Thighs Wide Shut

I don’t believe in Emmys or shammys or whatever, but there’s some amazing stuff going on – on TV (mainly on FX) and I juss have to give them some props de leon…

the Zach Galifianakis rodeo clown show isn’t AS funny as you’d expect/want it to be, but that doesn’t really matter cause Louie Anderson is ridiculously amazing in it, and seriously, when is the last time you gave a flying fcuk about Louie Anderson???  WATCH Baskets, but not necessarily for Galifianakis, who plays Anderson’s twin boys – Chip AND Dale, but momma Anderson.  she loves a good bargain, Arby’s curly fries, the way Dasani water tastes, and CostCo, and we juss love her, and him as her

and bless Galifianakis’ other co-star - Martha Kelly – who plays Galifianakis’ non-love interest/insurance adjuster… Martha.  this woman is a stand-up comic, and this show is her first filmed credit, and she totally goes toe to toe with Galifianakis AND Louie Anderson, as the show’s straightman.  that is truly something!  she is more than truly something!!!

–

and don’t even get me started on The People vs OJ Simpson.  OK, I’ll get myself started on it.  if there were ever a show that needed all of its episodes released at one time – this would be the one.  Fuller House?  I could wait centuries for the next episode to drop.  The Peeps vs OJ?  I NEED THAT SH!T LIKE YESTERDAY – ALL OF IT!!!  and even though it all actually happened well before yesterday, and we know the outcome, you sit there and watch and go, jesus age christ, we HAVE to get OJ convicted, lets go prosecutors!!!  And even though we know they failed (or that the jury failed us), we are rooting like fcuk for them to somehow win this case we know gets lost!

MARCIA MARCIA MARCIA.  poor Marcia Clark.  her hair and problems and stuff are all being dug-up again for the public to see and pee on, but enuff time has passed, and the way the show presents her – it’s cutting her a break, and I feel so sorry for her (if yer watching, I bet you do too).  in fact, I had trouble sleeping last night, worrying about her and her hair and how she was mocked… 20+ years ago!!!  

humanizing her is THE great Sarah Paulson.  if you’ve been watching her in the American Horror Stories, you know she is THE fcuking best, and THE woman rocking the whole network – a Ms FX if you will.  I CANNOT get enuff of her as her, or her in general!!  

and a thousand zillion wig awards has to go to the dude/dudettes behind recreating these wigs!!!

I mean, I could dedicate a zillion more words and pictures of love for the entire cast – to Travolta’s eyebrows as Shapiro, and Cuba Goodings badding as OJ, and David Shimmer being awesome for once as the only Kardashian that may actually matter, and Nathan Lane playing it straight as F Lee Baily, and Robert Morse as a jolly morose Dominick Dunne, and Bruce Greenwood doing that standard awesome Bruce Greenwood thing he’s doing as Gil Garcetti, and Kenneth Choi BEING Lance Ito and a zillion more actors acting the crap out of their real life roles, but man, outside of Marcia Clark and her hair, it’s really really reealllllllllly all about Sterling K Brown as Christopher Darden vs Courtney B Vance as Johnnie Cochran.  I could watch them bark and bite ALL DAY LONG.  They need a spin-off show where all they do is try to one up each other in court or in smoothness or awesomeness!!

court (of my opinion) adjourned 

12 Years A Slave 
Chain In The A$$
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 133 min

Whatever you does, do not bring your significant other to see Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave, unless you want to go 12 years without having sex.  A most important movie, filled with zero fun, and has about as much rewatchable-ness as Schindler’s List done doesn’t (which means you’ll never want to watch it EVERRRR again).  Actually, after seeing 12 Years, I’ve now had enough of the slavery movie genre.  No mo fo me.  Add it to the list of non-starters, alongside Holocaust pics + westerns + rom coms + anything with vampires or zombies + anything directed or presented by Guillermo del Taco

