Posts tagged Salma Hayek
“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.”
Muppets Most Wanted – Movie Trailer
Mar 25th
Disney’s “Muppets Most Wanted” takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid, Dublin and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine-the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit the Frog-and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two, portrayed by Ricky Gervais. The film stars Tina Fey as Nadya, a feisty prison guard, and Ty Burrell as Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon.
“Savages” Bloody and Ironic
Jul 15th
“Bloody and Ironic”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Savages is the latest film directed by Oliver Stone, and it was also written by him along with Don Winslow, whose 2010 novel was the basis for the film.
The best-known members of the cast, but not necessarily the stars, are Blake Lively, Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta, and Salma Hayek, and the story is about a Mexican drug cartel trying to move in on the successful marijuana business run by two best buddies in Southern California.
Lively plays Ophelia, a spoiled young rich girl who goes just by “O” and who is the girlfriend of both Chon and Ben, the successful marijuana growers and distributors who have been best friends since high school and whose pot is considered the best in all of California, if not the world.
O also narrates the story, and more than once she says, “Just because I’m telling you this story doesn’t mean I’m alive at the end.”
If she is alive at the end, that would be ironic, wouldn’t it?
On the other hand, if she is not alive at the end, that would also be ironic.
One day Chon and Ben receive an e-mail video from the Baja Cartel in Mexico that shows a bunch of bodies with decapitated heads and blood all over everything.
Then they receive an e-mail from the cartel wanting to meet the next day. Ben is afraid of the Mexicans, but Chon says he is not afraid of them. Of course, Chon is a former Navy SEAL who smuggled the marijuana seeds back to the U.S. from Afghanistan that got them started in the business.
Chon and Ben check in with Dennis, a DEA agent who is less than pristine in his duties, and Dennis advises them to take whatever deal they are offered rather than decapitation.
However, when Chon and Ben meet with the representatives of the Baja Cartel, they don’t like the deal they are offered and tell the representatives that they will think about it and meet again in 24 hours.
Ben wants to get out of the business altogether, but before they can do anything, the cartel kidnaps O and holds her prisoner, which forces their hand, because they will do anything to get O back safely.
And the rest of the movie is just about anything.
Savages is bloody and ironic.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
