Posts tagged Danny McBride
“Up In The Air” One Perfect Movie
Dec 23rd
One Perfect Movie
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
UP IN THE AIR is a delightful film about a very undelightful subject: firing people from their jobs.
Written and directed by Jason Reitman, who previously made the 2006 THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and the 2007 JUNO, this film has already won some awards and is sure to win many more.
George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a “termination engineer” based out of Omaha, Nebraska, who flies all over the country to fire people whose own bosses don’t want to do it themselves.
In a voice-over narration, Bingham says, “Last year I spent 322 days on the road, which means that I had to spend 43 miserable days at home.”
Yes, Bingham loves to travel, which he has developed into a science of efficiency, and he doesn’t spend a nickel if he can help it, unless it adds to his frequent-flyer miles. He wants to hit 10 million miles and become one of only seven people to have reached that prestigious mark.
However, Bingham encounters an obstacle to his plans the next time he goes home and sees his boss, played by Jason Bateman, at the company that employs him.
His boss has hired Natalie Keener, a young efficiency expert fresh out of college, and she has come up with a way that the company doesn’t have to have
23 people on the road at least 250 days a year.
Yes, fire people long-distance by using videoconferencing to give them the bad news.
Of course, Bingham is against this way of working, and their boss tells him to take Natalie out on the road with him to show her the ropes of flying and of firing people face-to-face.
In the meantime, Bingham has met another frequent flyer on the road working for another company, and they try to arrange their schedules so that they can meet in the same city occasionally and share a hotel room together, if you catch my drift.
As another subplot, Bingham’s sister is getting married, and he has been given the task of taking a large cutout photo of the couple with him on his travels and photographing the cutout in front of various landmarks.
UP IN THE AIR is smart, it is funny, it is thoughtful, Clooney is terrific, and it is one perfect movie up in the air or on the ground.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Up in the Air – Movie Trailer
Dec 22nd
Jason Reitman’s adaptation of the novel Up in the Air tells the story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), who makes his living personally handing out pink slips — he’s the top hatchet man at a company that other companies hire when they are downsizing. And since business is booming, his job keeps him on the go constantly. He flies all across the country, staying in a series of nice hotels. And although this itinerant lifestyle prevents him from having any kind of stable, regular life, this doesn’t bother him in the slightest — he’s thrilled to be a boy in a traveling bubble. During one particular layover, he strikes up a conversation with Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a fellow savvy traveler. They bond over the ins and outs of various airlines and hotels, and quickly fall into bed. By morning, they are figuring out when their schedules will allow them to meet up again, even though they both make it clear that there are no strings attached. When Ryan arrives back in the home office, he meets no-nonsense career-oriented twentysomething Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a fast-rising up-and-comer who wants to change the company’s practices and save millions by having the staff fire people remotely via webcams. Furious at the thought of losing a lifestyle he’s grown quite comfortable with, he convinces his boss (Jason Bateman) to let him take Natalie on a few trips so that she can learn what it’s really like to fire someone. Melanie Lynskey, Danny McBride, and J.K. Simmons co-star in this Best Picture Academy Award nominee.
“Observe and Report” A Double Shock Ending
Apr 16th
A Double Shock Ending
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
OBSERVE AND REPORT is a very profane but also very funny movie about a shopping-mall security guard with aspirations to be more than he is and to have more than he currently has.
Excuse me. It is about a man who is “head of mall security,” and, no, I am not talking about the similar movie starring Kevin James that was released recently before this one.
This very funny, but very profane, movie stars Seth Rogen as Ronnie Barnhardt, and he has also broken into the ranks of leading-man status, most recently by appearing on the cover of PLAYBOY magazine.
Granted, there is a pretty girl on the cover with him, but as his “Playboy Interview” points out, only six times before has a man appeared on the cover of that magazine.
The story begins with a flasher in the parking lot, a man wearing apparently only a raincoat who targets women getting out of their cars, dashes up to them, and pulls open his coat.
Ronnie lives with his mother, and he says to her, “Part of me thinks that this disgusting pervert is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
You see, Ronnie wants to be a real policeman, and he believes that if he can solve the flasher case, he can apply to the local police department and get into the police academy.
Also, he might get the pretty girl at the cosmetics counter in the mall, played by Anna Faris, to go out with him.
However, when the flasher strikes again, the local police are called, and Detective Harrison, played by Ray Liotta, shows up, who not only puts a dent in Ronnie’s plans, but also disregards Ronnie and makes fun of him.
Also, whenever things start looking up for Ronnie and his aspirations, something happens to bring him back to reality, but then sometimes Ronnie surprises us and shows that he is more than we have come to expect.
The secondary characters are all also very good and funny, especially Ronnie’s mother, but when Ronnie goes undercover at the mall in an attempt to catch the flasher, you might think that the worst that could happen would be for Ronnie to blow his cover, right?
Wrong!
OBSERVE AND REPORT has a double shock ending you have to see to believe.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”