Thighs Wide Shut

Home Again
You CAN Go Home Again, Especially When Your Parents Give You The Blueprints
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13 | 97 min

The shiny apple doesn’t fall from the rom-com tree as writer/director Hallie Meyers-Shyer follows in her parents’ footsteps and delivers Home Again – a saccharine sweet debut that will surprise no one, and delight everyone at the same time.  Would you expect anything less from the kin of Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, It’s Complicated, The Intern) and Charles Shyer (Baby Boom, Father of the Bride I and II)???  No, we didn’t, and neither should you.  The torch hasn’t been fully passed yet, but it’s good to know that mushily digestible romantic comedies may be safe for another generation with Hallie and her DNA

Look, Home Again is about as groundbreaking as the discovery that lint exists in your bellybutton, but juss cause everything about this movie is obvious and oblivious to the way the things work in the real world, doesn’t mean that you won’t sit there the entire time with a smile plastered on your face, and all the women you know will be happily watching it for years to come on cable TV airings

Look, I care zero for Reese Witherspoon, and her plight in this movie about just turning 40, being recently separated from (the always charming even when smarmy) Michael Sheen, raising two (too adorable) daughters AND trying to get an interior design career off the ground, but throw in a GILF (Candice Bergen) and three homeless, hunky, aspiring filmmakers (Nat Wolff, Jon Rudnitsky, Pico Alexander) looking for a home (guess where they find a temporary home?????), and you have the recipe for a winning chick flick where they will probably end up singinging doo-wop or Van Morrison songs into the handle of a broom whilst sweeping the floor.  OK, so I was surprised a little, cause THEY DIDN’T SING INTO THE HANDLE OF A BOOM!!!  OR EVEN A MOP!!!  True women’s lib!  LIBERATING (MOVIE) WOMEN FROM SINGING INTO THE HANDLES OF THINGS!!

If you don’t think this is a step forward, THEN STEP OFF!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Home Again aint at your home, but at a theater near jews and white nationalists tomorrow!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Fault In Our Stars
Topic of Cancer
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 125 min

Oh, how cute – two cancer kids making nice with each other, cause no one else wants to bother with them, besides their doctors, cautious parents, or friends… who also have/had cancer.  But there’s no fault in that in The Fault In Our Stars – the movie version made of the beloved novel by John Green, cause if you like two kids making nice, who are nice, regardless of their health – then you will like this movie

OK, so maybe one of them kids – Mr Perfect Ansel Elgort – is a little too perfect.  He’s TOOO charming.  He’s too sure of himself.  He’s TOOO positive.  And maybe even a bit too dreamy.  And what about the object of his affection Shailene Woodley?  Oh, man, is she such a lil good actress.  AND SHE EVEN MAKES HER OWN TOOTHPASTE – IN REAL LIFE!!!  But in Fault, she’s not making toothpaste – she making smiles, and tears and making heart strings tug – for herself and fo you

But even for a movie about kids with hardships – everything seems to come to them WAY too easy.  Oh, you want to go to Amsterdam to meet your favorite author ever, who’s now an angry drunk recluse (Willem Dafoe, with cool glasses)?  NO PROBLEM!  ALL YOUR DREAMS WILL COME TRUE!  How about falling in love in the least passionate place ever – Anne Frank’s House!  Sure, why not!  Love don’t holo-cost a thang!!!  Oh, you have trouble walking up steps cause your lungs have cancer?  No worries, we’ll put your bedroom in an attic so you have to climb stairs all the time!

But, but, but, but I don’t care.  I like cancerous him and I like cancerous her, and I like them together.  You will too  

And you will like their friend Nat Wolff – who was also in Palo Alto – which is fitting cause in that movie he was BFF with Val Kilmer’s son Jack, who looks like Ansel Elgort (sorta)

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Fault doubles up in theaters TODAY!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Palo Alto
Nepotism The Movie
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 98 min

Apparently if you have the last name Coppola, it’s yer dog-given right to make a film.  And apparently if you’re the child of a movie actor/ess, it’s yer dog-given right to follow in their footsteps.  Man, it muss be tuff to give it the old Hollywood try when all the tries are being given to someone famous’ son or daughter or their cousin, twice removed.  (Too bad my parents were a lawyer and a teacher, although I didn’t follow in either of their footsteps.  Maybe my children will become Thigh Masters.  DO IT KIDS!!!)

Nepotism is on full display in Gia ‘grandaughter of Francis Ford’ Coppola‘s Palo Alto, starring Eric Roberts’ daughter and Val Kilmer & Joanne Whalley’s son (Val is in it to, but for maybe like 10 seconds).  The film is based off of James Franco’s book of short stories, and he gets a role in the film too.  Somehow his brother Dave Franco didn’t get nepotized into the cast.  (I did a quick check of the rest of the roster, but couldn’t find any more famous parental connections, outside of minor roles for Emma Gretzky and Bailey… Coppola)

OK, all that nepo-ness aside, the movie Palo Alto is still a movie and is somewhere between aunt Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, and yet nowhere, and also Gus van Pretentious’ Paranoid Park, with a heavy dose all things Bret Easton Ellis.  So what I’m saying is Palo Alto is a moody piece of something, that’s really nothing.  Usually I loathe those kind of movies, and obviously I’m no giant fan of nepotism, AND YET, I still kinda really enjoyed Palo Alto

Why?

– there’s a faux recreation of Phoebe Cates’ Fast Times pool ascent scene, for no reason

– Kenny Powers’ fatty nephew is in it

- Nat Wolff’s hair and attitude 

– the dumb high school talk

– it wasn’t awful like The Bling Ring was

– seeing what Chris Messina high and touchy-feely would look like

– the score

- Father Guido Sarducci is in it (the actor, not the character), and he funny!

– it made me feel uneasy from start to finish, and I have no idea why, but movies should make you feel something, and this movie did

– and mainly cause I’m now in love with Val Kilmer & Joanne Whalley’s son Jack.  he’s almost hotter than both mom AND dad, and that’s basically impossible.  he looks like mini-Beck-River Phoenix.  I want to play with his hair.  I want to live on his face

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Palo is palling about in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…