limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Big Short
The Rooting of All Evils
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 130 min

Movies about the subprime mortgage crisis are either boring, too wordy, or juss not all that good (or all three).  Luckily Adam McKay‘s cinematic take on Michael Lewis‘ book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine is none of the above, although it admits to its audience that it is very wordy, but tries its best to put all the money talk into layman’s terms for us by breaking the 4th wall

We all know things didn’t go quite well with our economy in 2007, but did you know that there were some dudes who saw it coming and profited from it, by betting on America failing????  Yes, it’s true, although some names have been changed to protect the profiteers. And so you sit there, and you root for the dudes to make money by America losing!  You know that bubble’s gonna burst, and they do too, and we want them to win, cause what’s a movie if there are no heroes?  The big shots in The Big Short aren’t really heroes, but compared to the villainous big banks and the clueless government officials not seeing what troubles lie ahead, they are our heroes

We don’t need another hero!!!

Yeah, but if these smart money dudes are played by the likes of Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro, and even a subdued Brad Pitt, who’s gonna root against those dudes???  

Come to think of it – the casting is super genius.  I mean, actor-wise – OBVIOUSLY, but lady-wise – BLAM.  You’re a guy, and you want to see a movie about economics and how you gonna sell that on your lady (or boyfriend or left hand or whatever you finger bang)?  Uh, honey, there’s a movie with Brad and Ryan and Christian in it.  Wanna see it?

So fcuking money, and you DO know it

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Short comes up Big at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Brooklyn
Heart Is Where The Home Is
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 111 min

Saoirse Ronan has beautiful, yet super creepy laser-blue eyes.  They were super creepy when she made bad things happen in Atonement.  But now she’s a bit older, and so they’ve become a little less creepy, and in John Crowley/Nick Hornby/Colm Tóibín Brooklyn movie, dem eyes aint creepy at all – as they are filled with and the exuder of udder sadness and absolute happiness, and those eyes are everything  

Her character - Eilis (which is apparently pronounced Aiiiiilllllllllllish) leaves her ma and sis in Ireland for America (a scene early in the movie that almost had me in insta-tears).  She works at a department store, but misses her family and Irish Spring and Lucky Charms, but luckily there are lots of Irish things in America – like O’Doul’s and McDonalds and Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters.  Phew  

And then things change when an Italian Brooklyn boy (the sappy smirky good Emory Cohen) makes his way into her life, making America feel more like home than her old home.  But then tragedy strikes back home, and so she goes home, and is kinda swept up in old home and is having second thoughts about new home, and there’s this great Irish redheaded guy (Domhnall Gleeson, in his 1919239939192193th movie of 2015), and so she’s conflicted and arggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!  

I kept waiting for wrong turns and bad things to happen, but this movie isn’t like that.  This movie stands for good, and is way beyond good.  It reminds me that movies can be positive, without having to be edgy or showy or anything else besides a great story and great storytelling.  Boy voyage and land ho!  Spring for this Irish tale, and u2 can enjoy it’s wonder and wonderment!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Brooklyn boroughs currently at a theater near jews/irish people

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…