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
“Midnight in Paris” Convoluted Way to Make Simple Point
Jun 15th
“Convoluted Way to Make Simple Point”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s latest film, it was the opening film at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and it has been called one of Allen’s best movies in years.
You be the judge.
It takes place in the present, and so you might be surprised to know that some of the characters in it are Cole Porter, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, T.S. Eliot, and a number of other well-known and not-so-well-known artists from the past.
How can this be, you ask?
Well, therein lies the story, which may or may not be a pun.
Owen Wilson stars as Gil Pender, Rachel McAdams plays his fiancee, Inez, and they are freeloading along with her father and mother on a business trip to Paris that her father is taking.
Even though Gil is a successful Hollywood screenwriter, he becomes enamored with Paris, and he tells Inez, “I can see myself living here.”
Gil happens to be working on a novel, and he considers himself to be a Hollywood hack who never gave literature a shot. He also says that he would have liked to have lived in Paris in the 1920s.
Well, one night after a serious wine tasting, Gil takes a walk through the streets of Paris while the others in the party all go dancing.
Gill is drunk, gets lost while trying to find the hotel, and just as a clock strikes midnight, a 1920s-era taxicab drives by full of party revelers.
They stop, and they invite Gil to join them and go to a party.
At the party, Gil is amazed to see Cole Porter playing the piano and singing, and he meets Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Later, they take their movable party to a cafe, and there is Ernest Hemingway sitting and drinking. Gil tells Hemingway about his novel, and Hemingway offers to show it to Gertrude Stein for her opinion.
Gil leaves to get his manuscript at the hotel, but when he immediately turns around to arrange where they will meet, the cafe is gone.
The next night Gil tries to show Inez what had happened, but she gets bored and leaves before midnight.
But it happens again.
Midnight in Paris is a convoluted way to get a simple point across.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Thor” Deus ex Machina to the Max
Jun 9th
“Deus ex Machina to the Max”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Thor is from the Marvel Studios, which is an obvious indication that it is based on a comic book, even though its roots go all the way back to Norse mythology, in which the title character was the Norse god of thunder, might, and war and who had a magical hammer that returned to him.
So, if you are not a teenager, don’t care for comic books, and not all that interested in Norse mythology, you can skip this one even though it was directed by acclaimed actor-director Kenneth Branagh and stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman.
No, Hopkins doesn’t play Thor. He plays Odin, the supreme god and the father of Thor.
So, if you do see this movie, don’t be surprised if you recognize elements of Norse mythology, Christian mythology, Shakespearean stories, the legend of King Arthur, and every cliche in the book from bad government agents to the use of “bad cop, good cop” in the form of “bad god, good god.”
Oh, yes, the story switches back and forth between the realm of the gods and here on earth, where Thor becomes banished for his bad behavior.
In other words, he has to redeem himself and learn not to be so obnoxious.
And once that Thor lands in New Mexico, he runs into Dr. Jane Foster and her team of astrophysicists. Or, rather, she runs into him. Twice.
Jane is played by Natalie Portman, and if you think that this role is beneath her after winning an Academy Award, you would be right.
Thor’s hammer lands in the desert, too, and so the story cuts back and forth between the treachery up in the realm of the gods and Thor’s trials down on earth, not to mention a budding and implausible romance with Jane.
For an action movie, there is way too much talk, too, from the narration at the beginning to set up the story to the exposition in the middle that makes you just want to say, “Blah blah blah, already!”
And the title gives critics the chance to say the movie is “Thilly, thorry, thtupid, thuperfithial, and thimplithtic.”
Thor even has an ending that would embarrass the gods, because it is one of deus ex machina to the max, assuming that anyone in this simplistic day and age gets that.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Hangover Part II” Same Movie Twice
Jun 2nd
“Same Movie Twice”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Hangover Part II is, sure enough, the sequel to the most successful R-rated comedy of all time, and you will have to admit that this one is even raunchier than the first one.
Not funnier, just raunchier.
As a matter of fact, this is just the same movie as the first one with even the same characters, except that there is a different groom and it takes place in Bangkok, Thailand, instead of in Las Vegas.
It even has a new catch phrase to replace “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” The new catch phrase is “Bangkok has him now, and it will never let him go.”
Once again we have Bradley Cooper as Phil, Ed Helms as Stu, Zach Galifianakis as Alan, and Ken Jeong as Mr. Chow, and the plot is exactly the same, except for the change of locale.
Even Doug, the groom who was missing for most of the story in the first movie returns, and he is even missing for most of the story in this one, too, except that everyone knows where he is. The person whose whereabouts aren’t known is Teddy, the 16-year-old brother of the bride.
So, here is the story. Stu, the mild-mannered dentist who has a dark side with a demon in him, is getting married to Lauren, a beautiful woman from Thailand, and the wedding ceremony is to take place on her parents’ estate in Thailand.
When the movie opens, Phil is talking on a phone, and he says, “It happened again,” adding that the situation is a little worse than “no-wedding bad.”
Then we see a title of “One Week Earlier,” and here we go again.
Stu doesn’t even want a bachelor party and is happy to settle for a bachelor brunch at a local IHOP restaurant, and he is even forced to invite Alan to the wedding, who was the cause of all the trouble the first time.
Once in Thailand, everything goes from bad to worse, especially after the guys go have a campfire on the beach and what was planned to be only one beer and roast some marshmallows.
And they wake up the next morning in a trashed hotel room in Bangkok with no idea where Teddy is.
The Hangover Part II should have been called “The Hangover, Take II.”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
