“(500) Days of Summer” Movie of Expectation
Aug 5th
Movie of Expectation
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER of Summer is an anti-romantic comedy, but more than that, it is a long string of gimmicks from its title to its final scene, when a new character is introduced.
The gimmick in the title is the parentheses around “500” and the fact that “Summer” is the name of the character played winningly by Zooey Deschanel.
The gimmick of the movie is that it portrays the first 500 days in the relationship of Summer and Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who meet when she joins the greeting-card company that Tom works for as a writer.
Thankfully we don’t see every one of those days, but the gimmick of the story is that it jumps randomly throughout the 500 days, identifying each scene with a number that marks the day.
The gimmick of the plot is what we are told by a narrator at the beginning when he says, “You should know up front that this is not a love story.”
No, it is a love-story wannabe on Tom’s part and a romantic-comedy wannabe on the filmmakers’ part.
So, even though Summer tells Tom at the beginning of their relationship that she doesn’t believe in love, but is willing to be best friends with Tom, like all men of the romantic persuasion, he either doesn’t believe her or else he believes that he can get her to change her mind.
Especially since they are “friends with benefits,” as the kids today are calling it.
Well, the film begins essentially on Day 290 when Tom is reacting to Summer’s having broken up with him, and Tom’s adolescent sister, Rachel, is called over to help him get through it.
Yes, there is the “wise younger sister” gimmick in the movie, too.
And, yes, we go back to Day 1 when they meet, and eventually we will get to Day 500 at the end of the film, but the days in between move around so quickly and so much out of order that the audience can suffer from romantic whiplash just trying to follow the action and to keep up with Tom’s expectations about their relationship that keep flying in the face of everything that Summer keeps telling him.
Now, the actors are appealing, but the movie, not so much.
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER is a movie of romantic expectation.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Suntans and Nuclear Power
Jul 31st
A little bit about the greenest political people in Colorado, an Obesity Tax from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Germany bans the incandescent light bulb, suntan beds linked to melanoma cancer, and a Big site to see in Boulder.
“The Hurt Locker” A Film of Ultimate Reward
Jul 30th
A Film of Ultimate Reward
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE HURT LOCKER is perhaps the best film on the war in Iraq you will ever see, if not the best film on war itself.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the story is about the day-to-day experiences of an Army three-man detonation team whose job is to defuse any improvised explosive devices that are found before they can be detonated.
This is more than tricky, because an IED can be exploded on contact, exploded by a timer, or exploded by someone watching from safety who can set it off by using a cell phone.
So, a team consists of two men with rifles who scan the area on the lookout for anything suspicious while the team leader dons a heavy bomb suit and walks up to the bomb, which is usually hidden or covered, and tries to defuse it.
The story begins in 2004 in Baghdad, and one such team has just lost their leader in an explosion, when their company has only 38 days left in their rotation before they can be shipped back to the United States.
Staff Sergeant James, played superbly by Jeremy Renner, joins the team, and he is a “cowboy,” a “wild man” as one colonel calls him out of admiration, and he doesn’t always work by the rules. When he comes across a trunkfull of bombs in a car, he takes off his bomb suit, telling his team, “There’s enough bang in there to blow us all to Jesus. If I’m going to die, I want to die comfortable.”
You have heard of “black humor”? Sgt. James has a sense of humor that could be called “black-hole humor.”
When asked by an officer what the best way is to defuse a bomb, Sgt. James tells him “the way you won’t die.”
As the days and the defused bombs go by, we get a countdown to the number of days left in rotation, and a sense of foreboding envelopes the team and the audience.
The action is not just bombs and defusings and explosions, however, We see the team at work and at play, plus their interaction with other soldiers and civilians, and the music is haunting.
The title of the film is a phrase that refers to “a place of ultimate pain.”
THE HURT LOCKER is a film of ultimate pleasure and reward.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
