Posts tagged Great Britain
“The Ghost Writer” Full of Ominous Surprises
Mar 25th
“Full of Ominous Surprises”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE GHOST WRITER is a political thriller of the first order with a contemporary subject and characters designed to make the audience identify them with real people in international politics.
Roman Polanski received the award for best director at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival for this film, which is as good as-if not better than-his 1968 Rosemary’s Baby and the 1974 Chinatown.
The story begins with a ferryboat crossing from an island off Massachusetts to the mainland, but when it arrives, one automobile is left on the boat and no one claims it.
Then when a man’s body is found washed up on the shore of the island, the authorities determine it was either a suicide or an accident.
The man was the ghost writer of the memoirs of Adam Lang, a former prime minister of Great Britain who lives in a mansion on the island.
However, the publisher of the book has invested $10 million on the manuscript, and so another ghost writer is hired for $250,000 to finish the book and deliver it in a month.
The new ghost writer is played by Ewan McGregor, and when he expresses some concern about the death of the first writer, his agent says, “Accident, suicide, who cares? It was the book that killed him.”
McGregor arrives at the prime minister’s estate, which is under tight security, and is shown the manuscript, which cannot be removed or copied. After examining it, he proclaims that all the words are there, but just in the wrong order.
Then Lang himself shows up at the estate. He is played by Pierce Brosnan, and McGregor interviews him to learn some interesting details about his life, such as why he got into politics in the first place, especially since he had seemed to be more interested in acting while at college.
A media circus suddenly erupts when Lang is accused of handing over prisoners to the CIA for torture when he was prime minister, and now the publisher wants the finished manuscript in two weeks.
Not only that, but the ghost writer’s hotel room was searched while he was away, he suddenly encounters suspicious people, and he has to move onto the estate, where he is put in the first ghost writer’s room.
THE GHOST WRITER is full of ominous surprises.
“Pirate Radio” Will Never Sink
Nov 18th
Will Never Sink
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
PIRATE RADIO is based on the fact that back in the Sixties the British government–meaning “the Establishment”–didn’t approve of rock ‘n’ roll music, and so it wasn’t allowed to be played on traditional radio stations.
As a result of that ban, “pirate” radio stations developed, some even broadcast from ships anchored off the coast of Great Britain and thus outside the law and safe from the long arm of the Establishment. This is one story, which takes place in 1966.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays The Count, an American disc jockey on one such ship in the North Sea playing rock ‘n’ roll music 24 hours a day to an enthusiastic audience, one of whom isn’t Sir Alistair Dormandy, played by Kenneth Branagh, a government official who spends his time in the film trying to shut down the radio station by the end of the year.
This causes the following response: “They can’t shut us down. We’re pirates!”
There is one woman on board, Felicity, but that is okay, because she is a lesbian, or as one character says, she is “of the lesbionic tendency.”
Serving as the catalyst to the story is Carl, a young 18-year-old lad who has been kicked out of school and sent into the care of his godfather, Quentin, who owns the pirate-radio ship and is also in charge of running it.
Carl’s father had sex with his mum and then left without leaving his name or address, and the search for the identity of Carl’s father is a subplot of the film.
Now, you might think that life aboard a ship would be cramped in terms of a story, but we have many colorful characters, and occasionally Quentin arranges for adoring female fans to be brought aboard in order to meet their favorite deejays–if you know what I mean.
Also, the music might not be historically accurate, but it is great nonetheless.
One disc jockey even gets married, which allows his wife to come live aboard with him, but that causes more problems than he bargained for.
The film doesn’t exactly have a TITANIC ending, but it might be the only time that the expression “rock ‘n’ roll” brings tears to your eyes and a smile to your lips.
PIRATE RADIO also shows that rock ‘n’ roll will never sink.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Pink Panther 2” Dumbed Down Even More
Feb 11th
Dumbed Down Even More
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE PINK PANTHER 2 is the most recent version of an Inspector Clouseau movie that started in 1964 with Peter Sellers in the lead role, the second with Steve Martin as the bumbling French detective, and hopefully it will be the last one.
The 2006 THE PINK PANTHER with Martin attempting a silly French accent was bad enough, but this one is even worse.
Hollywood has not only run out of ideas, stories, and characters, but it has also run out of titles.
It has run out of actors, too, it appears, because John Cleese has replaced Kevin Kline as Chief Inspector Dreyfus, but that still isn’t enough to make you bother to see this unfunny waste of time.
The premise is that a master criminal named The Tornado has stolen the Magna Carta from Great Britain, the Emperor’s Sword from Japan, and the Shroud of Turin from Italy. An international “dream team” of detectives has been formed, and the world’s greatest detective is chosen to lead it.
That would be the Inspector Clouseau, but only for comedic reasons.
Except in this movie.
Watching the opening titles, you might ask, “Is this the best thing in the movie?” And the answer is “Yes.”
Another question you might ask is, “What is Lily Tomlin doing in this movie?” She plays Mrs. Berenger without making any attempt at a French accent, good or bad, and she is supposed to teach Clouseau how to be more politically correct in his attitude and comments.
In actuality, however, all she does is interrupt the plot, which isn’t going anywhere anyway.
In fact, there are too many subplots having nothing to do with catching The Tornado, which just distract from the main plot, which is to catch The Tornado, expecially after the Pink Panther diamond goes missing.
However, when you dumb down Inspector Clouseau, what are you left with? Absolutely nothing.
The ending is ridiculous, and the whole movie is ridiculous.
In fact, the movie is so boring that at one point I didn’t even feel like watching any more of it.
Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards, the director of the good Pink Panther movies, are undoubtedly rolling over in their graves.
THE PINK PANTHER 2 has been dumbed down even more than the 2006 version with Steve Martin, and let us hope that this is the last one.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”