Posts tagged car
“Bad Teacher” Worse Writers
Jul 29th
“Worse Writers”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Bad Teacher stars Cameron Diaz in the title role, because otherwise who would want to see a movie about a bad teacher?
Teachers are supposed to be good. Teachers are supposed to be helpful. Teachers are supposed to be able to teach difficult subjects to recalcitrant students.
And if you don’t know what “recalcitrant” means, then you just might have been one.
Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a seventh-grade teacher at John Adams Middle School, and when the movie begins, it is the last day of school and she is being honored by the principal after having taught only one year.
Elizabeth is given a $37 gift certificate as a bonus, which doesn’t say as much about her teaching abilities as it does about the sad economic state of the education system in general.
Elizabeth tells her colleagues that she doesn’t need a blackboard or a classroom to set an example, but Elizabeth doesn’t plan to return in the fall to teach a second year at the school. She plans to marry her wealthy fiance and be taken care of for the rest of her life.
However, when Elizabeth goes home that day, her plans change completely, and three months later she is back at school to teach another year.
Well, “teach” is such a loaded word. Let’s just call it sitting at the front of her classroom and planning how she is going to pay for the boob job she believes will land her a rich husband.
In fact, Elizabeth starts showing movies about teachers instead of doing any teaching herself, and when the principal questions her teaching-by-movies technique, Elizabeth says, “I think that movies are the new books.”
Then when Justin Timberlake shows up at the school as Scott Delacorte, the new substitute teacher, Elizabeth learns that he is independently wealthy, and so she schemes to snag him as her sugar daddy, but nerdy Scott has hie eye on another teacher whom Elizabeth doesn’t get along with.
Now, of course there is a scene at a fund-raising car wash in which Elizabeth shows off her body that is like many other movies before this one, of course there is a major plot to get money that backfires, and of course there is a kind gym teacher attracted to Elizabeth whom she rejects.
Bad Teacher has worse writers.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Conspirator” Times of War
Apr 24th
“TIMES OF WAR”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Conspirator is a very good film about a little-known aspect of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, but it is not an exciting film.
In other words, there are no sensational car chases, no loud explosions, and no amazing special effects. Nor does it have any super heroes, it is not based on a video game, and it has no animated characters whatsoever, all ingredients that the kids today seem to be fascinated with.
What it does have is a compelling story, fine acting, and a producer and director by the name of Robert Redford.
The story is about the trial of Mary Surratt, played by Robin Wright, who owned a boarding house in Washington, DC, and who was a Southern sympathizer, a widow, and the mother of a son and a daughter.
Mary is on trial as a co-conspirator of the plot to assassinate Lincoln, because the men who planned to kill Lincoln along with the Vice-President and the Secretary of State were suspected of meeting in her boarding house to make their plans.
Her lawyer is Capt. Frederick Aiken, played by James McAvoy, who had served in in the Union army during the war. Aiken is reluctant to defend her and at one point even says, “I am eager to put the war behind me.”
Senator Johnson from Maryland tells Aiken that Mary is entitled to a defense and that Aiken should obey his oath as an attorney and do his job to defend her.
However, the prosecution had four months to prepare its case, and Aiken has only one day. Also, he knows that if she is found guilty, people will say that he was not up to the task of defending her.
Mary is also not cooperative with Aiken. Her son is more likely to have been one of the conspirators than she was, but her son is missing, and if Mary knows where he is hiding, she won’t tell anyone where he is.
So, not only is the film a courtroom drama, but it is also a period piece with the actors wearing clothing that is unfamiliar to the audience. In fact, you might not even recognize some of the actors whom you know and admire.
The Conspirator, however, is a good film that shows in times of war, the law falls silent.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”