Posts tagged country
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.
The Men Who Stare at Goats – Movie Trailer
Nov 6th
Loosely adapted from a nonfiction book by Jon Ronson, Grant Heslov’s directorial debut The Men Who Stare at Goats begins as heartbroken reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) heads off to imbed himself with troops as the Iraq War starts, but Wilton can’t get himself into the country until he chances upon Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). It turns out Lyn spent decades as part of the New Earth Army — a platoon of men, led by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), who lived a new-age lifestyle in an attempt to cultivate extrasensory perception that would allow the U.S. army to win wars nonviolently. Bill now has a secret mission in Iraq, and allows Bob to come along. As the duo gets into a series of misadventures, Lyn shares with Bob the colorful history of the New Earth Army and chronicles the nefarious machinations of Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), whose jealousy of Lyn’s remarkable skill brought an end to the group.
“Capitalism: A Love Story” How We Got Here
Oct 15th
How We Got Here
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY is the latest film by Michael Moore, the Academy Award–winning documentary filmmaker, and if you know anything about Moore, you can guess that this very good film will be entertaining and informative and that the title is ironic.
By that I don’t mean just the part about “Love Story,” but also the part about “Capitalism,” which in the United States has turned our economic system into something more resembling feudalism in the Middle Ages, but with modern corporations taking the place of lords and the nobility.
In fact, at one point Moore talks about insurance policies that some corporations take out on their employees, naming the corporation as beneficiary if an employee should die, and in the business these are known as “dead peasants”
policies.
Let me emphasize that: Corporations refer to their employees as “peasants.”
At another point, Moore says, “This is democracy, a system of taking and giving–mostly taking.”
The movie opens with an unusual request that certain people should leave the auditorium before the movie even starts, because what they are about to see might be too much for them.
Then we see a nice comparison between the Roman Empire and what caused its downfall with present-day United States, followed by disturbing videos shot during the forced evictions of homeowners from their homes.
We then get a history lesson of the career of Ronald Reagan, the star of B movies before he became a television spokesman for corporate greed and then continued as a spokesman for corporate greed after becoming president.
Moore says that the country was run by corporations and it was done for sort-term profits and destroying the unions, and we see and hear how corporations and banks wanted to remake America to serve them instead of the people.
The messages and examples are so upsetting that you would cry if you weren’t laughing at Moore’s commentary and his filmmaking tactics for making his points.
In the end, however, the film is very patriotic, and you will cry for joy at the hope that still remains.
However, be sure to stay for the closing credits to learn more interesting details about information in the film.
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY is an eye-opening and entertaining lesson in where we are and how we got here.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”