Videos
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.”
Calvary – Movie Trailer
Aug 14th
CALVARY’s Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is a good priest who is faced with sinister and troubling circumstances brought about by a mysterious member of his parish. Although he continues to comfort his own fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and reach out to help members of his church with their various scurrilous moral – and often comic – problems, he feels sinister and troubling forces closing in, and begins to wonder if he will have the courage to face his own personal Calvary.
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.