Thighs Wide Shut

The 25th Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Anniversary Concerts – Night 1
Madison Square Garden
Rocktober 29th

this once in a zillion lifetimes concert contained the criznazzyiest of criznazzy collaborations and a super-sized sizzling sing-a-long setlist that set everyone’s ears ablaze and heads into a daze (see belows, complied by Thighlandium’s favorite son, Mr Pibbums), so much so that a listing of the who and what does all the talking and the walking that anyone would ever need to say or walk about the greatestestetstesteteststest 5 hour and 40ish minute concert wees have ever beens to and evers will. great googly mooogly!!!

Jerry Lee Lewis

‘Whole Lotta Shakin’

Crosby, Stills & Nash

‘Woodstock’

‘Marrakesh Express’

‘Almost Cut My Hair’

‘Love Has No Pride’ (Bonnie Raitt)
w/Bonnie Raitt

‘Midnight Rider’ (Allman Bros)
w/Bonnie Raitt

‘The Pretender’ (Jackson Browne)
w/Jackson Browne

‘Mexico’ (James Taylor)
w/James Taylor

‘Love The One You’re With’
w/James Taylor

‘Rock n’ Roll Woman’ (Buffalo Springfield)

‘Teach Your Children’
w/James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt

Paul Simon

‘Diamonds On The Soles of Her Shoes’

‘Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard’

‘You Can Call Me Al’

‘The Wanderer’ (Dion & the Belmonts)
w/Dion

‘Here Comes The Sun’ (The Beatles)
w/Graham Nash and David Crosby

‘Late In The Evening’

‘Two People In The World’ (The Imperials)
w/L’il Anthony & The Imperials

Simon & Garfunkel

‘Sound of Silence’

‘Mrs Robinson’

‘Not Fade Away’ (Buddy Holly)

‘The Boxer’

‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’

‘Cecilia’

(this is udder BS, since they needed their own 5+ hour set)

Stevie Wonder

‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ (Bob Dylan)

‘Uptight’

‘I Was Made To Love You’

‘For Once In My Life’

‘Signed Sealed Delivered’

‘Boogie On Reggae Woman’

‘Tracks of My Tears’ (Smokey Robinson)
w/Smokey Robinson

‘Mercy Mercy Me’ (Marvin Gaye)
w/John Legend

‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ (Michael Jackson)
w/John Legend

‘The Thrill Is Gone’ (BB King)
w/BB King

‘Living for the City’

‘Higher Ground’
w/Sting

‘Roxanne’ (The Police)
w/Sting

‘Superstition’
w/Jeff Beck

Bruce Springsteen
& the E Street Band

‘Tenth Avenue Freeze Out’

‘Hold On I’m Coming’ (Sam & Dave)
w/Sam Moore

‘Soul Man’ (Sam & Dave)
w/Sam Moore

‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’
w/Tom Morello

‘Fortunate Son’ (CCR)
w/John Fogerty

‘Proud Mary’ (CCR)
w/John Fogerty

‘Pretty Woman’ (Roy Orbison)
w/John Fogerty

‘Jungleland’

‘Fine Fine Boy’ (Darlene Love)
w/Darlene Love

‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ (The Crystals)
w/Darlene Love

‘London Calling’ (The Clash)
w/Tom Morello

‘Badlands’
w/Tom Morello

‘You May Be Right’ (Billy Joel)
w/Billy Joel

‘Only The Good Die Young’ (Billy Joel)
w/Billy Joel

‘New York State of Mind’ (Billy Joel)
w/Billy Joel

‘Born To Run’
w/Billy Joel

‘Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher’ (Jackie Wilson)
w/Billy Joel, John Fogerty, Jackson Browne, Tom Morello, Sam Moore and Darlene Love

my/our lord. we may never be able to fully comprehend that bestness that befell our be-eyes & be-ears be-last night. bi the gay, if you really want to know our thoughts on the show, czech our Twitter feed from last noche, and do the same tonight for Part 2 w/U2, Urethra, Metallica and Clapton’s replacement, Jeff Beck

