Thighs Wide Shut

127 Hours
In Arms Way
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

True-life survival tales trump all other kinds of true-life tales, and you can’t take that all the way to the bank.  Why?  Cause man vs the always unpredictable mother nature flicks don’t alwaysz equal $$$ signs, but who gives a flip wilson when they’re richest in the place that counts the mostest, capturing the enduring human spirit!!!!  If you’ve seen Stranded: I Have Come From A Plane That Crashed On The Mountains and Touching the Void, then you know of what we speak of, and if you haven’t, then you’ve missed out on at least 2 of the best movies of this century.  How can you root against survival of the fittest or even the un-fittest (also see Into The Wild, although he didn’t end up making it)?  It’s like rooting against Thanksgiving!!!!

Add wily adventurer Aron Ralston‘s case to the unbelievable/undeniable cinematic experiences worth enduring, cause whatever pain or discomfort you might encounter in the theater (or eventually on your couch), it aint ever gonna come close to whatever Aron had to done dealt with.  Ya see, Aron (played here by the unstoppable James Franco!!!) was a loner, a rebel Dottie!!!!  He loved to take off for the weekend, without anyone knowing where he was, becoming one with the desert (in a non-peyote kinda way).  On one such weekend, all is swell and well until… HE FALLS DOWN A SMALL CRACK IN A REMOTE CANYON, DRAGGING A GIANT BOULDER WITH HIM AND IN TURN TRAPPING HIS ARM AGAINST A WALL!!!!!!  What to do, what do to????

Well, dude was pinned down down there for 127 hours and lived to tell the tale, with one less hand!!!!!  No real spoiler there, cause that’s a fact, but, as we and they and everyone we know always sez, it’s not about the forgone conclusion, but tis all about the journey, even if this journey is running in the same place!!!!  And you’d think that being stuck with a guy being stuck wouldn’t be all that riveting, but guess what, IT IS, AND THEN SOME AND MORE SOME AND AWE-SOME (the flashbacks and hallucinations don’t hurt to mix things up a bit)!!!!

Was there any doubt, when this puppy’s in the directorial hands of the outward-boundless Danny Boyle (reunited with his Slumdog screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and musicmaker AR Rahman), who for once is working off of some non-fictional hazardous material??  Of course he was gonna hit a home run with his first at bat, as he’s been quite the slugger in the fictional world over the past decade (see any and all of his stuff, esp Sunshine and Trainspiotting, which is tied for our mos flavorite movie of balls thyme with 3 other movies).  Lets hear it for the boys, lets give the boys a hand!!!!

Boyled Over:  Danny Boy Boyle can do no wrong, but did do wrong to mutual Scotsman and former BFF Ewan McGregor, by casting Leo DiCaps for the lead in the (very weak) Beach instead of Obi Wan.  Ewan has never forgiven him and in the process, ruined any chances of bringing Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting sequel Porno to the big screen.  make peace boys, even if it takes 28 years later!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

127 Hours is clocking it in NY & LA now, and elsewhere elsesoon

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Howl
Causing An Obscene
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

By nature, poetry is like totally gay.  Even gay people know it.  Even Gaylord Perry knows it.  Even Perry Mason knows it.  Even Mason Crosby Stills & Nash & Young know it!!!  Allen Ginsberg was both gay and a poet, so the dude had his finger way on the pulse, and all over men’s bodies!!  When he wrote his seminal Howl, it not only spoke to the Beat-off Generation, but to many a future generations to come.  Of course not everyone agreed that it could or should be considered a work of written art and thus a court case against its publisher to cease publication went public and pubic words came forth!!!!!!!  Rob Epstein (he made The Times of Harvey Milk doc, which was FARRRR greater than the movie Milk) & Jeffrey Friedman have ventured out to capture the essence of Ginsburg, the meaning of Howl and the fight for free speech, all rolled into one wild bizarre ride to the pharcyde, in crisp black & white, candy-colored color and wondrously stark animation

Their Ginsberg is pan-sexual James Franco, and while he might not look exactly like him or David Cross with a beard, he’s got the sound down, and juss about everything else.  Hell, we wanted to bang him the instant we heard the Howling words spew from his pretty mouth!  The courtroom drama features attorneys Jon Hamm (looks like he juss walked off of one Mad Man set and onto another) & David Strathairn, judge Bob Balaban, and expert literary witnesses Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Alessandro Nivola and Treat Williams, which is by far the weakest part of the triptych, but necessary lessthenone.  As for the animation, that shiz was more moving than Howl’s Moving Castle!!!  Disclaimer:  we’ve never seen Howl’s Moving Castle!  Straight or gay, poetry is here to stay, and Howl will forever have its say!  And now will forever have its sight!  Hip-hip who-Gayyyyyy!!!!!!!!

