Posts tagged DVD
“The Goods: Live Hard Sell Hard” Rude, Crude, Extremely Lewd and Very, Very Funny
Aug 19th
Rude, Crude, Extremely Lewd and Very, Very Funny
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD is one of those movies that get talked about more than seen, which is a shame, because it is well worth your time, trouble, and money.
It just won’t win any awards for quality or be on anyone’s list of the best films of 2009 or any year.
Of course, this means that it will do bang-up business when it comes out on DVD.
Jeremy Pivens stars as Don “The Goods” Ready, and so the title can refer to him just as easily as it can to the concept of the movie, which is selling used cars.
In fact, the first sale in the movie is a classic, and it takes place before the opening titles.
But as Ready says at the end of an inspiring speech on an airplane to convince the stewardess to let him smoke, “I’m Don Ready, and I’ve got the goods!”
Then you have to see what happens next to believe it.
Don and his team of two men and one woman are freelance used-car sellers, and they are called to Temecula, California, to help save the dealership of Ben Selleck, played by James Brolin.
They will be in charge over the Fourth of July weekend to save the business that has been in the family for 40 years, and one method they use is to hire some dancers from a local strip club to loosen up the customers.
One subplot is that Selleck’s daughter, Ivy, is engaged to the son of Selleck’s rival, played by Alan Thicke, who wants to buy Selleck’s dealership and give it to his son as a place where his son’s band can rehearse.
Another subplot is that one of Selleck’s salesmen might be Don’s son from a one-night stand he had in Temecula 23 years ago.
And a third subplot is a running reference to something bad that happened to Don in Albuquerque, which we don’t learn about until near the end of the movie.
So, Don makes a deal with Selleck’s rival that they will sell every car on the lot by the end of the weekend, and if they don’t–. Well, you have to see the movie to know what the bargain is.
THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD is rude, crude, extremely lewd, and very, very funny.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Frost/Nixon” Worthy Opponents
Dec 31st
Worthy Opponents
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
FROST/NIXON is the fantastic film based on the award-winning stage play, and if you think it is going to consist of two men playing David Frost and former president Richard Nixon just sitting down and conducting the interviews that resulted in the May 1977 broadcasts, think again.
Directed by Ron Howard and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon, the film covers the time between August 1974 when Nixon became the only president to resign while in office and immediately after the last interview was broadcast three years later.
In other words, we also see the beginning of Frost’s idea to conduct the interviews in order to rejuvenate his own career in television, the tricky negotiations to get Nixon to agree, the preparations on both sides for the taping of the interviews, and then the interviews themselves, which resulted in Nixon’s famous exclamation, “I’m saying that when the president does it, it’s not illegal!”
Yes, there are many obvious parallels between Nixon’s presidency and the current President Bush Administration and the situation in Iraq, and those parallels are obviously intentional.
It was also obvious from the film that Nixon didn’t agree to the interviews just to set the record straight. He was paid $600,000 and would receive 20% of any profits, the interviews took place in a rented house not far from Nixon’s home in San Clemente, California, Nixon would not see the questions beforehand, and Frost had total editorial control of the finished product.
The only stipulation was that no more than 25% of the interview would be about Watergate, and as we see from the film, that led to a controversial discussion as to the definition of “Watergate.”
Kevin Bacon plays Jack Brennan, an aide to Nixon who figures prominently in the preparations, and based on the film’s publicity, you might not even have realized that he appears in the film.
Even given the importance of the two people involved and the subject matter of the interviews, Frost and his producer had a difficult time selling advertising for the project and even getting a television network to air the results.
If you want to see the finished product as broadcast, those interviews are now available on DVD.
FROST/NIXON is an excellent dramatization of those worthy opponents, and there is suspense up until the final shot.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”