Thighs Wide Shut

The Book Thief
The Time & Energy Thief
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 131 min

There’s some book called The Book Thief by some Australian author named Markus Zusak.  Apparently people read it and were into it, and now it’s a movie.  And the movie, directed by Brian Percival?  Drivel.  Cheesy.  Lame.  Pointless.  Grasping for emotion, but is as emotionless as these people that google say have no emotion.  Zzzzzzzzzzz fest ’41.  Filled with dumb German accents, when they should have just used stupid English accents.  Nothing.  Blah.  Insufferable (that’s how another moviegoer described it to me, as we were both taking a well desrved mid-movie snooze/bathroom break… and no, we weren’t in a bathroom at the time of this exchange of adjectives).  The Book Thief tries so hard to be something Oscar-worthyish, but it’s basically juss a blah pile of wishy-washy-ish-ishy ishness.  But the costumes and sets look pretty decent!!  Who cares??  Yeah, who cares about yet ANOTHER WWII tale, from the view of Germans (BUT THESE ARE GOOD GERMANS!!!), especially when this whole story was made up.  That’s right – pure fiction.  Oh man, oh man.  This movie isn’t terrible, but it’s a terrible waste of time, and of the efforts of those who made it into a movie

I pity poor Geoffrey Rush.  A very gifted actor, forced to be even cheesier here than he was in The King’s Speech.  Instead of teaching a king how to speak clearly, here he’s teaching a girl (a good enuff Sophie Nélisse) how to read.  Oh yeah, the girl likes books, and thieving them, but she can’t read them.  But in The Book Thief, she will steal them, and THEN read them!!!  And then hate it when the Nazis burn them.  DAMN YOU NAZIS!!! And what does reading teach her?  That words help you express things, like stuff!!!  WOWSERS!!!!!  Yeah, and Rush’s wife is Emily Watson, another person I pity.  I pity her cause she has to play a role with about as much character as a rotten carrot on tour.  She yells at the girl, and her husband, and anything that has ears.  Heck, she’d even yell at anything that doesn’t have ears.  If only I didn’t have ears AND eyes.  Makes me also wish that I didn’t have a butt, so I wouldn’t have had to sit thru this dumb dumb movie.  Dear lord.  I need a time machine and somehow get WWII to never happen so we and I and you and everyone we know won’t have to sit thru any more movies like this.  Ughhhhhhh.  Oh, and I pity Ben Schnetzer.  He’s a good lookin dude, playing a Jew on the run who gets Anne Frank hidden by Rush and Watson, and every 30 minutes in the movie, he gets sick, then heals, and then teaches the girl about how words are cool and stuff.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Re-zzzzzzzz.  One person I do not pity is the German boy played by Nico Liersch.  I don’t want to hurt children, but I wanted to punch the crap out of his kid character.  Is that wrong?  I dunno, but this movie is

Verdictgo: Slit Your Eyes Out Repoopulous

STOP Thief, in limited release tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The King’s Speech
Oh-Oh Oh-Oh Oh-Oh, Here Comes The Stammer
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

You know how the pre-WWII England royalty saga went down, right?  Qwik refresher course: King George V (Michael Gambon, who’s been dying on screen a bunch lately, no?) wasn’t getting any younger or healthier, but luckily he had two dashing heirs to succeed him.  The eldest was King Edward VIII (we keep 5getting how awesomes Guy Pearce is), but he was a reluctant sovereign, cause he was head over heels in love with a twice divorced American woman that went by the name of Wallis Simpson (Eve Best > Jahvid Best).  Ultimately, Edward had to choose between the well worn throne and the well worn her, and amazingly she won out!  GAWD SAVE THE KING!!!!!!!!!  So brother King George VI (Colin Firth, with an Oscar race that’s his to lose?) ascended to where his brother abdicated.  Good fodder for a flick, no?  Yes indeedy-do, but wait, there’s more!!!!!  George the VI (not Warshawski, but Bertie, as he was known to those close to him) had a terrible stutter!!!!!!!!!!  OH NO!!!!!!  Here’s a guy who’s suppose to be the voice of an Empire, and yet he has no voice!!!!  It’s a battle that’s almos bigger than the one about to engulf all of Europe, and then the world!!!

