Posts tagged drama
“Philomena” a Heartbreaking Tragicomedy
Dec 8th
“A Heartbreaking Tragicomedy”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Philomena stars Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in a heartbreaking movie based on a true story and the 2009 memoir, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee.
Back in the early 1950s, Philomena was a teenage girl in Ireland who met a young man at a fair and became pregnant after experiencing the joys of sex for the first time.
Because of the shame she had brought to her family, Philomena was sent to a convent to deliver her baby, a boy that she named Anthony, and then she was forced to work in the convent along with other young women in similar circumstances, who were all allowed to visit with their children only one hour a day.
When he was three years old, Anthony was sold by the nuns to an American couple who adopted him and took him back to the United States without Philomena being notified or allowed to say goodbye to him.
On what would have been Anthony’s fiftieth birthday, Philomena decides to try to find out what happened to Anthony and perhaps learn if he ever thought of his birth mother.
She meets a journalist, Martin Sixsmith, and although he claims that he doesn’t write human-interest stories, Philomena’s story intrigues him enough that his editor is willing to pay his expenses in order to track down Anthony and write a story about Philomena and Anthony.
Martin learns that Anthony had worked in Washington, DC, and because he has some contacts there, Martin is going to travel there and hope to learn more, which prompts Philomena to say, “I think I would like to go.”
And now we have a road trip with the odd couple of a little old unsophisticated Irish lady and a jaded young journalist who has been around the world before.
In spite of the circumstances of the story and the background, this is a warm comedy that produces both chuckles and laughs as Philomena and Martin discover the American identity of Anthony and the surprising facts about his life in the United States.
On the other hand, this is the kind of story for which the word “tragicomedy” was invented, and expect it to win many more awards than it already has.
Philomena proves once again that Dench is a terrific actress, sometimes using only her face to move us.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Philomena – Movie Trailer
Dec 2nd
Based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, PHILOMENA focuses on the efforts of Philomena Lee (Dench), mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock – something her Irish-Catholic community didn’t have the highest opinion of – and given away for adoption in the United States. In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn’t allow for any sort of inquiry into the son’s whereabouts. After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith (Coogan), a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son.
“About Time” Repetitive and Tedious to a Fault
Nov 10th
“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.”
