Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Tim’s Vermeer” Fascinating
Mar 19th
“Fascinating”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
TIM’S VERMEER is an absolutely fascinating documentary of how Tim Jenison went to all the time, trouble, and expense of investigating and eventually reproducing one of the works of art of 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.
Vermeer was not widely appreciated in his own time, and authorities have proclaimed that he painted only between 30 and 35 works, but also that he was one of the greatest painters of all time because of his microscopic observation of objects and meticulous depiction of gradation of daylight on varied shapes and surfaces.
His paintings show details and perspectives found in photographs, and Jenison believes that Vermeer could have used a camera obscura to make his paintings, which is Latin for “dark chamber” and is a darkened enclosure with a pinhole on one side through which light enters to form an image of the outside objects on the opposite surface.
Jenison asks, “How did Vermeer do it?” and decides that he is going to paint a Vermeer even though it seems impossible and Jenison is not a painter, but is an inventor.
So, Jenison went around the world to study Vermeer’s paintings, which he says was a “revelation,” and he realized that Vermeer could have used a small mirror to paint his pictures, which allowed him to match colors perfectly.
Jenison demonstrates his theory to Martin Mull, an entertainer and artist in his own right, and Mull is impressed with what Jenison demonstrates.
Then Jenison decides to reproduce a painting by Vermeer called “The Music Lesson,” which is owned by Queen Elizabeth in England, saying that the process is objective and any painter who uses it would get the same result.
He built the room in the painting himself in 213 working days in a warehouse and says that he wasn’t trying to make the painting look like a Vermeer, but it was looking like a Vermeer.
We see Jenison at work day by day, and he says that the project is a lot like watching paint dry, which implies that it is boring, but watching this documentary is anything but boring.
At one point Jenison was ready to quit, but because a film was being made, he completed the painting.
TIM’S VERMEER, written and narrated by Penn Jillette, directed by partner Teller, is magic to watch.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“3 Days to Kill” Extraneous Subplots
Feb 26th
“Extraneous Subplots”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
3 DAYS TO KILL stars Kevin Costner as Ethan, a CIA agent on a mission in Paris, where he happens to live when he isn’t working.
The mission is to capture a terrorist known as The Wolf, who is in possession of a dirty bomb and whom the CIA has been after for 10 years.
Ethan has a nagging cough from what he says is a cold that is killing him, and he was thinking of calling in sick even though he hasn’t had a sick day in 32 years of working for the CIA.
Ethan has an estranged wife, Christine, and a teenage daughter, Zoey, who live in Paris, but whom he hasn’t seen in five years, and when Ethan tries to call Zoey and wish her a happy birthday, the mission to capture The Wolf is compromised, and all hell breaks loose.
Ethan ends up chasing The Wolf’s henchman, known as the Albino, on foot, but Ethan collapses onto the ground just as he is about to catch him, and Ethan says, “I’m not running after you anymore.”
The Albino thus escapes, but this scene is designed to set up a similar scene which is the climax of the movie.
Ethan then finds out that his cough is more serious than a cold, and he is told that he has no more than three or five months to live and also told that the CIA thanks him for his service.
As if that isn’t bad enough, when Ethan goes to his apartment in Paris, he finds a family living there as squatters, and the law won’t let him kick them out.
Ethan wants to see Zoey before he dies, arranges to meet Christine and Zoey, and when Christine has to go to London for three days, Ethan agrees to watch Zoey while Christine is gone, thus setting up the double meaning of the title, because The Wolf comes back into the story.
Because Ethan might have spotted The Wolf in the compromised mission, he is recruited to find and kill The Wolf in return for an experimental drug that might save his life.
Zoey doesn’t even know what Ethan does for a living, and she has problems of her own that take up Ethan’s time and attention.
3 DAYS TO KILL has too many extraneous subplots.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”