Dan Culberson
Dan Culberson is an author, TV performer, editor and publisher who has been writing about culture, politics and religion since 1994. He was graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in English literature in the Honors Program from the University of Colorado and was president of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He was born in Carmel, CA, but grew up all over the U.S. and Europe, living in Monterey, CA: Medford, OR; Lawton, OK (twice); Pampa, TX; Minot, ND; El Paso, TX; Tacoma, WA; Kennewick, WA; Erlangen, Germany; Lebanon, MO; Colorado Springs, CO (where he attended high school); Boulder, CO (where he attended college and now lives); and Heidelberg while serving in the U.S. Army and Sindelfingen, Germany while on assignment for IBM. He served three years in the U.S. Army, retired from IBM after 25 years with a career in publications and is a writer, editor and publisher who came of age in the Sixties, which he remembers quite well. He was named a Boulder Pacesetter in 1985 by the BOULDER DAILY CAMERA in the first year of that program and was a film reviewer from 1972 to 2014 for newspapers, magazines, radio stations and TV programs.
Homepage: http://c1n.tv
Posts by Dan Culberson
“Mirror Mirror” Is Surprisingly Excellent
Apr 14th
“Surprisingly Excellent”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Mirror Mirror is the most recent Hollywood version of the fairy tale about Snow White, another version is even being released later this year, but you just might be surprised at how well you enjoy this one with Julia Roberts starring as the evil Queen.
In fact, at the beginning in a voice-over by the Queen as she narrates the background of the story about Snow White, the Queen says, “And this is my story, not hers.”
Snow White is played by Lily Collins, the daughter of seven-time Grammy winner Phil Collins, and we are told that she was left under the care of the Queen when the King disappeared mysteriously, and under the control of the Queen, the once prosperous kingdom has now become close to destitute.
The people in the kingdom don’t sing and dance like they used to, and shouldn’t it be called the queendom now, anyway?
At any rate, Snow White has been confined to the castle by the Queen all these years, and when she is 18, Snow White sneaks out of the castle to see for herself what has been happening in the queendom.
While she is in the forest, Snow White rescues the charming Prince Alcott, played by Armie Hammer, who, along with his companion, has been robbed by a gang of seven thieves.
Well, you can pretty much guess the rest, can’t you, but I’ll bet you can’t guess the names of the seven dwarfs, who here have been named Napoleon, Half Pint, Grub, Grimm, Wolf, Butcher, and Chuckles, and who live in the woods because the Queen had all the “ugly people” banished from the village.
Another change to this version of the classic story is the addition of Brighton, who is unofficially called the Queen’s Executive Bootlicker and who is played by Nathan Lane.
Also, the order of some of the events that we are familiar with from previous versions of the story have been turned around, but again, because Julia Roberts is the bigger star and because she said so at the beginning, this is a story more about the Queen than a story about Snow White.
However, when it reaches the part in the story where “they all lived happily ever after,” both the Queen and the audience might be surprised.
Mirror Mirror is surprisingly excellent.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” Makes the Impossible Possible
Apr 7th
“Making the Impossible Possible”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a love story, and I don’t mean the love that fishermen have for fishing, although there is also that.
On the other hand, Steven Wright says in his act, “There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore looking like an idiot.”
In this movie, the comment is made that the only thing that fishermen care about is fish, and that they are patient and virtuous.
The fishermen, of course, are patient and virtuous, not the fish.
No, we should remember that fish are so dumb that they can’t tell the difference between a real fly and an artificial fly with a hook in it at the end of a fishing line.
Emily Blunt plays Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, and she has a client who is an avid fisherman, Sheik Muhammed from Yemen, who wants to introduce salmon fishing in his desert country.
So, Harriet contacts the salmon expert in the British Fisheries, Dr. Alfred Jones, played by Ewan McGregor, to ask for his help in fulfilling the dream of the sheik, who naturally has enough money to make it happen.
Dr. Jones turns down Harriet’s request, telling her that the project is fundamentally infeasible.
In the meantime, however, Patricia Maxwell, who is the press secretary for the Prime Minister and who is played by Kristin Scott Thomas, tells her people, “We need a good news story from the Middle East and a big one. We need it now.”
So, with pressure from the top of the government, Dr. Jones is practically blackmailed into working with Harriet to make Sheik Muhammed’s dream come true.
And with two attractive people working closely together, romantic sparks are bound to fly, right?
Not so fast, Dear Audience, because Dr. Jones is married, and Harriet has a serious boyfriend.
Dr. Jones changes his assessment of the project’s success from fundamentally infeasible to theoretically possible, the sheik is willing to pay 50 million pounds, and so the problem now is to make it all happen.
Did I mention that there are dissidents in Yemen who believe that the sheik’s dream of building a river in the desert and stocking it with fish is insulting to Allah?
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen makes the impossible possible in so many different ways, and not just in fishing.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Casa de Mi Padre” Worth a Couple of Chuckles
Apr 1st
“A Couple of Chuckles”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Casa de Mi Padre is Will Ferrell’s latest comedy, and the first thing you notice is that the title is in Spanish.
The second thing you notice about the “House of My Father” is that the entire movie is in Spanish, but with English subtitles for the benefit of those of us who aren’t fluent in Spanish.
Well, not the entire movie, because there are a couple of American characters in the story, which takes place in modern-day Mexico, and they speak what the Mexican characters call “American.”
Ferrell plays Armando, the son of a rancher, and at the beginning of the movie, Armando and his two buddies, Esteban and Manuel, are moving some of the father’s cattle to a new pasture, and Armando says, “I hope nothing bad happens on the way home.”
Then they witness an execution that was caused by the nasty drug business that is going on in the country and which will have ramifications later on in the story.
When the three rancheros get home, Armando’s brother Raul shows up with his fiancee, Sonia Lopez. Raul is the son that his father always loved, and if we hadn’t already figured it out, we learn that Armando is not smart, and his father always tells him that.
Armando also has a secret that we learn when he and Sonia go out riding together and they arrive at the Pond of Seven Tears, where Armando’s mother died when Armando was a little boy.
Armando and Sonia take a liking to each other, and Sonia tells Armando that his brother Raul is in the drug business, but Raul doesn’t sell drugs to their fellow Mexicans, only to Americans.
Unfortunately, Raul is trying to do business in the territory of the most infamous drug dealer, Onza, who also has a close connection with Sonia.
Well, you can see a showdown coming up, can’t you? As well as a Mexican standoff and a final shoot-out that is all the funnier because the participants are drinking and smoking cigarettes at the same time as they are blasting away at each other.
The movie spoofs telenovelas and B-movies, production values, and anything else that Ferrell could think of while memorizing his lines phonetically.
Casa de Mi Padre has a good ending, of course, and is worth a couple of chuckles.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”