Posts tagged Business
“The Tree of Life” The Film of Pretentiousness
Jun 22nd
“The Film of Pretentiousness”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Tree of Life won the Palme D’or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, which says something more about the French than it does about this film.
Written and directed by Terrence Malick, well-known, reclusive, but slow-working filmmaker, this is only his fifth feature-length film, his first being the 1973 Badlands, which has a cult following, as do most of Malick’s films.
I believe it is safe to say that Malick’s films are an acquired taste, and I found his latest one to be distasteful.
No, “distasteful” is such an ugly word. Let’s just call it boring and pretentious.
The film contains very little dialogue within scenes that are part of what little story there is, and most of the dialogue is voice-over narration, such as when Mrs. O’Brien says at the beginning of the film, “The nuns taught us there were two ways through life–the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow.”
Then we see the first of the scenes that will develop this theme, which involve the O’Brien family, Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien, played by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, and their three boys, the oldest of whom, Jack, is played by Sean Penn as a grown-up.
Although most of the scenes about the family take place in the 1950s in Texas, sometime in the Sixties Mrs. O’Brien receives a telegram that one of the boys is dead, when he was 19.
So, then we see scenes of grief, hear lots of voice-over spiritual narration, and then we experience a long sequence of images that actually depict the beginning of the cosmos, the planet, the beginnings of life, and, yes, even dinosaurs.
Two women in the theater walked out at this point, before the film got back to the story of the O’Brien family in the Fifties, beginning with the birth of Jack.
Mr. O’Brien is a strict disciplinarian who demands that everyone obey him, but also profess their love for him. He represents nature.
Mrs. O’Brien plays wildly with abandon with the boys when Mr. O’Brien is away on a business trip. She represents grace.
However, the story is weak to begin with, and the film is made even weaker with all the spiritual visual images.
The Tree of Life is the film of pretentiousness.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Midnight in Paris” Convoluted Way to Make Simple Point
Jun 15th
“Convoluted Way to Make Simple Point”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s latest film, it was the opening film at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and it has been called one of Allen’s best movies in years.
You be the judge.
It takes place in the present, and so you might be surprised to know that some of the characters in it are Cole Porter, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, T.S. Eliot, and a number of other well-known and not-so-well-known artists from the past.
How can this be, you ask?
Well, therein lies the story, which may or may not be a pun.
Owen Wilson stars as Gil Pender, Rachel McAdams plays his fiancee, Inez, and they are freeloading along with her father and mother on a business trip to Paris that her father is taking.
Even though Gil is a successful Hollywood screenwriter, he becomes enamored with Paris, and he tells Inez, “I can see myself living here.”
Gil happens to be working on a novel, and he considers himself to be a Hollywood hack who never gave literature a shot. He also says that he would have liked to have lived in Paris in the 1920s.
Well, one night after a serious wine tasting, Gil takes a walk through the streets of Paris while the others in the party all go dancing.
Gill is drunk, gets lost while trying to find the hotel, and just as a clock strikes midnight, a 1920s-era taxicab drives by full of party revelers.
They stop, and they invite Gil to join them and go to a party.
At the party, Gil is amazed to see Cole Porter playing the piano and singing, and he meets Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Later, they take their movable party to a cafe, and there is Ernest Hemingway sitting and drinking. Gil tells Hemingway about his novel, and Hemingway offers to show it to Gertrude Stein for her opinion.
Gil leaves to get his manuscript at the hotel, but when he immediately turns around to arrange where they will meet, the cafe is gone.
The next night Gil tries to show Inez what had happened, but she gets bored and leaves before midnight.
But it happens again.
Midnight in Paris is a convoluted way to get a simple point across.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Limitless” More Like ‘Overblown’
Mar 29th
LIMITLESS takes its title from the idea of how many opportunities are available to us if we were able to use 100% of our brains instead of the mythological 20% that we use in our everyday lives.
However, scientists say that we already use 100% of our brains, and so the premise of the movie needs a better explanation.
Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Morra, a writer with a book contract, but he looks more like someone with an alcohol or drug problem.
That might be because he doesn’t act like a writer, either, because he is behind on his book, having written only one word, and that word is the first-person, singular pronoun “I.”
Eddie gets even more down on his luck when his girlfriend Lindy breaks up with him, but then his life changes dramatically when he accidentally meets the brother of his ex-wife on the street.
Vernon tells Eddie that he is working for a company that has come out with a new pill called NZT48 that lets you access 100% of your brain, but then he gets interrupted by a phone call and has to leave.
However, Vernon gives Eddie his business card and one of the NZT pills “on the house,” saying that they normally cost $800 apiece.
And the rest, as they say, is this movie.
Special effects show an impression of what happens to Eddie when he takes the pill. “I wasn’t ‘high,’ I was just clear,” he tells us in voice-over narration. “I knew what I wanted to do and how to do it.”
And he does. The next morning, the effects of the pill have worn off, and Eddie gives his book manuscript to his publisher, saying that if she doesn’t like it, he will return the advance.
Then when Vernon doesn’t return Eddie’s calls, Eddie goes to see Vernon with the objective of getting more pills.
And here is where the movie starts leaving the audience with unanswered questions.
Here is also where more characters enter the story, including a Russian loan shark and his hooligans, a financial businessman played by Robert De Niro, a mysterious man who seems to be following Eddie around New York City, and even Eddie’s ex-wife, Melissa.
LIMITLESS makes a thriller out of limitless opportunities, but it is more like “overblown” with unanswered questions.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”