Posts tagged Hotshots
“Hanna” Bad Premise, Worse Execution
May 12th
(“Bad Premise, Worse Execution”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Hanna is one of those movies whose filmmakers believe they are being clever by making the movie come full circle from beginning to end, just as they must have believed they could make the story more interesting by omitting important details.
And the premise is so simple that the one-sentence pitch to studio executives could easily have been “Sixteen-year-old girl as James Bond.”
Then just to turn the story on its head even more, the Bad Guys in this movie are usually the Good Guys in a James Bond film.
Hanna is played by Saoirse Ronan, who received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of the “evil sister” in the 2007 Atonement.
When we first see Hanna, she is living with her father, played by Eric Bana, in a cabin in the wilds of northern Finland, where they have been living for 15 years and he is training her for some sort of life-or-death mission.
In fact, he tells her, “She won’t stop until you’re dead. Or she is.”
“She” is Marissa Wiebling, played by Cate Blanchett using a Texas accent that is so phony it is laughable, and Hanna’s father and Marissa have a history that we get only a glimpse of in one flashback.
We eventually learn that Hanna’s father used to be a CIA agent until something went wrong, and that is why he and Hanna are hiding out in northern Finland, because Marissa and her fellow CIA agents are still searching for them.
However, when Hanna believes she is ready, she activates a signal that identifies her location to Marissa, and Hanna’s father then takes off after confirming with Hanna where they will meet in Berlin.
So, Hanna is captured, and then the movie gets even more ridiculous.
Hanna escapes from Marissa in a gruesome and unbelievable scene, but she discovers that she is in Morocco, and she must somehow get to Berlin without any money.
In other words, the movie becomes an absurd chase movie.
As a matter of fact, the movie goes from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous and then to be so ridiculous that it is laughable and finally forgettable.
The premise is bad, and the execution is worse.
Hanna is a quite elaborate rendition of a simple story made more complicated by the omission of significant details.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Win Win” Winner Winner
May 4th
“Winner Winner”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Win Win is the third film written and directed by Tom McCarthy, after the 2003 The Station Agent and the 2007 The Visitor, and if you saw those two films, you have a good idea of how excellent this one is, also.
You might not 
have seen those films, because low-budget, independent films don’t have extended runs in theaters, no matter how excellent they are.
So, see this one as soon as you can.
Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty. He is a husband and father of two girls, but the twist is that he is a struggling lawyer in New Jersey and the coach of a high-school wrestling team that, for lack of a better word, is awful.
Mike is struggling with problems in all aspects of his life, starting at home with a dead tree in the front yard. His wife, Jackie, makes him promise to call someone about it, because she says, “I don’t want it coming down on the house.”
But when Mike gets to his office in an old residential house, he has other problems to worry about. He is going to need $6,000 to replace the boiler in the basement even though it was repaired three months ago.
Also, one of his clients, Leo Poplar, is in the early stages of dementia, and a judge wants to appoint a guardian for him. So, Mike volunteers to be Leo’s guardian, even though Leo wants to live in his own house, and he hasn’t seen his daughter in over 20 years.
However, Mike tells Leo that the court has ordered Leo to live in a retirement home, puts him in one, and then pockets the money that Leo gets every month.
Complicated, right? And maybe even illegal.
But wait. There is more. Leo’s 16-year-old grandson, Kyle, suddenly shows up, having run away from home in Ohio and wanting to live with Leo, because his mother is in a drug-treatment program and they don’t get along at all.
So, Jackie takes pity on Kyle and invites him to stay with them.
But, wait, there is still more. Kyle is an excellent wrestler, which solves one of Mike’s problems, but then Kyle’s mother shows up, which causes even more problems.
Win Win brings to mind “Winner Winner, chicken dinner,” as the kids like to say.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Water for Elephants” Story Construction Rip-Off
Apr 27th
“Story Construction Rip-Off”
Water for Elephants, as we are told at the beginning of the film, is about pretty much the most famous circus disaster in history, and it stars three of the most popular actors in the movies these days.
However, don’t look now, but the story construction of the film is pretty much an exact rip-off of an earlier, more successful disaster film.
Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz star, but before we meet them, we see Hal Holbrook show up at a circus after it has shut down for the night. He has left the nursing home where he is living and wanted to see the circus for old-time’s sake.
The manager of the circus invites him inside while the manager tries to figure out what to do with this old-timer who seems to know a lot about circuses.
The old-timer tells the manager that he was there when the circus disaster occurred in 1931 with the Benzini Bros. Circus, and he says, “I had a good life, you know. A good life.”
Then as the old man starts reminiscing and telling his story, his voice changes to that of a young man, Jacob Jankowski, and we see and hear Pattinson narrate the story.
A personal tragedy forces Jacob to change his plans to become a veterinarian, and while he is hitchhiking to Albany, he jumps onto a passing train that happens to be the Benzini Bros. Circus train.
The roustabouts take a liking to Jacob, and the next day he is taken to meet the owner and ringmaster, August, to apply for a job. August says that Jacob can have the job of carrying water to the elephants, but the joke is that this is a third-rate circus, and it doesn’t have any elephants.
However, when Jacob’s experience as a veterinarian is revealed, he becomes the veterinarian of the circus animals, which brings him into contact with Marlena, the boss’s wife and the star-attraction trick rider.
Of course, Jacob and Marlena become attracted to each other, of course August is a cruel and possessive taskmaster, and of course events are not going to turn out well for everybody, even when the circus does acquire an elephant.
Water for Elephants is okay as a love story, but it has the same story construction as the 1997 Titantic.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
