Thighs Wide Shut

The Past (Le passé)
Divorce, Persian-Parisian Style
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 130 min

Man, Asghar Farhadi sure LOVES himself some divorces!!  And why not?  His last feature, the well acted, but a tad overrated divorce discourse A Separation [TWS review] took home the Best Foriegn Pic Oscar, so if it aint broke, then why fix it?  Well, this time the divorce fun has been shifted from Iran to France, and once again, the divorce in question kinda serves as a macguffin for something deeper goings on, a mystery that will quietly and laboriously reveal its solution, and it’s worth sticking around to see the how and the why!

Our couple on the way outs is (The Artist‘s) Bérénice Bejo and (a terrific) Ali Mosaffa (with a terrifically horrible hairpiece).  She still lives in the outskirts of Paris, holding down a fort of kids, while he returned to Tehran.  He’s back in town, to finalize the dissolution of their marriage, but there’s other shiz going on, like a new man around - Tahar Rahim, and how their relationship came to be.  This new man has his own old lady, but she’s in a coma, and he’s trying to move on, with raggamuffined son Elyes Aguis in tow.  But how’d this woman get to be in a coma, and isn’t this relationship with a new woman a bit scandolous if the old one’s in a coma and he’s already moving on?  Yes, sez Bejo’s daughter, (a solid) Pauline Burlet, who can’t even stand to be home anymore and deal with it.  But there’s more to it all, and now that old husband Mosaffa’s around, all kinds of things will be talked about and discovered and forced to be dealt with

It’s kinda strange that Farhadi barked up the same thematic tree, but I’m glad he did, cause The Past worked a lot better for me than A Separation did.  Can’t exactly figure out why, but lets just hope he doesn’t try to give divorce another look on his next film.  Maybe he can try something tha’s a little happier, like marriage!

Anywho, I’m betting 5 bux that The Past (Le passé) wins Best Foreign Pic at this year’s Oscars. Why? Cause (my beloveded) Film Forum has premiered the winner (at the end of the year) from the last two Academy Awards – Haneke’s Amour in 2012, and yes, Farhadi’s own A Separation in 2011.  Looking forward to finding out what will win ahead of time, when the FF picks their movie to close out 2014!

Ooops, I owe everyone $5. The movie didn’t even make the cut!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

The Past is present in NY/LA today and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Eagle
Soar Subject
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

When not in HBO’s Rome we don’t really care what Romans do, cause none of them there Roman TV shows or movies that have come after HBO’s Rome are nearly noble Roman enuff to be fully worth roaming out and about to see.  But if you haven’t seen HBO’s Rome then maybe you can be more open to Romanesque Roman things (Romain lettuce or Polanksi don’t count), but if you haven’t seen HBO’s Rome, well then you’ve missed out on one of the bestestestest shows of the 2010s.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Sorry, but we work for HBO’s Rome street team, even though the show ended 4 years ago and there is no street team, and even though the term ‘street team’ is almos more lame than saying yer a part of some team like ‘team Jacob’.  GO TEAM HBO’s ROME!!!

Anywhooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo… welcome to The Eagle, director Kevin Macdonald‘s take on Rosemary Sutcliff’s book The Eagle of the Ninth, which was inspired by the real life doings of (not HBO’s) Rome’s Ninth Spanish Legion.  That’s a lot of 9s and eagles and adaptions!!!  It’s also a pretty decent premise about a 2nd century young Roman dude (dude Channing Tatum, who’s actually a purty dependable leading man) who wants to restore pride in his family’s name after his papa and his solders disappeared in the tribal hinterlands north of Hadrian’s Wall in Great Britain, and lost their treasured GOLDEN EAGLE THINGIE!!!!!  So Roman Channing dude leaves the confines of some forts and Roman hanging out places where wise dudes like Denis O’Hare and Donald Sutherland (who’s voice is almost worth the price of admission to any film he’s in) roam, and takes his newly acquired slave and future BFF (Jamie Bell) on a quest to conquer the unknown questions, and the unknown in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the journey begins, and while the vistas we travel thru are mightily vistastic (Hungary, doing a fine job standing in for the ye Olde Country!), this puppy doesn’t really start cooking until Roman dude and his Billy Elliot slave meet up with a tribe of Native American looking savages covered in mud that are called Seal Peoples or something (led by A Prophet‘s Tahar Rahim), AND THEN the tables are turned and like the Roman dude is now like a slave and the slave Billy Elliot kid is like a Billy Elliot with all the power cause the tribes people hate Romans (no word on what they think of HBO’s Rome), but not the slave cause he’s from the area, but none of this is as awesome as HBO’s Rome.  What does this all have to do with dude’s lost pops and that golden eagle???  Uh, everything!!!!!  And it’s kinda cool, but its only a sliver of cool, cause there was like a ton of sorta nothing & boringness leading up to it, and a sum of sorta nothing & boringness following it, and sometimes when Mark Strong shows up in a movie it can either be a strong thing, but sometimes it can be a weak thing

So, have you ever seen HBO’s Rome???  DO IT!!! Or check yerself out some of Macdonald’s munch munch more munchable non-fictional frictions One Day in September and Touching the Void

Bold MacDonalds: Kevin Macdonald’s brother Andrew has produced a lot of his films + Trainspotting & other Danny Boyle joints, and their second cousin is…. NORM FORKING MACDONALD!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Eagles lands today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Un Prophète (A Prophet)
Incarcerated Rookie
Official Website | Trailer & Mo

No good punk Malik (Tahar Rahim) isn’t serving a life sentence, but his 6 years behind French-fried bars will provide him with endless life experiences. He walks in illiterate, allegiance-less (he’s a Muslim, in name only) and easy pickings for the more tenured inmates. When a crusty old Corsican gang member (Niels Arestrup) takes him under his wing, with a large dose of tough love and even tougher assignments (offing a rat, and not the kind that Henry Jones fears), he quickly rises from golden boy to made man. Eventually allowed access to the outside world due to good behavior, Malik, like most crime doesn’t pay ladder climbers, gets to big for his own britches, searching for riches, and ends up crossing all those who helped and stood in the way of his path

Jacques Audiard‘s Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film… film (sorry, but it’s White Ribbon‘s to lose) doesn’t seem overly original, but there’s something about its many borrowed parts and how their fused together in a curious 155-minuted pie that’s hard to loss interest in for a single moment. And despite the fact that the misguided Malik isn’t the mos lovable character to rah-rah sis-boom-ba over, you’ve invested so much time watching him that you inevitably want to see if he comes out on top, or simply alive. Don’t let the title fool you. There isn’t anything deep at play here, even if at times it feels like there might be, but as a viewer, there is much to profit from, and not much to lose

He Likes To Score: one man, one very impressive resume, learn this name… Alexandre Desplat

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Prophète opens in NY/LA on Friday and st elsewhere st elsewhen!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…