Posts tagged crisis
Moon – Movie Trailer
Jul 17th
An astronaut miner extracting the precious moon gas that promises to reverse the Earth’s energy crisis nears the end of his three-year contract, and makes an ominous discovery in this psychological sci-fi film starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. For three long years, Sam Bell has dutifully harvested Helium 3 for Lunar, a company that claims it holds the key to solving humankind’s energy crisis. As Sam’s contract comes to an end, the lonely astronaut looks forward to returning to his wife and daughter down on Earth, where he will retire early and attempt to make up for lost time. His work on the Selene moon base has been enlightening — the solitude helping him to reflect on the past and overcome some serious anger issues — but the isolation is starting to make Sam uneasy. With only two weeks to go before he begins his journey back to Earth, Sam starts feeling strange: he’s having inexplicable visions, and hearing impossible sounds. Then, when a routine extraction goes horribly awry, it becomes apparent that Lunar hasn’t been entirely straightforward with Sam about their plans for replacing him. The new recruit seems strangely familiar, and before Sam returns to Earth, he will grapple with the realization that the life he has created may not be entirely his own. Up there, hundreds of thousands of miles from home, it appears that Sam’s contract isn’t the only thing about to expire.
“Away We Go” How Sweet It Is
Jun 24th
How Sweet It Is
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
AWAY WE GO is a sweet little film directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes and starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. Krasinski, of course, is featured in the NBC TV series, “The Office,” and Rudolph was on “Saturday Night Live” for many years.
Here they play Burt and Verona, a nice young couple in their thirties who are about to have their first baby. Verona is six months pregnant.
Although she looks further along than that.
The movie starts with their going to visit Burt’s parents for dinner, who will be the only set of grandparents the baby will have, because both Verona’s parents died long ago.
At dinner, Burt’s parents reveal the surprising news that in June they are going to Belgium to live for two years.
Burt says, “You’re leaving a month before the baby is born?” and his mother says, “We’ve been planning this forever, Guys; you knew that.”
Now, the only reason that Burt and Verona are living where they are is to be near Burt’s parents, but because Burt sells insurance futures, they can live anywhere they want.
So, they decide to go on a road trip to visit friends and relatives in order to choose someplace to live where they can raise their baby.
First up is Phoenix, where they visit a woman whom Verona used to work with and her family. Allison Janney turns in a nice performance as the potty-mouthed Lily, who has a very pessimistic husband and two children who don’t pay attention to her, probably for good reason.
Then they make a quick trip to Tucson, where they visit Verona’s sister before they head up to Madison, Wisconsin, by train.
They have to take the train, because the airline doesn’t believe that Verona is only six months pregnant and won’t let her fly.
In Madison, they visit Ellen and her family, who is a professor at the university. Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a wonderful performance as a wacko hippie, but the visit does not go well.
Then they are off to Montreal and a visit with a couple they went to school with, followed by an unplanned trip to Miami to help out Burt’s brother and his sudden crisis.
AWAY WE GO brings to mind another famous saying by Jackie Gleason, and that is “How sweet it is.”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Religulous” Lecturing to the Nonreligious
Oct 9th
Lecturing to the Nonreligious
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
RELIGULOUS (rhymes with “ridiculous is a very funny and thought-provoking documentary about the major religions of the world (with a passing nod to Scientology, even) and how fundamentalists and religious extremists can be seen as, well, ridiculous.
Comedian and satirist Bill Maher narrates the film and conducts interviews all over the planet, talking to leaders and followers of religions in a humorous and thought-provoking attempt to convince the audience that the religions and their followers are, well, ridiculous to believe in such claptrap.
As Maher says right at the beginning, “If there’s one thing I hate more than prophecy, it’s self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Maher himself knows more than a little bit about religion, as he tells us, because his mother was Jewish, his father was Catholic, and his family went to Catholic church every Sunday until Maher was 13, and then they just stopped.
We see Maher talking with his mother and his sister, too, and when he asks his mother about this, he asks her why his father just suddenly quit the church, and she answers, “I don’t know. We never discussed it.”
Maher also questions why believing in something without any evidence is “good” and then answers his own question with “It’s like the lotto. You can’t be saved if you don’t believe.”
And, of course, many people actually believe that. However, Maher also tells us that 16% of Americans say that they belong to no church and are therefore nonreligious.
The graphics are quite good, and many of the interviews are accompanied by film clips from old biblical movies as commentary to what is being said or claimed to be “true.”
We learn that in Italy, which is a very religious country, in a time of crisis, Jesus ranks only sixth as being called upon for comfort by the people. Maher then gets thrown out of the Vatican there.
He also gets thrown off the property in Salt Lake City when his film crew draws attention to what he is doing. If the religious believers don’t watch out, they could be accused of not having a sense of humor.
Although quite humorous, the film ends on a rather serious note as Maher covers religious predictions for the end of the world.
RELIGULOUS (rhymes with “ridiculous is not preaching to the choir so much as lecturing to the nonreligious.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”