Posts tagged Hotshots
The November Man “The November Movie”
Sep 15th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE NOVEMBER MAN might not be the worst movie I have seen all year, but it is certainly the worst spy thriller I have seen all year.
It stars Pierce Brosnan as Peter Devereaux, who used to be a CIA agent, and it has the tired old story of someone being pulled out of retirement for one last job.
The story begins in 2008 in Montenegro, and Devereaux is training another agent, a young man named David Mason, part of which training is, “You feel the need for a relationship? Get a dog.”
Mason then botches a mission by not following Devereaux’s orders, and suddenly it is five years later in Switzerland, where Devereaux is living in retirement, and he is notified that a woman in Moscow wants to “come in” because something is scaring her, her name is Natalia, and she is asking only for Devereaux to be the one to rescue her and bring her to safety.
We don’t know it yet, but Natalia and Devereaux have a history together, and he travels to Moscow to rescue her, but the Russians figure out what she is doing, and that mission is badly botched, but not before Natalia gives Devereaux her phone with incriminating photos on it.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Mason is involved in that failed mission, too, and now Devereaux wants revenge, because someone close to him was killed.
Now the story gets really confusing with a Russian named Arkady Federov about to become president of Russia, but there is something in his past that might cause him problems, a woman named Alice Fournier has information about his past, and so Devereaux wants to find her and protect her from others who want her dead.
Confusing? You bet! There are too many people and too many complicated stories going on, along with too many shoot-outs, car chases, and crashes to distract us from trying to figure out the plot.
And we don’t even know what the title means until near the end of the movie when we learn that Devereaux was called the November Man because after he passed through, nothing lived.
In that case, THE NOVEMBER MAN, the movie, could also be called “The November Movie,” because after I saw it, no other movie comes close to living.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Identical “Cheap Copy”
Sep 10th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE IDENTICAL is not a very good movie about what might have happened if Elvis Presley’s twin brother had not died at birth, but had been given away to another couple who couldn’t have children.
The other couple are evangelist preacher Reece Wade, played by Ray Liotta, and his wife, Louise, played by Ashley Judd.
So, the movie follows their lives and the life of their adopted son, whom they name Ryan Wade, rather than the life of the more successful twin brother, who becomes a very successful singer named Drexel “The Dream” Hemsley.
The story begins in 1935, the same year in which Elvis was born, in Decatur, Alabama, where Helen Hemsley gives birth to twin boys and says to her husband, “William, Honey, meet your sons.”
But times are hard, it is the middle of the Great Depression, and William doesn’t have a job, but he had recently attended a revival meeting where Reverend Wade had revealed that he and his wife had not been able to have children.
So, believing that they could raise one child but not two, and taking the expression “It is better to give than to receive” to heart, the Hemsleys give one of the twin boys to Reverend Wade and his wife to raise, making them promise to keep the secret, and then pretending to bury that son and telling people that he had died at birth.
Well, naturally, Reverend Wade wants Ryan to have a calling and to follow him into preaching for a life, but Ryan has other interests, such as music, and he seems to have a talent for that, even taking his guitar with him when he spends two years in the Army and singing for his buddies in his job in the motor pool.
Ryan eventually convinces his father that he doesn’t have the calling to be a preacher and moves out on his own, dating a girl named Jenny, whom he had met when they were younger, and finally marrying her.
Meanwhile, Drexel has become a huge success, people remark how much Ryan looks like Drexel, and when Ryan wins a Drexel impersonating contest, his own singing career takes off, being billed as “The Identical,” as in the identical copy of Drexel “The Dream” Hemsley.
THE IDENTICAL is a very cheap copy of Elvis.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Lucy “100% Pure Entertainment”
Sep 2nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LUCY is the latest film from writer and director Luc Besson that is equal parts high concept, equal parts fast-action thriller, and all parts female protagonist played by Scarlett Johansson as Lucy.
The name “Lucy” is also the name given to the remains of the first human being found in Africa, and there is a connection between the two Lucys.
The story begins in Taipei, and we see Lucy and Richard on the street in front of a large building.
Richard has a briefcase, and he tells Lucy that he was given $1000 to deliver it to a Mr. Jang inside the building, but he wants Lucy to deliver it for him.
In fact, Richard will give Lucy $500 to do it for him, and the next thing she knows, he handcuffs the briefcase to her hand so that she has no choice.
Once she gets upstairs to meet Mr. Jang, who is protected by many menacing bodyguards, Mr. Jang refuses to be in the same room when the briefcase is opened, telling Lucy that he doesn’t trust Richard.
Lucy says, “I don’t trust Richard, either. I dated him only a week.”
The briefcase contains packets of a drug called CPH4, which supposedly allows people to use more than the false idea that humans use only 10% of their brains.
And to make a long, complicated story short and simple, Lucy is forced to be a drug mule and carry a packet of the drug to another country after it is surgically implanted in her stomach.
Unfortunately, a fight with one of Mr. Jang’s army of bodyguards causes the packet inside Lucy to rupture, and as the drug enters her bloodstream, her mental capacities increase and so do her physical powers.
So, Lucy escapes the clutches of Mr. Jang and contacts Professor Samuel Norman, played by Morgan Freeman, who is based in Paris and who is an expert on the human brain.
Then it is off to Paris for Lucy to meet with Professor Norman, and where she also engages he help of a French policeman, Captain Pierre Del Rio, but she is also being chased by Mr. Jang and his men.
Of course there are chases, shoot-outs, and more as Lucy increases her mental and physical powers to 100%.
LUCY is nothing but 100% of pure entertainment.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”