Thighs Wide Shut

The Last Stand
We All Is Back
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 107 min

Before Arnold Schwarzenegger semi-retired from acting to become governor of California, he was outputting a bunch of garbage that was very very un-Ah-nold-reffic.  Maybe we needed a break from him, more than he did from movies, but it was no sirprze that he was coming back, and that us, as Arnold fans, would welcome it with girlie-man open arms.   We skipped The Expendables 2, cause #1 was such a piece of sh!t, so our first post-governorship trip sailed with Jee-woon Kim‘s The Last Stand

Last Stand is on par with the junk he was in before he took a break, BUT, it’s a sh!t-ton of fun!!!!  Sure, there’s way too much set-up, about a cartel kingpin on the loose and headed towards the Mexican border in a slick-ass Corvette, but the payoff pays off, in a showdown throwdown to turn all frowns upside down!!  Plus the hammy ham acting fest put on display by Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville, Peter Stormare & Eduardo Noriega actually subdues’ Arnold’s own hammy-ish performance, and it only increases the dumb fun quotient!!  Plus Luis Guzmán & Harry Dean Stanton are in it!!  And there’s eye candy like Zach Gilford & Jaimie Alexander, and…

in the beginning there was

Genesis Rodriguez

&

Christiana Leucas

–

Tabu
River Deep – Mountain High
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 118 min

An old woman (Laura Soveral) is on her last legs, scared of witchcraft and what will become of her beloved crocodile…  that she doesn’t actually have… anymore.  She dies halfway thru the movie (SPOILER ALERT!), but her story is JUSS beginning.  Told in one giant second-half flashback, with narration in the present from her former burning flame (Henrique Espírito Santo with a Werner Herzogy voice), with no dialog, JUSS music & effects, we learn that the old woman was quite the vibrant young woman (Ana Moreira, with eyes that don’t lie!!!)  

She grew up in the wilds of Africa, hunting game, and melting hearts left and right.  She gets married, but then takes up with a suave mustachioed drummer (Carloto Cotta, the younger incarnation of the narrator).  Their love is forbidden, taboo if you will, but the Tabu in the title is a mountain, and it’s worth the climb!!!  Oh, yeah, there’s also a crocodile in the past!  The same one she longs for before she dies in the present!!  But maybe she’s really longing for her lost love!!!  MAYBE!!! 

Bravo Miguel Gomes!!!  Your film is beautiful, poetic, and a dream we never want to wake up from!!  Too bad the first half, with the old woman being old, isn’t as bold as the young stuff in the second half!!!  

Verdictgo: BOTH is Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Stand‘s tall at a theater near jews and Tabu is NOT taboo in limited a release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…