The Cove
A Higher Porpoise In Life
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There’s something awfully rotten goings on in Japan, and not many people know about it, well, that is until now, with the release of the call to arms, engrossing and sometimes gross doc The Cove. In the tiny coastal town of Taiji, dolphins in their natural habitat are captured, the best being sold off to seaquariums around the globe, and the rest, in a secluded cove (we smell a title here!), are slaughtered and turned into meat (passed off as whale meat) and distributed to national grocery stores and local schools. Not only are these killings harsh and pointless to our smarty jones friends of the sea, but the meat they’re doling out contains high levels of Mercury, and the last time we checked, Mercury is hactually less healthy for you than triple fried fried chicken in gravy. And guess what, the people of Taiji make a lot of effin money off these dolphins and will do anything within their abusive powers to prevent anyone from meddling with their affairs, dastardly practices and giant pocket books, at home and abroad

Enter Ric O’Barry, the OG trainer of the dolphins that appeared in the beloved 60s TV show Flipper. Flipper‘s success single-handedly launched the world’s obsession with dolphins, and gave rise to places like Sea World, where we watch them do stoopid silly tricks with beach balls and splashing water. At first, O’Barry took advantage of the craze, but as time wore on, he realized that his aquatic friends really really really loathed being caged up for our amusement (there’s an unforgettable and heartbreaking story he tells about one of the Flipper dolphins) and decided to take action on their behalf. His crusade has recently taken him to Taiji and it’s hidden cove, but this battle is almos as hard as fighting Nick Rivers in an underwater bar

Enter the dragon photographer turned director Louie Psihoyos, who along with O’Barry assembles a crack team of sound and videographers, divers and even ILM special effects gurus to investigate further and try to expose these atrocities to the world. Mission set, and thru a giant game of cat and mouse played with the townpeeps, done up in a thrilling Man On Wire style (but there aint no reenactments here kids!), mission accomplished! That doesn’t mean that they’ve solved the problem, but they did get the message out, and the resulting documentary will make you enraged and want to join the cause. The Cove is truly a muss see for anyone who has eyes (people w/o eyes need not apply), which means if you see one doc this year, make it this one (who knows what else comes out this fall, but it’s gonna be hard to top this), and if you see two docs this year, make it the one below that’s not in Kansas anymo

Carpathianbaggers: ‘phin activist Hayden Panettiere and her trip to Taiji makes a brief appearance in the film, but the more impressive cameo comes about when the boys go to the ILM studios to pick up some toys for their trip, and standing in the background starring them down is none other than (the painting of) Vigo from Ghostbusters II!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Shiow

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
All Up In The Down Underground
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

While Peter Weir‘s costumed dramas may have put Australia on the movie map (before Crocodile Dundee erased it), they didn’t pave the way quite like the Z-movie jiggle fests, decapitation sprees and redonk stunt spectaculars that came before em in the early 70s and 80s. George Miller‘s Mad Max may be the only one any of us have ever heard of, but after watching Mark Hartley‘s overloaded (in a good way) doc on the subject, you’ll quickly want to rectify that (of course, only after saving the dolphins!). All the interviewees are colorful and overly candid, with such Outback luminaries chiming in as Barry Humphries, George Lazenby, Rod Taylor, Susannah York, Owen Lars’ dad Cliegg and numerous others folk (including stuntman extraordinaire Grant Page) that none of us have ever had the pleasure of knowing + some Yanks who were dragged across the world to bring some ‘class’ to their industry, like Jamie Lee Curtis, Dennis Hopper, Stacy Keach, as well as superfan Quentin Tarantino, who’s enthusiasm here is a plus, when it’s usually the opposite. In a bust-a-nutshell, NQH: TW,USoO is an absolute BLAST (and the wursted title we’ve ever tried to abbreviate). There probably won’t be another film out this summer that contains as much non-stop action, suspense, horror and romance (read boobies, and LOTS of em) as NQH: TW,USoO did, and that’s a 986% guarantee or your money crack! If you have an attention span shorter than your dad’s penis then come one, come all over the place and see this love letter to the early free-wheeling days of Australian cinema!

Women Glow & Men Plunder: had TWS.org been alive and well-hung, living in Australia during their new wave of cinema, there woulda been so much NSFW love on this site that yer palms woulda been hairier than Borat’s nephew Boltok, esp with lovely ladies like Deborah Gray, Cheryl Rixon, Lynda Stoner and Abigail gettin their yam-yams out again & again!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

