Posts tagged change
“The Host” of Two Minds, One Body
0“Of Two Minds, One Body”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Host is based on the novel written by Stephenie Meyer, who also wrote the books that were the basis for the Twilight series of films, but this one doesn’t have any vampires or werewolves in it, just aliens.
When the movie opens, Earth has been invaded by an alien race that has inhabited almost every human body, and the humans who haven’t been invaded are on the run.
We learn that the aliens don’t change the worlds they invade, but they just occupy and improve them.
Yeah, right.
We see one young woman being chased by aliens and put up a fight, but she is captured.
An alien known as The Seeker looks down at the captured woman and says, “This one wants to live.”
The mind of the young woman, Melanie, played by Saoirse Ronan, stays active even though her body is taken over by an alien mind.
How do we know this? Because we hear the thoughts of both minds, but you can figure out the problem with this gimmick, can’t you?
Both minds are played by the same actress, therefore they sound exactly alike, and when one of the minds starts thinking, we don’t know if it is the human or the alien speaking.
Also, which mind is in control of the body?
Well, the alien mind says to call her Wanderer, and the human mind, Melanie, dreams, which we see and which fills in her back story, but then the Melanie body escapes when she is being interrogated so that the aliens can find other humans.
We can see the difference between aliens and humans, because the aliens all wear white clothes. The aliens also don’t lie, because they trust each other, and therefore it is easy enough for Melanie to borrow an alien’s car and take off in search of other humans.
However, Melanie and Wanderer get into an argument and one of them crashes the car.
Well, to make a long movie short, Melanie and Wanderer find some humans who are led by Melanie’s uncle, there is a three-way love story, but the movie’s pacing is so slow, what could have been a promising story just drags along.
Also, some famous actors in it are unrecognizable.
The Host is of two minds and one body, just like me about this movie.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
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“Admission” a Multicultural and Multigenerational Love Story
0“Multicultural and Multigenerational Love Story”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Admission is full of laughs and enough awkward situations that produce their own laughs that you almost forget that basically you almost overlook the fact that it is also a love story on many different levels.
Tina Fey plays Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton University, Paul Rudd plays John Pressman, the founder and head of an alternative high school in New England, and they had a mutual friend 16 years earlier when they were both classmates at Dartmouth.
Their mutual connection plays an important part in the story.
Portia has been working as an admissions officer so long that her speeches to student applicants are given by rote and amount to not much more than “If this is is the right place for you, then you will get in.”
Portia admits that she is not good with kids, but she gets excited when she learns that the dean of admissions, played by Wallace Shawn, is retiring, and she and another officer are in consideration to replace him, because if she gets the job this will be her last travel season.
John calls Portia and invites her to visit his school, which is having its first graduating class, because he would like her to meet an exceptional student, Jeremiah, who is interested in attending Princeton.
Portia agrees to visit, because her mother, played by Lily Tomlin, lives near the school, and so Portia could also visit her mother.
Well, the students at the New Quest School are so exceptional that they force Portia to change the speech of rote that she always gives, but the most interesting thing about Portia’s visit is that John informs her that Jeremiah is probably Portia’s son, whom she gave up for adoption after she had him in college.
When Portia meets Jeremiah, they have enough in common that Portia becomes convinced that he is her son, but, of course, she and John don’t tell Jeremiah that, and this new complication in Portia’s life changes her situation and behavior back at Princeton.
And Portia does a bad, bad thing because of it.
Given all the complications in the story, the audience can’t tell if it is going to have a happy ending or not, and so I won’t ruin it for you.
Admission is a multicultural love story, and a multigenerational one, too.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
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“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” So Credible, It’s a Cliche
0“So Credible, It’s a Cliche”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone may appear to be fresh and original, but if you examine it closely, you will realize that you have already seen this movie many times before.
It has the same plot as many other movies before it, and all you have to do is change the profession, the setting, and whether you want to make it a drama or a comedy.
Here is the basic plot: Two lifelong friends are in business together, they have a falling out when an edgy newcomer arrives on their turf and starts taking business away from them, one of them seeks the advice of the person, now retired, who got them started in the business in the first place, there is a reconciliation in time for a final resolution, and the ending credits.
In this case, the profession is magic and magicians, the setting is modern-day Las Vegas, and the genre is a comedy.
Oh, and because the two magician partners are men, there is also a woman in the story, but in this case she doesn’t come between them, and their falling out isn’t because of her, but because of professional differences.
And let the record show that the quote of note in this movie is when the title character says about the newcomer, “He’s not a real magician, he doesn’t even have a costume.”
So, to fill in the remaining blanks, Steve Carell plays The Incredible Burt Wonderstone; Steve Buscemi plays the lifelong friend and partner Anton Marvelton; Jim Carrey plays the edgy newcomer Steve Gray; Olivia Wilde plays the love interest Jane, although there are many laughs caused by her being called Nicole; and Alan Arkin plays Rance Holloway, the retired magician who caused Burt and Anton to become magicians in the first place when they were kids.
Incidentally, Arkin seems to be the go-to guy in comedies these days, and he doesn’t let us down in this one.
Now, we will see all the standard magicians’ tricks during the course of the movie, but there is one at the end that you probably have not seen before, the disappearing audience trick.
Afterwards, we get to see how that trick is done, and it is more funny than amazing.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, however, is not only credible, but it’s so credible, it’s a cliche.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”















