Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Angels & Demons” Leaves Questions Unanswered
May 20th
Leaves Questions Unanswered
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
ANGELS & DEMONS is the much-anticipated follow-up to the highly successful and highly controversial 2006 THE DA VINCI CODE, and although it is entertaining, it is less satisfying.
The reason I say “follow-up” instead of “sequel” is that even though the story is identified as taking place after the events in the first film, the novel by Dan Brown on which this film is based was published three years before the novel of THE DA VINCI CODE was published.
The story begins with the death of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the Cardinals of the Church must choose the next Pope from among them to lead the world’s one billion Catholics.
Then we switch to the CERN Laboratory in Switzerland where the world’s largest particle collider is being used in an experiment to create antimatter.
The experiment succeeds, but one of the scientists is murdered and the antimatter is stolen.
Professor Robert Langdon, again played by Tom Hanks as the professor of symbology at Harvard University but without the ugly haircut this time, is summoned to the Vatican in Rome, because the four Cardinals who were favored for one of them to be chosen as the next Pope have been kidnaped by a group identifying themselves as the Illuminati, saying that they will kill one of the Cardinals every hour leading up to midnight, when they will destroy the Vatican with the stolen antimatter.
Langdon explains that the Illuminati is a secret organization dedicated to science and the search for truth, and when the head of the Vatican police asks Langdon, “Are you anti-Catholic, Professor Langdon?” Langdon answers, “No, I’m anti-vandalism.”
Now, the threat note from the kidnapers contains clues to where each of the Cardinals will be murdered, and so Langdon has to decipher the clues so that they can prevent their death.
And accompanying Langdon and the Vatican police is a beautiful scientist from the CERN Laboratory who can defuse the antimatter “bomb” if they can find if before its battery runs down and it explodes.
Confusing? Yes. Complicated? You bet. At one point I wrote in my notes, “What’s going on?”
The biggest question to ask ourselves, however, is “Why can’t science and religion just get along?”
ANGELS & DEMONS is entertaining, but it leaves too many questions unanswered.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Soloist” Could Have Been Better
May 14th
Could Have Been Better
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE SOLOIST is based on a true story, and yet it comes across as if the filmmakers weren’t exactly sure where they wanted the focus to be.
It stars Jamie Foxx as Nathaniel Ayers and Robert Downey Jr. as Steve Lopez, two men whose lives change dramatically when they meet each other and become friends.
Lopez is a columnist for THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, and one day he encounters Ayers in a park playing beautiful music on a violin that has only two strings.
Lopez thinks that Ayers could be the subject of an interesting column, writing “violin guy” in his notebook for ideas, and he begins finding out all he can about this homeless man with amazing musical talent.
He learns that Ayers had been a student at the Juilliard School of Music, but had dropped out before graduating. And when he tracks down the sister of Ayers in Cleveland, she asks him why he is interested in her brother, and Lopez says, “Everyone has a story, and it’s interesting.”
The sister tells Lopez that Nathaniel had become fascinated with music when he was a young boy and after that there was no more football, no more baseball, just music. She says, “That was all he did, just music.”
We see flashbacks to when Ayers was a kid that show his fascination and also to when he arrived in New York City to attend Juilliard, which also give us an indication as to why he dropped out before graduating.
Lopez begins writing some columns about Ayers, which cause one reader to send him a cello that she can’t play anymore to give to Ayers, because the cello was his first instrument of choice.
Lopez involves himself even more into the homeless man’s life, managing to obtain an apartment for Ayers, cello lessons for the first time in three decades, and even to arrange for Ayers to attend a rehearsal for a Beethoven concert.
However, things don’t always go the way Lopez plans them, and the relationship between Ayers and Lopez takes a turn for the worse.
Because we see so many details of Lopez’s life at home and at the office, we begin to wonder if the filmmakers wanted to tell the story about Lopez or about Ayers.
THE SOLOIST is good, but could have been better.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Is Anybody There” Yes, There Is
May 7th
Yes, There Is
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
IS ANYBODY THERE? is a film with a fairly familiar story about the contrast between youth and old age, but it has one thing in it that makes it stand out above all the others and that makes it worth seeing: Sir Michael Caine.
Caine doesn’t like to be called “Sir,” even though he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2000, and he doesn’t like to be referred to by his title, which is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE.
Pretty good for a Cockney kid who was born Maurice Micklewhite, but who has been making movies for more than 50 years, i’n’t it?
Here he plays “The Amazing Clarence,” a retired magician who checks himself into “a residence home for the elderly” that is run by a young couple with a 10-year-old son named Edward.
Edward isn’t happy to meet Clarence at first, because Clarence is given Edward’s old room, which Edward was hoping he would get back after the previous resident had died in it. In fact, Edward asked his parents, “Can I have my room back now that Arthur’s dead?”
Edward is fascinated with ghosts and the idea of people dying, and he had put his tape recorder under the bed of his room’s previous occupant in order to record the very moment when he died.
Clarence and Edward take a reluctant liking to each other, and Clarence gives Edward some practical advice, telling him, “Your life changes, Buster, and not always for the better.”
Clarence also teaches Edward some magic tricks, which Edward uses at school in order to impress his classmates.
Edward then convinces Clarence to put on a magic show for the residents of the old-folks home, and despite some polite resistance at first, Clarence is eager to perform, but to say that one of his tricks ends not quite how he planned it would be a major understatement.
Along the way, both Clarence and Edward help each other out in their respective troubling times, and you will probably predict how you think the story is going to end, but you could also be very wrong.
You will also never forget who is appearing in the film and what a privilege that is.
IS ANYBODY THERE? answers its own question with a resounding “Yes, there is.”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