Is He or Isn’t He?: if you haven’t already warrick dunn so, DO read this NY Mag article on the hard to figure/finger out James Franco

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Howl is currently screaming at the moon in limited release!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Milk
It Does A Body Mind Good
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

If Harvey Milk’s name is new(s) to you, lemme hexplain. No, there’s not enuff time, lemme summarize. Harvey Milk was a 40 year old man, hiding in the closet, while living a corporate life/lie in New York. One day he decides to follow his younger boyfriend to San Francisco, wearing flowers in his hair, where he begins to come clean about who he really is. The two open up a camera shop in SF’s gay friendly Castro area (the film actually shot in the same exact space where the camera shop resided) and Milk starts to make a voice for himself and other gays in the community. Realizing the large potential that this untapped voting bloc could do to shape local politics, as well as help their own cause, Milk decides to run for public office. After a few unsuccessful campaigns, yet raising his profile on each attempt, and with a little help from Mayor George Moscone, Milk eventually won and became a member of SF’s board of supervisors in 1977, making him the very first openly gay man to ever be elected to public office in the United States (fythighs- Elaine Noble of Massachusetts became the first openly gay person to be elected in the States). As his popularity continued to soar, pressure mounted on Milk from both sides, as an advocate for gay rights (hispecially in the vote against California’s wicked Proposition 6, which wanted to ban gays and lesbians from working in public schools) and from those who opposed him and his lifestyle. He started receiving death threats, and even recorded an audio tape explaining what his friends, followers and fellow politicians should do in the advent of his assassination. Sadly, the tape served a purpose as another city supervisor by the name of Dan White murdered both Milk and Mayor Moscone at City Hall, a mere 9 days after the Jonestown mass suicide had already rocked and shocked the Bay area (fythighs 2- M & M’s winning election campaigns were helped in large part by the support of Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple. So much so that Moscone appointed Jones as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Commission. None of this interesting bidness is mentioned in the film howevers). Milk’s devotees could gotsen mad upset and rioted and stuff over the killings, but as he pleaded and hoped in that tape, they turned ‘that anger and frustration and madness into something positive‘, and for generations to come. Don’ts worry, we didn’t ruin anything for ya cause this shiz is history, and a history mos definitely worth taking note of

Milk the film captures these events, exploring his professional relationships (Victor Garber as Moscone, Emile Hirsch as eventual AIDS quilt founder Cleve Jones, Alison Pill as campaign manager Anne Kronenberg, the list goes on), and to a weaker extent, his personal ones (James Franco as his camera store cohort/companion Scott Smith and Diego Luna as his later troubled lover Jack Lira), but at the center of it all shines Sean Penn in the title role. Although he kinda sounds like he’s acting in I Am Sam 2 at times, Penn, with prosthetic nose and all, completely embodies Milk heart and soul. Josh Brolin continues his non-stop winning streak of bestness by playing the disgruntled and confused assassin, with straight hair that we’d die for. We get to see a lot more of Brolin as White than we thought we would, and his conversations and confrontations with Penn as Milk are among the mos powerful and exceptional scenes in the film. Gus Van Sant does a fine job with the material he’s given (not based off of any book, but by the legwork of Dustin Lance Black), handing in a mainstream biopic that lacks the subtlety that embodied his last four droll and dreamy flicks like Gerry, Elephant, Last Days and Paranoid Park (although doesn’t lack in style at all, as he used DP Harris Savides, who helped to give another SF 70s period piece its good look: ZODIAC!!!!!). He may have hactually done one better had he told the story in a similar vein to those smaller films

If you haven’t (like we thighly suggested ages ago) czeched out the egggggsalad Oscar winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, then you should definitely do so above all else. Yes, even if you have to choose between it and giving peepage to Van Sant’s slant on the same song and dance. Not to say that Milk (as we overheard one critic say, Van Sant’s most ‘straight‘ film) isn’t worthy of your eyes, but Harvey Milk’s accomplishments far outweigh want transpired in his personal life and that’s the deal breaker that separates the two in our minds. Guess Van Sant wanted to complete the picture and make a ‘Life AND Times of Harvey Milk‘, and in doing so he demonstrates to us how much of an inspiration Milk was, but we didn’t necessarily feel completely inspired by what we saw, like we did with the doc. Regardless, they both celebrate Milk’s trailblazering legacy and his lasting effect on the fight for gay rights. Milk lit the fire, and although he fell, thankfully others have picked up his torch and carried on the work that is far from finished

Flag Bearer: Milk’s friend and fellow activist Gilbert Baker created the Rainbow Flag that has since become the m
ain symbol of the LGBT community. Yes, you can go ahead and blame Baker for ruining the rainbow for us straight people… unless yer a fan of the University of Hawaii

Crafty Services: the film gave special thanks to Escape From New York Pizza, and we say thanks to the film for introducing us to the bestest pun restaurant mt EVERest

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Milk opens today, a day before the anniversary of his death, in limited release

enjoy yer turkey and stuffins
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…