Posts tagged Emily Blunt
“The Adjustment Bureau” Gimmicky Love Story
Mar 10th
“Gimmicky Love Story”
THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in a love story set in a modern world of fantasy which argues that the fate of the world is predetermined by a group of men all wearing dark suits and hats.
However, when you learn that the film is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, that premise doesn’t seem so unreasonable.
And then when an important person in the plan doesn’t want to follow his predetermined destiny, what happens to the plan and the people pulling his strings?
When we first meet those men in suits and hats, Richardson, the team leader played by John Slattery, says to the team, “Everybody needs a vacation. Even us.”
The immediate object of their adjustment work is David Norris, a charismatic young man running for senator of New York. However, when something embarrassing from his past is revealed, he loses the election.
Then when he believes that he is alone in the men’s room and is rehearsing his concession speech, a beautiful young woman named Elise comes out of one of the stalls, where she had been hiding from security for having crashed a wedding in the hotel.
They talk. They bond. They kiss.
And then they part, and all David has is her first name.
Then years later, they accidentally meet on a bus when David is going to work for a big corporation. This time Elise writes her phone number on a card for him, but again forces intervene, and they have to part suddenly.
However, when David gets to the offices where he works, he sees something that he wasn’t supposed to see, and the Adjustment team has to intervene. They take him aside, explain what is going on, and Richardson takes the card with Elise’s number on it.
You see, the fate of the world has already been planned, and it will be screwed up if David and Elise get together. Therefore, the Adjustment team has to keep them apart by interfering with any circumstances that would allow them to get together, because they would fall in love and ruin the Adjustment team’s plans.
But now David doesn’t want to play by the rules and live according to plan anymore.
THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU has an interesting concept, but is basically a gimmicky love story.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Sunshine Cleaning” False Promises
Apr 2nd
False Promises
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SUNSHINE CLEANING is a quirky little film that wants to be so much better than it actually is, given that it actually does display a great deal of promise.
It stars Amy Adams as Rose Lorkowski, Emily Blunt as her sister, Norah, and Alan Arkin as their father, Joe, a sort-of dysfunctional family living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a troubled past that is revealed about halfway through the film.
The film begins with a fairly dramatic and shocking scene that doesn’t so much set the tone of the film, but most likely was intended as a contradiction of what the film wants to be.
Then we see Rose in her bathroom reading what must be her daily
affirmation: “You are strong. You are powerful. You can do anything. You’re a winner.”
Rose works for a maid service, she was the head cheerleader in high school, where she dated the star quarterback on the football team, and she is the single mother of seven-year-old Oscar, who has a history of getting into trouble at school.
Rose’s high-school sweetheart, Mac, still meets with her occasionally, even though he is married to someone else, he is a detective, and he gives Rose the idea of starting her own cleaning service, which would specialize in cleaning up crime scenes, and thus is born the Sunshine Cleaning Service.
Rose convinces Norah to join her in the business, telling her that it is just like cleaning up a home, only there is blood and body fluids.
Norah just got fired from her job as a waitress, she likes weird stuff, and to say that Norah has quirks would be a gross understatement.
Their father, Joe, is a piece of work, too. He is always looking for a way to make some easy money, and when Rose leaves Oscar with Joe while she and Norah clean up crime scenes, sometimes Oscar works as Joe’s shill and Joe teaches Oscar what he calls “business acumen.”
However, when Rose attends a baby shower so she can see many of her old high-school friends, she sends Norah to a crime scene to begin the cleaning process, and Norah causes a disaster to occur.
SUNSHINE CLEANING has too many false promises that don’t deliver, just like Rose’s daily affirmation ritual, which doesn’t do much for her.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”