Room
About A Boy
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 118 min

There are more fascinating and disturbing abduction tales out there – like the Fritzl case

There are more horrific and painful abduction tales turned into (TV) films – like Cleveland Abduction

But there’s Room, and Room isn’t really about abduction – it’s about a boy (born out of abduction).  And it’s not really about a boy – I mean it is – but what it is really about is how amazingly the boy is played – by Jacob Tremblay – like Tatum O’Neal Paper Moon amazing

There is a mother of the boy - Brie Larson – and she’s strong, as a mother, and Larson’s performance as the mother is strong too, but the movie isn’t really about the mother, and yet, all the external (read: awards) attention is being heaped upon the mother

What about the boy?

The boy is filled with magic and wonder and innocence.  And then it’s all shattered (mom and son escape abduction half way thru), and then the film isn’t nearly as good, but it doesn’t matter, cause we’re with the boy, and the boy by Jacob Tremblay is boy o boy!

Yeah booooooooy!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Room doesn’t have a view at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Don Jon 
Off Beat Beat Off 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 90 min

And the most annoying, poorly made debut film by someone we respect, and now don’t fully respect, cause we hated his film so much, film of 2013 is Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s Don Jon

If you love a movie that revolves around endless internet masturbation (by a character who doesn’t even know how to clear their own browsing history – ZERO REALISM HERE PEOPLES), gratingly AWFUL hammy Joooursey accents (wish I didn’t have ears), endless annoying annoyingness (wish I also didn’t have eyes), that throws away whatever it ‘built’ up in its first 2/3rds for a final third that feels so out place and nothing to do-ish with them first two-thirds that you’ll juss wish this movie were released on any rock from the sun that isn’t the third one

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Love me some Joseph Jason Jordan Gordon-Gerry-Graydon-Levitt-Stein-Berg.  Always felt like he (and James Franco) was to fill the vacuum that Heath Ledger left with his passing.  For the most part, he has come thru, and we relish anything he does, even if it is doo-doo, but Don Juan?  Beyond thunderdome doo-doo.  I wouldn’t wish this film on my würst enemies, and my würst enemies are sports teams from New York and the south, and George Clooney

JG-L plays the title character – a guy who loves the gym, his boyzzz, and picking up sluts, and going to church, and taaaaawwwwwk-ing with horrible Joouuurrrrssssssey accents with his over-acting parents Tony Danza and Glenne Headly.  He also loves his screen sister Brie Larson, but she doesn’t say a word, just plays on her phone and that’s suppose to be funny.  It’s not.  This movie thinks it’s really funny and clever, but it puts the UN in fUNny, and is more like clNEVER

Things get interesting for Jon (but not for us) when Scarlett Johansson shows up and rocks his world (and destroys our ears with her Joooooororuururusseey accent – that’s worseserererer than everyone else’s).  And then she finds out that he masturbates endlessly, and then awkward funny is suppose to happen, but all that happens is how awkard I felt watching this movie about a guy who beats off.  I beat off.  All men do.  But I don’t want to see a movie about it, especially if it has nothing deep to say about it.  JOing isn’t suppose to be something we think deep about.  It’s actually something we all enjoy doing, but then when the climax happens, it’s best to forget about what juss happened – but sometimes remorse seeks in.  Well, Don Juan is the same, but there’s no climax, and it’s all remorse.  WHY DID WE WATCH THIS???

Later in the movie, Julianne Moore shows up resembling an actual character that we could actually care about, but by the time the focus shifts to her, and away from the other crap that came before it, all wees want is Julianne LESS of anything having to do with this movie

JG-L’s production company is called hitRECord.  He should have hit delete on this whole project

Verdictgo:  Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

Donna JOn: if I had to say one nice thing about the movie – I would say that it least it had a lot of hot women in it, like…

Antoinette Kalaj

Don Jon sucks tomorrow at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Short Term 12
Foster The People
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 96 min

Never really thought much about foster kids, or where foster kids live when foster kids aren’t in foster homes.  Destin Cretton did me AND you a favor, and then some!  He expanded his 2008 short film Short Term 12 (a short term home for… foster kids!) into a 2013 feature length gem, loaded with beautiful performances by anyone who appears on-screen.  Mucho mucho love goes out to Brie Larson, who finally gets to show off her stuff, when all she’s really shown before in past work is how adorable she is.  Well, she’s still super adorable here, but she does a lot less smiling, cause there’s not a lot to smile about.  As the supervisor for a bunch of at-risk foster kids (standout work by Kaitlyn Dever and newcomer Keith Stanfield), she’s trying her best to keep their hopes up, when there’s not really much hope to be kept up on.  Helping is her tender boyfriend John Gallagher Jr (the un-hatable Jim Halpert guy from Newsroom), and the two know what they’re doing, being products of dysfunctional and foster childhoods themselves, and if they can make something of themselves, then dangit, they’ll make something of these foster kids.  And dangit, you should see this.  And dangit, Brie Larson is such a cutie-pie McGee.  And dangit, why aren’t I Mr Brie Larson?  DANGIT!!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Term is endeared today in NY & LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Spectacular Now
Collapse Into Now
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 95 min

I wanted it, I got it… for the most part

What did I want?  More movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which are movies more like John Hughes movies, you know, awesome teen movies from the 80s with heart and soul and humor!

