Posts tagged Los Angeles
“Seven Psychopaths” Is Gruesome Twisted Fun
Oct 27th
“Gruesome Twisted Fun”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Seven Psychopaths is a very funny, very bloody, and very violent comedy that keeps you laughing, but you almost feel guilty about doing so.
It begins with a surprising double murder that seems to be out of place with the rest of the movie until an explanation later on identifies the killer as the first of the psychopaths.
Colin Farrell plays Marty, who is living in Los Angeles and writing a screenplay, but all he has so far is the title, Seven Psychopaths.
Sam Rockwell plays Billy, Marty’s best friend who is also a struggling actor, but he has a profitable enterprise which gets him into serious trouble.
Billy steals dogs from people, and then another friend named Hans, played by Christopher Walken, returns the dog to its owner and modestly accepts a reward for the dog’s return.
Meanwhile, Marty gets drunk at a party, his girlfriend throws him out of the house, and he wakes up the next morning in Billy’s house. And yet when Billy accuses Marty of having a drinking problem, Marty says, “I don’t have a drinking problem. I just like drinking.”
Then Billy helps Marty with his screenplay by thinking up additional psychopaths, and we see scenes of the film as Marty narrates it.
However, when Billy makes the mistake of stealing a shih-tzu named Bonny, all hell breaks loose for everyone involved and some who aren’t involved.
You see, Bonny belongs to a mob boss named Charlie, played by Woody Harrelson, and Charlie will do anything to get Bonny back.
Anything.
As if that weren’t enough of a problem, Billy puts an ad in the local newspaper asking for psychopaths to answer the ad, so that they can help Marty and him with the screenplay.
A man named Zachariah, played by Tom Waits, shows up holding a rabbit, and he tells his gruesome story, which we also see.
Meanwhile, Charlie and his henchmen start closing in on Billy, and so Billy, Marty, Hans, and Bonny take off to the desert, where they can all work on the screenplay and where Billy thinks that the desert is the perfect place for a final shootout.
Now, don’t walk out of the theater when the closing credits start, because the movie isn’t over, and there are additional laughs coming.
Seven Psychopaths is gruesome, twisted fun.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“End of Watch” a Buddy-Cop Movie with a Twist
Sep 29th
“Buddy-Cop Movie With a Twist”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
End of Watch is a powerful, almost traditional buddy-cop movie, but the language is raw, the action is violent, and it has an ending with an unexpected twist to it.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena play officers Brian Taylor and Mike Zavala, who work in the Los Angeles Police Department as partners ane whose area that they patrol is the rough arena of South Central Los Angeles, which Taylor says has three major food groups: drugs, money, and guns.
When the movie opens, it is the first day back on the job for Taylor and Zavala after they were cleared by an investigation into a shooting they were involved in, and once they are out in their patrol car, Zavala says, “Dude, it’s good to be back, Man.”
Taylor has a recording device in his uniform for a class project he is working on, and so a lot of the footage we see is from the point of view of that device, which is called “found footage” these days, but don’t worry. The whole movie isn’t from that POV, but enough is so that at times the movie gets confusing.
So, we watch and listen to the good-natured banter between these two friends as they drive around the city between calls, we learn about their personal lives as they talk and even see some aspects of them at various points in the movie, and we witness many of the calls they go on and see just how rough and dangerous being a policeman in today’s Los Angeles can be, both for them and other police officers who are called in to help.
In addition to the commonplace calls that Taylor and Zavala make, the main story point is a turf war between two rival gangs, one composed of black people and the other composed of Latinos, who have connections with drug cartels operating out of Mexico and who are also involved with the trafficking of illegals being brought up from Mexico and kept in terrifying and dangerous conditions.
In fact, Taylor and Zavala stumble into the ramifications of the main story more than anything else, and once again we see how in movies situations can go from bad to the worst you can imagine.
End of Watch is terrific and get ready for the twist at the end.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.
“Hit & Run” Has Gags That Just Keep On Coming
Sep 2nd
“Gags Just Keep On Coming”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Hit & Run is a comedy that is basically just one funny car chase after another, but it doesn’t get old, because each one keeps adding a new aspect and twist to it.
One fresh aspect to the movie is that you might be pleasantly surprised whenever a new recognizable actor shows up in the story, which occurs even into the closing credits.
The story is about a guy and a girl, Charlie Bronson and Annie Bean, who are in love with each other and living together. Charlie doesn’t like Annie to pull his hair, because he says it is thin, but Annie says that it is the only way she can defend herself.
However, when the movie opens, they are in bed together, and Charlie says, “If you want, I will spend every day with you for the rest of your life,” and Annie says, “Okay, I want.”
Charlie has some secrets, however, some of which he has kept from Annie during the year that they have been dating, and some others which will be revealed later on.
Charlie is in the witness protection program, which Annie knows about, and he cannot leave the town they are living in. Then we meet Randy, the U.S. marshal assigned to guard Charlie, and every time Randy shows up, something funny happens and usually to Randy.
Annie is a professor, and she suddenly gets an opportunity to be in charge of a new department in her field, conflict resolution, but the interview is in a few days in Los Angeles.
Charlie says that he can’t let her leave, but he also can’t stay there without her, and so he uncovers his supercharged automobile that has been under wraps, puts all her stuff in the trunk, and says that he will drive her to Los Angeles, even though that will violate his agreement with the witness protection program he is in.
However, that is just the beginning of their problems. In addition to Randy chasing after them when he finds out what Charlie is doing, Annie’s ex-boyfriend gets upset and goes after them, the local sheriff and his partner join the pursuit, and then there are even the people who are the reason that Charlie is in the program.
Hit & Run is very funny, and the gags just keep on coming.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”