Movies
These are video movie reviews, movie trailers, and websites of the latest movies. The C1N Movie section includes Dan Culberson’s Hotshots Movie Reviews with a new review every week. We also show our C1N trailer pick of the week by Aaron Smith which is about 40 years younger than Dans taste. Show times and ticket avails are up. Look for film festivals, movie news, events, and news about the pictures here too.
“Midnight in Paris” Convoluted Way to Make Simple Point
Jun 15th
“Convoluted Way to Make Simple Point”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s latest film, it was the opening film at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and it has been called one of Allen’s best movies in years.
You be the judge.
It takes place in the present, and so you might be surprised to know that some of the characters in it are Cole Porter, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, T.S. Eliot, and a number of other well-known and not-so-well-known artists from the past.
How can this be, you ask?
Well, therein lies the story, which may or may not be a pun.
Owen Wilson stars as Gil Pender, Rachel McAdams plays his fiancee, Inez, and they are freeloading along with her father and mother on a business trip to Paris that her father is taking.
Even though Gil is a successful Hollywood screenwriter, he becomes enamored with Paris, and he tells Inez, “I can see myself living here.”
Gil happens to be working on a novel, and he considers himself to be a Hollywood hack who never gave literature a shot. He also says that he would have liked to have lived in Paris in the 1920s.
Well, one night after a serious wine tasting, Gil takes a walk through the streets of Paris while the others in the party all go dancing.
Gill is drunk, gets lost while trying to find the hotel, and just as a clock strikes midnight, a 1920s-era taxicab drives by full of party revelers.
They stop, and they invite Gil to join them and go to a party.
At the party, Gil is amazed to see Cole Porter playing the piano and singing, and he meets Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Later, they take their movable party to a cafe, and there is Ernest Hemingway sitting and drinking. Gil tells Hemingway about his novel, and Hemingway offers to show it to Gertrude Stein for her opinion.
Gil leaves to get his manuscript at the hotel, but when he immediately turns around to arrange where they will meet, the cafe is gone.
The next night Gil tries to show Inez what had happened, but she gets bored and leaves before midnight.
But it happens again.
Midnight in Paris is a convoluted way to get a simple point across.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Thor” Deus ex Machina to the Max
Jun 9th
“Deus ex Machina to the Max”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Thor is from the Marvel Studios, which is an obvious indication that it is based on a comic book, even though its roots go all the way back to Norse mythology, in which the title character was the Norse god of thunder, might, and war and who had a magical hammer that returned to him.
So, if you are not a teenager, don’t care for comic books, and not all that interested in Norse mythology, you can skip this one even though it was directed by acclaimed actor-director Kenneth Branagh and stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman.
No, Hopkins doesn’t play Thor. He plays Odin, the supreme god and the father of Thor.
So, if you do see this movie, don’t be surprised if you recognize elements of Norse mythology, Christian mythology, Shakespearean stories, the legend of King Arthur, and every cliche in the book from bad government agents to the use of “bad cop, good cop” in the form of “bad god, good god.”
Oh, yes, the story switches back and forth between the realm of the gods and here on earth, where Thor becomes banished for his bad behavior.
In other words, he has to redeem himself and learn not to be so obnoxious.
And once that Thor lands in New Mexico, he runs into Dr. Jane Foster and her team of astrophysicists. Or, rather, she runs into him. Twice.
Jane is played by Natalie Portman, and if you think that this role is beneath her after winning an Academy Award, you would be right.
Thor’s hammer lands in the desert, too, and so the story cuts back and forth between the treachery up in the realm of the gods and Thor’s trials down on earth, not to mention a budding and implausible romance with Jane.
For an action movie, there is way too much talk, too, from the narration at the beginning to set up the story to the exposition in the middle that makes you just want to say, “Blah blah blah, already!”
And the title gives critics the chance to say the movie is “Thilly, thorry, thtupid, thuperfithial, and thimplithtic.”
Thor even has an ending that would embarrass the gods, because it is one of deus ex machina to the max, assuming that anyone in this simplistic day and age gets that.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Thor – Movie Trailer
Jun 9th
The epic adventure Thor spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the mystical realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is The Mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. As a result, Thor is banished to Earth where he is forced to live among humans. When the most dangerous villain of his world sends its darkest forces to invade Earth, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero.
