Posts tagged film
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.”
Magic in the Moonlight – Movie Trailer
Aug 20th
Chinese conjuror Wei Ling Soo is the most celebrated magician of his age, but few know that he is the stage persona of Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth), a grouchy and arrogant Englishman with a sky-high opinion of himself and an aversion to phony spiritualists’ claims. Persuaded by his friend, Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney), Stanley goes on a mission to the Côte d’Azur mansion of the Catledge family: mother Grace (Jacki Weaver), son Brice (Hamish Linklater), and daughter Caroline (Erica Leerhsen). He presents himself as a businessman named Stanley Taplinger in order to debunk the alluring young clairvoyant Sophie Baker (Emma Stone) who is staying there with her mother (Marcia Gay Harden). Sophie arrived at the Catledge villa at the invitation of Grace, who is convinced that Sophie can help her contact her late husband, and once there, attracted the attention of Brice, who has fallen for her head over heels. What follows is a series of events that are magical in every sense of the word and send the characters reeling. In the end, the biggest trick MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT plays is the one that fools us all.
Calvary “Depressing Through and Through”
Aug 18th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CALVARY has been called a “dark comedy,” and I certainly agree that it is dark, but I found nothing in it that I would call a comedy.
It stars Breendan Gleeson, an Irish actor who has made some terrific comedies, and in this film he plays Father James, a Catholic priest in a small town in Ireland who hears something startling at the beginning of the film while he is holding Confession.
The person that Father James is listening to tells him about being sexually abused by a priest starting at seven years old and then says in a calm, steady voice, “I’m going to kill you, Father.”
Now, Father James was not the abuser, he is told that he is innocent, but he is also told that is the reason Father James is going to be killed, along with when and where his death will take place.
Later, Father James is advised that the choice is his whether or not to go to the police, and he does go to the police, but for a reason other than to report the threat on his life.
Father James says that he knows who the person is, but later in the film he says that he doesn’t.
So, for the rest of the film we watch Father James conduct his priestly duties and go about the business of living his life while we in the audience try to figure out who the possible killer is and what Father James is going to do when the time comes.
Is it Jack the butcher, whose wife has been knocked about, but not by Jack, or so he claims, but by someone she has been seeing, and not so secretly?
Is it the person Jack believes is mistreating his wife or one of her many boyfriends that person says she has?
Is it Michael Fitzgerald, who is rich and has a nice home, but is now alone after everyone around him has left him?
Is it the owner of the pub where everyone goes to forget their troubles and who seems to have a grudge against Father James?
Could it even be someone we don’t see until the time and place of the death threat?
CALVARY is depressing to begin with, in the middle, and even more depressing after it is over.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”