12 Years is truly important, cause it fo reals happened – it’s what happened to a born-free black man named Solomon Northup, wrongfully turned into a slave.  This story, based on Solomon’s own book, certainly needed to be told (it was once before), but I don’t know if I needed it told to me.  I’m not one for turning a blind eye to things that are horrible in history, but I also wasn’t eggzactly all that interested in having my senses blinded and numbed completely.  Maybe the point is that watching something so hard to take should be exactly that, but c’mon man, couldn’t they have at least cut out 1/4 of the whipping and yelling and awfulness and made this excruciating experience only 90 minutes long???  We know that Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor, FINALLLLLLY with a meaty role to match his acting might) will become a slave, and then 12 years later, not be a slave.  And so we’re forced to watch him go from 0 to 12 years, without a clue as to which year we’re in.  If only there was a countdown ticker, so we could get excited about crossing the finish line of this torture-fest 

But hey, look at all those famous actors playing horrible people!!  Solomon gets conned by Scoot ‘Poop’ McNairy! & Taran Killam!, and sold into slavery!  Where he’s chained up with Michael K Williams!  Then sold by Paul Giamatti! To Benedict Cumberbatch!  Who’s plantation-hand Paul Dano! is out of hand and forces Benedict to send Solomon to the much more evil plantation owner (and McQueen regular) Michael Fassbender!  And his nasty wife Sarah Paulson!  Well, at least he can find some sympathy in slaves Lupita Nyong’o! (don’t know who she is, but won’t be soon forgetting her performance), and former slave or something Alfre Woodard!  Don’t worry, things get better once (the film’s producer) Brad Pitt! and his Amish beard show up!  Maybe Brad can save the day!!  But where’s Clooney????  Why can’t the whole Ocean’s 12 crew free the slave of 12 yearss??  Oh yeah, and oh, look there’s Beasts of the Southern Wild alumz Quvenzhané Wallis AND Dwight Henry!  Man, slavery has never been so well cast and acted!  

Am I better for seeing this film?  Maybe better off not.  But what’s been seen was seen, and it aint going away, from my head, or from history.  And oh, that final scene – a scene that packs a super-HEAVY emotional punch that’s equally AS punchy as Captain Phillips‘ UNFORGETTABLE final scene wiz was, making the torturous torture ALMOS worth letting yerself get tortured by

But c’mon McQueen, when are you going to make a ‘happy’ movie?

Verdictgo: hard to watch, but still – Jeepers Worth A Peepers

12 Years is how long it will feel like sitting in a theater watching this, tomorrow in NY/LA/DC/Chicago/ATL/Toronto, and elsewhere elsehwhen

oh, and here are some previous the würstest date movies EVER, reviewed on TWS –  Amour, Towelhead, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Babysitters, Vera Drake & Lake of Fire 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Martha Marcy May Marlene
Cult of Lightening In A Fragile Bottle
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 120 min

Elizabeth Olsen is the unknown, and now known, sister of the Olsen twits.  Don’t know what she’s been doing all her life, but now she’s an actress, and from what we’ve seen of her in Sean Durkin‘s purty darn good Martha Marcy May Marlene, she definitely passes as an actress, and even more so than her sisters, who never really were actors to begin with, juss a set of twins who played a set of twins on a really dumb sitcom

In MMMMMmmmmmmMMmMmm, Liz doesn’t do much talking, but she does eat, and swim, and mope, and sometimes falsely smiles, and other times juss scares us with those blue-green Olsen dead eyes.  That’s what Olsen kin do best – they stare with those eyes, and creep us the creep creep out.  Liz as MMMmMMmmmMM does lots of staring cause she’s a lost soul stuck in the real world (at sis Sarah Paulson and bro-in-law Hugh Dancy‘s fancy dancy lake house) after running away from a cultish farm commune, which she kinda sorta not really wishes she never left, but of course is glad that she left (oh the contradiction!!!!)

She’s haunted by the past, going nowhere in the present, with not a very bright future ahead of her.  Blame the washing of her brain and private parts by the Jim Jones/David Koresh/Charles Mansonish dude played by John Hawkes (he has shady facial hair AND plays a guitar, so he muss be a cultish leader!!!!).  Now we loves ourselves some JHawkes, but he’s far too gentle of an actor to be seen as a lecherous misguided messiah.  Maybe that’s where faux-Michael Pittster Brady Corbet comes in, cause his eye starings are almos as creepy as Olsen’s is be!!!

Moral of the story?  Everyone with blue-ish eyes kinda creeps us out

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

MMMMMMMMM is currently mmmmmmmm good in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…