Posts tagged Nicholas Stoller
Neighbors “Bro’s before Neighbors”
May 15th
(“Bro’s before Neighbors”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
NEIGHBORS won the top spot at the box office its first weekend of release, which is another reason that this film should not be confused with the 1981 NEIGHBORS, which was John Belushi’s last film.
However, the plot about the arrival of rowdy new neighbors who disrupt the lives of a couple who are already living there is the same, except that the part of Dan Aykroyd has been replaced by an entire fraternity house led by Teddy, played by Zac Efron.
The couple are Mac and Kelly Radner, played by Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne, they have a baby daughter named Stella, and when they see some of the shenanigans taking place next door at the Beta Psi Delta fraternity house, Kelly says to Mac, “Just because we have a house and a baby doesn’t mean that we’re old people.”
You see, at first Mac and Kelly envy the youthful exuberance of the fraternity boys and their parties attended by attractive college students of boys and hot-looking girls, and they go next door to welcome the new neighbors to the neighborhood.
Teddy accepts the fraternity’s new neighbors and their surprising gift and invites Mac and Kelly to the party of the moment so everything will be cool later.
Teddy tells Mac and Kelly that if any of the parties gets too noisy, they need to call the fraternity first and not the cops, which is a good indication of what is going to happen later, right?
Well, the fraternity brothers have a goal that they want to achieve, which the audience learns at the beginning of the movie, and to achieve that goal, they party every night, which causes Mac to call the police what he believes to be anonymously after he can’t get anyone at the party to pick up the phone.
Naturally, the fraternity brothers retaliate when they are told by the police that Mac called them, which they know because the police have caller ID.
And the game is on, escalating with each retaliation by the two parties, so to speak, culminating in an attempt by Mac and Kelly to interfere with the brothers’ mantra of “bro’s before ho’s” and get them to fight among themselves after a violation of Teddy’s relationship with his girlfriend.
NEIGHBORS is enjoyable, but probably only to young people.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Neighbors – Movie Trailer
May 15th
Seth Rogen, Zac Efron and Rose Byrne lead the cast of Neighbors, a comedy about a young couple suffering from arrested development who are forced to live next to a fraternity house after the birth of their newborn baby. Neighbors is directed by Nick Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek).
“Muppets Most Wanted” Most Enjoyable
Mar 26th
“Most Enjoyable”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
MUPPETS MOST WANTED reminded me of that old vaudeville saying, “a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants,” as the Muppets once again do what they do best: act silly and be entertaining during the course of a story that brings them all together.
All your favorite Muppets are back, and many of your favorite human entertainers appear in surprising cameos or as major characters advancing the story.
The cameos include such entertainers as Tony Bennett, Hugh Bonneville, Sean Combs, Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Salma Hayek, Frank Langella, Ray Liotta, Usher, Stanley Tucci, and Christoph Waltz, who in fine Muppet tradition dances the waltz onstage during a performance in Berlin.
The story has the Muppets reuniting and being convinced to go on a world tour by Dominic Badguy, played by Ricky Gervais, who promises them houses that will be sold out and worldwide adoration if they will hire him to be their manager.
Dominic says, “Kermit, how about the Muppets go on a world tour?” and says that his last name is pronounced “Badgee” even though it looks like “Badguy,” because it is French and actually means “Good guy.”
Meanwhile, Constantine, the World’s Most Dangerous Frog, breaks out of a gulag prison in Russia and becomes an integral part of the story, because he looks just like Kermit, except that he has a dark mole above his lip.
Well, Dominic has a dastardly plan for the cities he picks for the world tour, and, sure enough, Constantine replaces Kermit on the tour, and Kermit is arrested as Constantine and sent back to the Russian gulag, whose commandant is Nadya, played by Tina Fey.
After a museum robbery in Berlin engineered by Dominic and Constantine, Interpol sends Jean Pierre Napoleon, played by Ty Burrell, and Sam Eagle from the CIA shows up to solve the case, but after interviewing all the Muppets, they conclude that the Muppets are too stupid to be behind the robberies, which now include another museum robbery in Madrid.
Meanwhile, back at the gulag, Nadya has ordered Kermit to be in charge of the annual musical review, and she has started to have fond feelings for Kermit.
Incidentally, stay for the end and Nadya’s solo, which is priceless.
MUPPETS MOST WANTED of course contains a major marriage subplot with Miss Piggy.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
