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
“Jeff, Who Lives at Home” Is Good, but Unoriginal
Mar 25th
“Good, but Unoriginal”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Jeff, Who Lives at Home may strike you as being familiar as you reach the end, which once again proves what I have been saying for years: Hollywood has run out of ideas.
If you have seen the 1998 Simon Birch, when you get to the climax in this movie, everything that leads up to it will suddenly become clear and you will quickly realize that you might have been watching a remake, only with the title character of this movie grown up from the title character of the previous movie.
However, the biggest clue comes at the beginning of the movie when Jeff says in a voice-over, “I can’t help but wonder about my fate.”
Jeff is played by Jason Segal, he is 30 years old, he lives in the basement of his mother’s house, and he believes that everything happens for a reason.
So, when he answers the phone and the caller is looking for someone named Kevin, that starts a series of events that guides Jeff through the rest of the movie, and they are mostly comic events.
Jeff’s mother, Sharon, played by Susan Sarandon, also calls Jeff from her workplace, and she sends Jeff on an errand that contributes to this day in the life of Jeff, who lives at home, also.
Then there is Pat, Jeff’s older brother who is played by Ed Helms. Pat is married, although there are problems in the marriage, and Pat doesn’t help their problems any when he surprises his wife by buying a new Porsche that they can’t afford.
The story takes place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and thus it is possible that Jeff and Pat could run into each other while Jeff is out fulfilling his errand, it is possible that while Pat is showing off his new Porsche to Jeff that they happen to see Pat’s wife and believe that she is having an affair with the man she is meeting, and it is also possible that the subplot involving their mother with a co-worker could bring everyone and everything together for the climax at the end.
And, yes, it is possible that the filmmakers of this movie didn’t realize they were copying the plot of that previous movie, only with grownups instead of kids.
Jeff, Who Lives at Home is good, but not original.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Friends with Kids” Has Its Ups and Downs
Mar 17th
“Ups and Downs”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Friends with Kids is a comedy about three sets of couples who are all friends, but if you want to talk about it, you almost need a scorecard in order to keep everybody straight and to understand everything that goes on.
First of all, the movie was written and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt, who also stars as julie, the only woman in the three sets of friends who isn’t married.
Julie’s best friend is Jason, played by Adam Scott, who also stars in the “Parks and Recreation” TV series. Julie and Jason have been best friends forever, but they aren’t romantically involved with each other.
Second of all, Westfeldt’s real-life boyfriend, Jon Hamm, plays Ben, who is married to Missy, played by Kristen Wiig, who currently stars in “Saturday Night Live.”
And finally, the third couple are Leslie, played by Maya Rudolph, and Alex, played by Chris O’Dowd, who are also married and who are the first of the friends to have a baby.
When Ben and Missy also have a baby, there seems to be pandemonium whenever the friends get together, and the couples who have kids seem to be fighting more.
Meanwhile, Jason and Julie would also like to be parents, but because they are still looking for a romantic mate, they decide that they will have a baby together, but not get married, and Jason assures Julie, “I will be 100% committed to this half the time.”
Jason and Julie live in the same apartment building, and so it is easy ehough for them to share the parenting duties of their baby son, and they still discuss their respective dates with other people together, while they still search for “the one.”
Then they all go on a ski trip together, including Jason’s new girlfriend and Julie’s new boyfriend, and you can guess that something is going to happen that changes the lives of all the friends, but it is not what you expect.
You can also guess how the movie is going to end, but you might be wrong on that count, too, including a scene that contains the least romantic seduction you can imagine.
Friends with Kids goes on a little too long to get to where we expect it is going, and it has high points and low points and ups and downs.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Wanderlust” Has Happiest Ending Ever
Mar 11th
“Happiest Ending Ever”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Wanderlust stars Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in what is not so much a romantic comedy as it is just a happy comedy, if there is such a classification.
In fact, the plot is as simple as “Boy has girl, boy almost loses girl, boy and girl stay together.”
However, what makes the movie interesting is where most of the story takes place, which is in a hippie commune that was started in 1971.
George and Linda are a young married couple in New York City whose professional lives take a sudden turn for the worse, and so they decide to pull up stakes and move to Atlanta, where George’s brother and his family live.
After a long drive, Linda insists that she has to get out of the car, and so they drive into a place with a sign that identifies it as “Elysium,” where they are greeted by a slightly overweight, naked man.
Startled, George tries to drive away, but he wrecks the car, and they are forced to stay there in what the residents call an “intentional community.”
When they introduce themselves to the group, George is asked, “If you’re George, where is John, Paul, and Ringo?”
The group claims that they have no leaders, that Mother Earth is the only leader they need, and there are no rules, just the way they all think about stuff.
In addition, there are no doors, even on the bathrooms, all the members share everything, and they believe in open sexual boundaries, which means that anything goes and with anyone.
At first, George likes living there more than Linda does, saying that he feels like he can breathe there for the first time, but then Linda starts to enjoy it more than George does, even though the most attractive woman in the group tells George that she believes that they should have sex together.
The scene in which George tries to prepare himself by boosting his confidence in front of a mirror is one of the funniest in the movie.
However, the plot turns weak when one of the oldest cliches in the world of movie plots occurs, that of developers wanting to take over the land and develop it into something else.
Wanderlust, though, has the happiest ending ever, and make sure you stay for the outtakes.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”