Posts tagged help
The Messenger – Movie Trailer
Mar 3rd
An Iraq War veteran who just narrowly escaped death in combat struggles with his new post at the Casualty Notification Office while anticipating his upcoming discharge in this military drama starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Jena Malone, and Samantha Morton. Will Montgomery (Foster) has spent his fair share of time in army hospitals, and with just three months to go before returning to civilian life, he discovers that his girlfriend back home (Malone) has decided to move on with her life. Crestfallen, Will discovers that his latest hope for a fresh start will be training to work for the Casualty Notification Office under the mentorship of senior officer Tony (Harrelson). As someone who had a close brush with death himself, Will isn’t sure that he’s the man to tell families that their own loved ones will never be coming home. Thankfully, in between his assignments, Tony offers a sympathetic ear and the two men form a bond that will ultimately help them to readjust to “normal” life. But once you’ve been in the thick of it, any true hope for a “normal” life after the military is just wishful thinking. Later, Will is drawn to the grieving widow (Morton) of a fallen soldier, a development that forces him to ponder the ethical dilemma of starting a relationship with a woman in such a vulnerable position.
Broken Embraces – Movie Trailer
Feb 1st
A follow-up to Spanish enfant terrible Pedro Almodóvar’s 2006 arthouse sensation Volver, Los Abrazos Rotos finds the filmmaker re-teaming with actress Penelope Cruz and working on a canvas much broader than those of his previous outings, in terms of genres covered, narrative scope, and duration. Lluís Homar stars as the former Mateo Blanco, a screenwriter and ex-director who changed his name to Harry Caine after losing his sight in an automobile accident. A past scandal suddenly resurfaces when the news arrives that the producer of one of Harry’s old movies (“Girls and Suitcases”), a corrupt stockbroker named Ernesto Martel (Jose Luis Gómez), has died. For mysterious reasons, this makes Harry’s ex-production manager Judit (Blanca Portillo) nervous; then Ernesto’s son, Ray X (Ruben Ochandiano), turns up and asks Harry to help him write a vindictive script to get back at his vile father. The film subsequently flashes back to the early ’90s, when Martel became involved with his secretary, Lena (Cruz), but Mateo also began to develop feelings for her, and auditioned her for “Girls and Suitcases.” In response to Mateo’s interest in Lena (and her burgeoning interest in him), the jealous Martel commissioned Ray to make a documentary about the making of “Girls and Suitcases” as an excuse to spy on the director and star. This enabled him to watch Mateo spiriting off with Lena right under his nose, and set the stage for the wily producer’s elaborate revenge against Mateo. As this synopsis suggests, Almodóvar uses a tricky structure laden with flashbacks to both comment on and explain the events of the present; he also interweaves a noirish sensibility throughout the picture that marks something of a first for this director.
“Up In The Air” One Perfect Movie
Dec 23rd
One Perfect Movie
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
UP IN THE AIR is a delightful film about a very undelightful subject: firing people from their jobs.
Written and directed by Jason Reitman, who previously made the 2006 THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and the 2007 JUNO, this film has already won some awards and is sure to win many more.
George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a “termination engineer” based out of Omaha, Nebraska, who flies all over the country to fire people whose own bosses don’t want to do it themselves.
In a voice-over narration, Bingham says, “Last year I spent 322 days on the road, which means that I had to spend 43 miserable days at home.”
Yes, Bingham loves to travel, which he has developed into a science of efficiency, and he doesn’t spend a nickel if he can help it, unless it adds to his frequent-flyer miles. He wants to hit 10 million miles and become one of only seven people to have reached that prestigious mark.
However, Bingham encounters an obstacle to his plans the next time he goes home and sees his boss, played by Jason Bateman, at the company that employs him.
His boss has hired Natalie Keener, a young efficiency expert fresh out of college, and she has come up with a way that the company doesn’t have to have
23 people on the road at least 250 days a year.
Yes, fire people long-distance by using videoconferencing to give them the bad news.
Of course, Bingham is against this way of working, and their boss tells him to take Natalie out on the road with him to show her the ropes of flying and of firing people face-to-face.
In the meantime, Bingham has met another frequent flyer on the road working for another company, and they try to arrange their schedules so that they can meet in the same city occasionally and share a hotel room together, if you catch my drift.
As another subplot, Bingham’s sister is getting married, and he has been given the task of taking a large cutout photo of the couple with him on his travels and photographing the cutout in front of various landmarks.
UP IN THE AIR is smart, it is funny, it is thoughtful, Clooney is terrific, and it is one perfect movie up in the air or on the ground.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”