Videos
The Fault In Our Stars “LOVE STORY for Teenagers”
Jun 12th
(“LOVE STORY for Teenagers”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS takes its title from Shakespeare’s JULIUS CAESAR and not ROMEO AND JULIET, which would be more appropriate, except that this movie comes nowhere near the quality of any Shakespeare work.
In fact, the movie is based on the highly successful novel for young adults by John Green, and keep that in mind if you are any sort of adult other than the “young” kind.
Otherwise, you might be sucked into the story that you have seen many times before and think “Been there, seen that, took out my hanky.”
Shailene Woodley stars as Hazel Grace Lancaster, who is 17 years old and has thyroid cancer, which causes her to wheel around an oxygen tank with her wherever she goes.
However, don’t feel sorry for Hazel, because she certainly doesn’t, and in her narration she says, “Depression is not a side effect of cancer; it’s a side effect of dying.”
We learn that Hazel takes eight prescription drugs three times a day and that support groups are not her “thing,” although she is persuaded to attend one for other teenagers with cancer, because the reason she does anything these days is to make her parents happy.
Hazel’s mother is Frannie, played by Laura Dern.
At the first group meeting, Hazel meets Augustus Waters, played by Ansel Elgort, who takes an immediate interest in Hazel and flirts with her.
Gus used to be a basketball star before he lost his leg to osteosarcoma, and he makes jokes about everything, claiming that he is at group meetings only in support of his best friend, Isaac, who lost an eye to cancer and is in danger of losing his remaining eye.
Hazel and Gus become close friends, avoiding any talk of love, and they exchange their favorite books for the other to read, Hazel’s being AN IMPERIAL AFFLICTION, about a girl with cancer that ends infuriatingly in the middle of a sentence.
Then Gus helps Hazel get a response from the author, Peter Van Houten, an American now living in Amsterdam and played by Willem Dafoe, who responds that if Hazel is ever in Amsterdam to look him up.
And then here come the surprises, right and left, and then the tragedies, up and down.
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS is just a LOVE STORY for teenagers.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Fault In Our Stars – Movie Trailer
Jun 11th
Hazel and Gus are two extraordinary teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them – and us – on an unforgettable journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous, given that they met and fell in love at a cancer support group. THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, based upon the number-one bestselling novel by John Green, explores the funny, thrilling and tragic business of being alive and in love.
Chef “Tantalizes the Taste Buds”
Jun 5th
(“Tantalizes the Taste Buds”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CHEF is more than just a little movie about food or about the personal redemption of a first-class chef.
As evidence of that, there is even a cookbook, THE OFFICIAL CHEF MOVIE COOKBOOK: RECIPES FROM EL JEFE, available as a free e-book or iPad app, which contains recipes from some of the food prepared in the movie, which was written, directed, and stars Jon Favreau.
Favreau plays Carl Casper, the chef at a trendy Los Angeles restaurant owned by Dustin Hoffman.
Carl also has a complicated personal life, because he is divorced from Inez, played by Sofia Vergara, and they have a son, Percy, who would love to spend more time with his father, but Carl is consumed by his occupation as a chef.
In fact, Carl says, “I get to touch people’s lives with what I do, and I love it.”
At the beginning of the movie, a famous food critic shows up at the restaurant, and whereas Carl wants to prepare something special for the critic, who has reviewed Carl before, Carl’s boss doesn’t want him to change the menu, but just stick to “playing his hits.”
Sure enough, the critic writes a bad review, so bad that it goes viral on the Internet, and after Carl gets Percy to sign him up with a Twitter account, Carl just makes matters worse, and a second chance to redeem himself makes everything so worse that Carl loses his job when things escalate to the boss level.
Then when Inez gets a temporary job in Miami, where both she and Carl are from, Carl agrees to go along and watch Percy while Inez works.
Inez also has an ex-husband there, Marvin, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to whom she was married before Carl, and through a series of circumstances, Carl ends up buying a beat-up food truck from Marvin, and he and Percy refurbish it to make it operational again, along with the help of Martin, played by John Leguizamo, who was Carl’s sous-chef and best friend back in L.A. and who shows up unexpectedly to help Carl in his new career.
Then we follow Carl, Percy, and Martin as they drive back to Los Angeles for an unexpected twist at the end.
CHEF is much more than what meets the eye or tantalizes the taste buds.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
