Thighs Wide Shut

Red
Spies Like Rust
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Look, it’s old famous people shooting guns!!!!  Sweeeeet  …for all of about 10 minutes!!!!!!  A bit more fun than The Expendables, and a lot lot lot less fun than The Losers, Robert Schwentke‘s movie adaptation of the Red comic mini-series is nothing more than an incredible collection of incredible actors sitting around twiddling their thumbs/guns, as the flick goes from zero to one in 111 minutes.  That ‘one’ is a killer lil shoot-out bit toward the beginning of the film [watch it here], and after being treated to that kind of tongue-in-cheek redonkey-donkness, we’re denied anything else equally as yummy the rest of the way.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

There’s some sort of plot about a plot against some former CIA and military peoples, like Bruce Willis (he keeps getting more dashing with age, and skinnier too?), Morgan Freeman (somebody free this man from schlock like this!), John Malkovich (the movie’s lone bright spot, but there’s not nearly enuff time dedicated to his character) and Helen Mirren (why isn’t she a ‘Dame’ yet?).  And while the plot and the plot never truly thicken or make sense or amount to something worth caring about, we have to watch them get ‘chased’ around America by Karl Urban (love this guy) and his superior Rebecca Pidgeon (wait, is this a Mamet movie?).  Throw in a civilian love interest for Willis in the cuteness form of Mary-Louise Parker (strutting her smile, which is something she never does on Weeds), some help from the always boisterous Brian Cox and hindrance from the always annoying Richard Dreyfuss, and Red sounds like it should glow bright… red, but it doesn’t, cause it’s more like pink, and therefore needs sum mo cooking before it could be considered well done instead of well dumb, and not dumb in a fun or good way

Getting Graphic: enuff with comics and especially graphic novels getting turned into live-action snoozers.  why not keep the graphic stuffs graphical?  worked like a charm and then some for Persepolis.  might we suggest that Art Spiegelman’s Maus go that route?  Holocaust + comics = Oscar gold, right?

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Red blushes today at a theater near jews

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…