Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Grown Ups” One Big Letdown
Jul 7th
One Big Letdown
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
GROWN UPS isn’t just bad, it is embarrassingly bad.
This movie is so lame that it gives lame a bad name.
To modify a line from Robert Benchley, this is one of those movies in which all the actors unfortunately enunciated very clearly.
This movie reminded me of sex, or in other words the most fun you can have without laughing, except for the part about fun.
I’m not in the habit of forgetting movies, but in this case I will make an exception.
But I digress.
Adam Sandler is responsible for this sorry excuse of a movie, and you get the notion that he just called four or five of his buddies and said in the best Mickey Rooney tradition, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s make a movie!”
The premise is that in 1978 five kids won a championship basketball game on the last shot at the buzzer, it was the only championship team the coach ever had, and Coach “Buzzer” was very special to those boys.
Well, 30 years later, the coach has died, and the kid who made the winning shot, Adam Sandler, arranges for the other four team members to all show up for the coach’s funeral in New England with their families.
The other team members have grown up to be Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider, and they all show up with their wives, children, and other assorted baggage.
They all stay together in a cabin by a lake, and there are lots of jokes about the kids texting instead of just talking, lots of jokes about rude and obnoxious kids, lots of breast-feeding jokes, lots of fart jokes, urinating jokes, more fart jokes, old-age jokes, and jokes about city kids learning how to play outside without video games.
Finally, you just wait for the movie to be over, and you ask yourself what is Salma Hayek doing in this movie, what is Maria Bello doing in this movie, and even what is Steve Buscemi doing in this movie?
And, of course, at the end there is too much talking as all the couples become honest with each other, but even worse than that, there is a Big Game rematch with the grown-up kids from the other team.
GROWN UPS is just equal-opportunity put-downs and one big letdown.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Solitary Man” Scoundrel of a Man
Jul 1st
Scoundrel of a Man
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SOLITARY MAN shows audiences that Michael Douglas just keeps getting better with age.
Douglas plays Ben Kalmen, successful owner of numerous car dealerships all over Long Island and New Jersey, and the movie begins with a title that says “About 6-1/2 Years Ago.” Ben is in his doctor’s office, where he has just taken his yearly physical, and the doctor comes in and says, “I don’t love your EKG.”
Then we cut suddenly to today, and Ben’s fortunes have changed. He doesn’t want his daughter to call him “Dad” in public, and he doesn’t want his grandson to call him “Grandpa.”
Ben is divorced, he is almost 60, and he is dating a woman for what we are told is to establish a connection with her father.
You see, Ben did something illegal that caused embarrassment to the auto industry, he paid a fine in order to keep from going to prison, and he lost all his dealerships.
Meanwhile, his girlfriend’s daughter, Allyson, is trying to get accepted at Ben’s alma mater in Boston, and when her mother comes down with the flu, she asks Ben to accompany Allyson on her college interview.
Ben not only knows the dean personally, but he has also been a large donor to the college, and his name is on the library.
However, while they are on campus, Ben gets into a fight with a student over a frisbee, and he has a run-in with the campus police.
Allyson is assigned a student, Daniel Cheston, to show her around, and Ben takes it upon himself to give Daniel advice on dating, which he also does with Allyson, but his advice to Allyson takes a surprising turn.
Ben also looks up an old college friend named Jimmy, whom he hasn’t seen in 30 years and who is played by Danny DeVito. Ben had said that he would never come back to the town, and Jimmy had said that he would never leave.
Ben had met his ex-wife, played by Susan Sarandan, on a park bench that is still there, which he remembers fondly.
However, Ben’s actions just keep getting him into more and more trouble, and eventually we learn what caused him to change and bring it all upon himself.
SOLITARY MAN is a terrific study of a scoundrel of a man.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The A-Team” Full of Sound and Fury
Jun 24th
“Full of Sound and Fury”
THE A-TEAM is based on the television series of the same name that ran from 1983 to 1987 on NBC-TV, except that the war references have been updated from the Vietnam War to the war in Iraq.
In other words, its target audience of teenage boys hadn’t even been born when the TV series was running, and the teenagers who enjoyed the TV show back then are in their 40s now and probably way too old to enjoy this tired, old retread of a knockoff.
The movie opens “Somewhere in Mexico,” and the leader of the team of renegade soldiers of fortune, Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, played by Liam Neeson, escapes death by dogs and travels “Somewhere Else in Mexico” to rescue Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck, played by Bradley Cooper.
Face is tied up inside a pile of tires by the Bad Mexicanos, and when asked how he is doing says in his characteristic manner, “I’m living the dream!”
In the meantime, B.A. Baracus gets his customized van back, which means something only if you are familiar with the TV series, and, of course, “B.A.” officially stands for “Bad Attitude,” but we all know the initials stand for something else.
And speaking of initials, the three of them find their fourth member in a hospital as usual, he is the pilot of the team, his name is H.M. Murdock, and his initials stand for “Howling Mad,” because he either is or isn’t.
At this point, the movie turns into nonstop action and a nonstop attempt at humorous jokes, what every teenage boy thoroughly enjoys.
Then we are told that it is eight years and 80 successful missions later, Jessica Biel shows up as Capt. Charisa Sosa, she has a history with Faceman, but they haven’t seen each other in three years, and she claims that her fondest memory of Faceman is leaving him.
And the main plot of the movie begins, which is for the team to stop a counterfeiting operation in Baghdad and which involves double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses.
Of course, Hannibal’s catchphrase, “I love it when a plan comes together,” gets some mileage, too.
Now, I hesitate to use a reference from Shakespeare to talk about this movie, but I will.
THE A-TEAM is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but a waste of time.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
