Posts tagged Performing Arts

“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.”