Posts tagged child
Away We Go – Movie Trailer
Jun 5th
When slacker thirtysomething couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) discover that his parents are moving overseas, the duo — who expect their first child in a few months — set off on a cross-country tour to figure out where they should lay down some roots in Sam Mendes’ poignant comedy Away We Go. They visit a number of different cities, and meet with a different friend or family member’s family at each stop. Their hosts include a set of emotionally detached parents (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan), a pair of overprotective new-age parents (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), and old college pals (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey), who have adopted a number of kids. Novelist Dave Eggers wrote the script with Vendela Vida.
“Terminator Salvation” The Beginning of the End
May 27th
The Beginning of the End
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
TERMINATOR SALVATION is the fourth in the series of movies beginning with the 1984 TEH TERMINATOR, which started the story of robots taking over society in the future and sending a robot back in time to kill the woman who has the child who will defeat the robots in the future.
That child, John Connor, is all grown up in this movie, which takes place in 2018, and he is played by Christian Bale, most recently famous for his profanity-laced tongue-lashing of a crew member last year on the set of this movie.
The gimmick in this movie is that a robot is sent into the future and ends up helping Connor in his battles against the robots.
He doesn’t start out as a robot, however, but as a prisoner in 2003 who agrees to have his body turned over to the authorities after his execution in prison.
So, when Marcus Wright shows up in 2018, he looks exactly like he did
15 years earlier, except that he has mechanical underpinnings and can heal any injuries to his flesh almost instantly.
The other gimmick is that Kyle Reese, the man who was sent back in time to help Connor’s mother and ends up becoming Connor’s father, is a teenager in this movie.
When Marcus meets Reese and his young partner, Reese says, “We’re the Resistance, L.A. branch.”
Everything has been pretty much destroyed by the robots in what the humans call “Judgment Day,” and the future of the human race looks as bleak as the landscape all around them.
However, Reese is the key to the past and the future, although he, of course, doesn’t know that at this point in his life.
On the other hand, this is all the back story that the audience needs to know in order to understand what is going on.
If you don’t know the background information, then watching this movie can lead you to the conclusion that modern stories don’t have to make sense or be logical anymore. And special effects can allow the filmmakers to do anything they want.
Special effects also allowed them to include a surprise cameo of a guest appearance that builds on “I’ll be back.”
TERMINATOR SALVATION is the beginning of the end, and I’d just as soon hope there won’t be any more.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Slumdog Millionaire” Wonderful and Heartbreaking
Dec 24th
Wonderful and Heartbreaking
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is a gem of a movie by director Danny Boyle that is suspenseful when it shouldn’t be and uplifting when it is at its most depressing.
Of course, this could also describe the country of India, where the story takes place.
The film begins in 2006 as we see 18-year-old Jamal Malik being tortured by the police. Jamal is a “slumdog,” an orphan from the extreme poverty of the slums of India. And yet somehow he has managed to appear on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and unbelievably answered all of the questions correctly up until the last one, which will be asked that night.
The producers of the program suspect that Jamal is cheating, because how else could a slumdog possibly know the answers to all those difficult questions?
Jamal tells the police defiantly, “I knew the answers.”
Then in flashback we see the progression of questions as they were asked, and in further flashback we see the lives of young Jamal as a child and his older brother, Salim, and the event in their struggles just to stay alive that provided Jamal with the correct answer to the question.
At one point, they befriend a young orphan girl named Latika, and she joins the two brothers growing up, whom they refer to as “the third Musketeer” based on their having read the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas.
One of their life-changing moments was when they were all taken out of a garbage dump by a group of adults who claimed to be an orphanage, but in reality they exploited all the children under their control and taught them how to beg on the streets and the ways to get the most money.
However, when Salim discovers the horrible plans in store for Jamal, the two boys escape, but Latika can’t keep up with them, and she is left behind in the clutches of the adults.
In fact, one of the reasons that Jamal wanted to appear on the quiz show was in the hope that Latika would be watching and get back in touch with him.
The construction of the film is wonderful, the pictures are beautiful, but the stunts involving the child actors look terrifyingly dangerous, making you wonder how they were accomplished.
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is both wonderful and heartbreaking.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”