Thighs Wide Shut

12 Years A Slave 
Chain In The A$$
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 133 min

Whatever you does, do not bring your significant other to see Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave, unless you want to go 12 years without having sex.  A most important movie, filled with zero fun, and has about as much rewatchable-ness as Schindler’s List done doesn’t (which means you’ll never want to watch it EVERRRR again).  Actually, after seeing 12 Years, I’ve now had enough of the slavery movie genre.  No mo fo me.  Add it to the list of non-starters, alongside Holocaust pics + westerns + rom coms + anything with vampires or zombies + anything directed or presented by Guillermo del Taco

12 Years is truly important, cause it fo reals happened – it’s what happened to a born-free black man named Solomon Northup, wrongfully turned into a slave.  This story, based on Solomon’s own book, certainly needed to be told (it was once before), but I don’t know if I needed it told to me.  I’m not one for turning a blind eye to things that are horrible in history, but I also wasn’t eggzactly all that interested in having my senses blinded and numbed completely.  Maybe the point is that watching something so hard to take should be exactly that, but c’mon man, couldn’t they have at least cut out 1/4 of the whipping and yelling and awfulness and made this excruciating experience only 90 minutes long???  We know that Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor, FINALLLLLLY with a meaty role to match his acting might) will become a slave, and then 12 years later, not be a slave.  And so we’re forced to watch him go from 0 to 12 years, without a clue as to which year we’re in.  If only there was a countdown ticker, so we could get excited about crossing the finish line of this torture-fest 

But hey, look at all those famous actors playing horrible people!!  Solomon gets conned by Scoot ‘Poop’ McNairy! & Taran Killam!, and sold into slavery!  Where he’s chained up with Michael K Williams!  Then sold by Paul Giamatti! To Benedict Cumberbatch!  Who’s plantation-hand Paul Dano! is out of hand and forces Benedict to send Solomon to the much more evil plantation owner (and McQueen regular) Michael Fassbender!  And his nasty wife Sarah Paulson!  Well, at least he can find some sympathy in slaves Lupita Nyong’o! (don’t know who she is, but won’t be soon forgetting her performance), and former slave or something Alfre Woodard!  Don’t worry, things get better once (the film’s producer) Brad Pitt! and his Amish beard show up!  Maybe Brad can save the day!!  But where’s Clooney????  Why can’t the whole Ocean’s 12 crew free the slave of 12 yearss??  Oh yeah, and oh, look there’s Beasts of the Southern Wild alumz Quvenzhané Wallis AND Dwight Henry!  Man, slavery has never been so well cast and acted!  

Am I better for seeing this film?  Maybe better off not.  But what’s been seen was seen, and it aint going away, from my head, or from history.  And oh, that final scene – a scene that packs a super-HEAVY emotional punch that’s equally AS punchy as Captain Phillips‘ UNFORGETTABLE final scene wiz was, making the torturous torture ALMOS worth letting yerself get tortured by

But c’mon McQueen, when are you going to make a ‘happy’ movie?

Verdictgo: hard to watch, but still – Jeepers Worth A Peepers

12 Years is how long it will feel like sitting in a theater watching this, tomorrow in NY/LA/DC/Chicago/ATL/Toronto, and elsewhere elsehwhen

oh, and here are some previous the würstest date movies EVER, reviewed on TWS –  Amour, Towelhead, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Babysitters, Vera Drake & Lake of Fire 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

any similarities between the Washington Post’s In & Out list is purely poorincidental…

OUT	IN
Tron Guy	Zardoz Girl
Rex Ryan’s Ego	Rex Reed’s Id
Sh!t My Dad Says	Sh!ts Celebs Take
Eyjafjallajökull	Chiwetel Ejiofor
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell	Don’t Ask Speak & Spell
LeBron’s Decision	Rerun’s Precision
Boston Accents	Ballston Accents
Zach Galifianakis	George Papadapolis
Keith David	David Keith
Trapped Miners	Trapper Keepers
TSA Pat-Downs	T & A Rub-Downs
‘featuring Nicki Minaj’	‘featuring Mickey Rooney’
Vuvuzelas	Mummenschanz
I’m With Coco	I’m Masturbating With Cocoa Butter
Nancy Pelosi	Yancey Thigpen
Bedbugs Outbreak	Outbreak Steakhouse
Larry King Live	Larry King Dead
‘Release The Kraken‘	Don’t Release Clash of The Titans 2
Sasha Grey’s Hairy Bush	Sasha Grey’s Hairy Brush
Brian Wilson’s Beard	Brian Wilson’s Beard
Stieg Larsson	Gary Larson
Memory Freaks	Mammary Freaks
Steven Slater	Helen Slater
Top Kill	Top Cat
Preventing Forest Fires	Preventing Forest Whitaker
James Franco, All-American	Franco-American
FAIL Blog	Frail Blog
Meg Whitman’s Warchest	Meg White’s Chest
Locavores	Lark Voorhies’ Whores

and here’s what was In Oder Aus in the ‘006, the ‘007, the ‘008,  the ‘009 & the ‘010

Salt
Sodi-YUM!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

So what’s the shaker with Salt?  We don’t want to pepper spray you with all the details, as to ruin any of the run, gun and fun, and there’s a lot of running and a lot of gunning and a result, a lot of funning (boring scenes of explaining stuff are kept to a minimum!!), so we will sums it up like this: Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is cunning AND sexy CIA agent, who is outed right off the bat as a possible Russian mole, with a job to assassinate a political big wig + kick-start sum biggie global trouble!!  Instead of sticking around and pleading her (supposed?) innocence (the ‘is she?’ or ‘isn’t she?’ bidness will keep you glued throughout), she makes like Dr Richard Kimble and goes all out Fugitive, with Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Chiwe!!) hot on her trail and tail.  And then things start to get all tricky, and a bit Manchurian Canadite-y and a tad Boys From Brazil-nuts, and then Andre Braugher shows up to play one of the mos abbreviated, unimportant roles of his career.  Braugher power!  And then, Zardoz?  No, thank gawd

Salt is an stoopid name for a movie (and a character, which was originally intended to be a man’s role!), and yet nothing else about this throwback to good ole mindless action-thrillers (spankfully mostly CGI-free) from the 80s is stoopid.  Salt even revives Regan-era themes, as Russian spies and assassins come in from the cold and it’s all red hot!!  No big sirprize here, coming from able director Phillip Noyce (the two Harrison Ford driven Jack Ryan flicks), who’s paired with mostly unproven scribe Kurt Wimmer (Law Abiding Citizen? Sphere?).  The positive grains the two make of Salt is actually good news for us, since they are slated to reunite for the (pointless) remake of Total Recall.  Maybe they’ll get our a$$es to Mars!

Don’t you dare say the name Salt, but do you dare see Salt!

Salt of the Earth: wonder if Salt’s name has anything to do with SALT and/or SALT II?

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Salt opens at a theater near jews this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…