Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
Love is Strange “Downer Movie”
Oct 6th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LOVE IS STRANGE stars John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as two gay men who have been living together for years and have been partners for even longer than that, and it is about what happens to them after they can finally get officially married.
The movie begins with the wedding ceremony for Ben and George, which is held outdoors in New York City and attended by their families and friends.
At the reception afterwards, held in the roomy apartment that Ben and George own together, Kate, played by Marisa Tomei, who is married to Elliot, Ban’s nephew, makes a toast and says, “May this marriage last forever and beyond.”
Well, unfortunately, their official marriage causes problems for Ben and George, because George, who teaches music at a Catholic school, loses his job, and their loss of income forces them to sell their apartment and move out.
So, while they are looking for another apartment, Ben moves in with Elliot and Kate, where he sleeps on the bottom bunk in the bedroom of their teenage son, Joey, which causes privacy problems with Joey and his friend Vlad.
George moves in with two policemen friends of theirs, who are also gay, and he sleeps on the couch in their living room.
Now, Kate is a novelist who works at home, Ben likes to talk, and he doesn’t realize at first that his talking to Kate is interrupting her concentration and getting on her nerves.
As Ben tells George, “Sometimes when you live with people, you know them better than you care to.”
Ben is a painter, but when Kate suggests that he do some painting to keep him busy, he tells her that he can’t work if someone else is around, because he can’t concentrate.
George is also having difficulties with his new living arrangement sleeping on the couch, because the policemen have a lot of parties and a lot of friends over for activities that don’t interest George at all.
Now, you might get the impression that this sounds like a pretty depressing movie, and you would be right.
Even though other incidents break up the main complication of Ben and George looking for a new place to live, and even though something lucky happens for them, it gets even more depressing.
LOVE IS STRANGE is a downer movie.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Drop “Definitely Worth Seeing”
Sep 22nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE DROP is a very good, dark, and gritty movie that revolves around a bar in Brooklyn called Cousin Marv’s, which used to belong to Marv, played by James Gandolfini.
Bob, played by Tom Hardy, who actually is a cousin of Marv’s, tends bar there, and the bar is sometimes used as a “drop bar,” where bookies and dealers leave bundles of cash in envelopes for the crime bosses who control them to come by after hours to collect the money.
There is a rotating circuit of bars that are used as drop bars, but one night when Cousin Marv’s is the drop bar, it is robbed by two men wearing masks, and even though Marv tries to warn them about whose money they are stealing, the two robbers take the money anyway.
Bob notices that one of the men is wearing a wristwatch that is broken, but when he mentions this to the police who investigate, Marv gets upset with Bob.
One night Bob had been out walking in the neighborhood, and he discovers a bleeding puppy in a garbage can. The woman who lives in the house behind the garbage can comes out and starts talking to Bob about the puppy, which is not hers, nor does she know anything about it or why it had been left in her garbage can.
Bob promises to think about taking the dog to the shelter if she will just keep it until Saturday when he will come back to pick it up.
The woman’s name is Nadia, and Bob decides to keep the dog, but because he has never owned a dog before, Nadia goes with Bob to the store and helps him buy the necessities that Bob needs in order to keep he dog, which he names Rocco.
Meanwhile, the police keep coming around to investigate the robbery, the owners of the bar show up wanting the money that had been taken in the robbery, and a menacing man named Eric Deeds, who used to be involved with Nadia, shows up at Bob’s apartment, claiming that the dog is his, but he will let Bob keep Rocco if Bob will pay him $10,000.
The bar is designated the drop bar for Super Bowl Sunday, and everything comes to a head.
THE DROP is definitely worth seeing.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”