Posts tagged colorful
“Hot Tub Time Machine” Party Like It’s 1986
Apr 7th
Party Like It’s 1986
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
HOT TUB TIME MACHINE has a title that either sells itself or turns people away, which is unfortunate, because if you see it, as I was forced to do, you will discover that you will enjoy it much more than you expected to.
You will also laugh much more than you expected to.
John Cusack, Craig Robinson, and Rob Corddry play three best friends named Adam, Nick, and Lou. When Lou has an accident that could be interpreted to have been a suicide attempt, they all decide to take off for the weekend and go to Kodiak Valley ski resort, where they once spent a memorable weekend over 20 years ago.
Tagging along with them is Jacob, Adam’s nerdy teenage nephew.
They are shocked at how much the town has changed and become run down, but they check into the hotel anyway and get the same room that they had stayed in the last time, where they had some of the best times of their lives.
The bellhop, played by Crispin Glover, has only one arm, and thus he isn’t very efficient in getting their luggage up to the room. But after he does, Lou says, “Let’s have some fun! Let’s create a memory!”
The first thing they do is they all jump into the room’s hot tub, which has also seen some better days, or more likely nights, and something weird happens.
The next morning they go skiing, and the first thing they notice is that all the skiers are wearing bright, colorful ski clothes. Then they see a television set with President Ronald Reagan giving a speech, and the word “Live” is written across the screen.
Yes, they are back in 1986 and living the same weekend that they had spent there before. However, they look just like they do currently to the audience, but to the other people and in mirrors to themselves, they look 20 years younger, except for Jacob, of course.
Jacob is freaked out and convinces them that they have to do everything exactly the way they did before, or they might make Hitler president.
Yes, that is funny, but not logical, and there is a running gag about how the bellhop lost his arm.
HOT TUB TIME MACHINE is funny, not logical, and makes you want to party like it’s 1986.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Pirate Radio” Will Never Sink
Nov 18th
Will Never Sink
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
PIRATE RADIO is based on the fact that back in the Sixties the British government–meaning “the Establishment”–didn’t approve of rock ‘n’ roll music, and so it wasn’t allowed to be played on traditional radio stations.
As a result of that ban, “pirate” radio stations developed, some even broadcast from ships anchored off the coast of Great Britain and thus outside the law and safe from the long arm of the Establishment. This is one story, which takes place in 1966.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays The Count, an American disc jockey on one such ship in the North Sea playing rock ‘n’ roll music 24 hours a day to an enthusiastic audience, one of whom isn’t Sir Alistair Dormandy, played by Kenneth Branagh, a government official who spends his time in the film trying to shut down the radio station by the end of the year.
This causes the following response: “They can’t shut us down. We’re pirates!”
There is one woman on board, Felicity, but that is okay, because she is a lesbian, or as one character says, she is “of the lesbionic tendency.”
Serving as the catalyst to the story is Carl, a young 18-year-old lad who has been kicked out of school and sent into the care of his godfather, Quentin, who owns the pirate-radio ship and is also in charge of running it.
Carl’s father had sex with his mum and then left without leaving his name or address, and the search for the identity of Carl’s father is a subplot of the film.
Now, you might think that life aboard a ship would be cramped in terms of a story, but we have many colorful characters, and occasionally Quentin arranges for adoring female fans to be brought aboard in order to meet their favorite deejays–if you know what I mean.
Also, the music might not be historically accurate, but it is great nonetheless.
One disc jockey even gets married, which allows his wife to come live aboard with him, but that causes more problems than he bargained for.
The film doesn’t exactly have a TITANIC ending, but it might be the only time that the expression “rock ‘n’ roll” brings tears to your eyes and a smile to your lips.
PIRATE RADIO also shows that rock ‘n’ roll will never sink.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Pirate Radio – Movie Trailer
Nov 13th
In mid- to late-’60s Britain, an unusual yet colorful subculture sprang up and thrived as a product of the upswing in British pop music, only to meet its doom within a few short years. Though the BBC functioned as the country’s main source of news and music, its programmers offered very little airtime to rock & roll — which left an overwhelming need unfulfilled. In response, small bands of “pirate” radio enthusiasts set up broadcasting towers on boats just outside of English boundary waters, and transmitted signals to an estimated 25 million listeners, 24 hours a day and seven days per week. Unsurprisingly, the DJs who took charge of these broadcasts could rival just about anyone in terms of flamboyance and outsized personalities. With Pirate Radio (released as The Boat That Rocked in the U.K.), writer-director Richard Curtis (Love Actually) travels back to the Swinging Sixties and takes a headfirst plunge into this colorful realm.The story opens in 1966, aboard a rusty fishing trawler christened Radio Rock and equipped with pirate broadcasting equipment. Here, the slightly daft elitist Quentin (Bill Nighy) presides over a motley crew of joint-toking, sex-hungry disc jockeys including Dave (Nick Frost), a heavyset boob who nevertheless considers himself a hot property with women and loves to chase skirts; “The Count” (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an American DJ who aspires to be the first person to drop an F-bomb over the British airwaves; the gloom-laden Irishman Simon (Chris O’Dowd); bonked-out hipster Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke); womanizer Mark (Tom Wisdom); Angus (Rhys Darby), a New Zealander whom nobody likes; and the only female member of the group, lesbian cook Felicity (Katherine Parkinson). These misfits pull off quite a show — enough of one that they attain the status of national idols for the youth culture — but the super-conservative government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) detests the whole business and will do almost anything in his power to shut them down.