Posts tagged Movie Review
“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.”
“Mirror Mirror” Is Surprisingly Excellent
Apr 14th
“Surprisingly Excellent”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Mirror Mirror is the most recent Hollywood version of the fairy tale about Snow White, another version is even being released later this year, but you just might be surprised at how well you enjoy this one with Julia Roberts starring as the evil Queen.
In fact, at the beginning in a voice-over by the Queen as she narrates the background of the story about Snow White, the Queen says, “And this is my story, not hers.”
Snow White is played by Lily Collins, the daughter of seven-time Grammy winner Phil Collins, and we are told that she was left under the care of the Queen when the King disappeared mysteriously, and under the control of the Queen, the once prosperous kingdom has now become close to destitute.
The people in the kingdom don’t sing and dance like they used to, and shouldn’t it be called the queendom now, anyway?
At any rate, Snow White has been confined to the castle by the Queen all these years, and when she is 18, Snow White sneaks out of the castle to see for herself what has been happening in the queendom.
While she is in the forest, Snow White rescues the charming Prince Alcott, played by Armie Hammer, who, along with his companion, has been robbed by a gang of seven thieves.
Well, you can pretty much guess the rest, can’t you, but I’ll bet you can’t guess the names of the seven dwarfs, who here have been named Napoleon, Half Pint, Grub, Grimm, Wolf, Butcher, and Chuckles, and who live in the woods because the Queen had all the “ugly people” banished from the village.
Another change to this version of the classic story is the addition of Brighton, who is unofficially called the Queen’s Executive Bootlicker and who is played by Nathan Lane.
Also, the order of some of the events that we are familiar with from previous versions of the story have been turned around, but again, because Julia Roberts is the bigger star and because she said so at the beginning, this is a story more about the Queen than a story about Snow White.
However, when it reaches the part in the story where “they all lived happily ever after,” both the Queen and the audience might be surprised.
Mirror Mirror is surprisingly excellent.
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.”
