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“Nowhere Boy” A Bit Like You and Me
Oct 21st
“A Bit Like You and Me”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
NOWHERE BOY is the haunting story of John Lennon’s troubled teenage years from when he learned some important secrets about his family that had been kept from him since he was five years old to just before the Beatles were formed and the lads from Liverpool made rock ‘n’ roll history.
The story begins about 1956 when John is 16, and he is always getting into trouble in school. One day while he is being disciplined, John is told, “You’re going nowhere,” and John responds in his quick, witty, and irreverent fashion, “There’s nowhere for the geniuses, Sir.”
Then John’s life takes the first of many sudden and drastic changes. He is living with his Uncle George and Aunt Mimi, and Uncle George dies suddenly, leaving John alone with Aunt Mimi, who is a very strict disciplinarian and who constantly tells John to wear his glasses whenever he leaves the house.
Uncle George was more than just an uncle to John, and at the funeral we see a red-haired woman whom John has known as Aunt Julia. Now John is told that he should call the red-haired woman “Mum.”
A friend knows where Julia lives, and he and John go to visit her, which is within walking distance of Aunt Mimi’s. Julia has two little girls, and they all go to Blackpool for a day of fun, where Julia gets a little wild from the excitement.
At the end of the day when John is going back home to Aunt Mimi’s, Julia tells him, “Don’t tell Mimi. Please. This is our secret.” And then she adds, “I love you. You’re my dream. Don’t forget that.”
John slowly begins to learn more of the details behind this complicated relationship, and it is about this time he becomes aware of Elvis Presley and fascinated with the success and popularity of the American singer.
So, Johns asks Aunt Mimi to buy him a guitar, gets some of his mates to join him in forming a rock ‘n’ roll band, and calls the neophyte band “The Quarrymen.”
A friend of a friend named Paul shows up, he knows how to play his left-handed quitar better than John does, teaches John some new chords, and, well, you know the rest.
NOWHERE BOY is, like the song says, a bit like you and me.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Secretariat” Greatest Racehorse That Ever Lived
Oct 14th
“Greatest Racehorse That Ever Lived”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SECRETARIAT is based on a real-life racehorse, a real-life person, and a real-life series of events, and even though everyone in the audience already knows the ending going in, the movie is still an uplifting and inspirational experience to see.
After all, it isn’t just little girls who love horses and who love good stories about horses, right?
The movie begins in 1969 in Denver, and we meet a housewife and her family. She is Penny Chenery, played by Diane Lane, and she receives a phone call that her mother has died.
The whole family drives to Virginia for the funeral, where we learn that Penny’s father has been ill for some time and the horse farm he owns has been losing money “hand over fist.”
Penny sends her family back home to Denver, and she stays behind to help out on the farm and try to make it solvent again.
She fires the horse trainer, because he has been cheating the farm, and she tracks down Lucien Laurin, a French Canadian who has been trying to retire and who is played wonderfully by John Malkovich.
Penny offers Lucien the job of being her horse trainer, but he turns her down, saying that he doesn’t even follow racing anymore.
However, when Penny tells him that the farm is about to acquire a newborn foal that was sired by Bold Ruler, a famous racehorse, Lucien says, “Call me when she drops her foal.”
Of course, you can guess the rest, which, as they say, is history, and in this case is actually true, although some minor details have been altered or omitted in order to make the movie tighter, more exciting, and even better.
The Triple Crown is Thoroughbred horseracing’s greatest achievement, which is unofficially awarded a horse that wins the three most prestigious races in one season, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.
Before Secretariat did so in 1973, no horse had won the Triple Crown since Citation won it in 1948, 25 years earlier, and Secretariat still owns the best winning time in two of those races, a remarkable achievement for a horse whose sire had a reputation for speed, but not for stamina.
SECRETARIAT is a marvelous film about a horse that is still known as the greatest racehorse that ever lived.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”