Thighs Wide Shut

Hanna
Mum Lola Mum
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 111 min

A beautiful and sheltered girl with lightening quick reflexes and an un-licensed license to kill is set loose upon the world to kick some major a$$, with the beyond sweet sounds of the Chemical Brothers following her every move.  Is this our wet dreams come true… or the so-so movie Joe Wright churned out… of his league.  Wright has made one good movie (Pride & Prejudice), one third of a great movie (Atonement) and one that had all the right instruments and band members, but couldn’t eggzactly make a hit song (The Soloist… in retrospect, wethinks our review was a lil too favorable).  Credit to Joe Dubs for tackling something a little bit more fun, and not even necessarily all that dumb, but Hanna is juss another one of his middle of the pack finishing unfinished bidnesses

How could this be?  The movie looks and feels cool, and lil Saoirse Ronan as our titular babe in the woods with the goods is totally a wicked fit (with the bonus of papa Eric Bana as her Mr Qui-Gon Miyagi), but nothing here seems to click or add up to anything worth blagging home about.  It’s not action-y enuff to be an action flick, and its attempts at humor are about as humorous as twelve episodes of Lopez Tonight.  So what is this sorta messy mrs doubt misfire?  A revenge picture with no anger or sense of danger?  An un-professional Professional? A Domino that falls?  Run Lola Run, but running in place? Dogtooth with no bark or bite? Salt that aint kosher? The Boys From Brazil with no balls/zeal? And why all the terrible German accents? Did Tom Hollander do all of his dialect research by watching Sprockets and Udo Kier‘s oeuvre?  Was Udo Kier not available??? And what’s with Cate Blanchett‘s uuuugh-inducing Texas twang?  She’s one sneer away from entering Kathy Batesing it WAY overboardland!!

The only relief comes in the form of a vacationing British family that Hanna latches onto.  Parents Jason Flemyng and Olivia Williams are a good match for each other, her and us, and we were totally digging the vibe of Hanna’s new BFF (Jessica Barden), an OMG WTF bubblegum babbling chav-tastic tween, but all this surrogate sidetracking belongs in a separate movie.  Hactually, most of the fragmented proceedings stitched together here deserve their own individual treatment.  Focus people, focus!!

Remember how TRON 2 worked mostly cause it was one giant Daft Punk video?  Well, Hanna‘s like a 6th rate Chemical Bros vid.  What, was Michel Gondry not available either?  Perhaps he was getting busy with Udo Kier??  UDO KIER!!!!

Caption This!!!:

‘Your Royal Highness, this is that girl who gets raped in that Peter Jackson movie everyone hated, but it really wasn’t that bad of a movie.  Swears!’‘

Verdictgo: it’s passable entertainment, but it could been a contender, so Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Hanna has no sisters at a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Green Hornet
Spinelessapple Express
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Green Hornet, what can go wrong, did go wrong: wrong guy being Green Hornet (Seth Rogen), wrong to use a sophomoronic slacker script (Rogen again, with pal Evan Goldberg), wrong to enlist a surreal director and not have him go surreal (Michel Gondry)… this doesn’t bode well for Aronofsky’s Wolverine II, and wurst of all, juss an all around waste of a Green Hornet movie .  Played for laughs, and filled with none, Green Hornet has no buzz, sting or flight, well, besides anything having to do with Kato (Jay Chou).  He’s awesome, and how could he not be?  No seriously, he’s Kato and he’s mad awesomes and Jay Chou is awesomez as Kato!

Kato!!

Cameron Diaz is in it for some reason, but she’s more of a Charlie’s mangled than an Angel.  And remember that Christoph Waltz guy who stole our hearts and ears and the film Inglourious Basterds?  He delivers a mighty similar shtick here (with much less bitting dialog), but this time with a beard (looking like Carmen Ghia from the real Producers), and after 2 films of Americans seeing him do this, he’s already edging towards one trick pony territory.  Eeesh.  And poor Tom Wilkinson, David Harbour and Edward James Olmos.  Serious actors brought in for some serious roles, and for about as much seriousness as a Norm McDonald movie.  At least they employed Edward Furlong.  Sounds like he could use the money

KATO!!!

oh, and the 3-D is awful

KATO!!!!!!

Cole As Ice: Taylor Cole!!

Verdictgo: Only Kato Merit & Zero Stinkin Badges For The Rest

Hornet stungks this Friday at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

L’épine Dans Le Coeur
(A Thorn In The Heart)
Sorta Not Really Capturing The Gondrys
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

How awesome is director Michel Gondry?  WAY AWESOME!  So if he’s awesome, then his family must be too, or at least a smidgen awesome, right?  RIGHT???  Gondry steps aside from his made-up world of wonder and whimsy and turns the camera on his family, who are… sans wonder and whimsy.  They are French people, which is almost the same thing as normal people, but they’re French, so they say things in French and occasionally drink wine!  The focus here is on Michel’s Aunt Suzette, a former schoolteacher that everyone from the fam to her former pupils gush over about how juss darn lovely she is.  How lovely!  Suzette tells us stories and guides us to places she’s been before.  How lovely!  How lovely?  Maybe if we were a part of the Gondry clan and wanted to document how lovely Auntie Suzette was for future generations of Gondrys, but for the rest of us?  Snoozefest ’87!  There’s no drama to be found (OK, there’s some tension betweem her and son Jean-Yves, but what family doesn’t have tension?), and mos disappointingly, little insight into what makes Michel Gondry, Michel Gondry.  Thorn reeks a bit of the manfucated nostaglia that was found in his Be Kind Rewind, yet without any of the Jack Black/Mos Def sing movie theme song distractions.  Wish JB & MD came along and sweded the hell outta this not so prickly thorn

Making/Faking It: Gondry’s music videos are beyond the knees bees, but what about the making of em?  watch how 4 of his mos famous/trickiest were done

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Thorn opens tomorrow in NY only and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…