Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Nights in Rodanthe” What’s the Point?
Oct 2nd
What’s the Point?
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
NIGHTS IN RODANTHE is the latest film to be made from a novel by romance novelist Nicholas Sparks, and if the films are true to his novels, then I would have to say that Sparks has a problem with endings.
The film doesn’t have a problem with casting, as once again Richard Gere is teamed with Diane Lane in a love story.
However, you have heard of a “meet cute”? Their characters “meet long.”
Rodanthe is a little village on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and the film begins with Adrienne Willis getting ready to leave her home and go to Rodanthe for a weekend in order to take care of her best friend’s home, which is a bed-and-breakfast smack-dab on the beach.
But when her estranged husband arrives to pick up their two teenage children, he surprises and shocks Adrienne by saying, “I want to come home.”
Meanwhile, we see Dr. Paul Flanner finish selling his house in Raleigh and traveling to Rodanthe for the weekend, and we see how just getting there is an adventure.
Paul checks in, saying he might stay as long as four nights, and because he is the only guest, he takes his food from the dining room into the kitchen to eat with Adrienne, saying that he doesn’t want to eat alone.
Well, we can all see where this is heading, can’t we? And when a storm hits and they secure the house against it together, they are drawn toward each other even more.
Now, there is a back story for Paul, and he is in Rodanthe for more than just a weekend vacation, but this serves only to slow down the inevitable ending, right?
Wrong! The back story creates the ending, which is completely unexpected and not true to everything that comes before it. It is not so much a cheap ending as it is a “cheat” ending.
The film is manipulative, because it wants to create a specified feeling in the audience, but it goes on much too long and has that cheat ending.
In fact, you could even say that it is too schmaltzy and has an unsatisfactory ending, but all in all, we have to ask ourselves, what is the point of movies and stories like this?
NIGHTS IN RODANTHE left me asking “What’s the point?”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Burn After Reading” Laugh-Out-Loud Comedy
Sep 25th
Laugh-Out-Loud Comedy
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BURN AFTER READING is the Coen brothers’ first movie since their award- winning success with the 2007 NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and they could easily win an Academy Award two years in a row, first with a drama and then with a comedy.
And don’t be surprised if Brad Pitt wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Chad Feldheimer, a trainer in a gym whose attempt to take advantage of an opportunity doesn’t go as well as he had hoped, to say the least.
If most of the characters in this film talk smart and act stupid, then you would have to say that Pitt’s character, Chad, talks the smartest.
The story begins when Osborne Cox, a CIA analyst played by John Malkovich, quits the agency. However, as someone says later about Washington, DC, “Most of the people in this town who quit are fired.”
Ozzie is told he has a drinking problem, which of course he denies, but he will investigate a suspicious noise in his house with a drink in his hand.
Ozzie tells his wife, Katie, played by Tilda Swinton, that he has been thinking about writing a book, “or a sort of memoir,” and he does. But then a computer disc of his tell-all “memoir” accidentally gets lost at a local Hardbodies gym, and the rest, as they say, is laugh-out-loud comedy.
Chad and his partner in attempted crime, Linda, played by Frances McDormand, believe that the disc contains incriminating secrets that someone should be willing to pay $50,000 for. Linda is also a trainer at the gym, she wants the money for plastic surgery on four areas of her body, and she is actually the “brains” of the outfit.
Linda tells Chad, “This is our opportunity. You don’t get many of these.”
Meanwhile, George Clooney plays Harry, a federal marshal who gets involved with everybody, but not how you would expect. Although happily married, he is having an affair with Ozzie’s wife, Katie, meets Linda through an Internet dating service, and panics when he believes he has killed a government agent.
In other words, everybody is connected to everybody else, everybody seems to have someone watching them and following them, and everybody is funny in some way.
BURN AFTER READING made me laugh from the opening to the closing logo.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Righteous Kill” You Talkin’ to My Little Friend?
Sep 17th
You Talkin’ to My Little Friend?
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
RIGHTEOUS KILL is a terrific film worth seeing for more reasons than two, and by “two,” of course, I mean Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
These two iconic actors are together again for the first time playing two veteran New York City police detectives named David Fisk and Thomas Cowan, but who go by the nicknames of “Turk” and “Rooster.”
They have been partners for 30 years, they are highly decorated, and as another police detective says about them, there is not an inch of daylight between them.
In fact, as one of them says to the other, “You’re my partner. You’re my role model. What am I going to do without a role model?”
However, before they can retire, Turk and Rooster investigate the murder of a notorious pimp, which appears to have a connection with a case they solved years ago.
The victim is a suspected criminal whose body was found accompanied by a four-line poem that claims to justify the killing. And then the next thing they know, there are additional killings with additional poems, and they realize that they are looking for a serial killer, someone who is targeting criminals who have managed to escape being punished.
Eventually, Rooster and Turk are forced to team up with two other police detectives, and there is even more than one investigation going on.
Also, when it becomes clear that Turk has connections with most of the victims, the detectives have to face the possibility that the serial killer might actually be a policeman.
Now, don’t get distracted by the distractions, and there are plenty of distractions, just as there is lots of misdirection in the story. Stay focused on the actors and the acting, and pay attention to the details, because there is a terrific turnaround, and even when you think you know what has happened, you can’t imagine what is going to happen next.
In fact, see this wonderful film twice. See it once for the story and then see it a second time just for the acting and the actors. You will be glad you did.
And, of course, while you are watching De Niro and Pacino, you will keep being reminded of the previous films they have starred in.
RIGHTEOUS KILL cries out for someone to say, “You talkin’ to my little friend?”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
