Posts tagged drama
“The Debt” Truth Is a Luxury
Sep 9th
“Truth Is a Luxury”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Debt is a suspense thriller that shifts between different years, different locations, and even different actors playing the same characters, and the suspense and shocking conclusions to various scenes keep the audience’s attention from start to finish.
The story is about a secret mission conducted in the 1960s by three Israeli secret agents and the consequences of that mission which follow them for the rest of their lives.
The three secret agents are Stephan, David, and Rachel, and their mission is to slip into East Berlin, find and identify a suspected Nazi war criminal, capture him, sneak him out of East Berlin, and then take him back to Israel where he will stand trial for the atrocities he committed in a German concentration camp located in Poland.
Rachel is played by Jessica Chastain back in the Sixties during the mission, and when David mentions to her that she is brave, she says, “I’m not brave. I’m terrified.”
Helen Mirren plays Rachel in the present-day scenes, she still has the facial scar that she received during a bloody fight with their prisoner, and once again she is terrific in this role.
Present-day Rachel has a grown-up daughter who is married and has a son. The daughter has also written a book about the mission that has become a success, and Rachel sometimes reads from the book when her daughter is asked to give talks about the book.
However, there is a secret about the mission, which didn’t exactly go as planned, and as Rachel tells Stephan, Rachel cannot tell her daughter the truth, because it would destroy her daughter.
Eventually we see the details of the mission back in the Sixties, and we also learn the truth. The Nazi war criminal that they are after is working under a different name as a doctor, and Rachel and David pretend to be married and having difficulty conceiving a child.
So, Rachel goes to the doctor for help and has to experience the humiliation, embarrassment, and horror of being examined by him while the agents put their plan into action and finally abduct him.
What happens next is the consequences they have to face in the present.
The Debt shows that the truth is a luxury, it plays with the audience, and the shocks keep coming until the very end.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Change-Up” Gross, Coarse, and Crass
Aug 27th
“Gross, Coarse, and Crass”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Change-Up begs the question, “Are you getting as tired of watching these lame body-switch movies as I am of reviewing them?”
Another question that goes begging about this movie is “Did the filmmakers believe they could get bigger audiences to come to this Hollywood cliche of a story by throwing in lots of obscenities and excessive nudity?”
And, finally, “How does Jason Bateman feel about being in one of the funniest movies of the year and one of the worst movies of the year in a matter of only one month?”
Yes, Bateman plays Dave Lockwood, a happily married father of three who is a successful lawyer and close to being made a partner in his firm.
Meanwhile, Dave’s best friend is Mitch Planko, played by Ryan Reynolds, who is a single actor and womanizer, but because the story takes place in Atlanta, you can’t imagine that he is all that successful an actor, can you?
Dave and Mitch have been best buddies since the third grade, and one night they go drinking together, and at the end of the evening they are talking about how they envy each other’s life while they are both urinating in a fountain in a park, and they both say simultaneously, “I wish I had your life.”
There is a statue of a woman overlooking the fountain, the lights go out around the city, the statue’s expression changes to one of a smile, and, of course, you know what happens.
Yes, when they wake up the next morning in their respective beds, even though they look the same to the audience, Dave is now in Mitch’s body and Mitch is now in Dave’s. And then comedy is supposed to ensue, but it doesn’t.
They get together, rush back to the fountain where they hope to undo the switch, but the fountain is gone, having been removed and is going to be restored and placed in a different location.
If they fill out the proper paperwork, the city might be able to tell them in three days to three weeks where the fountain is going to be.
The boys tell Dave’s wife, Jamie, about the switch. She is played by Leslie Mann, and of course she doesn’t believe them.
The Change-Up is gross, coarse, and crass, and I recommend you avoid it.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Crazy, Stupid, Love.” Stupid, Pointless, Waste
Aug 26th
“Stupid, Pointless, Waste.”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Crazy, Stupid, Love. has too many characters and too many love stories to be classified as having a plot about a “love triangle.”
No, call this one as being about a “love octagon,” and not all of the love stories are pleasant and tasteful.
Here are the characters: Steve Carell and Julianne Moore are Cal and Emily Weaver. They have been married 25 years, have three children, and Emily wants a divorce, because she hs been having an affair with David, a man she works with, who is played by Kevin Bacon.
Ryan Gosling is Jacob, a studly do-wrong who picks up any woman he wants in a bar every night of the week and takes her home for a one-night stand.
Emma Stone is Hannah, a young lawyer who is rejected by the man she is interested in and then sets her sights on Jacob, but she refuses to play his game and forces him to play her game.
Jonah Bobo is Robbie Weaver, the 13-year-old son of Cal and Emily, and he has a major crush on his babysitter, Jessica, played by Analeigh Tipton, but she is 17 years old, and she has a crush on an older man, who is also married.
And, finally, Marisa Tomei is Kate, Robbie’s eighth-grade English teacher who is also out in the dating scene and figures into the stories, too.
So, when Cal moves out of the house and gets his own apartment, he starts going to a bar to pick up women, but his pick-up line leaves something to be desired. He says to one woman, “My wife is having intercourse with someone who is not me.”
Jacob sees Cal, takes pity on him, and decides to mentor Cal in the ways of picking up women in a bar, as well as helping Cal to make other changes in his life-style.
However, Cal still has feelings for Emily and goes over to the house in the middle of the night to take care of the yard and garden without Emily’s knowing that he is doing so.
Meanwhile, Robbie keeps pestering Jessica about his love for her, and she keeps rejecting him, not only because of his youth, but also because of her desire for that older man.
Crazy, Stupid, Love. is just a stupid, pointless, waste.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots”
