Thighs Wide Shut

mo quick hitz!

The Lighthouse

Bless you Robert Eggers.  You know how to strike a mood, and give us the heebie jeebies.  In making a movie about two Lighthouse keepers not keeping sane, you drove us insane, and made quite the pretty picture in the process.  It felt like watching a full-length, b&w version of the part in the R.E.M. ‘Losing My Religion’ video where the spotlight shines on the two dudes

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

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Richard Jewell

Clint Eastwood makes good movies with few surprises, and Richard Jewell is more of the same goodness that comes with and has no surprises.  And it’s certainly no surprise how amazing Paul Walter Hauser is as the title character.  He can fill out any uniform he’s given (did you see him in I, Tonya??), and outperform most people he’s acting along side with.  I’m not a big ‘awards matter’ kinda guy (considering Zodiac has next to none), but not getting a best (supporting) actor nomination is as great an injustice to Hauser as whatever happened to Jewell was!!! Eastwood should make a movie about Hauser’s injustice, and he can play himself!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

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Bombshell

Every year there seems to be a left cinematic takedown on the right, and no matter how liberal my beliefs are (free fried chicken for all!), even I think these take-downs are wearing a bit thin on society.  Preaching to the choir does nothing for the choir.  Then again, Bombshell isn’t as angry, dumb and udderly pointless as last year’s Vice was.  And it’s more than juss saying how horrible Fox News and the right media is, it’s about how horrible they treated women!  Hot women! Mildly nice looking women!  And the dogs!  But the real reason this movie works and keeps yer eyes glued to it is cause the make-up and hair work is beyond comp-HAIR!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

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Little Women

I know nothing really of Louisa May Alcott or her work. I’m sure it’s revered for a reason.  I skipped the previous 1994 iteration of her Little Women (and how did I???  it has both Susan Sarandon AND Winona Ryder!!!), and the 1949 version and the 1933 version.  So going off Greta Grrrrrrrrwig’s 2019 version, all I can say is… maybe this movie would have been more captivating had they spoke in British accents??  I dunno, feels like much to do about zilch-a-rooney.  The only thing I really liked was seeing Louis Garrel‘s nose every 30 or so minutes in the movie.  The rest was too little to care about.  Also, did everyone who voted Florence Pugh into a nomination for this, see her BETTER performance, and a performance for the new ages, in Midsommar?????  All those people, f’shame.  May you be sewn into a bear!!!

Verdictgo:  Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

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still have some more to see before making my top picks for 2019.  1917 is one of thems.  most recent odds have 1917 as the main favorite to win best picture.  we’ll see!!  maybe I’ll juss hold out for 1918

Uncut Gems
Sterling, Sharp
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 134 min

This isn’t one of those Adam Sandler movies where he gets hit in the balls for laughs.  It’s the kind where he gets his balls stomped on. YOU GO SANDLER!!!  YOU GO GET YOUR BALLS STOMPED ON!!!  Why don’t you go to that balls stomped on place more often?  Maybe all Adam’s ever needed was to have them Safdie Bros turn his softie-self into the hardie he always needed to be.  Uncut Gems finds the Safdie’s picking up where they left off with their last feature – GoodTime – but ramp up the intensity and insanity a notch here + adding some unlikely excellent supporting work by Kevin Garnett, and even Mike Francesa(???!!!!). Fun, and wrenching throughout, but you may just be a bit too on edge by the time the insanity jumps of the cliff at the very end.  Balls to the wall Sandler!  Stomp on!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Better Off Fred
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG | 109 min

See the MOS EGGSALAD doc Won’t You Be My Neighbor? instead – and pass on this movie altogether, which uses Mister Rogers and his show as a vehicle for a journalist’s journey of self-discovery and therapy for cleaning up his life.  The problem?  The journalist is sorta real, but his life story is wholly fictionalized, and not even that interesting to begin with.  Still, Hanks IS incredible and you MUSS see his performance, but wait til it hits Blockbuster Video, and just FFwd to all his WONDERFUL parts

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Gems gleams and Neighboorhood needs some new neighbors, currently at a theater near jews and white nationlists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Vice

The Long Big
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 132 min

What can I say about Vice?  Bale was amazing as Dick Cheney, but the main reason to see it is to see him in that transforming make-up and hair (or lack thereof), and those glasses.  The rest of the movie?  Bleeding liberal wanking, too much winking, too much trying to be an Oliver Stone movie, but basically being The Big Short of Dick Cheney, but coming up short this time in the presentation department.  And what’s the take away, anyways?  Hard to tell, other then I think the Cheneys are a nice family who have politics and practices that may be different from your own.  So what’s the point?  Don’t ask me, I didn’t make the movie, but sat thru it.  Maybe they should have stopped in the middle, with the faux credits.  That was clever.  But the rest of the movie was too clever for its own good, or it thought it was clever and it wasn’t good.  Again, hard to tell

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Vice clamps down currently in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Winchester
Rifling & Stifling
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 99 min

A long time ago, I was a giant fan of the A&E show – America’s Castles.  One particular episode about ‘California Dreamers’ introduced me to a house that I never ever wanted to call home, but literally haunted me by just knowing about it.  It was the Winchester Mystery House of San Jose, built, and continued to be endlessly built on and on and on and on by rifle heiress Sarah Winchester, until the day she died.  This is no ordinary house.  It has staircases that lead nowhere, and a door that opens to a 2 story drop, and oodles of twists and turns that defy architecture sanity!!  And the very first time I ever visited San Francisco I forced my friend to drive me to this house so we could tour it.  AND IT WAS EVEN MORE AMAZING IN PERSON THAN WHAT I COULD EVER IMAGINE (even if the tour guide we had was more cheerleader than Vincent Price)!!!  The true mystery is how this house isn’t as famous and as visited as Graceland???!!!??!!!

So when they made Winchester – a movie about Sarah and the house, I had to see it – no matter HOW rotten it was rated.  Well, it was totally NOT rotten, but for a movie about a house that is possibly haunted, they were somehow unable to remotely make a scary movie out of it.  They added some BS stories to make it some sort of an actual story, and even with solid performances from both Helen Mirren and Jason Clarke the result was somewhere between ‘they could have done something better‘ and ‘well, how could they have made a better movie than this when there’s really not much to work from besides the house being big and crazy and creepy?‘  And so, the movie is what it is, and what it is is OK, and it at least gets the word out there that this house exists, and that matters cause there’s no place LIKE this home

Verdictgo: high end(?) Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Winchester ‘haunts’ a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Pitch Perfect 3
U.S.Oh No
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 94 min

The Pitch Perfect movies have always been barely movies, and the 3rd outing proved to be the barest of the barely movie-like movies of the lot.  It didn’t have to be this way.  They could have made a fun movie with a loose and fun plot, instead of a 90 minute DJ Khaled infomercial.  They and we all know that the best parts are always going to belong to Rebel Wilson‘s Fat Amy, and they try to play that up and then some in this (hopefully) ‘final’ installment of the franchise.  But it’s all for not.  A backstory about her evil dad John Lithgow?  It holds about as much charm and intrigue as Lithgow’s horrible dingo Australian accent.  Look, flying kicks and explosions was a step in the right direction, but the kicks don’t pack much of a wallop, and the explosions all seem like misfires.  Fat Amy has outgrown her sister Bellas, and in turn, outgrown the movie series.  Dump the Bellas and give Fat Amy her own franchise, and make her dad Mel Gibson, or something ‘edgy’ like that

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Pitch is far from Perfect, at a theater near jews and white nationalists

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…