docs Da Cove and Not Quite Hollywood dish out medicine today in NY/LA only, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Brüno
NutRageous
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Were you a fan of HBO’s Da Ali G Show? If no, stop reading this and get your f%cking act together, cause outside of the British Office, there hadn’t been comedy that refreshing since the salad days of ZAZ. If yer answer is the correct one, yes, then you already know that Sacha Baron Cohen‘s Brüno character was secretly the mos delicious and high-larious outta the three of them, and if that’s yer mode of thinking, yer not only a berry wise person, but you’ll immensely enjoy this big screen adventure of Austria’s queen of nicht, nichts. In retrospect, Borat the movie is genius to the creme de^menthe degree, but when we first saw it, it did fall a bit short of our expectations, as it didn’t quite deliver as golden as it did on the TV show. Well Brüno not only comes thru with flying rainbow colors, but hactually sirpasses the small screen’s frantic antics and then sum. Everything is bigger, moist importantly the laffs and the dildos, and whether yer revolted or crying from him giving a BJ to a ghost, it’s kinda hard to not have a wide smile from start to finish (c’mon gay people, stop being so offended at stuff that’s intentionally offensive, but not mean spirited. even we jews larfed insanely at his use of ‘Auschwitz’ as the German word for ‘ass’). If you think otherwise, then peas go ahead and try yer hand at something a bit more plebeian and mind-dumbing like any comedy starring Will Ferrell or one that hails from the camp (or supposed camp) of Apatown (anyone else think Funny People looks unfunny and unpeople?). Why so serious? Grow a pair and let Brüno tickle them

Eurotrash Can Do: rawk out to ‘Crank It Up’ by Scooter [d], which served as the theme song to Funkyzeit mit Brüno

Verdictgo: Breast/Penis In Show

Brüno is currently slaying at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Whatever Works
Seriously, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Woody Allen‘s European vacation, including the savory Match Point, the sultry Vicky Christina Barcelona, the fun poop Scoop, and the best of the lot, the underloved Cassandra’s Dream, was such a rousing success that it made the Griswold’s jaunt to the same continent look like a staycation. We hoped the Woodman’s sojourn would never end, but all good things come in their pants, we mean an end, and it was only a splatter of time before he returned to his native New York and park his paranoia. The question is, would his next NY-centric film continue on this new creative march, or juss be more of the same lameness that pre-littered his passport stamps, likeMelinda and Melinda, Small Time Crooksand anything else that was similar to Anything Else. And the answer is… same lameness

The pairing of Larry David and Allen, for his 40th gig as a writer/director, seemed like a stroke of genius, so how then did the finished product turn out to be such a whiff? Slain and pimple, Whatever Works doesn’t really work. It’s mildly amusing, but devoid of any real laffs, even if you wait the entire movie in vain for em. The script was supposedly an old one (is that why it feels so dated?) he had written with Zero Mostel in mind, but Mostel died before he could get it in motion, and it’s probably for the best, as it leaves the wonderful Front as the two’s only cinematic collaboration. David, who’s not really an actor, does a fine enuff job as misanthrope Boris Yellnikoff, but the role, basically a more perturbed version of Allen’s usual nervous nelly screen persona, doesn’t seem to fit into the world that the rest of the movie’s characters live in. Them other characters are sunny and delightful, and the actors playing them try their best with what they’re given. There’s Evan Rachel Wood, basically doing an Amy Adams impression as Boris’ southern Lolita belle Melodie St. Ann Celestine, Patricia Clarkson, as Wood’s conservative mother turned sexually awakened artist, Ed Begley Jr, as her uptight dad who has his own sexual awakening, and The Tudors‘ dreamboat Henry Cavill, who tries to steal Melodie away from Boris. Christopher Evan Welch also gets to show his face after playing the part of VCB‘s narrator. Yet w/o Boris in the picture, the film wouldn’t even be mildly amusing, it would be z-musing, as in snoozzzzzzzzzzzzzzze fest ’87

So, what happened here? Did Woody loose his resurgent mojo on the flight back to JFK? It’s kinda hard to question a man who puts something new out each and every year, even if it doesn’t exactly feel new. Spankfuly, for his next joint Woody’s going back to the old country, and dragging Kidman, Watts, Brolin, Hopkins and Pinto along with him. We haven’t given up completely on his ability to churn out quality NY stories, so for now we’ll juss say, cheerio, but be back soon!

