Posts tagged live
Hot Tub Time Machine – Movie Trailer
Apr 6th
Disappointed at the way their lives have turned out, four longtime friends reunite at the ski resort where they used to party and find themselves transported back to the year 1986 by a magical jacuzzi. Adam (John Cusack), Lou (Rob Corddry), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Jacob (Clark Duke) have all seen better days; Adam’s and Nick’s love lives are in the dumps, Lou is clinging to his hard-partying past, and video-game addict Jacob can’t even muster the courage to walk outside. A fun stay at the ski resort where the gang made some of their best memories seems like just the thing to cheer everyone up, but after a night of heavy drinking in the hot tub, the four friends wake up to find they’re about to live through the ’80s a second time. Determined not to make the same mistakes twice, Adam, Lou, Nick, and Jacob decide to take full advantage of the unique opportunity presented to them, and create the lives they’ve always wanted. Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover, and Lizzy Caplan co-star.
“Pirate Radio” Will Never Sink
Nov 18th
Will Never Sink
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
PIRATE RADIO is based on the fact that back in the Sixties the British government–meaning “the Establishment”–didn’t approve of rock ‘n’ roll music, and so it wasn’t allowed to be played on traditional radio stations.
As a result of that ban, “pirate” radio stations developed, some even broadcast from ships anchored off the coast of Great Britain and thus outside the law and safe from the long arm of the Establishment. This is one story, which takes place in 1966.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays The Count, an American disc jockey on one such ship in the North Sea playing rock ‘n’ roll music 24 hours a day to an enthusiastic audience, one of whom isn’t Sir Alistair Dormandy, played by Kenneth Branagh, a government official who spends his time in the film trying to shut down the radio station by the end of the year.
This causes the following response: “They can’t shut us down. We’re pirates!”
There is one woman on board, Felicity, but that is okay, because she is a lesbian, or as one character says, she is “of the lesbionic tendency.”
Serving as the catalyst to the story is Carl, a young 18-year-old lad who has been kicked out of school and sent into the care of his godfather, Quentin, who owns the pirate-radio ship and is also in charge of running it.
Carl’s father had sex with his mum and then left without leaving his name or address, and the search for the identity of Carl’s father is a subplot of the film.
Now, you might think that life aboard a ship would be cramped in terms of a story, but we have many colorful characters, and occasionally Quentin arranges for adoring female fans to be brought aboard in order to meet their favorite deejays–if you know what I mean.
Also, the music might not be historically accurate, but it is great nonetheless.
One disc jockey even gets married, which allows his wife to come live aboard with him, but that causes more problems than he bargained for.
The film doesn’t exactly have a TITANIC ending, but it might be the only time that the expression “rock ‘n’ roll” brings tears to your eyes and a smile to your lips.
PIRATE RADIO also shows that rock ‘n’ roll will never sink.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Law Abiding Citizen” Disappointing Ending
Oct 22nd
Disappointing Ending
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is a thriller with a theme about revenge, it has good execution, fine special effects, but a lousy ending that doesn’t satisfy what has gone before it as much as it seems to be tacked on just to please the sensibilities of certain audiences.
However, knowing Hollywood, don’t be surprised if the inevitable DVD of the film comes out with the obligatory “alternate ending” which should have been the one released into theaters in the first place.
Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, an engineer whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered by two men who burst into their home one evening.
However, after the two men are caught and put on trial, Nick Rice, the prosecuting attorney played by Jamie Foxx, makes a deal with one of the killers and spares his life in exchange for the man’s testimony against his partner in order to improve Rice’s conviction rate, which is an astounding 96 percent.
Shelton is extremely disappointed that the second killer, Darby, is going to live, and he doesn’t feel any better when Rice tells him, “Some justice is better than no justice at all.”
Then it is 10 years later, the convicted killer is about to be executed, and we get a not-so-clever cross-cutting scene between the execution and a cello recital by Rice’s young daughter.
The execution doesn’t go as planned, it is definitely not painless, and the authorities figure out that Shelton was responsible.
Shelton makes clear that he is determined to kill everyone who was involved in the trial of the killers, and he gets revenge on Darby in more ways than one.
However, Shelton lets himself get caught, is tried and sent to prison, but the killings still continue even though Shelton is behind bars.
In fact, after a surprising turn of events in prison, Shelton is put into solitary confinement, and the killings still continue, each one more elaborate than the previous one.
Shelton plays with the authorities. They know that he did it, but he is locked up, and they can’t stop him.
However, the ending is a big letdown. Shelton is clearly an anti-hero in this story, but the ending makes you feel as if political correctness prevailed in spite of everything that goes before it.
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is better than its disappointing ending.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
