Posts tagged Elizabeth Banks
“The Next Three Days” One Terrific Thrill Ride
Nov 25th
“One Terrific Thrill Ride”
THE NEXT THREE DAYS is an exciting thriller that has you on the edge of your seat trying to guess what happens next and wondering if it is going to turn out the way you want it to.
Now, if you heard that it’s about a married couple in Pittsburgh, he’s a college professor and she’s his wife, you would probably pass on seeing it, right?
Right, but you would be wrong.
Russell Crowe plays John, Elizabeth Banks plays Lara, and they are anything but ordinary.
You see, three years earlier Lara was arrested, tried, and convicted of murdering her boss in a parking garage, but we don’t know if she did it and John is convinced that she couldn’t have done it.
In fact, when he and their son Luke visit her in jail, John tells her, “Everything is going to be all right. I promise.”
And then begins the extraordinary part of the story in which this mild-mannered college professor begins to figure out a plan in which he can break Lara out of prison, because all their appeals have failed.
First, he begins with an expert, Damon Pennington, played by Liam Neeson, who tells John in a wonderful scene that escaping from prison is easy, but the hardest part is staying free. He also tells John that Pittsburgh is “tough” and gives John exact details about what the authorities will do once someone breaks out of prison.
Naturally, John runs into difficulty acquiring the fake IDs he needs, as well as obtaining enough money to live on for five to six years.
In addition, John might be being watched by the police, and he can’t tell Lara about his plan, because he knows that she wouldn’t agree to it.
And then once the breakout occurs, the movie turns into one exciting scene after another, and it couldn’t get any more exciting.
A major hitch in John’s plans comes up, the story gets tighter, time is running out, and then a shock to end all shocks occurs, and it still isn’t over.
You ask yourself how you want it to end, and then there are some very nice touches at the end.
THE NEXT THREE DAYS is one terrific thrill ride without anything being blown up that keeps you guessing all the way to the end.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Next Three Days – Movie Trailer
Nov 25th
His wife convicted of a murder she swears she did not commit, a college professor plots to break her out of prison in this thriller starring Russell Crowe and Liam Neeson. John Brennan (Crowe) and his wife, Lara (Elizabeth Banks), were happily married and raising a family when their lives fell apart in the blink of an eye. Lara has been charged with murder, and despite every effort to prove her innocence, the judge sentences her to an extended prison sentence. Meanwhile, on the outside, John files multiple appeals while struggling to raise their children and maintain his career. Lara’s future starts to look especially grim, however, after the final appeal is rejected, and she admits that she’d rather commit suicide than spend the rest of her life behind bars. Determined to save his wife after the justice system fails her, John seeks the advice of ex-convict Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), who staged his own daring prison escape, in order to draw up an airtight plan. Later, John prepares to put his life on the line for the woman he loves, and sets the plan into motion with the knowledge that one false move could be their last.
“Zack and Miri Make a Porno” Erotic Reimagining
Nov 13th
Erotic Reimagining
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO is not the worst film of the year, although it is probably down there with the worst, and yet it probably also has the worst title, which gives away half the plot right off the bat.
Written and directed by Kevin Smith and starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, if it had just added “and Lived Happily Ever After” to the title, the whole plot would have been given away right there.
Yes, this is a typical “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again” story, although they met 20 years ago in first grade and have been friends ever since, they have been living together platonically since high school for the past 10 years, and they decide to make a porno film together in order to pay their bills.
What could go wrong, right? Or, to put it a better way, what could go right?
Well, everything, actually, on both counts.
You see, it is just before Thanksgiving, the utilities in their apartment have been turned off for nonpayment, Zack meets someone at their 10th-year high-school reunion who says he is earning $100,000 a year making and distributing his own porno movies, and so Zack decides they can succeed by making their own porno movie and selling it just to their 800 classmates alone.
When Miri asks why they can’t find a different way to make money like other people do, Zack says, “Because other people have options. And dignity.”
Zack calls on some friends for help and investment, they decide to do an “erotic reimagining” of a STAR WARS movie, and we get the standard movie montage of auditions for roles and wardrobe tests. Ho hum.
Then a major setback causes them to reimagine their reimagining, which is right out of Stale Screenwriting 101.
Everything that happens is telegraphed to the audience and then prolonged for way too long, but don’t go see it expecting to see anything coming close to a real porno movie–assuming that you have ever seen one before, of course.
However, do expect to see some nudity, at least one really offensive sight gag, and lots and lots of profanity. And then some more profanity.
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO is an erotic reimagining of a lame romantic comedy–and of a porno movie, too.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
