Posts tagged talk
“Mud” Just Another Mysterious Stranger Movie
Jun 15th
“Another Mysterious Stranger”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Mud stars Matthew McConaughey, he has received praise for his performance in this film, but once again he does what he seems to do in all of his films, and that is to take his shirt off.
The story takes place in Arkansas along the Arkansas River near the Mississippi River, and it is basically another in a long line of movies about coming of age.
It begins in the middle of the night when a boy named Ellis, who is 14 years old, sneaks out of his parents’ houseboat and meets his best friend, Neckbone, where they take a boat out onto the river and motor downstream to the Mississippi, where they beach their boat on the shore of an island.
They walk inland for a while, come to a tall tree, and one of them says, “There it is.”
“It” is a boat in pretty good condition stuck high up in the tree from some previous time when flood conditions caused it to get stuck up there.
Although they claim the boat as theirs, they soon discover that someone is living in the boat, and he shows up telling them that the boat is his, because he is living in it.
The man tells them to call him Mud, says that he grew up around there, and he will trade them the boat for food.
Mud is waiting for someone, a woman named Juniper, and when she shows up, they will leave and the boys can have the boat.
Back home, Ellis’s mother tells him to be home that evening by 7, so they can have a sit-down dinner and talk.
Then while he is in town, Ellis sees an older boy picking on a girl Ellis knows named May Pearl, and Ellis punches the boy to get him to stop.
Ellis and Neckbone also see a pretty woman in town they had never seen before, who turns out to be Juniper, played by Reese Witherspoon.
Later, Ellis learns that his parents want to separate, his mother wants to move back into town, and they will lose the houseboat.
And this is all just the beginning of the story, which has too many parallels and is not original.
Mud is just another movie about a mysterious stranger who shows up and changes the lives of others.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Iceman” about a Cold-Hearted Killer
May 25th
“Cold-Hearted Killer”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Iceman is based on a true story about a man named Richard Kuklinski who worked for many years as a hit man for organized crime on the East Coast.
The movie begins in 1964 in New Jersey and we meet Richie, played by Michael Shannon, as he finally gets a girl named Deborah, played by Winona Ryder, to go out with him.
She works across the street from where he works, but right off the bat he is secretive about his personal life. When Deborah asks Richie what he does for a living, Richie tells her, “I dub cartoons.”
Actually, however, Richie makes duplicate copies of pornographic films for his mobster boss, Roy, played by Ray Liotta.
When Deborah asks about Richie’s family, he says that he has a brother who is around somewhere, but Richie doesn’t talk to him, and later we will find out why in a scene that foretells Richie’s own future.
Deborah thinks that Richie is funny, is glad that he asked her out, and tells him that she had a really good time.
Well, a year later, Richie and Deborah are married, they have a baby girl, Deborah likes the way that Richie takes care of her, but she wants them to move into a bigger apartment.
At the same time, Roy tells Richie that he is closing the pornography lab, but he gives Richie a chance to make money by working for him as a hired killer, and Richie takes it, after proving to Roy that he can do the job.
Then we skip ahead 10 years, and we see more of Richie’s work, as well as more of the men who work for Roy and how he makes sure that jobs will get done.
Richie and Deborah have two daughters now, and Richie is devoted to his family, but he tells everybody that he makes money in currency exchange.
Meanwhile, another of Roy’s workers, Josh, played by David Schwimmer, messes up, and Richie is given a job that Roy also hired another hit man to take care of at the same time.
The other hit man is Mr. Freezy, played by Chris Evans, and by a series of circumstances Richie and Mr. Freezy start working together.
The Iceman is about such a cold-hearted killer that he was called “The Iceman.”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Place Beyond the Pines” a Terrific, Wonderful Drama
Apr 13th
“Terrific, Wonderful Drama”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Place Beyond the Pines is a wonderful drama in three parts about the influence of one generation on the next, or as William Wordsworth put it in “My Heart Leaps Up,” “The child is father of the man.”
The action takes place in Schenectady, New York, and when the movie opens we meet Luke, played by Ryan Gosling, who performs in a traveling circus as a motorcycle stunt daredevil.
One night a young woman named Romina, played by Eva Mendes, approaches him, and Luke recognizes her as the woman he had a fling with the year before when he was in town.
They talk, and Luke gives Romina a ride home, where he tells her that he leaves town the next day and won’t be back for another year.
Well, the next day Luke goes back to Romina’s house to see her, but she is away at work.
The woman who answers the door is holding a baby in her arms, and she tells Luke, “He’s yours. You want to hold him?”
Luke is immediately smitten by this surprise addition to his life, and he makes some dramatic changes because of it.
He quits his job with the circus, stays in town, and determines that he is going to take care of Romina and the baby, who is named Jason.
Unfortunately, Romina, Jason, and her mother are living in the house of Romina’s boyfriend, Kofi, and Kofi doesn’t take kindly to Luke’s sudden appearance and desires.
Meanwhile, Luke meets a man named Robin, who has a small mechanic shop out in the woods, and he gets a job working for Robin, which also gives Luke a place to stay.
Robin also gives Luke the idea for how Luke can make some fast money to give to Romina and Jason, but it leads to disastrous results.
Then we meet Avery, played by Bradley Cooper, who is a rookie policeman in Schenectady, and his first encounter with Luke makes Avery a hero in the eyes of his fellow policemen, which leads to ill-fated consequences.
Avery has a wife, Jennifer, played by Rose Byrne, and a young baby named AJ.
Then the movie shifts 15 years later to the two teenage boys, Jason and AJ.
The Place Beyond the Pines is a terrific film, and I cannot praise it enough.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”