Posts tagged married
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” All Right in the End
May 19th
“Everything All Right in the End”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is about a hotel in India of that name, but ending in even more words of “For the Elderly & Beautiful,” it is a beautiful, lovely, and funny movie, and it just might be the best movie you will see all year.
Based on the 2004 novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach, the movie follows seven British pensioners who accept the offer from the hotel’s new owner and manager to travel there and kick-start its business.
In fact, the brochure that persuaded the seven strangers to go to India for a new adventure was Photoshopped to look like what the young manager hopes it will look like, and after they arrive, he adds “Now with Guests” to the hotel sign.
The manager’s name is Sonny Kapoor, he is played by Dev Patel of the 2008 Slumdog Millionaire, and when the new arrivals complain about the hotel’s condition, Sonny assures them with his optimistic philosophy, “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, then it is not yet the end.”
The most well-known actors playing the pensioners, who are all there for different reasons, are Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, and Maggie Smith, and although it is difficult at first to keep them and their stories straight, just sit back, relax, and let them all be as wonderful and enjoyable as the sights, sounds, and colors of India itself.
One of the pensioners has been forced to sell her London flat, another one lived happily in India 40 years ago and is returning to settle a matter that has been bothering him all that time, another one doesn’t like foreigners, but requires a cheap hip replacement, one unhappily married couple lost money in a bad investment, one woman is looking for a rich husband, and the final pensioner is a man who is lonely and just looking for some female companionship.
In the meantime, Sonny has his own romantic problems, because his mother doesn’t approve of his girlfriend and has her own plans for his future bride.
And don’t think that the pensioners will find what they are looking for within their own group.
Remember Sonny’s optimistic philosophy?
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, when it comes to the end, will leave you thinking that everything is all right.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Five-Year Engagement” More Like the Five-Year Movie
May 5th
“More Like the Five-Year Movie”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Five-Year Engagement was made by the same people who made the 2008 Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and so it must be good, right?
Well, yes and no. Yes, it is good in some places, and no, it is not good in other places, mainly the scenes that go on for too long and the scenes that should have been cut in the first place.
Jason Segal and Emily Blunt star as Tom and Violet. They met a year ago at a New Year’s Eve party, which we keep seeing in flashbacks at various times throughout the movie.
They get engaged, and during a meeting with Tom’s relatives to plan the engagement party, one of the men comments that the men will all be wearing yarmulkes, of course. Violet says to Tom that he doesn’t have a yarmulke, and he replies that he does and, “It’s in my Jewish drawer.”
The story begins in San Francisco, and you can guess from the title that the engagement isn’t going to go smoothly, right?
Correct. Violet is working on her doctorate in psychology, and she gets accepted to a position at the University of Michigan, which will take two years to complete.
However, because Tom is a chef in a restaurant, he says that he can always find a job anywhere, and so they decide that Tom will move to Michigan with Violet, and they will postpone the wedding for two years.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, couldn’t they get married in San Francisco before moving to Michigan, or couldn’t they even get married in Michigan?
But if they did that, then the filmmakers would have to change the title of the movie, wouldn’t they?
Well, you can guess from the title that the two-year plan isn’t going to go smoothly, either, right? Violet’s work at the University of Michigan gets extended, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but at one point the situation gets so bad that it looks like there won’t be any wedding at all.
Now, you know how the DVD version of some movies contains deleted scenes? Maybe the DVD of this movie will thankfully be missing some scenes that should have been cut.
The Five-Year Engagement lives up to its reputation of being a comedy, but it is more like the five-year movie.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Think Like a Man” Is Funny, but Predictable
Apr 28th
“Funny, but Predictable”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Think Like a Man has so many characters in it that at first it is difficult to tell who is who and who is dating whom, and then by the time you do figure it out, the movie is over.
The title comes from a real book written by comedian Steve Harvey that became a best seller in 2009 and was titled Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and had the subtitle of “What Men Really Think about Love, Relationships, Intimacy and Commitment.”
It was an advice book for women written by a man, and it plays an important part in this movie, which is a comedy, and Harvey himself appears throughout the movie talking about the book on a daytime talk show and then again from time to time giving advice straight to the audience.
The story follows a number of men and women who are dating each other, the men are all friends with each other, and their group also includes one man who is getting a divorce and another man who is happily married.
When one of the men says at the beginning of the movie, “Life is great, Fellows, may it never change,” we in the audience can predict that it is going to change, and it might not be so great for them, either.
You see, the women in the movie discover the advice book, they all read it, and they start manipulating the men they are dating in order to make the men do what the women want.
Now, the men aren’t so easily manipulated, because they are men, after all, but when they discover that the women they are dating are all reading the book and using its advice to try to change the men, the men all read the book, too, and try to use its advice to their own advantage.
And that is what makes this movie a comedy, because things don’t always work out as planned when you try to change someone.
Here are just two of the women’s situations.
One woman has been going out with a man for nine years, and she decides that she is going to require him to propose to her.
Another woman has a son and she is dating a mama’s boy.
Think Like a Man is funny, but predictable.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”