Posts tagged Robert Downey Jr
The Judge “Family Courtroom Drama”
Oct 22nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE JUDGE is a terrific film about a family and what happens to them in a courtroom during a murder trial.
Robert Downey, Jr., stars as Hank Palmer, a successful attorney in Chicago, and Robert Duvall stars as Joe Palmer, Hank’s father, who has been a judge in a small town in Indiana for 42 years.
Hank has a reputation that is not entirely favorable, and when asked why many of his clients seem to be guilty, he says, “Innocent people can’t afford me.”
Hank and Joe are estranged and barely talk to one another, and the movie begins when Hank returns to his hometown in Indiana to attend his mother’s funeral.
However, while Hank is there, Joe is involved in an automobile accident late at night with a man on a bicycle who is killed.
The evidence seems to indicate that the accident was intentional, and because Joe and the man on the bicycle had a history from a previous trial, the judge is charged with murder.
Joe hires a local attorney to defend him, who is played by Dax Shepard, but because he turns out to be both out of his league and in over his head, Hank reluctantly agrees to help out over the objections of Joe.
However, the story is not all courtroom drama; Vera Farmiga plays Hank’s high-school sweetheart, a single mom with a daughter that Hank might have had something to do with before he left town, and Vincent D’Onofrio and Jeremy Strong play Hank’s brothers, and there is something in their past, too, that enters into the story.
In addition, Hank has a wife and daughter back in Chicago who require some attention during the trial, and Joe has a secret that he is not telling anybody. Hank’s reputation isn’t helping his cause, either, especially when he is known as a bully with a big bag of tricks, and he says that his father is the most brutally difficult client he has ever had.
Now, you might believe from the publicity that the movie consists only of Hank and Joe being at each other’s throats and arguing with each other, but there are also some tender and touching scenes in the movie, as well.
THE JUDGE is a tremendous family courtroom drama that is sure to receive some Academy Award nominations.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Judge – Movie Trailer
Oct 20th
In “The Judge,” Robert Downey Jr. stars as big city lawyer Hank Palmer, who returns to his childhood home where his estranged father, the town’s judge (Robert Duvall), is suspected of murder. He sets out to discover the truth and along the way reconnects with the family he walked away from years before.
Chef “Tantalizes the Taste Buds”
Jun 5th
(“Tantalizes the Taste Buds”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CHEF is more than just a little movie about food or about the personal redemption of a first-class chef.
As evidence of that, there is even a cookbook, THE OFFICIAL CHEF MOVIE COOKBOOK: RECIPES FROM EL JEFE, available as a free e-book or iPad app, which contains recipes from some of the food prepared in the movie, which was written, directed, and stars Jon Favreau.
Favreau plays Carl Casper, the chef at a trendy Los Angeles restaurant owned by Dustin Hoffman.
Carl also has a complicated personal life, because he is divorced from Inez, played by Sofia Vergara, and they have a son, Percy, who would love to spend more time with his father, but Carl is consumed by his occupation as a chef.
In fact, Carl says, “I get to touch people’s lives with what I do, and I love it.”
At the beginning of the movie, a famous food critic shows up at the restaurant, and whereas Carl wants to prepare something special for the critic, who has reviewed Carl before, Carl’s boss doesn’t want him to change the menu, but just stick to “playing his hits.”
Sure enough, the critic writes a bad review, so bad that it goes viral on the Internet, and after Carl gets Percy to sign him up with a Twitter account, Carl just makes matters worse, and a second chance to redeem himself makes everything so worse that Carl loses his job when things escalate to the boss level.
Then when Inez gets a temporary job in Miami, where both she and Carl are from, Carl agrees to go along and watch Percy while Inez works.
Inez also has an ex-husband there, Marvin, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to whom she was married before Carl, and through a series of circumstances, Carl ends up buying a beat-up food truck from Marvin, and he and Percy refurbish it to make it operational again, along with the help of Martin, played by John Leguizamo, who was Carl’s sous-chef and best friend back in L.A. and who shows up unexpectedly to help Carl in his new career.
Then we follow Carl, Percy, and Martin as they drive back to Los Angeles for an unexpected twist at the end.
CHEF is much more than what meets the eye or tantalizes the taste buds.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”