Posts tagged Bill Paxton
Nightcrawler – Movie Trailer
Nov 12th
NIGHTCRAWLER is a pulse-pounding thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling — where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Rene Russo as Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou thrives. In the breakneck, ceaseless search for footage, he becomes the star of his own story.
Nightcrawler “Good and Creepy”
Nov 12th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
NIGHTCRAWLER is a fascinating and dark movie that affects you the way passing an accident on the highway does: You want to look at it, but you feel a little bit guilty in doing so.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Louis Bloom, a petty thief who does come across an automobile accident in Los Angeles, and the experience changes his life so much that he becomes a different man because of it.
It is the middle of the night, Lou stops his car to observe what is happening at the scene, he watches a videographer record footage for morning news programs, and when he sees the footage on television, Lou decides that he can do that, and so he buys himself a camcorder and a police scanner and sets out to become a freelance videographer specializing in accidents and crime scenes that happen in the middle of the night.
Lou makes his first sale for $250, and when the news director tells him he has a good eye, Lou says, “I’m a very, very quick learner; you’ll be seeing me again.”
A carjacking crime wave going on in the city causes business to be so good for Lou that he hires a young homeless man for $30 a night to be his assistant.
Rick’s job is to ride shotgun, watch the traffic, give directions, and handle a second camera for different angles at the scenes.
Well, one night Lou and Rick come onto a crime scene that will change their lives.
It involves shootings during a home invasion, and because Lou and Rick arrive on the scene before the police do, they see the shooters leave the house, and Lou even records them.
Then Lou goes inside the house to get exclusive footage of the victims while Rick stays outside and stands watch.
Lou has no compunction against moving evidence inside the house for better camera angles before the police arrive and gets away with it.
For now.
Lou establishes a business relationship with the news director of one of the TV stations, who is Nina, played by Rene Russo, but he would like their relationship to be more than just business.
Rick wants more money, the police question Lou, and then all hell breaks loose.
NIGHTCRAWLER is fascinating to watch, very good, but very very very very creepy.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Million Dollar Arm “Thousand Dollar Movie”
May 22nd
(“Thousand Dollar Movie”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
MILLION DOLLAR ARM is a comedy about sports, and it is about an underdog who eventually achieves success.
It is also a Disney movie, and so you might think it could practically write itself, but it didn’t, because it is based on a true story.
Jon Hamm plays JB Bernstein, a sports agent who along with his partner, Aash, have been on their own for three years, and they can’t manage to sign a new client.
In fact, all their good clients are retired.
At the beginning of the movie, JB is trying to sign a professional football player named Popo, but Popo says that he wants a $1 million bonus in cash up front.
JB tells Popo, “What? I can’t do that. No one can do that.”
The agency’s situation is so bad that Aash says he doesn’t think he can keep doing it.
So, one night JB is bored and flipping through the television channels when he comes across a cricket match and “Britain’s got Talent,” in which Susan Boyle amazed Great Britain with her singing.
JB gets the idea of combining the two concepts and that leads him to going to India and conducting a talent competition in the hopes of finding a cricket player who can be trained to pitch a baseball and eventually become a professional baseball player in the United States.
And the first half of the movie is about JB in India trying to find two pitchers to bring back to the U.S. to be trained and be good enough to get a tryout with a professional baseball team through the competition he created called “Million Dollar Arm,” promising $1 million to whoever wins and succeeds.
So, the second half of the movie is about the two leading contenders, Rinku and Dinesh, being trained in Los Angeles in a sport they know nothing about.
You see, JB believes that if he is successful, he will have created a market with a billion new fans of American baseball in India rooting for their homeboy.
Alan Arkin is also in the movie playing the same cranky oldtimer that he seems to always play these days, and Lake Bell is also in it as a potential love interest for JB.
MILLION DOLLAR ARM is not much more than just a thousand dollar movie.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
