Thighs Wide Shut

10 Cloverfield Lane
Archie Bunkered
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 103 min

I’ve always looked at Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Brie Larson as hip modern hottie awesome acting equals.  They’ve shared credits in two movies – the too cool for its own good Scott Pilgrim vs. the World + the not another teeny movie The Spectacular Now, and they share my love and attention

Brie hit the jackpot with Room, but methinks Mary Elizabeth Winstead could have pulled off the role too.  And how do I know this?  Winstead got a Room of her own – in 10 Clovefield Lane – a not so-sequel sequel to the kinda meh 2008 movie without a # or street type.  But in Cloverfield Lane, ME Winstead isn’t stuck in a room with her kid (so there’s not much to sniffle about here) – she’s a girl stuck in a bunker with a crackpot John Goodman and a bearded John Gallagher Jr (who played Brie’s boyfriend in the great Short Term 12), and it’s weird and strange and mysterious and it keeps you guessing and stuff, all in a good AND uneasy way

Cloverfield Lane aint no Room, cause it’s Room meets The Martian meets 28 Days Later.  Explaining why it’s all those meetings would give things away, and I don’t want to give away any of the fun of this fun movie, that’s not really fun, but it is, but it isn’t

Sure, Winstead won’t be getting any Oscar noms for her peformance in Cloverfield, but she’s juss as good as Larson is in her Room.  Life isn’t fair, Oscars are certainly not fair, but if there were an awards for bestest eyes, Winstead would beat out Larson easily and breezily.  The eyes have it, and Winstead’s have me, for always and 5ever

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Creepers

Cloverfield bunkers down at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Short Term 12
Foster The People
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 96 min

Never really thought much about foster kids, or where foster kids live when foster kids aren’t in foster homes.  Destin Cretton did me AND you a favor, and then some!  He expanded his 2008 short film Short Term 12 (a short term home for… foster kids!) into a 2013 feature length gem, loaded with beautiful performances by anyone who appears on-screen.  Mucho mucho love goes out to Brie Larson, who finally gets to show off her stuff, when all she’s really shown before in past work is how adorable she is.  Well, she’s still super adorable here, but she does a lot less smiling, cause there’s not a lot to smile about.  As the supervisor for a bunch of at-risk foster kids (standout work by Kaitlyn Dever and newcomer Keith Stanfield), she’s trying her best to keep their hopes up, when there’s not really much hope to be kept up on.  Helping is her tender boyfriend John Gallagher Jr (the un-hatable Jim Halpert guy from Newsroom), and the two know what they’re doing, being products of dysfunctional and foster childhoods themselves, and if they can make something of themselves, then dangit, they’ll make something of these foster kids.  And dangit, you should see this.  And dangit, Brie Larson is such a cutie-pie McGee.  And dangit, why aren’t I Mr Brie Larson?  DANGIT!!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Term is endeared today in NY & LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…