Posts tagged DVD
“Source Code” Expect a Tweak
Apr 7th
“Expect a Tweak”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SOURCE CODE is a science-fiction, action-thriller version of the 1993 GROUNDHOG DAY, except each return to the past lasts only eight minutes apiece.
And yet it is still worth watching, especially for the work of star Jake Gyllenhaal and director Duncan Jones, who previously directed the excellent 2009 MOON.
However, you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief at least nine times, if my count of the trips back in time are accurate.
And we are told that these events are not time travel; they are time reassignment. Also, the program that is called “Source Code” and allows these events to take place is not designed to alter the past. It is designed to affect the future.
It all begins when Capt. Colter Stevens wakes up one morning on a commuter train to Chicago. A woman sitting across from him says, “I took your advice. It was good advice. Thank you.”
And yet Stevens doesn’t know where he is, what is happening, or who this woman is, whose name is Christina.
Eight minutes later a bomb on the train explodes and everyone on it is killed.
Then Stevens finds himself in a crashed helicopter in Afghanistan, and a woman is talking to him over a video screen. She is Capt. Goodwin, and she tells Stevens that he is part of a mission designed to prevent that bomb explosion.
Eight minutes before the explosion, Stevens’ mind can be inserted into the body of another man on that train, and his mission is to find the bomb, find the bomber, and report the results.
Nice work if he can do it, especially in only eight minutes, but each time he goes back, he knows a little bit more which will allow him to find the bomb, find the bomber, and complete the mission.
We learn that Stevens is a born hero and saving people is what he does best, but he is also told by Capt. Goodwin that he can’t save the people on the train, because they are already dead.
This causes conflict in Stevens, because he becomes more and more fond of Christina each time he meets her for the first time.
However, the ending is all wrong and expect some changes to it when the DVD comes out.
SOURCE CODE is entertaining, but expect a tweak.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Social Network” Are We Too Linked In?
Oct 6th
“Are We Too Linked In?”
THE SOCIAL NETWORK is the story of the creation of Facebook.com and its aftermath, and if you don’t know what Facebook is, what planet have you been living on for the past six or seven years?
Although it isn’t a documentary, the film is based on the 2009 book by Ben Mezrich, THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES: THE FOUNDING OF FACEBOOK, A TALE OF SEX, MONEY, GENIUS, AND BETRAYAL, which pretty much describes the story, but even the book contains a lengthy disclaimer admitting it contains “fudged facts” for the benefit of a good story.
At any rate, David Fincher directed, Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay, and Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard drop-out who created the world’s most popular social-networking Internet Website and who has been called the world’s youngest billionaire.
And if we can believe the book, the movie, and many other corroborating accounts, the genesis for Facebook occurred in 2003 when Zuckerberg was a geeky sophomore and got dumped by his girlfriend.
What happened next in the life of this socially inept computer genius is the stuff of this marvelous film and the events that affected his career and now is a part of half-a-billion users worldwide.
Imagine the box-office results if every Facebook user wants to see this film.
Stung by his girlfriend’s rejection, Zuckerberg goes back to his dorm room, blogs about the breakup, and then fueled by quite a few beers, hacks into the servers of the Harvard computer system, downloads photos of coeds, and then creates the Facemash domain, which asks visitors to identify which of two girls is “hotter.”
The response is so successful that it crashes the Harvard.edu Website.
Enter the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler. They have had an idea for a Harvard social-network site called “The Harvard Connection,” and they approach Zuckerberg to build it for them. The rest, as they say, as does the subtitle of the source book, is “sex, money, genius, and betrayal.”
Zuckerberg’s best friend, initial backer, and original partner in his vision to expand a computer social network beyond Harvard is Eduardo Saverin, and the film consists of interlocking scenes of the two lawsuits against Zuckerberg and flashbacks to the events.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK brings to mind the question, “Are we too linked in to the Internet and modern technology?”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Town” Not Pretty, but Good and Exciting
Sep 22nd
“Not Pretty, but Good and Exciting”
THE TOWN is the second film that Ben Affleck has directed, and he also stars in it along with Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chris Cooper.
The story takes place in modern-day Charlestown, a square-mile rough neighborhood near Boston known for its criminals and unsolved murders, and sometimes the actors’ accents are so thick that it is difficult to understand what they are saying.
The film opens with a bank robbery, the four robbers all wearing skull masks, and they take the pretty bank manager hostage with them in their escape.
When they release Claire, the robbers take her driver’s license and tell her that if she talks to the FBI, they know where she lives and they will come to her home, rape her, and kill her.
Naturally, Claire has to talk to FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley, and while she is being questioned, she asks, “Should I have a lawyer here?”
Frawley tells Claire that anyone who lawyers up during questioning is usually guilty, and because Claire doesn’t want to be involved any more than she already is, she doesn’t tell Frawley one piece of information about the robbers that she observed.
Meanwhile, the leader of the robbers, Doug MacRay, follows Claire, meets her “accidentally,” they start talking, and he takes her out for a drink. She doesn’t know who Doug really is, they start dating, and at one point Claire tells Doug the information that she withheld from the FBI.
Claire tells Doug that on really sunny days, she always thinks of someone dying, because her younger brother died on such a day, which will play an important part in a later scene in the film.
Doug is planning another big robbery, but he tells his partner and childhood friend, Jim, and the rest of the team that it will be their last job, after which they will just hit bars.
This time the team all wear nun’s masks, and the getaway chase through the streets of Boston is exciting, especially when a bridge shows up.
Of course, whenever crime is involved, nothing ever goes on as planned.
THE TOWN is not pretty, but it sure is good, exciting entertainment, it’s dedicated to the good people of Charlestown, but made about the “bad” people, and I sure am glad it was.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”