“Valentine’s Day” Predictable and Sappy
Feb 18th
Predictable and Sappy
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
VALENTINE’S DAY is stuffed with stars, filled with stories, overflowing with romance, and you don’t have to be in love to enjoy it.
But it couldn’t hurt, because chances are you can probably spot one of your own love stories.
Here are the stars: Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Shirley MacLaine, Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts, and Taylor Swift.
And here are just some of the stories, which all pretty much intersect because of the characters and which all come full circle at the end of the day, which of course is Valentine’s Day.
Kutcher plays Reed Bennett, who owns a flower business, and as he tells Alphonso, one of his employees, when they are out making a delivery, “Everyone is romantic on Valentine’s Day.”
And Reed should know, not just because of his business and all the deliveries that he and Alphonso will make during the course of the day, but also because that morning Reed proposed to his girlfriend, and she said yes.
However, the results do not turn out the way that he expected, as we shall see.
Then there is Kelvin, a TV sportscaster, who is ordered by his producer to take a camera crew out onto the streets and interview people about Valentine’s Day, because the station wants more “fluff.”
The new boyfriend of a charming elementary school teacher is a doctor and can’t be with her on this day because he has to fly to San Francisco and perform an operation, but he has a secret that he is keeping from his girlfriend.
A wealthy businessman sits next to a woman captain in the Army for a 14-hour flight from overseas. She is going to be able to spend just one day with her special “Valentine” before she has to fly back to duty.
A couple of high-school sweethearts are planning to make this a very special day in their relationship.
A professional football player who might be retiring holds a press conference to reveal his own secret.
And the characters and stories just go on and on.
VALENTINE’S DAY is predictable and sappy, and the ending is completely heart-wrenching, but not in the way you would think.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Valentine’s Day – Movie Trailer
Feb 14th
Gary Marshall’s ensemble romantic comedy Valentine’s Day follows nearly two dozen people as they find and lose love in all its many forms over the course of the title holiday. The numerous characters include a very busy florist (Ashton Kutcher) and his schoolteacher best friend (Jennifer Garner). She’s having an affair with a married doctor (Patrick Dempsey). Meanwhile, a businessman (Bradley Cooper) and a military captain (Julia Roberts) on leave share a long conversation during an international flight. There’s also an elderly couple (Hector Elizondo and Shirley MacLaine) who are caring for their elementary school-age grandson, who is pining for a classmate and missing his mother. The huge cast also includes Jamie Foxx as a local TV personality, Topher Grace, Queen Latifah, and Anne Hathaway.
“When in Rome” Can’t Say Enough Bad about It
Feb 11th
Can’t Say Enough Bad about It
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
WHEN IN ROME calls itself a romantic comedy, or “rom-com,” but is so bad that it deserves a new label of “abom-com,” for abominable comedy.
The only reason this movie will be mentioned again this year is if another movie is so bad that it is compared with this one.
Here is how bad it is. You know what a “Greek chorus” is, a group of actors in a drama who participate in or comment on the action?
This movie has what could be called an “idiot chorus,” and not only one, but two! Both the female lead, Kristen Bell, and the male lead, Josh Duhamel, have a group of three friends who just look goofy and act dumber than the leads.
Bell plays Beth, who has the unlikely job of being a curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, but the movie explains this away by saying that she is the youngest and least experienced curator at the museum.
Beth’s younger sister, Joan, is getting married in Rome, and while Beth is there, she overreacts to what she mistakenly thinks is a setback in a possible new relationship with the groom’s best man, Nick, played by Duhamel, and she takes five coins out of the Fountain of Love, saying, “Each one of you is a desperate wish for love that is never going to come true.”
Beth takes the coins back to New York with her, and then we learn about the legend that if you remove a coin from the Fountain of Love, the person who threw if in will fall in love with you.
Surprise! Surprise! All of the coin tossers were men, and they all just happen to be in New York, except for one, which is explained later.
So, now Beth finds herself being chased–stalked, actually–by a group of idiot suitors, including a manic painter, a self-absorbed model, an insecure street magician, and a sausage magnate played by Danny DeVito.
This movie is so bad that one of the idiot suitors has a secret that was kept during the publicity for the movie, but if that secret had been revealed and exploited during the publicity, it would have made the movie funnier and more interesting.
WHEN IN ROME is so lame that I can’t say enough bad about it.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
