Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Mud” Just Another Mysterious Stranger Movie
Jun 15th
“Another Mysterious Stranger”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Mud stars Matthew McConaughey, he has received praise for his performance in this film, but once again he does what he seems to do in all of his films, and that is to take his shirt off.
The story takes place in Arkansas along the Arkansas River near the Mississippi River, and it is basically another in a long line of movies about coming of age.
It begins in the middle of the night when a boy named Ellis, who is 14 years old, sneaks out of his parents’ houseboat and meets his best friend, Neckbone, where they take a boat out onto the river and motor downstream to the Mississippi, where they beach their boat on the shore of an island.
They walk inland for a while, come to a tall tree, and one of them says, “There it is.”
“It” is a boat in pretty good condition stuck high up in the tree from some previous time when flood conditions caused it to get stuck up there.
Although they claim the boat as theirs, they soon discover that someone is living in the boat, and he shows up telling them that the boat is his, because he is living in it.
The man tells them to call him Mud, says that he grew up around there, and he will trade them the boat for food.
Mud is waiting for someone, a woman named Juniper, and when she shows up, they will leave and the boys can have the boat.
Back home, Ellis’s mother tells him to be home that evening by 7, so they can have a sit-down dinner and talk.
Then while he is in town, Ellis sees an older boy picking on a girl Ellis knows named May Pearl, and Ellis punches the boy to get him to stop.
Ellis and Neckbone also see a pretty woman in town they had never seen before, who turns out to be Juniper, played by Reese Witherspoon.
Later, Ellis learns that his parents want to separate, his mother wants to move back into town, and they will lose the houseboat.
And this is all just the beginning of the story, which has too many parallels and is not original.
Mud is just another movie about a mysterious stranger who shows up and changes the lives of others.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Now You See Me” Misdirection in Its Own Right
Jun 9th
“Misdirection in Its Own Right”
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Now You See Me combines the genres of a movie about magicians with a heist movie, and it ends up with an example of more is less.
Even the appearances of Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine can’t pull this movie out of the doldrums.
The story begins when four magicians who each have different specialties are all summoned to a locked apartment in New York City which is full of clues that they have to figure out in order to learn why they were summoned.
The four magicians are Daniel, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who is a master of misdirection; Henley, played by Isla Fisher, who is Daniel’s former assistant; Merritt, played by Woody Harrelson, who is a mentalist; and Jack, played by Dave Franco, who is an expert at card tricks.
Incidentally, Dave Franco is the brother of James Franco.
Then we shift to one year later in Las Vegas, the four now call themselves The Four Horsemen, and they put on a spectacular show in a casino, where Daniel announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight we are going to rob a bank!”
Well, not only do they rob a bank of 32 million Euros, but the bank is in Paris, France, and the robbery occurs during the show with the assistance of a man pulled at random from out of the audience.
Now the FBI gets involved with Agent Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo, another agent from Interpol, a woman named Alma Dray shows up to assist him, and after an interrogation that is unproductive for the authorities, The Four Horsemen are off to their next big show in New Orleans, which is publicized as the setup for their third show, the “Big Punch,” in New York City.
The thing about magic, however, is that if you know how a trick is done, you lose interest in watching that trick again, and a famous magician tells Agents Rhodes and Dray how The Four Horsemen managed to rob that bank in Paris.
The movie tries to spice things up with races through the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, but again The Four Horsemen escape, and they are on to New York City, where a car chase through the streets and over a bridge don’t help much, either.
Now You See Me itself is all misdirection.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Hangover Part III” Third in a Successful, Redundant Series
Jun 1st
“Successful, Redundant Series”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Hangover Part III is not as good as the first movie in the trilogy, but much better than the second one, which was just a remake of the first one but with the setting changed from Las Vegas to Thailand.
This one mixes up the basic plot of a lost weekend in connection with a wedding for the hapless men known as The Wolfpack, and it moves the setting back to Las Vegas, as well as adding two new characters to the mix.
Oh, and it also has a wedding, but you might be surprised at who gets married.
Once again the self-named Wolfpack consists of Phil, played by Bradley Cooper; Stu, played by Ed Helms; and Alan, played by Zach Galifianakis.
Doug is back, as well, but just as in the first two movies, he is missing from most of the story. That guy just can’t catch a break, can he?
After a brief prelude in Thailand, which features Mr. Chow, again played by Ken Jeong, the story begins with Alan driving down the freeway towing a live giraffe behind him and yelling, “Oh, my life is great!”
Alan is 42 years old and still living at home, and his life is anything but great and just keeps getting worse, mostly because he says he will never change, and this time he has an excuse.
Meanwhile, a gangster named Marshall, played by John Goodman, interrupts everybody’s plans and forces them to find Mr. Chow in order for Marshall to get back $21 million in gold that Chow stole from him.
No problem, right? Well, yes, lots of problems, but eventually they find Chow in Las Vegas and the madcap antics start all over again, some funny and some not so funny.
So, how many more of these movies can we take, and how many more can be made?
Well, the possibilities are endless and frightening, which means as long as they make money, which they seem to do.
After all, there is still one member of the Wolfpack who is not married, and then there is the possibility of divorce parties for all of them, but now I am just beginning to make everybody sick.
The Hangover Part III might not be the end of these movies, but just another one of a successful, redundant series.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”