Thighs Wide Shut

[Fro Design Company]

True Grit
How The West Was Numb
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Is this a Coen Bros movie?  Certainly doesn’t feel like it.  Certainly doesn’t look like it.  Certainly isn’t good enough to be considered one either neither.  You call this a follow-up to the fan/Jew-tastic A Serious Man (wait, how did we not pick that to be the #1 flick of the ’09???)????  Are you serious?  About as un-serious as Yahoo Serious!!

Joel & Ethan’s take on Charles Portis’ novel True Grit (since this isn’t a remake or re-imagining of the Duke starring-Oscar winning ’69 film… which we haven’t seen… yet) is everything short of spectacular.  It’s a decent enuff movie and all, but a decent enuff movie any Tom Shadyac, Dick Marquand or Harry Ramis could have helmed.  It’s as basic as Bounty Basic.  It’s as challenging as playing a game of Uno by yourself.  It’s as clever as Cleveland’s Stadium Mustard.  It’s about as cool as checking into FourSquare, when no one really cares which pad thai place you hit up the most.  Can we recall the mayor???

9reals, is this really a Coen Bros movie?  There was about one total chuckle produced and about zero characters who could live in a Barton Fink world (the guy wearing a bear skin doesn’t count, or matter for that matter).  Like we said, the movie is fine as it is, but by the time it gets going in the third act, you might be working on your 33rd yawn.

Maybe the story itself doesn’t lend itself to any kinda awesomeness, itself: a no nonsense girl’s pa is shot dead, so the sense of non girl (an umemorable Hailee Steinfeld) hires two guns for hire, an eye-patched ruffian deputy (Jeff Bridges, being very un-Dude like, and it works!) and a two-eyed Texas Ranger (Matt Damon with a solid Redford mustache!) to round-up the murdererer (Josh Brolin, with big teef).  Can you guess at how this one turns out?  In between the forgone and forlorn conclusion, there’s some horse riding, eating by campfire, more horse riding, a few guns a fired, and Barry Pepper playing a character with the last name ‘Pepper’.  How exciting are ya?  What if we told you that the Coen Bros directed it?  What if we didn’t and you thought some else did?  Remember how killer their neo-Western No Country For Old Men was?  This was like No Thing To Write Home About For Any Young or Old Man

Dis Claim Her: OK, we hate westerns, but that doesn’t mean we can’t like them.  our mos flavorite western of all time is Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.  that counts, right?

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

True is false at a theater near jews on December 22nd

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop
(San Qiang Pai An Jing Qi)
Romancing The Coens
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

It takes a lot of balls to remake a revered and belovededed film.  Usually the remaker isn’t even close to worthy of such an undertaking, and their results are closer to more worthlessnessness than opening a Woolworth’s Five & Dime.  Even done up by the hands of someone more accomplished, and James Worthy, there’s no guarantee that they can make a remake work.  Remember Gus van Sant’s take on Psycho?  We certainly hope not!!!!  Remember the Coen Bros’ Ladykillers?  You get the idea.  Speaking of… afer seeing The Coen Bros‘ Blood Simple at Cannes twnetyish years ago, (worthy) Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) thought about giving the same story a go, but change the time and place, and add his usual flair and spin of the color wheel.  Amazingly, the Coens’ OKed the idea and what we have here is A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop

If you’ve seen Blood Simple, then you purty much know what to expect (an über-jealous bidness man’s wife is stepping out on him with one of his employees, so said bidness man hires someone to bump them off, but the hired gun doesn’t kill em, AND THEN…), and if you haven’t seen BS, then you have no real reason or incentive to see Noodle, you noodle-head!!  But if you HAVE seen it, then you can certainly give its eastern brother from another mother a whirl (walk, don’t run)!  And while the pacing and atmosphere are kept in tact (but somehow feels a little slower than Simple), the style is all its own, with a dash of hit or miss humor.  It’s kinda worth seeing juss for Zhao Benshan‘s brief, yet unforgettable appearance as a googly-eyed police captain.  LOOK AT THIS FACE!!!!!  Maybe they shoulda scrapped the whole remake idea and made a flick all about his character, doing like Chinese Keystone Kop shaz with like chop sticks and ninja stars or any other Asian stereotypes one could think of!!!

North American Scum: remakes of American films are rarer than a rare steak cooked with the juice from the back of that upside-down plane stamp, but nones of them will ever top the blatant rip offs that are Turkish Star Wars or Bollywood Superman!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers, but only for superfans of Blood Simple

Noodle goes slurp in NY/LA only this Friday

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…