Posts tagged confusing
Birdman “Unusual and Boring”
Nov 12th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BIRDMAN has the full, awkward title of BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE), which sums up the whole movie.
It is long, it is unnecessary, it is complicated, and in the end it is obtuse and doesn’t mean anything.
Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, an actor who is trying to rejuvenate his career by mounting and starring in a play on Broadway after he used to be somebody in the movies.
You see, some 20 years ago Riggan starred in three popular movies as a comic-book superhero known as Birdman, but after those successful movies playing the superhero, Riggan said no to making BIRDMAN 4.
Remind you of anyone?
Yes, Keaton himself starred as Batman in the 1989 BATMAN and the 1992 BATMAN RETURNS movies, but not in the third Batman movie in the series, although I am not sure why, but there was controversy about his starring in even the first one, with some critics complaining that his chin was too “weak” to be Batman, who wears a mask, remember?
At any rate, a voice in Riggan’s head says, “We had it all; we gave it away.”
Later in the movie, that voice in Riggan’s head becomes significant.
So, Riggan has written an adaptation of a short story called “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love,” he is directing the play and also starring in it, and the action in the movie takes place mostly in the theater where the play is going to be produced.
The camera work is made to look as if the whole movie was shot in one continuous take, but the long shots sometimes end in a different location and at a different time in the story, which is another example of unnecessary and complicated, right?
The story takes place before the previews of the production, and also appearing are Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, and Naomi Watts, but when scenes turn surrealistic, such as when Riggan floats and flies above the streets of New York City, you might wonder what is going on and why are you there watching this confusing piece of whatever you want to call it.
We see rehearsals for the play, and the acting is terrible.
BIRDMAN goes on way too long, and it is too unusual and boring for my taste.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The November Man “The November Movie”
Sep 15th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE NOVEMBER MAN might not be the worst movie I have seen all year, but it is certainly the worst spy thriller I have seen all year.
It stars Pierce Brosnan as Peter Devereaux, who used to be a CIA agent, and it has the tired old story of someone being pulled out of retirement for one last job.
The story begins in 2008 in Montenegro, and Devereaux is training another agent, a young man named David Mason, part of which training is, “You feel the need for a relationship? Get a dog.”
Mason then botches a mission by not following Devereaux’s orders, and suddenly it is five years later in Switzerland, where Devereaux is living in retirement, and he is notified that a woman in Moscow wants to “come in” because something is scaring her, her name is Natalia, and she is asking only for Devereaux to be the one to rescue her and bring her to safety.
We don’t know it yet, but Natalia and Devereaux have a history together, and he travels to Moscow to rescue her, but the Russians figure out what she is doing, and that mission is badly botched, but not before Natalia gives Devereaux her phone with incriminating photos on it.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Mason is involved in that failed mission, too, and now Devereaux wants revenge, because someone close to him was killed.
Now the story gets really confusing with a Russian named Arkady Federov about to become president of Russia, but there is something in his past that might cause him problems, a woman named Alice Fournier has information about his past, and so Devereaux wants to find her and protect her from others who want her dead.
Confusing? You bet! There are too many people and too many complicated stories going on, along with too many shoot-outs, car chases, and crashes to distract us from trying to figure out the plot.
And we don’t even know what the title means until near the end of the movie when we learn that Devereaux was called the November Man because after he passed through, nothing lived.
In that case, THE NOVEMBER MAN, the movie, could also be called “The November Movie,” because after I saw it, no other movie comes close to living.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Last Exorcism Part II” Not Really
Mar 16th
“Or Is It?”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Last Exorcism Part II has a title that makes you think, whereas the movie itself just makes you cringe or laugh, sometimes simultaneously.
Maybe the filmmakers just wanted to cash in on the popularity of the trend in blockbuster series of movies having two parts to the final episode in the series, but the operative word here is “blockbuster,” which this movie isn’t, and neither was its predecessor.
Anyway, this movie is just as confusing as it is silly, and it continues where the first movie left off, which wasn’t called “Part I.”
Once again, we follow the story of Nell Sweetzer, who is 17 years old and living in Louisiana. Nell is trying to build a new life after escaping the events of the first movie.
Nell is living in New Orleans, and she can’t remember entire portions of the previous months except that she is the last surviving member of her family, and the evil force that once possessed her is back.
In other words, the last exorcism didn’t work, and now it is apparently time for another one.
Or, as a doctor tells Nell, “It’s your life. You get to decide who you are.”
Nell lives in a house with other troubled teenage girls, who are all under the supervision of the doctor.
Nell has a job as a maid at a motel, where a young man named Chris also works, and they act as if they like each other.
However, strange things start happening to Nell.
A radio talks to her, she answers the telephone, and a strange voice says disturbing things to her.
Nell and the other girls go to watch the Mardi Gras parade, and ominous people in unsettling costumes and masks stare at her, and she also thinks she sees her dead father across the street watching her, but of course he suddenly disappears.
Nell also has disturbing and erotic dreams, and so we never know if what we are watching is supposed to be real or just another one of her dreams.
Eventually Nell meets a woman with special powers who tells Nell that the demon that was in her before loves Nell and wants her.
So, naturally this woman arranges for an exorcism to get the demon out of Nell.
The Last Exorcism Part II … or is it?
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”