Thighs Wide Shut

Stockholm
Sympathy For The Devilish
Trailers & Mo
R | 92 min

Stockholm syndrome (where hostages end up sympathizing with their captors) – must have something to do with Stockholm, Sweden, eh?  YES!!!  And apparently I never thought to wiki-look that up (which makes no sense, considering how crazed I am for all things Patty Hearst), so was pleased to learn all about its origin in the loopy, fernetic, panicked and fun Robert Budreau film, aptly named… Stockholm!

So…. Stockholm, what happened there?  A guy (Ethan Hawke) robbed a bank, IN STOCKHOLM, in 1973!!  But he wanted more than money!  He wanted a mate (Mark Strong, with a solid wig for his bald dome) sprung from prison, and for both of them to escape to freedom.  As with a lot of robberies (both in real life and in reel life), not everything goes according to plan.  The guy has to take hostages (Noomi Rapace!! + 2 others) in order to get his demands met.  The police weren’t used to this kinda thing, cause these things didn’t really happen in the capital of Sweden, and so confusion and chaos and winging it on both sides ensure.  And as the situation lingers and lingers and lingers, the hostages… start to… sympathize… with their… captors!!!

BOOM!

Lesson learned, and in such entertaining (70s) fashion! 

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Stockholm takes stock currently in limited release 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Maudie
Micro, Soft Paint
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 115 min

Maud Lewis was a simple woman, who lived a simple existence in a simple Nova Scotian coastal town.  Apparently everything else about her was not so simple.  She suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and in turn, suffered from unsupportive and resentful relatives.  No one believed in her, or her ability to do anything because of her condition.  That trend continued when a no-nonsense loner fish peddler named Everett Lewis begrudgingly took her on as a live-in housekeeper, in his simple tiny home, cause simply there was no one else willing to take the job.  But after she moved in, she started to slowly move into his heart, and as she began to open hers, her talent as a folksy, SIMPLE painter emerged, and Everett succumbed to both painter and her paint.  Soon, others from around the continent (even Richard Nixon!) would line-up behind Everett to do the same.  YOU GO MAUDE!!

This is the subject of the simple, yet simply beautiful new film Maudie by Aisling Walsh, starring the mos eggsalad Sally Hawkins as the real-life subject, and a Sling-Bladey Ethan Hawke as the curmudgeon husband to be.  The movie is unassuming, unshowy, unpolished – and the exact kind of movie diversion we need during the summer of usual cinematic garbage.  Its simplicity is a stroke of genius – so dig in, and watch the paint  (Canada) dry, and perhaps watch as your eyes don’t remain dry!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Maudie is on display currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Boyhood
12 Years A Boy
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 165 min

I finally did it – I saw Boyhood. The movie was 12 years in the making. Me seeing it was 22 weeks in the seeing. Seeing is believing. And yet I can’t believe that no one ever made a movie like this before – filming someone every year for a decade-ish and then making some kind of a movie out of it. Richard Linklater did it! And the result is awesome – as an idea, but not necessarily as a movie

One is certainly in awe of watching little Ellar Coltrane go from a chubby cheeked tyke into a collegiate furrowed-browed man in under 3 hours, and yet I still wanted something more. For such an incredible journey of growing (for screen sister Lorelei Linklater too!), you’d think it would’ve evoked more of an emotional experience, but there’s little emotion to be seconded, besides feeling scared by a glass-throwing drunken stepfather, and Patricia Arquette telling a Mexican laborer that he can make something of himself, and then he, BOOM, years later shows up and made something of himself!

Did Arquette’s (and ex-screen-hubby Ethan Hawke‘s) boy Mason (Ellar) make something of himself? Sure, we saw him grow and growns up, but we didn’t really grow to know him all that well. We were there when he graduated from video games to booze and drugs, then to girls, and then to adult thoughts and stuff, but what does it all mean? Don’t know if this distance from the character was by design, or that’s just who Ellar is as a person IRL, but there has to be something more than just turning on the camera, pointing and shooting, and then showing us what was captured. Guess we’ll juss have to wait for Manhood, and if so, can’t wait!! But I guess we can wait another 12 years!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Boyhood grows on you, barely still in theaters, and soon on Blu-Ray and stuff

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…