Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
Magic in the Moonlight “The Magic of Love”
Sep 2nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT is Woody Allen’s latest film, and it has been getting moderately mixed reviews.
Some reviewers generally liked it, some generally disliked it, but I liked it a lot.
It is a romantic comedy, but it contains more romance than comedy.
And if you believe that Allen has his ups and downs in the movies he makes, I believe this film is one of his ups.
It begins in 1928 in Berlin, and we see the stage act of a renowned Chinese magician named Wei Ling Soo, who is actually an Englishman, Stanley Crawford, played by Colin Firth and wearing elaborate Chinese stage makeup and clothing.
The magician makes a live elephant on stage disappear, he cuts a woman assistant in half and proves that her body is in two parts, and he himself disappears inside a box and suddenly reappears onstage sitting in a chair that he swivels around, which will be used again later in the story to a nice effect.
Stanley brags that he invented that last trick himself, and Stanley is a suffering, egotistical, obnoxious person in real life who ridicules anyone who claims to have psychic powers.
When Stanley is told about a young pretty woman who holds seances and makes contact with the dead, he says, “A pretty face never hurt a cheap swindler.”
Stanley is told about Sophie Baker, an American played by Emma Stone, by Howard Burkan, a childhood friend of Stanley’s and also a magician, although not as successful as Stanley is.
Howard says that he can’t spot any trickery in Sophie’s claims, and he invites Stanley to accompany him to the south of France, where Howard believes Sophie will be trying to fleece a rich widow out of a lot of money.
Of course, Stanley jumps at the chance to expose another public phony, and he goes to France using an assumed name to do so.
However, while Sophie conducts a seance and establishes contact with the wealthy widow’s dead husband, neither he nor Howard can find any evidence to expose Sophie.
And when Sophie tells Stanley about things in his life that she could never have guessed, he starts to believe in her powers and to fall in love with her.
MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT might have you believing in the magic of love.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Calvary “Depressing Through and Through”
Aug 18th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CALVARY has been called a “dark comedy,” and I certainly agree that it is dark, but I found nothing in it that I would call a comedy.
It stars Breendan Gleeson, an Irish actor who has made some terrific comedies, and in this film he plays Father James, a Catholic priest in a small town in Ireland who hears something startling at the beginning of the film while he is holding Confession.
The person that Father James is listening to tells him about being sexually abused by a priest starting at seven years old and then says in a calm, steady voice, “I’m going to kill you, Father.”
Now, Father James was not the abuser, he is told that he is innocent, but he is also told that is the reason Father James is going to be killed, along with when and where his death will take place.
Later, Father James is advised that the choice is his whether or not to go to the police, and he does go to the police, but for a reason other than to report the threat on his life.
Father James says that he knows who the person is, but later in the film he says that he doesn’t.
So, for the rest of the film we watch Father James conduct his priestly duties and go about the business of living his life while we in the audience try to figure out who the possible killer is and what Father James is going to do when the time comes.
Is it Jack the butcher, whose wife has been knocked about, but not by Jack, or so he claims, but by someone she has been seeing, and not so secretly?
Is it the person Jack believes is mistreating his wife or one of her many boyfriends that person says she has?
Is it Michael Fitzgerald, who is rich and has a nice home, but is now alone after everyone around him has left him?
Is it the owner of the pub where everyone goes to forget their troubles and who seems to have a grudge against Father James?
Could it even be someone we don’t see until the time and place of the death threat?
CALVARY is depressing to begin with, in the middle, and even more depressing after it is over.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Get On Up “Loud and Proud”
Aug 14th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
GET ON UP is the story of James Brown, known at various times in his life and career as The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, The Godfather of Soul, or as he preferred to be called by strangers and even friends, “Mr. Brown.”
Brown is played remarkably by Chadwick Boseman, expect him to be nominated for an Academy Award in 2015, and don’t be surprised if he wins one for Best Actor.
TIME magazine said that “From 1958 to 1986, [Brown] landed 116 singles on BILLBOARD’s Hot 100 singles chart, and their irresistible grooves have since been sampled on about 4,000 songs.”
Mick Jagger is one of the producers of the film, and he has said that he copied a lot of Brown’s moves for his performances from what Brown did so remarkably on stage.
Incidentally, one of the most interesting scenes in the movie is when Brown and the Rolling Stones appeared together during a performance and Brown’s manager, played by Dan Aykroyd, tells Brown that the Stones will be has-beens within a year.
When Brown walks off stage after his performance, he passes Jagger, who has been watching Brown from the wings, and Brown says, “Welcome to America.”
The movie jumps around in time to show Brown’s life as a little boy being abused by his father and abandoned by his mother to how he developed an interest in music to how he formed his first singing group, The Famous Flames, with his lifelong friend Bobby Byrd to his many brushes with the law and many relationships with women, but mostly to his many performances of his most famous songs in various performances in various locations around the world.
The editing is almost surreal when it cuts between performances of the same song at different times and locations.
We see how Brown overcame the rules that had already been written in the music business and how they mistreated Black performers, we see how Brown broke away from the Famous Flames and became his own star performer, and we see how Brown mistreated his own band and those around him who loved him.
But most of all, we see outstanding performances that earned him the right to be called “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.”
GET ON UP can bring tears to your eyes.