Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Albert Nobbs” Is Lovely, Sweet and Tragic
Feb 3rd
“Lovely, Sweet and Tragic”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Albert Nobbs is a project that star Glenn Close has been working on since she won an Obie for playing the role in 1982 in a play in New York City.
Finally released in 2011, the film not only stars Close, but she also cowrote it, coproduced it, and wrote the lyrics for the film’s theme song.
The story takes place in 19th-century Dublin, and the title character is a waiter working in a hotel who has a closely held secret: Albert is actually a woman posing as a man in order to earn a steady wage in the harsh Irish economy and repressed society.
In fact, Close herself said in an interview about the situation of women at that time, “Women had absolutely no rights if you had no money and no family.”
Eventually we learn the tragic story that caused Albert to pose as a man in order to earn money for herself, and we see her try to be as inconspicuous as possible as she goes about her duties in Morrison’s Hotel.
The guests refer to Albert as “such a kind little man,” and Albert doesn’t show any outward reaction to the shenanigans of the more rowdy and roisterous guests.
Every night Albert counts the money she has earned that day, records the amount in a ledger, and hides it all underneath a floorboard in her room upstairs in the hotel before going to bed.
You see, Albert has a dream: She is saving her money to buy a small store in which she can own a tobacco shop and run it from behind the counter.
And then Albert’s plans change.
She gets the idea that it would be easier if she were to marry a woman while still posing as a man, and then the two of them together could run the tobacco shop. And so Albert begins courting Helen, a young maid who works at Morrison’s Hotel, and who is played by Mia Wasikowska.
Unfortunately, Helen is in love with Joe, a young handyman who also works and lives at the hotel, who has told Helen about his plans to take them both to America.
However, Joe encourages Helen to go out walking with Albert in order to get as much from Albert as she can.
Albert Nobbs is lovely, sweet, and tragic.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Iron Lady” Is Slapped Together
Jan 28th
“Slapped Together”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Iron Lady is yet another acting triumph for Meryl Streep as she plays Margaret Thatcher, the longest-seated prime minister of Great Britain in the 20th century from 1979 to 1990, the first woman prime minister, and at various times in her political career the most hated woman in Great Britain.
In fact, she was loved and hated in office as much as her contemporary President Ronald Reagan was in the U.S. and for the same reasons: They both had conservative values and free-market ideology that helped transform their respective countries into industrially depleted and increasingly unequal societies.
In addition, they both danced–sometimes together–while the countries they led were suffering.
The film opens in the present day with Margaret as an old woman out shopping, and when she returns to her flat, her daughter, Carol, tells her that she shouldn’t go out on her own, to which Margaret replies, “If I can’t go out to buy a pint of milk, what is the world coming to?”
Then we see flashbacks to when Margaret was a young woman whose name was Margaret Roberts, played by a different actress, Alexandra Roach, and she is not portrayed as a very likable woman.
And, yes, the film shifts back and forth in time so much in the style that filmmakers seem to prefer these days that you might ask yourself is the whole movie going to be like this?
And the answer is, yes, it is.
We also see Margaret’s husband, Denis Thatcher, played as an old man by Jim Broadbent, and once again the filmmakers try to trick the audience into believing that a scene of fantasy and Margaret’s delusional dotage is reality.
In fact, Broadbent might spend more screen time dead than he does alive.
Major events during Thatcher’s career as prime minister are covered, such as the 1982 Falklands War, the 1984 miners’ strike, the 1984 IRA bombing of a hotel hosting a conference of the Conservative Party, and her replacement as prime minister after a rebellion by her colleagues.
We even see some scenes in which she is advised about her clothes and the way she speaks in public.
The Iron Lady is so slapped together that when it ends, you don’t even realize that this is the scene in which the movie is ending.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Artist” Sounds Familiar, but It’s Silent
Jan 21st
“Sounds Familiar”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Artist is one of those films that Hollywood loves to make, because it has a simple story that has been retold many times before, it wins many awards both at home and abroad, and it is about Hollywood itself.
So, what is it that makes this version different, you ask?
Well, it is a silent movie with only music on the soundtrack except for one scene that is designed to trick the audience, and it takes place in the 1920s in Hollywood when movies were just beginning to be made with sound and the famous sign still said “Hollywoodland” as it originally did.
And even that isn’t original, because Mel Brooks did the same thing with his 1976 Silent Movie, and the one word of dialogue that we hear in that movie was more original, clever, and funny.
This film is a comedy, as well, and the story begins in 1927 when we see a movie within the movie within this movie, which is called A Russian Affair.
Of course, that film is silent, and we see a scene in which the hero is being tortured, and he says what we see in the subtitles, “I won’t say a word. I won’t speak.”
Then the hero is rescued by a dog, they escape, and the movie is over.
The hero is played by George Valentin, a silent-movie star at the top of his success, and he has been backstage while his movie has been showing, and after the movie is over and the audience is applauding, he comes out from behind the screen and takes a bow, calls the dog out, too, and they ham it up for the audience.
Meanwhile, a young woman named Peppy Miller arrives in town, and naturally she wants to be a movie star.
She accidentally bumps into George on the street while he is playing to the crowd, she hams it up, a photographer takes her picture, and the story makes the front page of a newspaper with the headline of “Who’s That Girl?”
So, Peppy does get into the movies just as “talkies” start to be made, George refuses to do sound movies, and his career fades as Peppy’s starts to rise.
Sound familiar? See any version of A Star Is Born.
The Artist sounds familiar, even though it’s silent.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
