Posts tagged Jonah Hill
“The Watch” Don’t Bother
Aug 4th
“The Watch” Don’t Bother
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Watch is a comedy that combines the subjects of a neighborhood watch group; a compulsive, obsessive, paranoid leader; and an alien invasion in the suburbs, and if you believe that concept is potentially funny, then this movie is potentially for you.
Otherwise, don’t bother.
The story takes place in Glenview, Ohio, and Ben Stiller plays Evan Trautwig, the manager of the local Costco store who forms a neighborhood watch group when his night watchman is mysteriously murdered and his body is horribly disfigured.
Evan wants to solve the watchman’s murder and find who did it, but Evan also has a history of forming clubs just so he can be a member of them and make new friends.
This time, however, Evan tells his wife Abby, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, “It’s not a club. It’s a task force.”
Only three people show up for the organizational meeting: Bob, played by Vince Vaughn; Franklin, played by Jonah Hill; and Jamarcus, who is British and has a funny haircut to go along with his funny accent.
The organizational meeting that Evan planned is too boring and so against Evan’s wishes, the meeting moves to Bob’s house, where they can have fun and drink some beers.
Bob has a teenage daughter named Chelsea who is rebellious and who will play an important part later on in the story.
The watch group’s stakeout on the first night doesn’t go well, as you can imagine, and not only do they have a run-in with the local police, but they also have trouble with some teenage boys.
The group finds a strange and mysterious globe with unusual powers which seems to be out of this world, because it is.
Evan also has a creepy and mysterious new neighbor named Paul who keeps inviting Evan to come to a party, but that turns out not to be what you expect, to say the least.
Eventually, the group discovers that there are aliens among them and that the aliens are using Glenview and even Costco as the sources of their invasion of Earth.
Now, don’t even bother counting the number of bullets fired in the final shootout at the end, which may or may not be satisfying, depending on which side you are rooting for.
The Watch may not be satisfying, either, so don’t even bother.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Watch – Movie Trailer
Aug 2nd
Four everyday suburban guys come together as an excuse to escape their humdrum lives one night a week. But when they accidentally discover that their town has become overrun with aliens posing as ordinary suburbanites, they have no choice but to save their neighborhood – and the world – from total extermination.
“Moneyball” No ‘Big Game’
Sep 30th
No ‘Big Game’
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Moneyball takes what some people believe to be the two most boring subjects possible–statistics and baseball–and combines them to make a movie that is disappointing in a way that most movies about a particular sport or team is not.
Starring Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics who at the start of this century revolutionized the way the teams acquired new players, the movie follows him and his team for the 2002 season and shows the success of his revolutionary method, which has come to be known as “sabermetrics.”
As a matter of fact, that revolutionary method of using statistics to rate players for their effectiveness in the game is probably now being used by all the teams in Major League Baseball, as well as many other teams in the world of sports all over the planet.
According to the movie, Beane met a young employee of the Cleveland Indians named Pete Brand during a visit there to talk about trading players.
Pete is played by Jonah Hill, and Beane notices how during the negotiations the coaches in the room were conferring with Pete, who studied economics at Yale and his first job anywhere was with the Cleveland Indians.
So, recognizing and understanding a good thing when he sees it, Beane later calls Pete and tells him, “Pack your bags, Pete, I just bought you from the Cleveland Indians.”
Back in Oakland, Beane makes Pete the assistant general manager, and now he has to convince the owner and the coaches that this new method of evaluating players will be successful, which is compared with card counting in a gambling casino.
We also see some of Beane’s personal life, the fact that he is divorced and has a 12-year-old daughter, as well as some background on his own career as a baseball player, but these scenes are merely interesting and appear to be put in just to add more time to the movie.
During the course of the season, the A’s do something remarkable in winning 20 straight games, but if you aren’t familiar with recent baseball history and are expecting an emotional “Rocky” finish, you will be disappointed in the overall movie.
Moneyball ends with a “Big Season,” but no “Big Game,” and that leaves the audience with one “Big Disappointment.”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”