Posts tagged family
“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.”
“The Last House on the Left” Gratuitous Remake
Mar 18th
Gratuitous Remake
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (2009) is a remake of Wes Craven’s 1972 film of the same name, which itself was a remake of THE VIRGIN SPRING, the 1960 film by the great Ingmar Bergman, and it proves once again that Hollywood has run out of ideas, as well as brings to mind the saying, “Leave well enough alone.”
It also brings to mind another saying: “Of all the movies I have seen so far this year, this is one of them.”
The film begins with a gruesome accident and then keeps getting worse all the way to the very final, gratuitous shot.
In fact, that is the best way to describe this sorry excuse for a movie: gratuitous. Here are just some of the notes I made watching it: “gratuitous assault,” “gratuitous rape,” “gratuitous violence,” “gratuitous (closeups of a) broken nose,” “gratuitous drowning in the sink and garbage disposal,” “gratuitous nudity,” “gratuitous destruction,” “gratuitous final shots, too,” and “one final gratuitous shot to the head.”
Yes, there is a story, but given what makes up most of the movie, you could very well say that the story is gratuitous to the violence.
The story is about a family staying at their vacation home on a lake.
As they are driving to it, they come to the road that leads to it, which is marked by a sign that says, “Lake Ends in the Road,” and the wife, Emma, remarks, “Gee, you think somebody would change that sign.”
The teenage daughter, Mari, borrows the car and drives into town to visit her friend, Paige, who is working in a convenience store.
A young boy named Justin comes into the store, and the three of them end up going to the motel where Justin is staying with his father, uncle, and another woman, who come back unexpectedly and interrupt the teenagers.
The group abducts Mari and Paige, and they all go out into the woods, where brutal things happen just as a bad storm moves in.
Mari manages to escape, but she gets shot.
Then as always happens in movies like this, the group shows up at the vacation home, where Mari’s mother and father are more than happy to accommodate them and put them up in the guest house.
THE LASTHOUSE ON THE LEFT is just a gratuitous remake.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Sunshine Cleaning – Movie Trailer
Mar 13th
A thirtysomething single mother whose boundless potential was squandered through a series of failed relationships and a misguided effort to help her younger sister succeed in life finds the fruits of her labors finally coming together in director Christine Jeffs’ dark family comedy. Back in high school, the future looked pretty bright for Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams); not only was she the cheerleading captain, but she was also dating the star quarterback. Flash forward a little over a decade, and Rose is working overtime in hopes of getting her son into a better school. Her sister, Norah (Emily Blunt), is still living at home with their father, Joe (Alan Arkin), a failed salesman whose penchant for jumping into get-rich-quick schemes has left the family without a financial net to fall back on. Rose may be down, but she certainly isn’t out, and when she hatches a plan to launch a crime-scene cleanup business, the money starts rolling in. Sure, cleaning up murder scenes and suicide sites may not be the most glamorous job in the world, but death is a fairly profitable business, and as the phone keeps ringing, Rose and Norah finally begin to experience the closeness of sisterhood that has eluded them all these years while also providing their family with true security.