Posts tagged Ben Falcone
“Bad Words” A Joy to Watch
Apr 9th
Posted by Channel 1 Networks in Hotshots Movie Reviews
“A Joy to Watch”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BAD WORDS is an edgy comedy starring Jason Bateman as Guy Trilby, a man who is competing in the national Spelling Bee competition even though he is 40 years old.
Bateman also directed this movie, which has been called an “instant hit.”
You see, Guy discovered a loophole in the rules which allows him to compete against youngsters and be able to spell obscure words correctly, which doesn’t please the directors of the competition, much less the parents of the other kids on whom the parents have spent money for tutors.
At the beginning of the movie, Guy says, “I’m not that good at a lot of stuff,” but his job as a proofreader allows him to be good at spelling a lot of words.
So, we see Guy compete at the 15th annual regional Spelling Bee in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, where he shows that he has no remorse in intimidating fellow competitors to get them too flustered to even stand up and try to spell the next word.
One of the rules is that contestants have to be sponsored by a nationally recognized news service, and Guy’s sponsor is an Internet organization whose writer, Jenny Widgeon, is accompanying Guy in order to write a story about him.
However, Guy is very reticent with Jenny, and he won’t talk about himself, which causes Jenny to call in some favors and get a background check on him, which reveals some interesting information.
So, Guy and Jenny move on to the national competition in California, where his reputation has preceded him, and the director, Dr. Bernice Deagan, played by Allison Janey, tries to thwart Guy in every way she can.
She arranges for Guy’s hotel accommodation to be a supply closet, and even though the words given to the competitors are supposed to be random and fair, she manages to secretly circumvent that and tells the angry parents and her subordinates that she will step down as director if Guy makes it to the final round.
Meanwhile, Guy has taken an interest in an Indian boy in the competition, mainly because the kid has a hotel room with a minibar, the kid is eager to become friends with Guy, maybe too eager, and Guy teaches the kid some lessons about life.
BAD WORDS is a joy to watch.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Bad Words – Movie Trailer
Apr 8th
Posted by Channel 1 Networks in Movie Trailers
Jason Bateman makes his feature directorial debut with the subversive comedy Bad Words. Mr. Bateman stars as Guy Trilby, a 40-year-old who finds a loophole in the rules of The Golden Quill national spelling bee and decides to cause trouble by hijacking the competition. Contest officials, outraged parents, and overly ambitious 8th graders are no match for Guy, as he ruthlessly crushes their dreams of victory and fame. As a reporter (Kathryn Hahn of We’re the Millers) attempts to discover his true motivation, Guy finds himself forging an unlikely alliance with a competitor: awkward 10-year-old Chaitanya (Rohan Chand of Homeland), who is completely unfazed by Guy’s take-no-prisoners approach to life.
“Enough Said” Title Says It Best
Oct 25th
Posted by Dan Culberson in Hotshots Movie Reviews
“Title Says It Best”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Enough Said is a romantic comedy that is the very definition of quirky, which is a synonym of idiosyncratic, which means eccentric or peculiar of constitution or temperament and also an individualizing characteristic or quality.
In other words, it is hard to define.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as Eva, a divorced masseuse who carries her massage table in the trunk of her car to her clients’ homes, and we see three of those clients throughout the movie as a running gag, or should that be a driving gag, or should that be a massaging gag.
Eva has been divorced 10 years, and she has a teenage daughter, Ellen, who is going away to college in the fall.
Eva’s best friend is Sarah, played by Toni Collette, and at the beginning of the movie Eva goes to a party with Sarah and her husband, at which Eva says to Sarah, “There’s not one man at this party that I’m attracted to.”
However, Eva does meet a man at the party, Albert, played by James Gandolfini, who has been divorced for four years and who also has a teenage daughter who is going off to college in the fall.
Eva also meets a woman at the party, Marianne, who is a poet and who becomes a new client for Eva.
Well, Albert likes Eva enough that he calls her and asks her out to dinner, and Eva likes Albert enough that she accepts.
Now, maybe this is how first dates are conducted in California, but at the end of the date when Albert drives Eva home, he doesn’t even get out of the car and walk her up to her front door, shaking hands with her in the front seat.
At any rate, Eva tells Sarah that she thought it was a very good date, and now she finds Albert kind of sexy, enough so that they continue dating and doing more than shaking hands.
Much more.
Meanwhile, Eva’s new client, Marianne, enjoys being with Eva so much that she wants to become friends with Eva, saying that she doesn’t have many close friends whom she can talk to, which mostly consists of bad-mouthing her ex-husband.
Well, you can see where this going, can’t you, especially when you learn that Marianne also has a daughter going away to college.
Enough Said.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”