Posts tagged drama
The Identical “Cheap Copy”
Sep 10th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE IDENTICAL is not a very good movie about what might have happened if Elvis Presley’s twin brother had not died at birth, but had been given away to another couple who couldn’t have children.
The other couple are evangelist preacher Reece Wade, played by Ray Liotta, and his wife, Louise, played by Ashley Judd.
So, the movie follows their lives and the life of their adopted son, whom they name Ryan Wade, rather than the life of the more successful twin brother, who becomes a very successful singer named Drexel “The Dream” Hemsley.
The story begins in 1935, the same year in which Elvis was born, in Decatur, Alabama, where Helen Hemsley gives birth to twin boys and says to her husband, “William, Honey, meet your sons.”
But times are hard, it is the middle of the Great Depression, and William doesn’t have a job, but he had recently attended a revival meeting where Reverend Wade had revealed that he and his wife had not been able to have children.
So, believing that they could raise one child but not two, and taking the expression “It is better to give than to receive” to heart, the Hemsleys give one of the twin boys to Reverend Wade and his wife to raise, making them promise to keep the secret, and then pretending to bury that son and telling people that he had died at birth.
Well, naturally, Reverend Wade wants Ryan to have a calling and to follow him into preaching for a life, but Ryan has other interests, such as music, and he seems to have a talent for that, even taking his guitar with him when he spends two years in the Army and singing for his buddies in his job in the motor pool.
Ryan eventually convinces his father that he doesn’t have the calling to be a preacher and moves out on his own, dating a girl named Jenny, whom he had met when they were younger, and finally marrying her.
Meanwhile, Drexel has become a huge success, people remark how much Ryan looks like Drexel, and when Ryan wins a Drexel impersonating contest, his own singing career takes off, being billed as “The Identical,” as in the identical copy of Drexel “The Dream” Hemsley.
THE IDENTICAL is a very cheap copy of Elvis.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Identical – Movie Trailer
Sep 7th
Identical twin brothers (both played by Blake Rayne) are separated at birth during the Great Depression. Their parents (Brian Geraghty, Amanda Crew) just cannot afford to give them both a life beyond poverty, so one is adopted by loving family. Despite their very different upbringings, the boys’ shared passion for music causes their lives to unknowingly intersect as they experience a powerful and mysterious connection often felt by twins.
Magic in the Moonlight “The Magic of Love”
Sep 2nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT is Woody Allen’s latest film, and it has been getting moderately mixed reviews.
Some reviewers generally liked it, some generally disliked it, but I liked it a lot.
It is a romantic comedy, but it contains more romance than comedy.
And if you believe that Allen has his ups and downs in the movies he makes, I believe this film is one of his ups.
It begins in 1928 in Berlin, and we see the stage act of a renowned Chinese magician named Wei Ling Soo, who is actually an Englishman, Stanley Crawford, played by Colin Firth and wearing elaborate Chinese stage makeup and clothing.
The magician makes a live elephant on stage disappear, he cuts a woman assistant in half and proves that her body is in two parts, and he himself disappears inside a box and suddenly reappears onstage sitting in a chair that he swivels around, which will be used again later in the story to a nice effect.
Stanley brags that he invented that last trick himself, and Stanley is a suffering, egotistical, obnoxious person in real life who ridicules anyone who claims to have psychic powers.
When Stanley is told about a young pretty woman who holds seances and makes contact with the dead, he says, “A pretty face never hurt a cheap swindler.”
Stanley is told about Sophie Baker, an American played by Emma Stone, by Howard Burkan, a childhood friend of Stanley’s and also a magician, although not as successful as Stanley is.
Howard says that he can’t spot any trickery in Sophie’s claims, and he invites Stanley to accompany him to the south of France, where Howard believes Sophie will be trying to fleece a rich widow out of a lot of money.
Of course, Stanley jumps at the chance to expose another public phony, and he goes to France using an assumed name to do so.
However, while Sophie conducts a seance and establishes contact with the wealthy widow’s dead husband, neither he nor Howard can find any evidence to expose Sophie.
And when Sophie tells Stanley about things in his life that she could never have guessed, he starts to believe in her powers and to fall in love with her.
MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT might have you believing in the magic of love.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”