Posts tagged Movie
“Confessions of a Shopaholic” Pretty Lame
Mar 11th
Pretty Lame
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC starts off bad, goes downhill from there, and then manages to redeem itself just enough that all in all it is not good, not bad, but just okay.
This says something about a movie that, after all, is making fun of what is a serious problem for some people.
No, I am not talking about compulsive behavior that causes some people to spend money beyond their means. I am talking about the compulsion that some people have to search for romantic love.
Isla Fisher plays Rebecca Greenwood, a young and attractive magazine writer in New York City who discovered the power of shopping when she was a little girl and the fact that you didn’t have to pay money for anything if you had a “magic card,” which is what she called a credit card.
Now she has 12 of them and the bills to prove it.
To explain her compulsive behavior, Rebecca says, “When I shop, the world gets better, and then it’s not anymore and I need to do it again.”
When the magazine that Rebecca works for fails, she buys an expensive green scarf that she cannot afford for an interview with a fashion magazine for a job that she believes will make her happy forever if she gets it.
Then through a series of ridiculous setups and even more ridiculous payoffs, Rebecca is hired to be a columnist for a financial magazine and to write about how to save money.
Hugh Dancy plays Luke Brandon, the editor of the magazine whom Rebecca lied to about her credentials, and so now she is in serious trouble, right?
Wrong. Rebecca’s even more serious problem is that she has a bill collector after her who she tells Luke is an ex-boyfriend who is stalking her.
So, Rebecca is advising people about debt and she is up to her eyeballs in it, she lied about herself to her editor to get the job, she has a bill collector after her, and what else could go wrong?
Well, for one thing she attends a meeting of Shopaholics Anonymous and when she talks about shopping, she causes all the other members to relapse.
CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC is pretty lame from beginning to end, but if you’re a sucker for romance–and who isn’t–it redeems itself.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Friday the 13th” Cheap Excuse
Mar 4th
Cheap Excuse
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009) is a movie so bad that only a few groups of people will want to see it: friends and family of the cast and crew, movie reviewers, and, oh yeah, TEENAGERS.
The original version came out in 1980, and so any teenagers who saw that movie when it was released would be in their forties now, and they might want to see just how it has been updated, but the only reason that I saw it was that the equipment broke down for the movie that I intended to see and review.
Another group of people who might want to see it are those voyeurs who enjoy lots of shots of bare boobies and gruesome murders, but most of them are probably teenagers anyway.
The story begins on June 13, 1980, at a place called Crystal Lake. and we see a woman crazed by grief confront some other people and shouting, “Jason was my son! You should have been watching him!”
Jason, of course, is Jason Voorhees, the mad slasher in this series of slice-and-dice teenage thrillers, the one who wears a hockey mask as if he is afraid that his victims might be able to identify him.
Then we jump forward to “Present Day” at Crystal Lake and watch the first group of victims, consisting of three guys and two girls, and then get way too much exposition about the first series of murders.
Well, guess what happens.
Then it is six weeks later and seven more campers show up, as well as Clay, the brother of one of the girls who is still missing from the first group six weeks earlier.
This group, however, isn’t camping out in the woods, but staying in the fancy cabin owned by the family of one of them, a real obnoxious jerk who you just can’t wait for him to get his.
As always, the only suspense is which one will be killed first and which one will be the survivor.
Now, however, we get some topless water-skiing along with the not-so-scary individual trips up into an attic or out to the toolshed in the dark.
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009) will probably be loved by teenagers but hated by everybody else, because it is just a cheap excuse for profanity, nudity, and other teenage thrills, and I am not a teenager.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”