Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Labor Day” Soft Spot in Your Heart
Feb 19th
“Soft Spot in Your Heart”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LABOR DAY is based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, who was involved with reclusive author J. D. Salinger, and adapted and directed by Jason Reitman, whose previous movies have been comedies.
This movie is not a comedy.
The time is 1987 in a small town in New England, and we meet Adele, a divorced mother played by Kate Winslet, and her son Henry, who is 13 years old.
Henry narrates the story, but his voice is that of Tobey Maguire, who plays Henry as an adult at the end of the movie.
Henry makes the curious comment that his father believes that Adele is getting worse, and Henry says that he could feel his mother’s loneliness before he had a name for it.
Adele and Henry leave their house only once a month to go shopping, and we see them go to a store, where a man, Frank, played by Josh Brolin, approaches Henry and asks for his help.
Frank has blood on his stomach, his leg is hurting, and he asks for a ride. When they get into the car and Adele asks Frank where to, he answers, “Your house, just for a few moments to rest my leg.”
Frank says that he hurt his leg jumping out of a window, and he asks to stay with them until nightfall, when he will leave.
Then they learn that Frank is an escaped prisoner, where he was serving 18 years for murder, but he says that it didn’t happen the way it is being reported.
Frank ties Adele to a chair so that after he is gone, she can’t be accused of helping him, and then he prepares dinner and feeds her.
The next day is Friday, but because it is the Labor Day weekend, Frank is disappointed to learn that there will be no trains coming by, on which he planned to catch a ride.
So, Frank fixes their car, washes and waxes the floors in the house, and even teaches Henry how to throw a baseball.
As the weekend goes on, the relationship among the three gets more complicated, and we learn more about Adele’s condition through flashbacks, which make her more sympathetic.
Frank continues to show a more softer side, too.
LABOR DAY can easily find a soft spot in your heart, as well.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Monuments of Men” Hitler’s Museum
Feb 12th
“Hitler’s Museum”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE MONUMENTS MEN is based on the men of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the United States Army during World War II, as depicted in a fine new movie by George Clooney.
Based on the 2009 book by Robert Edsel, the men with special knowledge about art were recruited by the Army and charged with finding and retrieving works of fine art that had been looted and stolen by the Germany Army and to try to return the pieces to their rightful owners.
Clooney plays Frank Stokes, tasked with assembling the experienced men, and in 1944 we see him meeting James Granger, an art restorer and museum director played by Matt Damon, and asking him, “You want to get in the war?”
Also on the team are Bill Murray as an architect, John Goodman as a sculptor, Bob Balaban as a curator, Jean Dujardin as a Frenchman, and Hugh Bonneville as an Englishman, all with interesting back stories.
So, the men all go through rudimentary basic training, because they will be close to the front lines and in the midst of the fighting, even as the war is winding down.
They are told that they are fighting for their culture and their way of life, and they learn that Hitler has ordered that all the stolen art is to be destroyed by the Nazis if he dies or if Germany loses the war.
A running joke has Granger believing that his ability to speak French is much better than it really is, and he is sent to Paris, where he meets Claire Simone, played by Cate Blanchett, a Frenchwoman who was forced to help the Nazis catalogue all the pieces of art that they had stolen in and around Paris.
The team has enough trouble on their hands with fighting the Germans and discovering where they have hidden much of the artwork, but now the Russian Army is moving in from the east, and the Russians want to take whatever art they can find as reparation for all the losses that they have suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
The story has both comic elements and tragic elements as the team tries to retrieve the artwork that Hitler wanted in order to supply his own personal museum.
THE MONUMENTS MEN resonates to this day.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Nebraska” Quirky Little Comedy
Feb 5th
“Quirky Little Comedy”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
NEBRASKA stars Bruce Dern in an award-winning performance as an old codger who is convinced that he has won a million dollars, because he received a letter in the mail that says he did.
Unfortunately, we have all received such letters, which say something like, “You may have already won one million dollars!”
So, when the movie opens, we see Woody Grant shuffling along the highway outside Billings, Montana, where he lives when a policeman stops him to find out what he is doing.
The policeman asks, “Where you headed?” and Woody points ahead of him in the direction he was walking.
The policeman says, “Where you coming from?” and Woody just points behind him.
Will Forte, who was a regular cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” plays David, Woody’s son, and when David comes to pick up Woody, he is told that Woody said he was walking to Nebraska.
You see, the headquarters of the marketing firm that sent Woody the letter is in Lincoln, and Woody believes that if he just shows them the letter, they will give him the one million dollars.
David drives Woody home, and Kate, Woody’s wife, is not sympathetic at all, saying that she never even knew that Woody wanted to be a millionaire, but if she had a million dollars, she would put Woody in a home.
David believes that Woody just needs something to live for, and so somewhat reluctantly he calls in sick at work and agrees to drive Woody to Nebraska just to prove that Woody didn’t win anything.
And so begins a road trip, with a stop along the way in Hawthorne, Nebraska, where Woody grew up and still has friends and relatives living there.
Well, the people in Hawthorne misunderstand the details of Woody’s trip, and the story goes around town that Woody won the lottery and really is a millionaire.
All of a sudden now, many people start pestering Woody and David, saying that Woody owes them money from the past and they want to be repaid.
One of them is Ed Pegram, played by Stacy Keach, who used to be Woody’s business partner and whom Woody believes owes Woody something.
NEBRASKA has a nice little surprise ending, and this quirky little comedy directed by Alexander Payne will make you pleased you saw it.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
