Posts tagged Hailee Steinfeld
Begin Again “Not Memorable”
Jul 21st
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BEGIN AGAIN has a typical setup for a romantic comedy, but the most untraditional ending ever for a romantic comedy.
John Carney wrote and directed this film, and he directed the 2007 ONCE, which also had a theme about music, but of a different kind and in a different country, as well as having more romance in it.
Mark Ruffalo stars as Dan, an executive of a record company in New York City who is down on his luck, being separated from his wife and teenage daughter, as well as having recently lost his job at the company he started with his business partner.
Keira Knightley stars as Greta, and she isn’t doing so well, either, having recently broken up with her boyfriend, whom she wrote songs with, and now he has become a successful singer, but who cheated on her.
So, when the movie begins, Greta has been pressured into going on stage in a small club and singing one of her songs, where Dan happens to be after having too much to drink.
However, Dan is so impressed by her song and her singing that after her performance he goes up to Greta and says, “I want to make records with you.”
Unfortunately, the time couldn’t have been worse, because Greta is planning to leave New York the next day and go back home to England, because of her breakup with Dave, who is played by Adam Levine.
Well, Dan turns on all the charm he can muster and convinces Greta to stay and have a meeting with his partner in order to get his opinion about Greta’s possible future as a successful singer-songwriter in the music business.
Sure enough, the next day they meet with Dan’s business partner, but he recommends that they make a professionally produced demo before he will make any decisions that might cost him money.
Naturally, neither Dan nor Greta has the money to produce a demo in a studio, and so Dan comes up with the harebrained idea of skipping a demo and just recording an entire album of Greta’s songs on the streets of the City and thus have a finished product as leverage.
And so the rest of the movie consists of their doing just that.
BEGIN AGAIN won’t leave you with any songs running through your head.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Begin Again – Movie Trailer
Jul 21st
The latest film from writer-director John Carney (ONCE), BEGIN AGAIN is a soul-stirring comedy about what happens when lost souls meet and make beautiful music together. Gretta (Keira Knightley) and her long-time boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) are college sweethearts and songwriting partners who decamp for New York when he lands a deal with a major label. But the trappings of his new-found fame soon tempt Dave to stray, and a reeling, lovelorn Gretta is left on her own. Her world takes a turn for the better when Dan (Mark Ruffalo), a disgraced record-label exec, stumbles upon her performing on an East Village stage and is immediately captivated by her raw talent. From this chance encounter emerges an enchanting portrait of a mutually transformative collaboration, set to the soundtrack of a summer in New York City. BEGIN AGAIN is produced and financed by Exclusive Media and produced by Anthony Bregman, Tobin Armbrust and Judd Apatow.
“3 Days to Kill” Extraneous Subplots
Feb 26th
“Extraneous Subplots”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
3 DAYS TO KILL stars Kevin Costner as Ethan, a CIA agent on a mission in Paris, where he happens to live when he isn’t working.
The mission is to capture a terrorist known as The Wolf, who is in possession of a dirty bomb and whom the CIA has been after for 10 years.
Ethan has a nagging cough from what he says is a cold that is killing him, and he was thinking of calling in sick even though he hasn’t had a sick day in 32 years of working for the CIA.
Ethan has an estranged wife, Christine, and a teenage daughter, Zoey, who live in Paris, but whom he hasn’t seen in five years, and when Ethan tries to call Zoey and wish her a happy birthday, the mission to capture The Wolf is compromised, and all hell breaks loose.
Ethan ends up chasing The Wolf’s henchman, known as the Albino, on foot, but Ethan collapses onto the ground just as he is about to catch him, and Ethan says, “I’m not running after you anymore.”
The Albino thus escapes, but this scene is designed to set up a similar scene which is the climax of the movie.
Ethan then finds out that his cough is more serious than a cold, and he is told that he has no more than three or five months to live and also told that the CIA thanks him for his service.
As if that isn’t bad enough, when Ethan goes to his apartment in Paris, he finds a family living there as squatters, and the law won’t let him kick them out.
Ethan wants to see Zoey before he dies, arranges to meet Christine and Zoey, and when Christine has to go to London for three days, Ethan agrees to watch Zoey while Christine is gone, thus setting up the double meaning of the title, because The Wolf comes back into the story.
Because Ethan might have spotted The Wolf in the compromised mission, he is recruited to find and kill The Wolf in return for an experimental drug that might save his life.
Zoey doesn’t even know what Ethan does for a living, and she has problems of her own that take up Ethan’s time and attention.
3 DAYS TO KILL has too many extraneous subplots.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”