Posts tagged Hotshots
Life Itself “Tough and Joyous”
Jul 21st
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LIFE ITSELF is a documentary about the life and career of Roger Joseph Ebert, perhaps the most popular, famous, and successful film critic, who died April 4, 2013, at 70, and it is based on Ebert’s autobiography of the same name.
The film includes footage taken over the final four months of Ebert’s life, who died after a long battle with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands and which caused him to lose his lower jaw so that he could no longer eat, drink, or speak.
However, Ebert never lost his sense of humor, and in one scene toward the beginning of the film, Ebert is in the hospital, and he says to the director through his voice synthesizer, “Steve, I’ll do the jokes here.”
Steve is Steve James, famous for directing the 1994 HOOP DREAMS, a little film about basketball that Ebert championed when it came out, and Ebert’a support undoubtedly helped the film’s success.
The film then goes back into Ebert’s life to his boyhood in Urbana, Illinois, where he wrote, published, and delivered his own neighborhood newspaper; to his time at the University of Illinois, where he was editor of the school newspaper when President Kennedy was killed, and we see and hear about an editorial decision Ebert made because of that event; to how he got his job at the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES and shortly became the film critic; and to his teaming with his rival, Gene Siskel, on the television program that made them the two most contentious and famous film critics in the country.
We hear interviews with the producers of the various TV programs they did, and most fascinating are the outtakes from those programs, which give us even more insight in the relationship between the two critics.
Ebert was a hard drinker in his early days at the Chicago newspaper, and he paid a price in hangovers. But in August 1979 he had his last drink, saying that he couldn’t take it anymore, and when he finally admitted to the public that he was a recovering alcoholic, he hadn’t had a drink in 31 years.
He met his wife, Chaz, at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and she is featured in the film as well, along with appearances by famous directors.
LIFE ITSELF is tough to watch, but also very joyous.
Obvious Child “Not the Worst Movie”
Jul 6th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
OBVIOUS CHILD has been getting outstanding reviews, but as with most movies these days, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
Heck, it won’t even be everyone’s glass of water.
Jenny Slate stars as Donna Stern, a struggling stand-up comic living in Brooklyn, New York, who is almost 30 years old and who also works in a bookstore to help pay the bills, because her comedy sure won’t.
We can tell this not only from what we see of her comedy act, but also from where she performs at a small bar and comedy club on open-mic nights.
Donna uses her own life and being a woman as material in her act, and not everyone will find jokes about vaginal discharge in women or her boyfriend Ryan particularly funny.
Especially Ryan, who says that he feels weird when she always makes jokes about him in her comedy act.
So, while Ryan is talking to Donna and breaking up with her, he keeps looking at his phone, saying that he doesn’t know where to look.
Donna uses her hand to circle her face and says, “Well, this is probably a good area.”
Donna learns that Ryan has been sleeping with her friend Kate, and the next day she stands across the street from Ryan’s apartment and sees Ryan and Kate come out to walk a dog, which really upsets her.
In the meantime, Donna learns from her boss at the bookstore where she has been working for five years that the bookstore is going to be closed.
Then one night at the comedy club, Donna meets Max, essentially picks him up, they have common interests and taste, they get drunk together, they go back to his place and dance and drink some more, and the next thing we see is Donna sneaking out of bed the next morning while Max is still asleep.
So, a few weeks later, Donna learns that she is pregnant, and she decides to have an abortion.
Even this new aspect of her life becomes material that she uses in her comedy act.
Well, what do you know, but Max has taken a liking to Donna, and he keeps showing up in her life.
OBVIOUS CHILD has an ending that might really annoy you, but it is not the worst movie I have ever seen.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”