Poor George the VI/Bertie.  He’s the right man for the job, but for the life of him, public and even private speaking is juss not his Matt Forte.  He and his ultra patient wife,  The Queen Mum (Helena Bonham Carter) have tried everything, and yet they haven’t.  Enter Aussie vocal coach Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, also with an Oscar race that’s his to lose?) and his unorthodox methods!!!  At first, Bertie aint a fan, and actually, at second, third, fourth and fifth he also aints a fan, but eventually, and again and again, is won over by the results that Lionel is able to coax out of him.  Awwww, our heart is pidder-paddering all over again and again at the thought of these two people and actors working in such great harmony to conquer a speech impediment!!!!!

Directer Tom Hooper (The Damned United) and writer David Seidler (a former stutterer himself!) have pieced together something quite marvelously winning with The King’s Speech (despite it’s bland poster).  The film is so darn delightful and delovely that by the end we wanted to give it a giant hug.  But how can one hug a movie????  It’s impossible, but we certainly tried!!!!  Triple bonus points for casting Jennifer Ehle as Lionel’s wife, and giving her a brief reunion scene with her Pride & Prejudice co-star Colin Firthypants!!!! But wait, she’s juss as capable as Bonham Cater, so why didn’t they give her the Queen Mum role?  And aint anything co-starring Timothy Spall (as Winston Churchill) probably worth watching, no???  YES! YES! YES!!!!!!!  Bestest stuttering movie since A Fish Called Wanda!!!

Beard Science: what happened to our leaders??? they used to all have awesome great big bushy beards, and everyone knows that beards rule!!! especially those of look-a-like first cousins King George V & Tsar Nicholas II!!!!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Speech talks the talk this Friday in limited release

Rental Round-Up Dawg:

Harlan – In the Shadow of Jew Suss

[website | Netflix | Amazon]

Imagine for a second that yer father or perhaps grandfather was the greatest film director that thrived under Nazi Germany.  And no, we’re not talking about Leni Riefenstahl, cause she’s not a man.  The man in question is Veit Harlan, and the man for butter or worse, was the Nazi’s Steven Spielberg.  He made a not so lil antisemitic film called Jud Süß (Jew Süss) that both made and ruined him.  When the war ended, and he was absolved of any wrongdoing, life goes back to normal, right?  Nope, it doesn’t, and the Nazi stain and the shadow of Jew Suss that was cast are two thangs that are quite hard to remove.  Juss ask his kin and their kin.  That’s what this Harlan doc is all about.  And ya wanna know who one of thems kins is?  A not so lil lady by the name of Christiane Kubrick.  Interesting!  Wife of the self-loathing Jew Stanley marries a relative of a Nazi propagandist!!!!  Well, the whole doc is verrrry interesting, and we’re sorta secretly in love with one of his granddaughters that looks like a German Björk (the one in the middle).  Maybe she should marry this self-loathing Jew????  Only THE SHADOW KNOWS!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Bran Nue Dae
Certifiably Aboriginal
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

You loathed Baz Luhrmann’s sweeping epic Australia.  We know you did, so don’t lie.  We didn’t.  Maybe you have no sense of pomp and circumference, or maybe 165 minutes was juss 164 minutes too much of Baz-outback-wardness for you to take.  Your remedy is the lower-keyed, lower-budgeted, lower-running-timed and high on everything else Bran Nue Dae (that’s ‘Brand New Day’ for those who aren’t ewesed to musspellinngs)

At first, and hactually for quite a long while during, we weren’t really taking to the hammily charmed story of an aborigine boy (Rocky McKenzie)’s quest to return to his unrequited love (Jessica Mauboy)’s side, before a greasy rocker (Dan Sultan) gets his paws all over her.  A ‘wild’ roadtrip adventure ensues, with two ‘wacky’ hippies (‘Missy’ Higgins & Tom Budge) and a ‘wily’ Australian version of Ben Vereen (Ernie Dingo) along for the ride, while they’re all being chased around by the boy’s over-caring preacher man (Geoffrey Rush). Usually it’s the journey that makes the grade, and the destination a disappointment, but in Rachel Perkins‘ fun flick, the opposite is true, and by the end, you’ll be bursting into song along with the chorus too

Mauboy O’BOY!: Jessica Mauboy’s got sum killer eyes and some damn killah thighs.  who said you had to be a skinny jinny to get yer passport stamped in Thighland?

[mo pics]

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Bran Nue Dae sings a happy song this Friday in NY/LA only and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…