Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Lone Survivor” Interesting and Exhausting
Jan 22nd
“Interesting and Exhausting”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LONE SURVIVOR is based on the true story of a military operation in 2005 in Afghanistan that went terribly wrong.
Mark Wahlberg stars as Chief Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell, a member of Navy SEAL Team 10, which took part in the operation after which Luttrell wrote a best-selling book about his experience.
The film and the story also have a Colorado connection, as one member of the SEAL team on the ground, Danny Dietz, played by Emile Hirsch, grew up in the Denver area.
The team was charged with capturing or killing a top Taliban leader named Ahmad Shah, who was known to be responsible for the deaths of many Americans in the military.
So, a team of four men are dropped on the ground in Afghanistan, and we hear the radio signal from the command plane above them say, “We’ll be with you for the next six hours; have a nice walk.”
Unfortunately, events begin to go wrong almost immediately when they get into position and an old man and two boys herding some goats stumble upon their location.
The team captures the goatherders, but their rules of engagement prevent them from harming unarmed prisoners, and when the team can’t communicate with their commanding officer back at base camp about what to do, after some disagreement among themselves, they let the three prisoners go unharmed, and now that the operation is compromised, they head for higher ground.
Then an army of Taliban soldiers finds them and engages them in a firefight that essentially is the rest of the movie.
There is an attempt to break up the nonstop bloody action with a couple of side stories about an Arabian horse wanted as a wedding present and the harassment of a new member back at base camp, but essentially the movie consists of the combat fighting between the team and the Taliban as the team is cut down to its title character.
How he survives after the fighting is over on the mountain is of interest and points out a culture clash, but at this point the audience is probably exhausted from everything that leads up to it.
As a story, the movie is interesting, but as a movie, it is exhausting.
LONE SURVIVOR leaves it up to the audience to decide whether to be interested or exhausted.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“August: Osage County” Worst Family Ever!
Jan 15th
“Worst Family Ever!”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is the film version of the award-winning play of the same awkward title, and it stars an impressive cast in a story about a family that is the very definition of “dysfunctional.”
The story supposedly takes place during the hot month of August on the desolate, dusty plains of Osage County, Oklahoma, and it stars Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Margo Martindale, Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney, Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
The story is triggered by a crisis in the family, which causes the members of the family to gather around the home of the matriarch to offer their support.
The matriarch is Violet, who is addicted to pills, possibly brought on by the chemotherapy she underwent because of cancer.
Violet’s oldest daughter is Barbara, and she, her husband, and teenage daughter drive down from Denver, and Barbara tells Violet, “Maybe he needed some time away from you.”
A second daughter, Ivy, lives in the area, and a third daughter, Karen, shows up from Florida with her fiance in his flashy Ferrari sports car.
Then there is Violet’s sister, Mattie Fae, who lives nearby with her husband, Charles, as well as their adult son, Little Charles, who is insecure, awkward, and seems to be picked on all the time for no apparent reason.
Well, the family dinner is painful for the participants, but funny to the audience, and Violet wants to talk about subjects that no one else wants to talk about.
A doctor says that Violet suffers from mild cognitive impairment, and Barbara takes over and says she is running things now, dumping all of Violet’s pills down the toilet.
Needless to say, the family has many secrets that come out over the course of the events, some painful and some that weren’t secrets at all to a few members of the family.
Spoiler Alert!
If you have seen the play, you will recognize the original ending, but the movie keeps going on from there with an additional scene. Test audiences believed the original ending was too bleak, and so the producers ordered a new scene be tacked on to the end, but any intelligent viewer can see that the new ending contains some important logical problems.
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is a depressing story about the worst family ever!
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Inside Llewyn Davis” Tries Everything to See What Sticks
Jan 13th
“See What Sticks”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Inside Llewyn Davis is the latest film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and the story follows a weekend in the life of the title character as he tries to become a success as a folksinger in New York City.
As with most Coen Brothers movies, this one has already won some awards, been nominated for more, and will probably win a few more during this awards season.
Also as with most Coen Brothers movies, audiences love them, hate them, or can take them or leave them. This one, I can leave.
The time is February 1961, and we see Llewyn performing at a cafe in Greenwich Village for bucket money. While he is singing, a bucket is passed around the audience, and he gets to keep whatever money is left in the bucket after the house takes its cut.
Llewyn doesn’t have a regular place to stay, and he depends on the kindness of friends to be allowed to sleep on their couches. So, he wakes up one morning after being awakened by the owners’ cat, and when he leaves the apartment, the cat follows him outside.
Unfortunately, the door locks behind him, and a running motif in the story has Llewyn carrying a cat around with him until he can return it to the owners.
Other friends of Llewyn’s are a folksinging team of Jim and Jean, played by Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan, and when Llewyn goes to see Jean at their little apartment, Jean shows him a note that says, “I’m pregnant.”
Jean doesn’t know who the father is, it could be Llewyn, it could be Jim, or it could even be someone else.
Then Llewyn goes on a road trip to Chicago, where he hopes to advance his struggling career, and he meets Roland Turner, played by John Goodman in yet another of his many roles that steal scenes and even movies.
Well, Chicago doesn’t work out for Llewyn, either, and he goes back to New York City, only now he is so despondent that he tries to become a sailor in the merchant marine again.
The Coen Brothers seem to throw everything at the wall just to see what sticks, which includes bookends to the movie that don’t make much sense.
Inside Llewyn Davis is too “inside” for my taste.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
