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“30 Minutes or Less” Dueling Pairs of Idiots
Aug 17th
“Dueling Pairs of Idiots”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
30 Minutes or Less is a comedy about an elaborate plot to rob a bank to pay a hitman to kill the father of one of the characters, so that he can inherit his father’s lottery winnings.
What could go wrong, right?
Well, practically everything, considering that one pair of idiots hatches the plot and gets another pair of idiots to carry it out for them.
When the movie opens, we meet Nick, played by Jesse Eisenberg. He delivers pizzas in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Vito’s Pizza, whose slogan is the title of the movie. If you order a pizza and it isn’t delivered in 30 minutes or less, then the pizza is free.
So, Nick is dashing through the street in his own beat-up car to make a delivery to two teenage boys, and he is rushing, because if he doesn’t make the delivery in time, then the cost of the pizza comes out of his own wages.
Well, the teenagers have pulled a con on Nick to get a free pizza, but then Nick pulls an even better con on the teenagers to get his money and a tip, too.
Then we meet Dwayne, played by Danny McBride, and his buddy Travis, played by Nick Swardson. They spend the day watching movies and playing video games in the house owned by Dwayne’s father, The Major, played by Fred Ward.
The Major, who is extremely unpleasant, is a retired Marine who won $10 million in a lottery, and when he asks Dwayne and Travis what they do, they say hesitatingly, “We’re business partners.”
They also blow up watermelons for fun, and Dwayne gets an idea for how to make their lives even easier: kill The Major and inherit his home and money.
Naturally, they aren’t capable of doing it themselves, and so after finding a hitman, now they have to come up with $100,000 in order to pay him.
So, putting their watermelon skills to bad use, they kidnap Nick on a false pizza-delivery run, strap explosives to his body, and tell him that he has to rob a bank for them or they will blow him up.
In a panic, Nick gets his roommate to help him, who is played by Aziz Ansari.
30 Minutes or Less is a study in dueling pairs of idiots.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Bad Teacher” Worse Writers
Jul 29th
“Worse Writers”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Bad Teacher stars Cameron Diaz in the title role, because otherwise who would want to see a movie about a bad teacher?
Teachers are supposed to be good. Teachers are supposed to be helpful. Teachers are supposed to be able to teach difficult subjects to recalcitrant students.
And if you don’t know what “recalcitrant” means, then you just might have been one.
Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a seventh-grade teacher at John Adams Middle School, and when the movie begins, it is the last day of school and she is being honored by the principal after having taught only one year.
Elizabeth is given a $37 gift certificate as a bonus, which doesn’t say as much about her teaching abilities as it does about the sad economic state of the education system in general.
Elizabeth tells her colleagues that she doesn’t need a blackboard or a classroom to set an example, but Elizabeth doesn’t plan to return in the fall to teach a second year at the school. She plans to marry her wealthy fiance and be taken care of for the rest of her life.
However, when Elizabeth goes home that day, her plans change completely, and three months later she is back at school to teach another year.
Well, “teach” is such a loaded word. Let’s just call it sitting at the front of her classroom and planning how she is going to pay for the boob job she believes will land her a rich husband.
In fact, Elizabeth starts showing movies about teachers instead of doing any teaching herself, and when the principal questions her teaching-by-movies technique, Elizabeth says, “I think that movies are the new books.”
Then when Justin Timberlake shows up at the school as Scott Delacorte, the new substitute teacher, Elizabeth learns that he is independently wealthy, and so she schemes to snag him as her sugar daddy, but nerdy Scott has hie eye on another teacher whom Elizabeth doesn’t get along with.
Now, of course there is a scene at a fund-raising car wash in which Elizabeth shows off her body that is like many other movies before this one, of course there is a major plot to get money that backfires, and of course there is a kind gym teacher attracted to Elizabeth whom she rejects.
Bad Teacher has worse writers.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“A Better Life” A Wonderful Film
Jul 21st
“A Wonderful Film”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
A Better Life is a terrific film that deserves as much publicity as it can get, because otherwise audiences will probably overlook it and not give it the attendance it deserves.
It also has a simple story that might not be popular, because it is about the relationship between an undocumented foreigner from Mexico and his teenage son, who live in Los Angeles.
Carlos Galindo has a steady job as a gardener working for another Mexican’s gardening business, and he sleeps on the couch in the living room at home so that his 14-year-old son, Luis, can sleep in the bedroom.
When Carlos finds out that Luis has missed 18 or 19 days of school so far this year, he asks him, “You want to end up like me?” to which Luis answers “No.”
Luis has some resentment toward his father, because he blames Carlos for his mother leaving them, whom Luis never wants to talk about.
Meanwhile, the man for whom Carlos works, Blasco Martinez, wants to retire, and he offers to sell Carlos his beat-up truck so that Carlos can have his own gardening business.
To Carlos, he wouldn’t just be buying a truck. He would be buying the American Dream.
However, not only doesn’t Carlos have the $12,000 that Blasco wants for his truck, but Carlos doesn’t even have a driver’s license, and if he ever gets stopped by the police, he could be deported back to Mexico. That is why Carlos wants to try to stay “invisible.”
Meanwhile, Luis gets suspended from school for fighting, and Carlos is concerned that Luis has a fascination with gangs and might even end up in a gang.
Carlos asks his sister, Anita, for a $12,000 loan, promising to pay the money back and telling her that if it works out, everything is going to change. He won’t have to work on Sunday anymore and can spend more time with Luis, if Luis wants.
Anita loans Carlos the money without telling her husband, who she says is the cheapest man in the world.
So, Carlos buys the truck from Blasco, but his life doesn’t change as he had imagined. Almost immediately, the truck is stolen, and Carlos and Luis have to try to get it back while staying invisible.
A Better Life is a wonderful film.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”