Posts tagged Matt Damon
Elysium – Movie Trailer
Aug 12th
In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the planet’s crime and poverty, and they critically need the state-of-the-art medical care available on Elysium – but some in Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve their citizens’ luxurious lifestyle. The only man with the chance bring equality to these worlds is Max (Matt Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium’s Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.
“Promised Land” Is a Big Tease
Jan 13th
“A Big Tease”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Promised Land is a film about the controversial subject of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in which an oil and gas company drills into the ground and pumps liquid chemicals into the earth in order to release the oil and natural gas that is trapped in the rocks below the surface.
Matt Damon plays Steve Butler, and he and his partner, Sue, played by Frances McDormand, work for one such company, and their job is to visit the property owners in a small community and purchase the drilling rights on their land so that the company can drill there.
Because of the economy, the property owners, many of whom are farmers, are struggling, and by buying those leases starting at $2,000 an acre, Steve says, “I’m not selling them natural gas; I’m selling them the only way they have to get out.”
Steve and Sue are the best team the company has, having closed out more towns than the team behind them by triple digits, but Steve is under additional pressure for their current assignment, because if he does well, he could get a promotion to a job in the company’s New York City headquarters.
So, we see Steve and Sue come into town, buy the clothes they believe will help the property owners identify with them, and go out on their sales calls.
They also have to overcome the stories about fracking causing some people to be able to light their drinking water on fire and causing the property owners to become sick.
Steve’s argument that fracking is far from a perfect process isn’t enough to refute those stories, and he also has to fight the arguments from Frank Yates, played by Hal Holbrook, a local resident with enough experience to know what he is talking about when he objects to the owners selling their drilling rights.
However, the biggest obstacle that Steve and Sue have to overcome is Dustin Noble, played by John Krasinski, an environmental activist who shows up in town and says that he is from Nebraska where fracking ruined his home town.
Damon and Krasinski wrote the screenplay for this film, which was directed by Gus Van Sant, and I have to warn you that it has a plot twist which might make you disappointed in it.
Promised Land is a big tease.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Promised Land – Movie Trailer
Jan 6th
Promised Land is the new contemporary drama directed by Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk). Matt Damon plays Steve Butler, an ace corporate salesman who is sent along with his partner, Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), to close a key rural town in his company’s expansion plans. With the town having been hit hard by the economic decline of recent years, the two outsiders see the local citizens as likely to accept their company’s offer, for drilling rights to their properties, as much-needed relief. What seems like an easy job for the duo becomes complicated by the objection of a respected schoolteacher (Hal Holbrook) with support from a grassroots campaign led by another man (John Krasinski), as well as the interest of a local woman (Rosemarie DeWitt). Promised Land explores America at the crossroads where big business and the strength of small-town community converge.