Posts tagged Art House
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.
Casa de Mi Padre – Movie Trailer
Mar 25th
Armando Alvarez (Will Ferrell) has lived and worked on his father’s ranch in Mexico his entire life. As the ranch encounters financial difficulties, Armando’s younger brother Raul (Diego Luna) shows up with his new fiancée, Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez). It seems that Raul’s success as an international businessman means the ranch’s troubles are over as he pledges to settle all debts his father has incurred. But when Armando falls for Sonia, and Raul’s business dealings turn out to be less than legit, all hell breaks loose as they find themselves in a war with Mexico’s most feared drug lord, the mighty Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal).