Posts tagged car
“Darling Companion” a Shaggy Dog Story
Jun 16th
“Shaggy Dog Story”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Darling Companion is a pleasant little movie about a simple little subject from the beginning to the end.
Written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, this movie can be added to his other movies, such as the 1981 Body Heat, the 1983 The Big Chill, and the 1991 Grand Canyon, among many others.
It stars Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Dianne Wiest, Richard Jenkins, and Sam Shephard, and it is about a lovable dog that goes missing and all the problems that causes.
When the movie opens, Beth and her daughter Grace are returning home from the airport when Beth orders Grace to stop the car on the freeway, because she saw something on the side of the road.
What Beth saw was a dog, and to make a long story short, after a veterinarian says there is nothing wrong with him that a few good meals and a bath won’t fix, Beth decides to keep the dog and names him Freeway.
Beth tells her reluctant husband, Joseph, “He’s not mine. I’m just going to find him a home.”
Well, you can guess how that works out, can’t you?
Sure enough, a year later, everybody is at the vacation home in the mountains of Beth and Joseph, where Grace is getting married, and Freeway is still a part of the family.
So, Joseph is out in the woods taking Freeway for a walk when Freeway spots a deer and runs off after it.
Freeway doesn’t come back, Beth blames Joseph for losing the dog while Joseph was talking on his phone, and this disrupts everybody’s plans for going back to their homes after the wedding, because now they all decide to stay until Freeway can be found.
Everybody includes Beth and Joseph, Joseph’s sister Penny, Penny’s grown son Bryan and her new boyfriend Russell, a young woman who “sees things,” because her mother was a gypsy and her father was a yogi, and even the local sheriff.
Well, now the story isn’t so much a story about a missing dog, but a story about the relationships of three sets of couples, some good and some not so good.
Darling Companion is like a shaggy dog story, which means that you either enjoyed all the details as it gets to the end or else the end itself was just as enjoyable.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Wanderlust” Has Happiest Ending Ever
Mar 11th
“Happiest Ending Ever”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Wanderlust stars Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in what is not so much a romantic comedy as it is just a happy comedy, if there is such a classification.
In fact, the plot is as simple as “Boy has girl, boy almost loses girl, boy and girl stay together.”
However, what makes the movie interesting is where most of the story takes place, which is in a hippie commune that was started in 1971.
George and Linda are a young married couple in New York City whose professional lives take a sudden turn for the worse, and so they decide to pull up stakes and move to Atlanta, where George’s brother and his family live.
After a long drive, Linda insists that she has to get out of the car, and so they drive into a place with a sign that identifies it as “Elysium,” where they are greeted by a slightly overweight, naked man.
Startled, George tries to drive away, but he wrecks the car, and they are forced to stay there in what the residents call an “intentional community.”
When they introduce themselves to the group, George is asked, “If you’re George, where is John, Paul, and Ringo?”
The group claims that they have no leaders, that Mother Earth is the only leader they need, and there are no rules, just the way they all think about stuff.
In addition, there are no doors, even on the bathrooms, all the members share everything, and they believe in open sexual boundaries, which means that anything goes and with anyone.
At first, George likes living there more than Linda does, saying that he feels like he can breathe there for the first time, but then Linda starts to enjoy it more than George does, even though the most attractive woman in the group tells George that she believes that they should have sex together.
The scene in which George tries to prepare himself by boosting his confidence in front of a mirror is one of the funniest in the movie.
However, the plot turns weak when one of the oldest cliches in the world of movie plots occurs, that of developers wanting to take over the land and develop it into something else.
Wanderlust, though, has the happiest ending ever, and make sure you stay for the outtakes.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Safe House” Is Next to Nothing
Feb 19th
“Next to Nothing”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Safe House is a bang-bang, shoot-’em-up, run-run-run, bang-bang, shoot-’em-up-some-more action thriller that is the very epitome of a movie with more style than substance.
It stars Denzel Washington as a rogue CIA agent who has been on the run for nine years and Ryan Reynolds as an inexperienced CIA agent who is in charge of a safe house run by the CIA in Capetown, South Africa.
Matt Weston has been in charge of the safe house for only 12 months, but hasn’t seen any action or activity at all in that year.
In fact, at the beginning of the movie, when he checks in with his superior at CIA headquarters, Matt says, “I’m dying here. What happened to the post in Paris?”
And then everything changes drastically for Matt. A team of agents bring rogue agent Tobin Frost to the safe house for questioning.
Frost is so notorious that even inexperienced Matt recognizes him.
However, during the interrogation, a team of men break into the safe house and start killing everyone, and only Matt and Frost are able to escape, leading to an unbelievable car chase through the streets of Capetown.
Frost is in handcuffs, and he tells Matt that the men want Frost alive, but they will kill Matt if they can.
Back at CIA headquarters, they are aware of what is happening in South Africa, and they admit that Matt is all they have to keep Frost in custody, and so they relay directions to another safe house out in the country and tell Matt to take Frost there.
However, before Matt can get Frost there, they are still being chased by the men intent on killing Matt and capturing Frost, and Matt also has to worry that someone in the CIA set everything up and is directing the chase.
So, whenever Frost escapes from Matt, Matt has to track him down and capture him again, dodge the bullets from the men trying to kill him, and still get Frost to the new safe house.
Oh, and all the action takes place over only two days, there are surprises in store for the audience, but you might be able to guess the final surprise.
Safe House is full of sound and fury, signifying next to nothing.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”