Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Young Adult” Is So Dark, It’s Black
Dec 23rd
“So Dark, It’s Black”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Young Adult, because of the successes this year of Bad Teacher and Horrible Bosses, could have been called Bad Graduate or Horrible Alumna.
Instead, it is called Young Adult, because the protagonist, Mavis Gary, is the ghostwriter of a series of young-adult novels, but also because even though she is 37, she acts as if she were still in high school, where she was the popular prom queen.
The film was directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, who previously worked together on the 2007 Juno, for which Cody won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and Mavis in this film has even been referred to as a grown-up Juno.
Charlize Theron plays Mavis, and when the movie opens, she is living unhappily in Minneapolis, where she learns that the wife of her high-school sweetheart, Buddy Slade, has just recently had a baby.
So, Mavis says, “It’s like he’s a hostage,” and she drives back to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, where she intends to win Buddy back, rescue him, or whatever other euphemism she can think of for stealing Buddy away from his wife and newborn baby.
However, before Mavis can meet Buddy for an “innocent drink,” she encounters Matt Freehauf, whom she doesn’t remember from high school even though their lockers were right next to each other.
Matt was and still is a geek, he is crippled, and then Mavis remembers that he is the “hate-crime guy,” the boy from their high-school days who was brutally attacked and crippled by some jocks for being gay, even though Matt wasn’t gay.
Mavis tells Matt that she is back in town to get Buddy back, because they were meant to be together, and Matt tells Mavis what she already knows, that Buddy is married and his wife just had a baby.
Matt lives with his sister, has a distillery in his garage, and Mavis keeps calling on Matt for alcoholic friendship when her plans to steal Buddy away from his wife keep not working out, especially when Mavis makes a scene at the baby’s naming ceremony.
Mavis believes that most people in Mercury seem to be so happy with so little, and yet it is difficult for her to be happy.
Young Adult is a comedy, but it is so dark, it is black humor.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Skin I Live In” Is Unnecessarily Shocking
Dec 18th
“Unnecessarily Shocking”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Skin I Live In is the latest movie from Spanish writer and director Pedro Almodovar, and of all the movies that he has made, this is one of them.
The story begins in 2012 in Toledo, Spain, and there will be some flashbacks and dream sequences designed to enlighten and confuse the audience, respectively, whereas the purpose of the whole movie is just to lead up to a whopping shocker at the end.
Antonio Banderas plays Dr. Robert Ledgard, a renowned plastic surgeon who is experimenting with developing artificial skin that is sensitive to gentle touches and yet at the same time is indestructible.
The reason that Robert is obsessed with creating this artificial skin is that years earlier his wife was in an automobile accident in which her skin was horribly burned, and she died as a result of that accident.
So, Robert has a patient locked up in his house, a beautiful young woman named Vera whose whole body is being covered with the artificial skin.
One day Vera cuts herself across her breasts, and Robert saves her and repairs the damage, but Vera says, “If you want me to stop breathing, kill me.”
Robert points out to her that if she had really wanted to kill herself, she would have cut her jugular vein.
Robert uses pig cells to strengthen the artificial skin, which is illegal, and he is ordered to stop his experiments or else he will be reported to the scientific and medical communities.
Of course, he doesn’t, because otherwise there wouldn’t be any movie.
Robert keeps Vera locked up in her room, but he can observe her with all the surveillance cameras he has installed, and we learn more about Vera, Robert’s housekeeper, visitors to Robert’s house, and even about Robert himself.
When Robert is finished, Vera can boast of having the best skin in the world, but apparently Vera has now become attracted to Robert, and she tells him that she wants to live together with him as equals, like everyone else.
However, Robert’s housekeeper warns Robert that he has to kill Vera or Vera will kill herself. She also says that Robert shouldn’t have constructed Vera’s face to resemble the face of his dead wife.
The Skin I Live In is unnecessarily shocking and becomes even more unnecessarily shocking.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“My Week with Marilyn” Delightful and Believable
Dec 10th
“Delightful and Believable”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
My Week with Marilyn tells the true story of what must have been every young man’s dream back in the 1950s: spend time on a movie set with Marilyn Monroe and get paid to take care of all her needs and wants.
The time is 1956, the 23-year-old man is Colin Clark, and the movie is The Prince and the Showgirl, which was being made in England.
Marilyn is played wonderfully by Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh plays Laurence Olivier, and, yes, that is Emma Watson playing Lucy, a wardrobe assistant working on the movie.
Judi Dench plays an actress in the movie being made, which was based on a play called The Sleeping Prince, and one could ask, “Is Judi Dench in every movie these days?”
Colin says that he will do anything to be in the film business, and he remarks, “Everyone remembers their first job. This is the story of mine.”
Through family connections, Colin is able to get a job as a gofer on the production and is even given the title of Third Assistant Director, a position that nowadays is called Second Second Assistant Director, so that people will stop referring to the person by a rude word that rhymes with “third.”
Marilyn is having personal problems in her life, she is terribly insecure, and she arrives with her new husband, Arthur Miller, along with a large number of handlers who like to keep Marilyn medicated because it is easier to keep their cash cow under control that way.
After Marilyn keeps everyone waiting on the set and slowing down the production, Olivier tells Colin to “Be a good boy and keep an eye on her.”
Then after Arthur Miller leaves and goes back to the United States, Marilyn starts noticing Colin and calls him at all hours when she just wants a friend or to have someone near whom she believes she can trust and is on her side in the conflict that is going on.
Marilyn claims that she just wants to be loved like a regular girl, but Olivier believes that she knows exactly what she is doing, and now Colin is in a very fortunate and privileged position that gets him in trouble with her handlers and other members of the crew.
My Week with Marilyn is delightful and believable.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
