"Neighbors" Starring Seth Rogen's Hairy Back and Zac Efron's Penis

This article originally appeared in slightly abbreviated form in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad (Complete with a poll - so go smoke it ... vote on it!]

Zac Efron and his dildo The new frat boy comedy NEIGHBORS wastes no time with foreplay. The movie begins in the middle of a quickie between husband Mac (Seth Rogen) and wife Kelly (Rose Byrne, because all schlubby guys in movies deserve hot girls. It's, like, the rules of showbiz) who haven't had sex in too long. But soon it's coitus interruptus. Their daughter Stella, the worlds cutest baby (seriously cute - so gifable), is staring right at them spoiling the mood. 

The movie doesn't waste time with its story either, rushing right in. Mac and Kelly are first time homeowners and they think they're getting gay neighbors (yay, property values!) only to realize that a fraternity is moving in next door. Mac's response when he first sees Teddy, the alpha dog of the fraternity on the front lawn:

"That's the sexiest guy I've ever seen. It's like something a gay guy would create in a laboratory." 

Sidebar Confession: I don't really get Zac Efron. He's a decent if ungreat actor but my fellow gays are so obsessive about him that I sometimes worry they haven't noticed that the vast majority of young actors are gorgeous and in good physical shape. We can set our sights a little higher to include enormous talent in the mix, too! I'm just saying but I'm not minding. Just a few short years ago the people were obsessing over Taylor Lautner so... UPGRADE.

Bro shenanigans after the jump!

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Review: Tom Hardy is "Locke"

Here's Michael C. with a new review...
 

Is it too early to declare Tom Hardy in possession of one of the all time great movie voices? As the title character in Steven Knight’s Locke, Hardy speaks in an elegant Welsh timbre that brings to mind a slowly unraveling Richard Burton. It is an endless pleasure to listen to, which is fortunate since we have little else to latch onto through Locke’s 85 minute running time. The story begins late one night with Tom Hardy’s Ivan Locke leaving work in his BMW and follows him in real time on one long fraught drive to London. Just a man in his car trying to prop up his crumbling life, armed only with his voice and the digital Rolodex on his dashboard.

It seems like a twisted joke to cast Tom Hardy in such a role. From Bronson to Warrior to Dark Knight Rises, Hardy has proved himself to be one of our most intensely physical actors. Trapping him in the front seat of a car for the whole running time might as well be putting him in a straight jacket. Yet the casting turns out to be a masterstroke since that caged animal energy charges what might otherwise be a tedious stylistic workout with a surprising amount of tension...

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Tribeca Is a Wrap for The Film Experience

Thanks for following along with our Tribeca adventures and remember to follow Glenn, Diana, Jason, Abstew and myself on twitter for continual movie madness. Here are the 40 films we reviewed this year in alpha order...

a still from Der Samurai

5 to 7 (Diana)
About Alex (Glenn)
Alex in Venice (Glenn)
The Bachelor Weekend -Irish comedy (Nathaniel)
Bad Hair -Venezuelan childhood drama (Nathaniel)
Beneath the Harvest Sky (Glenn)
Boulevard -with Robin Williams (Nathaniel)
Bright Days Ahead (Abstew)
The Canal -horror (Jason)
Chef -starry indie from Jon Favreau (Abstew)
Dior and I (Glenn)
Electric Slide -hipster 80s crime drama (Nathaniel)
Every Secret Thing -mystery with Dakota Fanning (Nathaniel)

Extraterrestrial - horror (Jason)
Gabriel - with Rory Culkin (Abstew)
Glass Chin - with Corey Stoll (Diana)
Goodbye To All That (Diana)
In Your Eyes - Joss Whedon online film (Jason)
Indigenous -horror (Jason)
Just Before I Go -Courteney Cox directing (Glenn)
Life Partners (Jason)
Loitering With Intent -starry indie (Nathaniel)
Lucky Them (Abstew)
Mala Mala -drag documentary (Glenn)
Match - with Patrick Stewart (Nathaniel)
Ne Me Quitte Pas (Diana)
Night Moves -from Kelly Reichardt (Glenn)

Jack O'Connell (300: Rise of an Empire, Starred Up, Unbroken) is the next big thing Now: In the Wings of the World Stage -Kevin Spacey & Shakespeare (Abstew)
The One I Love (Glenn)
Preservation (Jason)
Der Samurai -queer horror (Nathaniel)
Something Must Break (Jason)
Starred Up -prison drama (Abstew)
Summer of Blood -hipster horror (Jason)
Third Person (Diana)
Vara: A Blessing -foreign melodrama (Nathaniel)
Venus in Fur -Roman Polanski's adaptation (Glenn)
X/Y (Glenn)
Zero Motivation -Israeli military comedy (Diana) 
Zombeavers -horror (Diana) 

previously in festival coverage:
forty-two films from Sundance
next:  Amir @ Hot Docs / Diana @ Cannes

Review: Nymphomaniac: Parts I & II

Michael C. here fresh from a four hour romp through Lars von Trier's sexual subconscious. First a review, then a hot shower. Or five.

It’s tough to think of a recent film more resistant to review than Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac. Not only to does it vacillate wildly in quality between brilliant and dreadful, but it also feels redundant to review a movie so thoroughly engaged in the act of reviewing itself.  

We are first introduced to Charlotte Gainsborg’s Joe laying beaten and unconscious in an alley. When Stellan Skarsgård’s Seligman picks her up off the ground and gives her a place to rest, she narrates her lifelong saga of sexual exploration to him by way of lengthy explanation for her current state. [More]

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

This post was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. Nathaniel is on vacation but it is reprinted here with their permission

"On the left" Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) warns a stranger as he jogs past him at The Mall in Washington D.C. Moments later, "On the left" again. "On the left" And a wave of quiet laughter starts rolling in the theater as it dawns on the crowd - the super soldier, better known as Captain America, is lapping this man repeatedly. It's the perfect soft joke to open Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It's not hilarious, really, but it's warm and good natured... neighborly even. Which could also describe this fish-out-of-water superhero. Steve Rogers isn't of our time. He's 90 years old, actually, but he still looks like Chris Evans because being frozen in a block of ice for 60+ years is apparently it's own kind of fountain of youth. [More...]

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