Posts tagged meeting
“Blue Valentine” Biggest Disappointment
Jan 19th
“Biggest Disappointment”
BLUE VALENTINE is a searing look at the rise and fall of a short-lived marriage, and although it has received a lot of praise for its excellence, it just might be a big disappointment to you.
Ryan Gosling plays Dean, and Michelle Williams plays Cindy, and we watch them in scenes of their present-day marriage, as well as scenes of when they first met and fell in love about six years earlier, but in distracting jump cuts back and forth instead of in chronological order.
In fact, this film looks as if the filmmakers finished making the film chronologically and then decided that it was so bad that in order to make it more interesting, they reedited it and rearranged all the scenes to be out of chronological order.
Unfortunately, that only made it worse.
The film begins in the present, Dean and Cindy have a little five-year-old daughter named Frankie, and a family crisis occurs when their dog runs away.
Dean tells Frankie that maybe the dog moved out to Hollywood to become a movie dog, and then they take Frankie to stay with Cindy’s parents for a reason that we don’t know until later.
Then we get a time switch to six years earlier and see Dean working for a moving company and moving an old man named Walter out of his apartment and into an assisted-living home.
Back in the present, Dean tells Cindy, “We’ve got to get out of this house.”
This is the reason they took Frankie to Cindy’s parents, and they book a night in the Future Room of a theme motel, where they have a night of drinking and sexual carousing.
And then it is back and forth to their meeting, falling in love, a nasty encounter with Cindy’s old boyfriend, having dinner at the home of Cindy’s parents, as well as what happens to them after their night in the Future Room.
In the present, Dean is a free-lance painter, a job he admits that he likes because he can start drinking at 8 o’clock. In other words, Dean doesn’t have any big ambitions.
Cindy, on the other hand, works as a nurse and wants to become a doctor.
BLUE VALENTINE is a film I was looking forward to, but so far it is the biggest disappointment of the year.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Morning Glory” Delightful Look at Today’s Television
Dec 9th
“Delightful Look at Today’s Television”
MORNING GLORY is an amusing little comedy about the people in charge of a television network’s morning show trying to increase their ratings and keep from being canceled.
Starring Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, and Diane Keaton, the movie can bring back memories of when these morning shows were more about news than they were about entertainment, more about information than they were about ratings, and when they didn’t require their hosts to become buffoons.
Good times.
McAdams plays Becky Fuller, who gets fired from her producer’s job on a morning show in New Jersey and finally gets an interview in New York City for the job of executive producer of “Daybreak,” the morning show on IBS, the fourth-place network.
Jeff Goldblum plays Jerry Barnes, the head of the news division who interviews Becky, and he tells her that her boss in New Jersey had said that Becky was the most promising producer he had ever fired.
Despite that less-than-glowing recommendation and despite the fact that Jerry tells her she has never been an executive producer before and she is too young, she gets the job of executive producer of “Daybreak.”
However, when she shows up for her first day of work and tells the guard in the lobby who she is, he tells her, “Another one? Don’t unpack.”
Becky’s first meeting with her staff is chaotic, but after she takes control, she surprises everybody by firing the male co-host on the spot.
Now she has to find someone to replace him who won’t cost a penny and still get the ratings up, which leads her to Mike Pomeroy, played by Ford, who is still under contract to the network after being fired from the network news desk.
Mike refuses to be the co-host at first, but Becky finds a loophole in his contract and essentially blackmails him to join the show, which annoys the other co-host, Colleen Peck, played by Keaton.
Mike refuses to say the word “fluffy,” Colleen insists on being the one to say “Goodbye” at the end of the show, and you can see where all this bickering is going to end.
Even so, it is very funny getting there.
MORNING GLORY is a delightful look at today’s television, and for some a wish that it would become as serious as it used to be.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Due Date” See It
Nov 10th
“See It”
DUE DATE could be dismissed as just another “odd couple, “buddy,” “road-trip” movie, but it is much more than that.
It is a very funny, often laugh-out-loud movie about two men forced to travel across the southern United States in order to meet separate deadlines, but I have a feeling that men will enjoy it much more than women will.
However, everyone can enjoy the talent of the two actors who play those two men: Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakas, who portray Peter and Ethan, respectively.
Peter is an architect, Ethan is an actor wannabe, and the story begins in Atlanta, where they have an unfortunate, but funny encounter at the airport departure curb.
Then they have another funny, but unfortunate encounter before takeoff on the same airplane to Los Angeles, and it just keeps getting better as it goes on.
Peter and Ethan end up in a rental car and in a hurry to get to California, because Peter’s wife is about to have their first child and Ethan has a scheduled meeting with an agent.
Peter doesn’t want to share the road trip with Ethan, but is forced to, because as Ethan tells him, “I have all the money, the car, and the winning personality.”
Peter and the audience will agree on two of those reasons.
However, Ethan also has a dog traveling with him; glaucoma, which causes a side trip to buy some medical marijuana; and the ashes from his recently deceased father, which he carries in a coffee can.
Unfortunately, Ethan spends almost all his money on the weed, and now they are left with only $60 between them, and they have reached only Birmingham, Alabama.
There is a very funny scene in which they try to get some money wired to them from Peter’s wife; an even funnier scene in Dallas where they stop for help from Darryl, an old friend of Peter’s played by Jamie Foxx; and a scene that tops them all when they accidentally try to cross the border into Mexico, which ends fantastically hilarious.
When they reach the Grand Canyon, where they stop to satisfy Ethan’s wishes, they swap confessions in a touching scene until Ethan reveals the biggest confession of them all, and then we have one final mad dash to meet their . . .
DUE DATE. See it.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
