“Promised Land” Is a Big Tease
Jan 13th
“A Big Tease”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Promised Land is a film about the controversial subject of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in which an oil and gas company drills into the ground and pumps liquid chemicals into the earth in order to release the oil and natural gas that is trapped in the rocks below the surface.
Matt Damon plays Steve Butler, and he and his partner, Sue, played by Frances McDormand, work for one such company, and their job is to visit the property owners in a small community and purchase the drilling rights on their land so that the company can drill there.
Because of the economy, the property owners, many of whom are farmers, are struggling, and by buying those leases starting at $2,000 an acre, Steve says, “I’m not selling them natural gas; I’m selling them the only way they have to get out.”
Steve and Sue are the best team the company has, having closed out more towns than the team behind them by triple digits, but Steve is under additional pressure for their current assignment, because if he does well, he could get a promotion to a job in the company’s New York City headquarters.
So, we see Steve and Sue come into town, buy the clothes they believe will help the property owners identify with them, and go out on their sales calls.
They also have to overcome the stories about fracking causing some people to be able to light their drinking water on fire and causing the property owners to become sick.
Steve’s argument that fracking is far from a perfect process isn’t enough to refute those stories, and he also has to fight the arguments from Frank Yates, played by Hal Holbrook, a local resident with enough experience to know what he is talking about when he objects to the owners selling their drilling rights.
However, the biggest obstacle that Steve and Sue have to overcome is Dustin Noble, played by John Krasinski, an environmental activist who shows up in town and says that he is from Nebraska where fracking ruined his home town.
Damon and Krasinski wrote the screenplay for this film, which was directed by Gus Van Sant, and I have to warn you that it has a plot twist which might make you disappointed in it.
Promised Land is a big tease.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Promised Land – Movie Trailer
Jan 6th
Promised Land is the new contemporary drama directed by Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk). Matt Damon plays Steve Butler, an ace corporate salesman who is sent along with his partner, Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), to close a key rural town in his company’s expansion plans. With the town having been hit hard by the economic decline of recent years, the two outsiders see the local citizens as likely to accept their company’s offer, for drilling rights to their properties, as much-needed relief. What seems like an easy job for the duo becomes complicated by the objection of a respected schoolteacher (Hal Holbrook) with support from a grassroots campaign led by another man (John Krasinski), as well as the interest of a local woman (Rosemarie DeWitt). Promised Land explores America at the crossroads where big business and the strength of small-town community converge.
“Django Unchained” Is Typical Tarantino Overindulgence
Jan 6th
“Typical Tarantino Overindulgence”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Django Unchained was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, and it is a terrific movie for the first two hours.
Unfortunately, the movie is three hours long, and the last hour is full of Tarantino’s self-indulgence at its worst.
Some people would say that all of Tarantino’s movies are self-indulgent.
Jamie Foxx plays Django, he is a slave, and the time is 1858, or two years before the start of the Civil War, as a title so conveniently informs the audience, along with the fact that we are in Texas.
Django is in a group with four other slaves who are being marched on foot by two white men on horses when they are encountered by Dr. King Schultz, played by Christoph Waltz.
Dr. Schultz has been looking for the group, and he asks if any of the slaves is named Django.
When Django speaks up, Dr. Schultz says, “Then you’re exactly the one I am looking for.”
Dr. Schultz buys Django for $125, but the transaction is much more complicated than that.
You see, Dr. Schultz is German, he used to be a dentist, but now he is a bounty hunter, and he is looking for three men known as the Brittle brothers, but he doesn’t know what they look like, and somehow he knows that Django can identify them.
Logic in his storytelling is not one of Tarantino’s strong points, not that he cares.
So, Dr. Schultz tells Django that he will make him a free man if Django will help Dr. Schultz find the Brittle brothers and capture them dead or alive.
After a couple of encounters with the law that have surprise endings that are also humorous, Dr. Schultz and Django are in Tennessee on a plantation owned by Big Daddy, played by Don Johnson, which has another surprise ending.
In return for Django’s help as his partner, Dr. Schultz agrees to help Django find his wife, Broomhilda, whose name intrigues the German dentist.
So their travels now take them to Mississippi and a plantation owned by Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, whose head slave is played by Samuel L. Jackson.
Here is where the movie falls apart with blood, gore, and excessive length and self-indulgence.
Django Unchained is typical Tarantino overindulgence, and as I said, you can walk out after two hours.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
