Posts tagged Kathryn Hahn
This Is Where I Leave You “And Stay with You Forever”
Sep 29th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU is a very funny movie with a very unfortunate title, but with a very good ensemble cast about a family who all get back together for a week in order to honor their father’s wishes when he dies.
Jason Bateman plays Judd Altman, and the movie begins when he comes home early from work and finds his wife in bed with his boss having sex.
Tina Fey plays Wendy Altman, Judd’s sister, and she calls Judd while he is still trying to process the new development in his life to tell Judd that their father died, and a dying wish of his was that the whole Altman family return home to sit shiva and mourn his death for seven days even though he wasn’t a practicing Jew.
Jane Fonda plays Hillary Altman, the mother who is a child psychotherapist with a very successful book that contains more information about her children than they cared to share, but she tells them, “Secrets are cancer to a family.”
Adam Driver plays Phillip Altman, the baby of the family, and although he has fancy possessions he is still regarded as worthless, and he shows up with his much older, richer girlfriend, who is a psychotherapist.
Corey Stoll plays Paul Altman, the oldest of the children, who stayed in town to help his father run the family sporting goods store, who is married to Alice, one of Judd’s old girlfriends and who badly wants a baby, but she and Paul are still childless.
And then there are other assorted family members and children, as well as another old girlfriend of Judd’s, Penny, played by Rose Byrne, who not only still lives in town but who also still has longings for Judd.
The family sits on the couch in the living room to receive neighbors and friends who come by to pay their respects, but when they can’t take the bickering anymore or the infighting among them, some sneak out of the house as often as possible.
Also, unexpected people show up unannounced which adds to the discomfort of the family, but delight to the audience, and some scenes are downright hilarious.
You will laugh, you will cry, you will think your pants will never dry.
THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU will stay with you forever.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
This Is Where I Leave You – Movie Trailer
Sep 22nd
When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide-driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.
“Bad Words” A Joy to Watch
Apr 9th
“A Joy to Watch”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BAD WORDS is an edgy comedy starring Jason Bateman as Guy Trilby, a man who is competing in the national Spelling Bee competition even though he is 40 years old.
Bateman also directed this movie, which has been called an “instant hit.”
You see, Guy discovered a loophole in the rules which allows him to compete against youngsters and be able to spell obscure words correctly, which doesn’t please the directors of the competition, much less the parents of the other kids on whom the parents have spent money for tutors.
At the beginning of the movie, Guy says, “I’m not that good at a lot of stuff,” but his job as a proofreader allows him to be good at spelling a lot of words.
So, we see Guy compete at the 15th annual regional Spelling Bee in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, where he shows that he has no remorse in intimidating fellow competitors to get them too flustered to even stand up and try to spell the next word.
One of the rules is that contestants have to be sponsored by a nationally recognized news service, and Guy’s sponsor is an Internet organization whose writer, Jenny Widgeon, is accompanying Guy in order to write a story about him.
However, Guy is very reticent with Jenny, and he won’t talk about himself, which causes Jenny to call in some favors and get a background check on him, which reveals some interesting information.
So, Guy and Jenny move on to the national competition in California, where his reputation has preceded him, and the director, Dr. Bernice Deagan, played by Allison Janey, tries to thwart Guy in every way she can.
She arranges for Guy’s hotel accommodation to be a supply closet, and even though the words given to the competitors are supposed to be random and fair, she manages to secretly circumvent that and tells the angry parents and her subordinates that she will step down as director if Guy makes it to the final round.
Meanwhile, Guy has taken an interest in an Indian boy in the competition, mainly because the kid has a hotel room with a minibar, the kid is eager to become friends with Guy, maybe too eager, and Guy teaches the kid some lessons about life.
BAD WORDS is a joy to watch.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
