Posts tagged crazy
“2 Guns” Has More Than 2 Laughs
Aug 10th
“More Than 2 Laughs”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
2 Guns stars Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as 2 guys who appear to be partners, but both of them have a deep undercover secret from the other one.
In fact, for the first half of the movie even the audience doesn’t know if they are cops, crooks, or both.
Washington plays Bobby Trench, sometimes known as Bobby Beans, and Wahlberg plays Michael Stigman, sometimes known as just “Stig.”
When the movie opens they rob a bank in Tres Cruces, Texas, even though Bobby has told Stig the advice of “Never rob a bank across from a diner that has the best doughnuts in three counties.”
And Bobby tells Stig that advice while they are sitting in the diner across from the bank before they rob it.
But then something happens that they didn’t expect, and we get a flashback to one week earlier in Mexico when a drug deal they were involved in didn’t turn out the way they expected, either.
The drug deal gone bad is their motivation for the bank robbery, but whereas they were expecting to steal $3 million of the drug lord’s money, they discover $43 million in the bank, and they don’t know whose money it is. Of course, they don’t really care.
Well, that much money can make you do crazy things, and Bobby and Stig do, which are also unexpected.
Also, the people whose money they stole want the money back, and they will do anything to get it back.
Anything.
And then we get double crosses, murders, shoot-outs, car chases, kidnapings, more murders, and more double crosses.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Mexico, Bobby and Stig even get caught in a cattle stampede, and they are given a deadline of 24 hours to turn over the money.
Only problem is, they don’t know exactly where the money is.
However, Stig tells Bobby, “I got a plan,” but when it appears that the plan didn’t work, Stig says that it was a brilliant plan if nobody expected it.
This excellent movie even has a Mexican standoff in it.
2 Guns ends with 2 good laughs, and a sequel might even already be in the works, which would be called 2 GUNS 2 or maybe 3 Guns if Bobby and Stig can find another partner that they don’t trust, either.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Woman in Black” Is a Movie in Trouble
Feb 11th
A Movie in Trouble
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Woman in Black is a traditional ghost story, and of all the movies about ghosts that have ever been made, this is one of them.
In fact, the only reason to see this yawner with all the tricks and twists and turns of a traditional ghost story is to see Daniel Radcliffe trying to act like an adult in his first starring film role after the “Harry Potter” movies ended in 2011.
Now, seeing as how this is a story about ghosts that wants the audience to take it seriously and realistically, you have to ask yourself one question: “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Well, do you? And then ask yourself more questions.
Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, who works for a law firm in London in either the late 1890s or the early 1900s, whose wife died four years earlier while giving birth to their son, Joseph.
Arthur is sent to a little village in northern England to go through the papers of an old woman who died and report if the law firm should take over the house that she left, which is known as the Eel Marsh House and sits on a piece of land whose only access by road is covered by water whenever the tide comes in.
Arthur is told that this assignment is to prove his worth to the head of the law firm and is his “final warning.”
When Arthur arrives at the village, he gets no cooperation at all from the villagers except for one man, Sam Daily, whose son died many years ago, and whose wife could only be called crazy.
In fact, many children in the village have died, and Arthur eventually learns that there is a connection between their so-called “accidental” deaths and the appearance of a mysterious “woman in black” who is seen occasionally and who has a connection with Eel Marsh House.
Well, naturally Arthur stays at the house to go through all the old woman’s papers, scary things naturally happen, and naturally Arthur sees the woman in black more than once, along with many more mysterious events.
Of course, there are many cheap audio and visual shocks designed to scare the audience, but it is possible not to be scared.
The Woman in Black is a movie in trouble with a really cheap ending.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Like Crazy” an Unconventional Love Story
Nov 26th
“Unconventional Love Story”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Like Crazy has a very simple plot: Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back.
Or does she?
You see, complicating this “simple” love story at first glance is something that we all have encountered at one time or another: bureaucratic red tape, which is more serious in this case because it prevents the girl from getting back into the United States so that she can be reunited with the boy she fell in love with.
Anna is British, Jacob is American, and they meet at a college in Los Angeles where she is studying journalism and he is studying furniture design.
They share a writing class together, and Anna initiates their “meet cute” when she leaves a note to him underneath the windshield wiper of his car in the parking lot.
At the bottom of the note, Anna writes, “P.S. Please don’t think I’m a nutcase.”
So, they get together, discover they have a few things in common, and the first time Anna invites him in for a quiet drink, Jacob remarks that the chair she uses for all her writing is uncomfortable.
Then after we see a series of scenes showing them on numerous dates, having fun, enjoying each other’s company, and obviously falling in love, one day Jacob gives Anna a wooden chair that he designed and built for her, and he shows her that underneath the seat he engraved the words “Like Crazy.”
Well, unfortunately Anna’s student visa is up at the end of the school year, and she is scheduled to go back to England for the summer, but young love prevails, they agree that 2-1/2 months is too long for them to be apart now, and so Anna rashly decides to stay and tells Jacob that they can spend all summer in bed.
However, after Anna does return to England, she gets a job with a magazine, but then when she has a chance to come back to the United States to see Jacob, she is held up in Customs because she had violated her prior visa, and she is immediately sent back to England.
They make half-hearted statements over the telephone to be just friends, but they also both get involved with other people.
Like Crazy is an unconventional love story, and I wasn’t crazy about it.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”