Posts tagged money
“The Three Stooges” Is Soitainly an Embarrassment
Apr 21st
“Soitainly an Embarrassment”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Three Stoges: The Movie is how the publicist wants references to be made about this movie, which is so bad, it is lucky to have any references made to it at all.
However, speaking of references, what first comes to mind is a parody from the Bible: “When I was a child, I enjoyed the antics of The Three Stooges, but when I became a man I put away childish things and don’t find them funny anymore.”
The second reference that comes to mind is that the story is straight out of the 1980 The Blues Brothers: raising money to save the orphanage in which the title characters grew up.
This story starts off with three babies being tossed out onto the steps of the orphanage, and they look just like the identifiable mugs that we have come to recognize by their haircuts, Moe with his bowl-cut style, Curly with his shaved pate, and Larry, who is half bald and half wild and curly haired.
Incidentally, Moe is still the self-appointed leader of the group, but the grownup Larry is played by Sean Hayes, who is more well known than the actors playing Moe and Curly, and so Hayes is billed as the star of the movie.
Then we see the Stooges 10 years later, and they are doing the same shtick that we enjoyed watching them do when we were children. A young couple choose Moe for adoption, but it doesn’t end well, and they return Moe and choose another young boy instead.
Then it is 25 years later, the boys are all grown up now, and everybody learns that due to lack of money, the orphanage will be shut down at the end of the month.
The orphanage needs $830,000 to be saved, and Moe says, “We’ll do whatever it takes.”
All they know how to do is handyman work, however, and of course they aren’t even very good at that. But the Stooges are pure of heart and dim of wit.
And what follows is a falling out among the Stooges, Sofia Vergara as a rich woman who hires them for some dirty work, and a wasted and tasteless introduction of the reality stars from “The Jersey Shore.”
The Three Stooges: The Movie is not much of a movie and soitainly an embarrassment.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” Makes the Impossible Possible
Apr 7th
“Making the Impossible Possible”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a love story, and I don’t mean the love that fishermen have for fishing, although there is also that.
On the other hand, Steven Wright says in his act, “There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore looking like an idiot.”
In this movie, the comment is made that the only thing that fishermen care about is fish, and that they are patient and virtuous.
The fishermen, of course, are patient and virtuous, not the fish.
No, we should remember that fish are so dumb that they can’t tell the difference between a real fly and an artificial fly with a hook in it at the end of a fishing line.
Emily Blunt plays Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, and she has a client who is an avid fisherman, Sheik Muhammed from Yemen, who wants to introduce salmon fishing in his desert country.
So, Harriet contacts the salmon expert in the British Fisheries, Dr. Alfred Jones, played by Ewan McGregor, to ask for his help in fulfilling the dream of the sheik, who naturally has enough money to make it happen.
Dr. Jones turns down Harriet’s request, telling her that the project is fundamentally infeasible.
In the meantime, however, Patricia Maxwell, who is the press secretary for the Prime Minister and who is played by Kristin Scott Thomas, tells her people, “We need a good news story from the Middle East and a big one. We need it now.”
So, with pressure from the top of the government, Dr. Jones is practically blackmailed into working with Harriet to make Sheik Muhammed’s dream come true.
And with two attractive people working closely together, romantic sparks are bound to fly, right?
Not so fast, Dear Audience, because Dr. Jones is married, and Harriet has a serious boyfriend.
Dr. Jones changes his assessment of the project’s success from fundamentally infeasible to theoretically possible, the sheik is willing to pay 50 million pounds, and so the problem now is to make it all happen.
Did I mention that there are dissidents in Yemen who believe that the sheik’s dream of building a river in the desert and stocking it with fish is insulting to Allah?
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen makes the impossible possible in so many different ways, and not just in fishing.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Albert Nobbs” Is Lovely, Sweet and Tragic
Feb 3rd
“Lovely, Sweet and Tragic”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Albert Nobbs is a project that star Glenn Close has been working on since she won an Obie for playing the role in 1982 in a play in New York City.
Finally released in 2011, the film not only stars Close, but she also cowrote it, coproduced it, and wrote the lyrics for the film’s theme song.
The story takes place in 19th-century Dublin, and the title character is a waiter working in a hotel who has a closely held secret: Albert is actually a woman posing as a man in order to earn a steady wage in the harsh Irish economy and repressed society.
In fact, Close herself said in an interview about the situation of women at that time, “Women had absolutely no rights if you had no money and no family.”
Eventually we learn the tragic story that caused Albert to pose as a man in order to earn money for herself, and we see her try to be as inconspicuous as possible as she goes about her duties in Morrison’s Hotel.
The guests refer to Albert as “such a kind little man,” and Albert doesn’t show any outward reaction to the shenanigans of the more rowdy and roisterous guests.
Every night Albert counts the money she has earned that day, records the amount in a ledger, and hides it all underneath a floorboard in her room upstairs in the hotel before going to bed.
You see, Albert has a dream: She is saving her money to buy a small store in which she can own a tobacco shop and run it from behind the counter.
And then Albert’s plans change.
She gets the idea that it would be easier if she were to marry a woman while still posing as a man, and then the two of them together could run the tobacco shop. And so Albert begins courting Helen, a young maid who works at Morrison’s Hotel, and who is played by Mia Wasikowska.
Unfortunately, Helen is in love with Joe, a young handyman who also works and lives at the hotel, who has told Helen about his plans to take them both to America.
However, Joe encourages Helen to go out walking with Albert in order to get as much from Albert as she can.
Albert Nobbs is lovely, sweet, and tragic.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”