Goying With Our Emotions: NY Mag has a nice little article about the dying brand of Jewish humor that Woody and Larry bring to the table, but outside of Heebs, we doubt many people really care. the only thing goys really need to know about Jewish humor (that will never die) is some good ole Yiddish words and terms, so they too can kvetch like the chosen peoples, or at least understand what they’ve kvetching about. here’s 40 words to get ya started, and here’s two of the greatestest posters of balls thymes

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Til Megadeth Do Us Part
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

There are so many documentaries out there about those who have made it, but what about those who are less fortunate, who haven’t quite made it and are forever stuck in obscurity still trying to get to the top? Gawd bless the dreamers, for they give us hope that anything’s possible, even when it isn’t. That’s the story of Canadian trash metal band Anvil, and although Sacha Gervasi(writer of The Terminal and an upcoming Herve Villechaize biopic)’s doc is the story of Anvil (sez so in the title), it’s more about the story of Anvil today than the complete history of Anvil. Guess there’s more humor and sadness looking at their current state of affairs than dwelling on their past, when fame was in their grasp, but were never able to grab hold of it. The line-up has changed over the years, but the core (Jew) duo of lead singer/guitarist Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and drummer
Robb Reiner juss don’t know the definition of quitting, even if that’s what they probably should have done ages ago. Now that the film has found a nice sized audience, setting the twitterverse a blaze with gushing mentions, and the band has been asked to open for AC/DC on a couple of dates next month, quitting no longer is a viable option. Yet when the attention dies down, will they go right back to shmosville? Anvil is mos def worth a peepers, but if yer looking for bigger dreams and perhaps even more heartbreak, czech out The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Chasing Ghosts and In The Realms of The Unreal (and if yer really hard up, here’s a nice list of docs to keep ya busy)

Burn In URL: be sure to czech out Anvil’s website, which looks like it was hobbled together by Mennonites from 1807 (we mean that as a complement), which includes hot merchandise and medium rare photos

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Whatever Works is not working today in NY/LA only, while Anvil is hammering it home in select cities across the country

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Edge of Love
Couples Retreated
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

It’s WWII and London’s being bombarded by Germany. A beautiful young girl (Keira Knightley) takes refuge in an Underground Tube station, while she awaits desperately for the return of her true love, an average Joe solider, fighting on the front lines on mainland Europe. Sounds purty much like the borefest that was Atonement (and to some extent, A Very Long Engagement), dunnit?

With John Maybury‘s The Edge of Love (with a script by Knightley’s mum Sharman Macdonald… who also suffers from mosquito bites) that’s where the similarities with Atonement end, since her boy (the always creepy Cillian Murphy) comes home after the war, to Wales where she waits, and instead of an annoyingly jealous lil sister gumming up the works of our lovers, it’s her real life (yep, this is a truish story!) childhood poet pal Dylan Thomas (Brothers & Sisters‘ Matthew Rhys, a semi-doppelganger for James McAvoy) doing more damage than a close-up of Glenn Close. Thomas is married to casual Mondays-Fridays Sienna Miller, but his heart belongs to Knightley (she’s a bit conflicted herself, but ultimately stands by her man). The two couples live and booze it up before Murphy’s deployed (the ladies share a bath, but sadly it’s not a dirty one), and when he comes home shell shocked, their relationships and friendships strain more than 89 tons of spaghetti in the world’s largest strainer

The four lead performances are golden (even if we’re all suffering from K Knightley period piece fatigue), the production values are top notch, and the settings are simply gorgeous (book us on the first flight headed to Wales please!), but when the story hits its post-war patch, it lost much of the flavor it built up along the way. Yet we stuck with The Edge of Love to the very end (involving the lowest-keyed courtroom scene we’ve viddyed in ages), which cannot be said of Atonement (we kissed it goodbye after the first act). So is Love Knightley’s atonement to us all for Atonement? Without that irksome typewriter score, we’d have to say yes

They Shoots, He Scores!: the film’s luscious soundtrack was overseen by the brilliant Angelo Badalamenti, a frequent David Lynch collaborator. Some of the songs in the film were performed by the likes of Siouxsie Sioux, Suggs from Madness and even Knightley herself! Lisa Stansfield appears in the film, but does not lend her pipes

Verdictgo: it borders a lil bit on Meritville, but it also has badges so Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Tokyo!
Three Stories Low
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Michel Gondry slowly turns a girl into a chair for no reason, Leos Carax lets a bearded creature on the loose and then puts him on trial, while Joon-ho Bong makes a shut-in stack pizza boxes and then finally go outside. Yep, that’s the gist of the three pointless lil stories that are being spun in Tokyo!, a head scratching affair that shoulda been called Tokyo? What more is there to say? Nothing, cept you should Netflix Paris, Je T’Aime instead, where the shorts are shorter and the hit to miss ratio is even, not all misses

Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges

The Edge of Love opens in LA today, NY next week, and elsewhere elsewhen, while Tokyo! is currently playing in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…