Thighs Wide Shut

Spotlight
All The Priests’ Children
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 127 min

Every great newspaper deserves its own great movie.  The Washington Post got All The President’s Men, The San Francisco Chronicle got Zodiac, and (although I haven’t seen it) The New York Times got the doc Page One: Inside The New York Times.  There are a lot of other great great newspaper films, but they are all fictional (or fiction guised as something sorta based in reality, ala Citizen Kane).  It’s actually kinda weird that there aren’t more films about big time stories published by big time newspapers.  Anywho – Spotlight shines a bright light on The Boston Globe – and the lid they blew off the priestly-pedophiled sexual scandals that plagued the highly Catholic Boston area for eons

Thomas McCarthy‘s cinematic journey of this investigative journalism triumph is a triumph itself.  The outcome is obvious (any doubt that the paper wouldn’t win the day by getting the word out), but getting from point A to point B was an absolute thrill – even if it mainly consisted of phone calls, interviews, trips to the library, repeat, repeat, repeat.  The movie never skips a beat, and is pulse-pounding from the get go, to the get stop.  Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d’Arcy James (and his MUSTache), Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup are ALL fantastic.  Raping children is not fantastic, but this movie is ALL fantastic.  It is a muss see for anyone who has eyes, and even for people who don’t

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Spotlight shines bright currently at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

To The Wonder
Days of Unleavened
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 112 min

A couple, deep in love, ascend the castle mount of France’s majestic Mont Saint-Michel.  They hold hands, caress, kiss, stare at each other’s beauty, the man-made beauty of the castle, and the heavenly nature-made beauty of their tidal surroundings.  The music swells, the cameras swooshes by, she runs wild on the sand, glowing under the wide open sky, and the eyes of god?  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Wow, we’re at the very beginning of Terrence Malick‘s next poetic masterpiece… right???  Well…

Well, the couple (Ben Affleck & Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko) decide to leave Europe for the friendly suburban plain planes of America, where he does environmental land things.  Guess what, the caressing, kissing, staring, music swelling, and camera swooshes crossed the ocean with them (although the running wild on sand has been replaced by running wild thru wheat fields).  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  But then after they settle in, maybe he’s no longer that into her as she is into him.  The caressing and kissing are replaced by arms being thrown up in the air in disgust, and the staring is no longer the kind kind, and yet the music still swells, and the camera continues to swoosh.  Her visa is up, and he doesn’t marry her, so she has to go home (with her daughter.  we coulda mentioned her earlier, but the daughter doesn’t matter).  He then meets Rachel McAdams (apparently again, although it’s not clear that they’ve met before) and so he’s found a new lady to caress and kiss and stare at, all while the music swells and the camera swooshes.  New she doesn’t like to run thru wheat fields as much as the old she did, but she certainly still loves wheat fields. Repeat, repeat, repeat.  But then the original she comes back into the picture/America so new she goes bye bye, and then he and old she are doing a combo of caressing, kissing, staring and throwing their arms up in the air in disgust, while the music swells and the camera swooshes by.  That’s basically the movie – one long montage of what we juss described, on endless repeat repeat repeat repeat.  Oh wait, forget to mention that Javier Bardem was in this too.  He plays a priest who has like lost his way, kinda like the old she has, and they’re both trying to find their way back, to god, and themselves, and stuff.  Or something

What actually is going on, or transpired, or whatever ever To The Wonder is is anyone’s guess (some say it has to do with the disintegration of Malick’s own marriage to a European lady).  There’s barely any dialog, mostly lyrical narration, and this spiritual meditation babble gets plopped on top of the swelling music and camera swooshes, and guides the viewer further away from understanding.  Look, this kinda stuff was fine when it was in Tree of Life, cause things happened in Tree of Life, like Bradd Pittt saying ‘hit me‘, and death, and dinosaurs, and the creation of earth, AND STUFF, but when you try to use the same GORGEOUS cinematography against a movie of nothing but caressing and kissing and then not caressing and not kissing and lots of running thru wheat fields it doesn’t really do anything for anybody.  It juss becomes one of those Koyaanisqatsi Powaqqatsi Naqoyqatsi movie things, which aren’t really movies, but juss long montages set to the music of Philip Glass.  That’s what this feels like – pretty images with pretty music with pretty much no point.  Look, there won’t be another film in 2013 as beautiful as Malick’s To The Wonder, but beauty doesn’t make a movie.  If I wanted to look at empty beauty, I’d head to my nearest breastaurant

Oh Malick, why did you make such a Terrence Malicky Terrence Malick homage of a Terrence Malick film???  You tried to make like a modern day Days of Heaven in Hell, and ya juss ended up out-Terrence Malicking yerself.  But hey, I’m not really complaining, cause I love that he’s doubled his own output in 8 short years, and has like 99 movies in the pipeline, but are they all going to be these visual poems with no chapters, footnotes, forwards or epilogues??  Maybe time will be kind to To The Wonder, but I have to wonder, wonder what the fcuk that was all about, but for now, God only knows

Verdictgo: kinda pains me to say, but 9reals, this is totes Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Wonders why today in limited release & on-demand

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Midnight In Paris
Well-Oiled Chime Machine
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 100 min

Morning Glory
Broadcast Snooze?
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Rachel McAdams is überly-cheery, Harrison Ford is overly disgruntled, Diane Keaton is lusciously loopy, Jeff Goldblum is really tall and talks like a pompous jackass, and Patrick Wilson is the WASPyiest looking dude that all women want to bang.  Welcome to Morning Glory, where those actors do those things (don’t they always?), under one movie, for which it stands, and it’s like watching Broadcast News meets Working Girl meets a common denominator lower than the lowest common denominator.  Sorry, were you expecting something more?  We weren’t, and thus it met our expectations!!!  Great!!  Not really.  Awful!!!  Not really!!!  Perfectly mediocre nonsense that one day will make for quality afternoon HBO watching?  Egggggzactly!!  So after this & Definitely Maybe, what’s the next Oasis album title turned movie?  A buddy cop dramedy starring David Keith & Keith David called Standing on the Shoulder of Giants???? Why not?!?!?!!

Unwelcome Matt: there’s juss something crazily creepy about actor Matt Malloy that we can never get over and keeps us from ever fully enjoying his work as an actor.  probably stems from his assholedry alongside Aaron Eckhart in Labute’s In The Company of Men.  come to think of it, it’s hard to like Eckhart in anything either cause of Men

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Morning Glory rises and slimes at a theater near Jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

and oh, fellas, if you get dragged to this,
you at least get a piece of this!!!!!