Posts tagged Tonye Patano
“The Company Men” Devastating, Yet Heartwarming
Jan 30th
“Devastating, Yet Heartwarming”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE COMPANY MEN is a very good, yet devastating look at what the effect the economic recession of 2008 had on a group of successful businessmen who worked for the same company, as well as how it affected their families when they got fired.
No, “fired” is such an ugly word. Let’s just say they got “laid off.”
The company in question is an international transportation company with headquarters in Boston that started out as a shipbuilding company.
Ben Affleck stars as Bobby Walker, the head of the sales division for one of three shipyards in the company, where he has worked for 12 years, and he comes into work one morning all excited about the round of golf he had just shot only to be greeted by silence in a conference-room meeting of his department.
“What’s the matter?” he asks. “Did somebody die?”
Even though consolidating divisions had been discussed for months, two of the shipyards were closed, and the company lawyer, Sally Wilcox, played by Maria Bello, had fired Bobby without even telling him.
Excuse me. “Laid him off” without telling him.
When Bobby gets home, he tells his wife, Maggie, that he doesn’t want to tell anybody else what happened until he gets another job. Is he showing pride? Stubbornness? Stupidity?
Tommy Lee Jones plays Gene McClary, who started the company with his college roommate. He is friends with Bobby and invites him to lunch, but Bobby gets up and leaves after refusing Gene’s offer to help him.
Pride? Stubbornness? Stupidity?
Bobby believes that he is a 37-year-old loser without a job who can’t support his family, and when Maggie’s brother offers Bobby a job working construction with him, Bobby turns him down, too.
Pride? Stubbornness? Stupidity?
Incidentally, Kevin Costner plays Maggie’s brother, and his phony Boston accent doesn’t help the suspension of disbelief any.
We follow other company men who get laid off, including Phil Woodward, played by Chris Cooper, whose wife won’t let him come home until after six o’clock every day, because she doesn’t want the neighbors to know that he lost his job. He even has to carry his briefcase with him.
This might sound like a real downer of a movie, and it is until toward the end, when it becomes quite heartwarming.
THE COMPANY MEN is devastating, yet heartwarming.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Company Men – Movie Trailer
Jan 27th
Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) is living the American dream: great job, beautiful family, shiny Porsche in the garage. When corporate downsizing leaves him and co-workers Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper) and Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones) jobless, the three men are forced to re-define their lives as men, husbands, and fathers.
Bobby soon finds himself enduring enthusiastic life coaching, a job building houses for his brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) which does not play to his executive skill set, and perhaps the realization that there is more to life than chasing the bigger, better deal. With humor, pathos, and keen observation, writer-director John Wells (the creator of “ER”) introduces us to the new realities of American life.
“The Taking of Pelham 123” Better Than Expected
Jun 17th
Better Than Expected
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 is a remake of the 1974 film of the same name but with different spelling, and it has been updated with new technology and financial conditions, as well as with the whiz-bang visual techniques of director Tony Scott.
Denzel Washington plays the Walter Matthau role of Walter Garber, a temporary dispatcher of New York City Transit, and John Travolta plays the Robert Shaw role of a man named Ryder, who leads a team of four hijackers of a subway train.
When Garber first talks to Ryder to ask why the train stopped, Ryder says, “This is the man who’s going to give the City a run for its money.”
After some quick and obviously phony calculations, Ryder demands $10 million and one cent in cash in exactly one hour, or else he will start killing one of the 19 passenger hostages for every minute that the money is late.
James Gandolfini plays the mayor, who gets involved when he has to authorize the payment of the ransom, and we get an awful lot of preliminary setup shots followed by an awful lot of talk, plus the flashy visuals of the police racing to transport the money downtown to where the subway car is waiting.
Garber’s boss tells Garber to go home and let the official hostage negotiator from the police take over, which is fine with Garber, because he has had the dispatching job only a couple of weeks. But when Ryder learns that Garber is gone, he shoots the motorman and demands that Garber be brought back for the negotiations.
If you are not familiar with the story, at this point you might start to wonder What’s the suspense? Well, the suspense is in whether the hijackers are going to succeed or fail, depending on which side you are rooting for.
So, essentially we have a weak story with very good execution and exceptionally fine acting, especially by Travolta, who naturally has the showier part.
Garber and Ryder eventually even get to meet face to face when Ryder demands that the dispatcher come underground with the money for reasons we don’t learn until afterwards.
Then we get an exciting ending that we didn’t anticipate.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 is better than expected or deserves to be.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
