Posts tagged Dan Culberson
“About Time” Repetitive and Tedious to a Fault
Nov 10th
Posted by Dan Culberson in Hotshots Movie Reviews
“Repetitive and Tedious to a Fault”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
About Time is the latest schmaltzy romantic comedy written by Richard Curtis, who also wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love, Actually.
This one, however, adds the notion of time travel to the already tedious concept of “meet cute” in romantic comedies.
That is correct. If the hero has the ability to go back in time, then he can fix whatever he did wrong when he first met the perfect girl for him.
Tim is our hero, and on his 21st birthday, his father, played by Bill Nighy, takes Tim aside and tells him, “The men in this family have always had the ability to travel in time.”
However, they can only go back in time, not forward, and how to do it is the easy bit.
They just go into a dark place, clinch their fists, think of when they want to go to, and when they step out of the dark place, they are there.
I mean “then.”
So, Tim tries it, and, sure enough, it works, although he isn’t able to achieve the result he wanted with the first girl he believed was the perfect girl for him.
Then Tim is off to London to begin his career as a lawyer and to keep searching for the perfect girl.
Tim also has trouble fixing the opening night of a play written by the relative he is staying with, and we have to watch everything leading up to both attempts.
Then Tim meets Mary, an American girl working in London, who is played by Rachel McAdams.
Unfortunately, when they meet, Tim is with his best friend, and they meet Mary and her friend in a club that is completely dark, which has nothing to do with Tim’s ability to travel in time, but the audience has to sit and watch a black screen while the actors talk.
Well, needless to say, things don’t go the way Tim wanted them to this time, either, and the audience has to watch each time Tim tries to correct the situation.
Tim’s time travel in this movie isn’t limited to Tim’s attempt to find the perfect girl, either. Oh, no. Not by a long shot.
About Time takes too long to get started and too long to end, and it is repetitive and tedious to a fault.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Enough Said” Title Says It Best
Oct 25th
Posted by Dan Culberson in Hotshots Movie Reviews
“Title Says It Best”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Enough Said is a romantic comedy that is the very definition of quirky, which is a synonym of idiosyncratic, which means eccentric or peculiar of constitution or temperament and also an individualizing characteristic or quality.
In other words, it is hard to define.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as Eva, a divorced masseuse who carries her massage table in the trunk of her car to her clients’ homes, and we see three of those clients throughout the movie as a running gag, or should that be a driving gag, or should that be a massaging gag.
Eva has been divorced 10 years, and she has a teenage daughter, Ellen, who is going away to college in the fall.
Eva’s best friend is Sarah, played by Toni Collette, and at the beginning of the movie Eva goes to a party with Sarah and her husband, at which Eva says to Sarah, “There’s not one man at this party that I’m attracted to.”
However, Eva does meet a man at the party, Albert, played by James Gandolfini, who has been divorced for four years and who also has a teenage daughter who is going off to college in the fall.
Eva also meets a woman at the party, Marianne, who is a poet and who becomes a new client for Eva.
Well, Albert likes Eva enough that he calls her and asks her out to dinner, and Eva likes Albert enough that she accepts.
Now, maybe this is how first dates are conducted in California, but at the end of the date when Albert drives Eva home, he doesn’t even get out of the car and walk her up to her front door, shaking hands with her in the front seat.
At any rate, Eva tells Sarah that she thought it was a very good date, and now she finds Albert kind of sexy, enough so that they continue dating and doing more than shaking hands.
Much more.
Meanwhile, Eva’s new client, Marianne, enjoys being with Eva so much that she wants to become friends with Eva, saying that she doesn’t have many close friends whom she can talk to, which mostly consists of bad-mouthing her ex-husband.
Well, you can see where this going, can’t you, especially when you learn that Marianne also has a daughter going away to college.
Enough Said.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Captain Phillips” Goes from Bad to Worse
Oct 19th
Posted by Dan Culberson in Hotshots Movie Reviews
“From Bad to Worse”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Captain Phillips is based on the true story of an American cargo ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009 in an attempt to hold it for ransom for millions of dollars.
Tom Hanks plays the seasoned captain of the ship, who had a new crew of 20 men he was trying to get into shape.
Ironically, when his wife is driving him to the airport from their home in Vermont at the beginning of this trip, she says, “You’d think these trips would get easier, but they’re not.”
We also see some background of the Somali pirates on shore, too, as their warlord leaders berate them to get out on the water where they should be earning money.
The cargo ship was the Maersk Alabama, and knowing the dangerous waters they are in, Captain Phillips has practice drills for the crew and puts them all on double shifts.
Captain Phillips’ job is to move the cargo as fast as possible, but his crew members are not all happy with what they are doing and where they are going.
The Somali pirates aren’t all happy, either, and we see them fighting among themselves as they prepare to board the ship, which four armed pirates manage to do.
When Captain Phillips realizes that the ship will be boarded, he orders most of the crew to hide below decks until help arrives, stop the ship from moving, and then he tells the leader of the Somalis that the ship is broken and he doesn’t know where his crew is.
The leader of the pirates is called Muse, and he tells Captain Phillips, “Look at me. I’m the captain now.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy sends a ship to take care of the situation, and Captain Phillips offers to give Muse the $30,000 he has in the safe, but Muse believes he can earn millions.
So, when the situation goes from the proverbial bad to worse, the pirates trick Captain Phillips to get into the covered lifeboat with them, so that they can hold him hostage and improve their bargaining position.
The pirates are still fighting among themselves, and Captain Phillips tries to argue with Muse to help his own situation, because now the pirates are trying to get back to Somalia.
Captain Phillips is overrated, overlong, and underedited.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”