“Burn After Reading” Laugh-Out-Loud Comedy
Sep 25th
Laugh-Out-Loud Comedy
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BURN AFTER READING is the Coen brothers’ first movie since their award- winning success with the 2007 NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and they could easily win an Academy Award two years in a row, first with a drama and then with a comedy.
And don’t be surprised if Brad Pitt wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Chad Feldheimer, a trainer in a gym whose attempt to take advantage of an opportunity doesn’t go as well as he had hoped, to say the least.
If most of the characters in this film talk smart and act stupid, then you would have to say that Pitt’s character, Chad, talks the smartest.
The story begins when Osborne Cox, a CIA analyst played by John Malkovich, quits the agency. However, as someone says later about Washington, DC, “Most of the people in this town who quit are fired.”
Ozzie is told he has a drinking problem, which of course he denies, but he will investigate a suspicious noise in his house with a drink in his hand.
Ozzie tells his wife, Katie, played by Tilda Swinton, that he has been thinking about writing a book, “or a sort of memoir,” and he does. But then a computer disc of his tell-all “memoir” accidentally gets lost at a local Hardbodies gym, and the rest, as they say, is laugh-out-loud comedy.
Chad and his partner in attempted crime, Linda, played by Frances McDormand, believe that the disc contains incriminating secrets that someone should be willing to pay $50,000 for. Linda is also a trainer at the gym, she wants the money for plastic surgery on four areas of her body, and she is actually the “brains” of the outfit.
Linda tells Chad, “This is our opportunity. You don’t get many of these.”
Meanwhile, George Clooney plays Harry, a federal marshal who gets involved with everybody, but not how you would expect. Although happily married, he is having an affair with Ozzie’s wife, Katie, meets Linda through an Internet dating service, and panics when he believes he has killed a government agent.
In other words, everybody is connected to everybody else, everybody seems to have someone watching them and following them, and everybody is funny in some way.
BURN AFTER READING made me laugh from the opening to the closing logo.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Colorado Magazine September 19th – 27th, 2008
Sep 19th
It’s time now for Colorado Magazine with Jann Scott, Colorado’s number 1 TV talk show host. Its our fall fashion and fitness special with Hotshots Movie Review of The House Bunny, Perry’s Shoe Shop, Top Hat Supply, Channel 1 Network Promo, Swiss Chalet Watch and Clock Shop, Beyer Laser Center, InSight Lasik, Boulder Lawns, Transmission Technology Services , New Image Laser and Skin, Susan Melching Skin Care, Migun in Boulder, Art Cleaners, and Avanti Skin Center on this Colorado Magazine.
Find More Colorado Magazine Episodes Here
“Righteous Kill” You Talkin’ to My Little Friend?
Sep 17th
You Talkin’ to My Little Friend?
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
RIGHTEOUS KILL is a terrific film worth seeing for more reasons than two, and by “two,” of course, I mean Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
These two iconic actors are together again for the first time playing two veteran New York City police detectives named David Fisk and Thomas Cowan, but who go by the nicknames of “Turk” and “Rooster.”
They have been partners for 30 years, they are highly decorated, and as another police detective says about them, there is not an inch of daylight between them.
In fact, as one of them says to the other, “You’re my partner. You’re my role model. What am I going to do without a role model?”
However, before they can retire, Turk and Rooster investigate the murder of a notorious pimp, which appears to have a connection with a case they solved years ago.
The victim is a suspected criminal whose body was found accompanied by a four-line poem that claims to justify the killing. And then the next thing they know, there are additional killings with additional poems, and they realize that they are looking for a serial killer, someone who is targeting criminals who have managed to escape being punished.
Eventually, Rooster and Turk are forced to team up with two other police detectives, and there is even more than one investigation going on.
Also, when it becomes clear that Turk has connections with most of the victims, the detectives have to face the possibility that the serial killer might actually be a policeman.
Now, don’t get distracted by the distractions, and there are plenty of distractions, just as there is lots of misdirection in the story. Stay focused on the actors and the acting, and pay attention to the details, because there is a terrific turnaround, and even when you think you know what has happened, you can’t imagine what is going to happen next.
In fact, see this wonderful film twice. See it once for the story and then see it a second time just for the acting and the actors. You will be glad you did.
And, of course, while you are watching De Niro and Pacino, you will keep being reminded of the previous films they have starred in.
RIGHTEOUS KILL cries out for someone to say, “You talkin’ to my little friend?”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