What did I get?  Director James Ponsoldt + writers Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber (The 500 Days of Summer dudes)’s cinematic take on Tim Tharp’s novel The Spectacular Now

For the most part?  Ok, so you can’t call your movie Spectacular and be anything but, but Spectacular is not full-on spectacular, but the movie certainly has the elements to be, and is closer to it more than not, and is certainly closer to it than a majority of the garbage teenage movies handed to us over the past decade

So what is this movie?  It’s the story of a popular, funny-mouthy, easy-breezy, Big Gulp with liquor swilling kid named Sutter Keely (Miles Teller).  Sutter has no real direction, unless that direction is headed toward fun.  He’s recently single (not by choice, and of course no one would choose to ever be apart from Brie Larson), and one hungover morning wakes up on the lawn of socially clueless Aimee (Shailene Woodley), and the next week they’re sorta blossoming into item, much to everyone’s surprise, including their own.  She seriously gets into him, but he’s kinda loosy-goosy on her, but he’s that way about everything – like his part-time job at the haberdasher (his boss is Bob Odenkirk, cause why not?), dealing with his stressed-out mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh, cause why not?), and with his future (he’s soon to graduate, but college schmollege?).  Maybe what he needs is a dose of reality, from his poshed-up sister (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), or estranged drunken father (THE Kyle Chandler), or perhaps Aimee can smack some sense into him, and if she can’t, who can????

Where it all ends up isn’t exactly some well-drawn out conclusion, but heck, we fell for Sutter Keely and would follow his hit or miss-adventures wherever they did done do roam!  That Miles Teller as Sutter Keely, I tells yea, that performance feels so mad mad mad real (and kinda reminds us of ourselvesz at that age, hence the attraction), and Woodley’s Aimee – even more more more genuine (she’s quite a talent, and it’s a shame the fanboys hated her out of Spider-Man reboot 2), and their coupling – even more than faux real, it’s like five real/reel!!!  Can we be their third wheel, six reals?  Hmmm, maybe this affair was spectacular after all, just not now.  Maybe then?

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Spectacular is NOW today in NY & LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

21 Jump Street
They Got The Beat, Street
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 109 min

21 Jump Street the movie defied the following odds…

a) its trailer was horrible

b) aside from The Fugitive, Dragnet, The Brady Bunch, The Addams Family and The Untouchables, old TV shows rebooted to feature films suck

c) if it’s the 21st century and Ice Cube is in your movie, it’s probably not funny

How it bypassed all of these roadblocks is kinda a modern day movie miracle.  And on top of all that, it’s the most laugh out loud-able film we’ve seen since Jackass 3-D, but if yer talking actual scripted comedies, then it would be the laughiest riot laugh since 2008’s Step Brothers, but it’s better than Step Brothers, so we’d have to definitely say that 21 Jump Street is the funniest f$%king movie we’ve seen since the 2007 original version of Death At A Funeral!!!!!!  That’s right, yo, it’s taken 5 years to make us laugh that hard again.  You know we’re tough on comedy, but it’s a tough love.  No easy laughs, although we do love slapstick humor, which is kinda the easiest laugh giver of givers.  Anywho, take this paragraph for it’s worth, and that worth is that 21 Jump Street is comedy gold, and will probably end up as one of our favorites of 2012… and it’s only March.  WOW

Credit all involved, from the directors (hot buttery action from bottom to top by Phil Lord & Chris Miller), to the writers (Michael Bacall, who just gave us the crizzazzy Project X, with help from Jonah Hill, giving us the winkiest eye wink that will make you want to wink right back) and to the actors (Hill again, in silly straight man skinny mode, plus playing against type Channing Tatum, playing against type, and the aforementioned usually unfunny Ice Cube being funny, and Rob Riggle, who is also usually not funny also being funny, and Chris Parnell, who is criminally funny, being criminally funny, and it’s a crime in general that he doesn’t work more, cause he’s one of SNL’s best alumnuts, EVER, and a guy who looks exactly like a mini-James Franco cause he is a mini-James Franco, cause he is James Franco’s brother Dave Franco + some slices of Ellie Kemper & Nick Offerman, and finally Brie Larson, who you’ll instantly fall in love with, if you weren’t already, and who’s future’s so bright that she’d put Ray-Ban out of bidness)

So what more do you need to know?  Plot?  There is one.  A very decent enuff one that supports the rest of the funny bidness from becoming udder malarkey bidness

moral of the story – they made a movie out of a TV show that didn’t need a movie, and even if it’s barely sorta like the TV show, it’s better than the TV show, and better than any TV show that was turned into a movie since The Brady Bunch!  BAM!!!!

Fanning Over Dakota: Jess Weixler is fine and all, but we recommend you upgrade to the similiarish looking…

Dakota Johnson

and know who she is?

DON JOHNSON AND MELANIE GRIFFITH’S KID!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

21 Jumps into a theater near jews today!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…