Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Bad Teacher” Worse Writers
Jul 29th
“Worse Writers”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Bad Teacher stars Cameron Diaz in the title role, because otherwise who would want to see a movie about a bad teacher?
Teachers are supposed to be good. Teachers are supposed to be helpful. Teachers are supposed to be able to teach difficult subjects to recalcitrant students.
And if you don’t know what “recalcitrant” means, then you just might have been one.
Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a seventh-grade teacher at John Adams Middle School, and when the movie begins, it is the last day of school and she is being honored by the principal after having taught only one year.
Elizabeth is given a $37 gift certificate as a bonus, which doesn’t say as much about her teaching abilities as it does about the sad economic state of the education system in general.
Elizabeth tells her colleagues that she doesn’t need a blackboard or a classroom to set an example, but Elizabeth doesn’t plan to return in the fall to teach a second year at the school. She plans to marry her wealthy fiance and be taken care of for the rest of her life.
However, when Elizabeth goes home that day, her plans change completely, and three months later she is back at school to teach another year.
Well, “teach” is such a loaded word. Let’s just call it sitting at the front of her classroom and planning how she is going to pay for the boob job she believes will land her a rich husband.
In fact, Elizabeth starts showing movies about teachers instead of doing any teaching herself, and when the principal questions her teaching-by-movies technique, Elizabeth says, “I think that movies are the new books.”
Then when Justin Timberlake shows up at the school as Scott Delacorte, the new substitute teacher, Elizabeth learns that he is independently wealthy, and so she schemes to snag him as her sugar daddy, but nerdy Scott has hie eye on another teacher whom Elizabeth doesn’t get along with.
Now, of course there is a scene at a fund-raising car wash in which Elizabeth shows off her body that is like many other movies before this one, of course there is a major plot to get money that backfires, and of course there is a kind gym teacher attracted to Elizabeth whom she rejects.
Bad Teacher has worse writers.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Friends with Benefits” Game, Set, and Match
Jul 28th
“Game, Set, and Match”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Friends with Benefits is a romantic comedy that tries to be an unromantic comedy just because of the title.
The title, of course, means two friends who have sex with each other, but without any romantic feelings, and if you believe that is possible, there is still a bridge in Brooklyn and swampland in Louisiana someone would be willing to sell you.
Justin Timberlake stars as Dylan Harper, and Mila Kunis stars as Jamie, the two friends who try to make the title work, and I don’t think I’m giving anything away by telling you that this sort of sexual arrangement is doomed from the start.
When the movie begins, Dylan and Jamie don’t even know each other, and they both go through a breakup with someone that leaves them disillusioned about romance.
In fact, they both use a variation of the same line of “I’m just going to shut myself down emotionally, like George Clooney.”
And this is just one of way too many references to popular culture, movies, and television shows the writers thought were going to be funny, clever, or enlightening to the audience instead of being annoying and distracting to me.
Dylan and Jamie meet “awkward” instead of meet “cute” at a New York airport when she greets him on his arrival from Los Angeles for a job interview.
You see, Jamie is a corporate recruiter, or “head hunter,” and she found Dylan, who is a graphic designer in Los Angeles, and got him an interview to be the art director for a magazine in New York.
Dylan likes the open spaces of Los Angeles and doesn’t really want the job, but he gets it anyway, and then Jamie works at selling Dylan on New York City, because if he quits or gets fired before a year is up, Jamie doesn’t get her bonus for finding Dylan.
After they become friends, they discuss sex, and they decide that two people should be able to have sex like they’re playing a game of tennis, and so they decide to have sex, but without any emotions.
Now, if you have ever played tennis, you know that players do get emotional about it, and the very first score of every game is love-love.
Friends with Benefits is game, set, and match and not worth the effort.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“A Better Life” A Wonderful Film
Jul 21st
“A Wonderful Film”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
A Better Life is a terrific film that deserves as much publicity as it can get, because otherwise audiences will probably overlook it and not give it the attendance it deserves.
It also has a simple story that might not be popular, because it is about the relationship between an undocumented foreigner from Mexico and his teenage son, who live in Los Angeles.
Carlos Galindo has a steady job as a gardener working for another Mexican’s gardening business, and he sleeps on the couch in the living room at home so that his 14-year-old son, Luis, can sleep in the bedroom.
When Carlos finds out that Luis has missed 18 or 19 days of school so far this year, he asks him, “You want to end up like me?” to which Luis answers “No.”
Luis has some resentment toward his father, because he blames Carlos for his mother leaving them, whom Luis never wants to talk about.
Meanwhile, the man for whom Carlos works, Blasco Martinez, wants to retire, and he offers to sell Carlos his beat-up truck so that Carlos can have his own gardening business.
To Carlos, he wouldn’t just be buying a truck. He would be buying the American Dream.
However, not only doesn’t Carlos have the $12,000 that Blasco wants for his truck, but Carlos doesn’t even have a driver’s license, and if he ever gets stopped by the police, he could be deported back to Mexico. That is why Carlos wants to try to stay “invisible.”
Meanwhile, Luis gets suspended from school for fighting, and Carlos is concerned that Luis has a fascination with gangs and might even end up in a gang.
Carlos asks his sister, Anita, for a $12,000 loan, promising to pay the money back and telling her that if it works out, everything is going to change. He won’t have to work on Sunday anymore and can spend more time with Luis, if Luis wants.
Anita loans Carlos the money without telling her husband, who she says is the cheapest man in the world.
So, Carlos buys the truck from Blasco, but his life doesn’t change as he had imagined. Almost immediately, the truck is stolen, and Carlos and Luis have to try to get it back while staying invisible.
A Better Life is a wonderful film.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
