Posts tagged Movie
“The Iron Lady” Is Slapped Together
Jan 28th
“Slapped Together”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Iron Lady is yet another acting triumph for Meryl Streep as she plays Margaret Thatcher, the longest-seated prime minister of Great Britain in the 20th century from 1979 to 1990, the first woman prime minister, and at various times in her political career the most hated woman in Great Britain.
In fact, she was loved and hated in office as much as her contemporary President Ronald Reagan was in the U.S. and for the same reasons: They both had conservative values and free-market ideology that helped transform their respective countries into industrially depleted and increasingly unequal societies.
In addition, they both danced–sometimes together–while the countries they led were suffering.
The film opens in the present day with Margaret as an old woman out shopping, and when she returns to her flat, her daughter, Carol, tells her that she shouldn’t go out on her own, to which Margaret replies, “If I can’t go out to buy a pint of milk, what is the world coming to?”
Then we see flashbacks to when Margaret was a young woman whose name was Margaret Roberts, played by a different actress, Alexandra Roach, and she is not portrayed as a very likable woman.
And, yes, the film shifts back and forth in time so much in the style that filmmakers seem to prefer these days that you might ask yourself is the whole movie going to be like this?
And the answer is, yes, it is.
We also see Margaret’s husband, Denis Thatcher, played as an old man by Jim Broadbent, and once again the filmmakers try to trick the audience into believing that a scene of fantasy and Margaret’s delusional dotage is reality.
In fact, Broadbent might spend more screen time dead than he does alive.
Major events during Thatcher’s career as prime minister are covered, such as the 1982 Falklands War, the 1984 miners’ strike, the 1984 IRA bombing of a hotel hosting a conference of the Conservative Party, and her replacement as prime minister after a rebellion by her colleagues.
We even see some scenes in which she is advised about her clothes and the way she speaks in public.
The Iron Lady is so slapped together that when it ends, you don’t even realize that this is the scene in which the movie is ending.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Iron Lady – Movie Trailer
Jan 22nd
The Iron Lady is a surprising and intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), the first and only female Prime Minister of The United Kingdom. One of the 20th century’s most famous and influential women, Thatcher came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male dominated world.
“The Artist” Sounds Familiar, but It’s Silent
Jan 21st
“Sounds Familiar”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Artist is one of those films that Hollywood loves to make, because it has a simple story that has been retold many times before, it wins many awards both at home and abroad, and it is about Hollywood itself.
So, what is it that makes this version different, you ask?
Well, it is a silent movie with only music on the soundtrack except for one scene that is designed to trick the audience, and it takes place in the 1920s in Hollywood when movies were just beginning to be made with sound and the famous sign still said “Hollywoodland” as it originally did.
And even that isn’t original, because Mel Brooks did the same thing with his 1976 Silent Movie, and the one word of dialogue that we hear in that movie was more original, clever, and funny.
This film is a comedy, as well, and the story begins in 1927 when we see a movie within the movie within this movie, which is called A Russian Affair.
Of course, that film is silent, and we see a scene in which the hero is being tortured, and he says what we see in the subtitles, “I won’t say a word. I won’t speak.”
Then the hero is rescued by a dog, they escape, and the movie is over.
The hero is played by George Valentin, a silent-movie star at the top of his success, and he has been backstage while his movie has been showing, and after the movie is over and the audience is applauding, he comes out from behind the screen and takes a bow, calls the dog out, too, and they ham it up for the audience.
Meanwhile, a young woman named Peppy Miller arrives in town, and naturally she wants to be a movie star.
She accidentally bumps into George on the street while he is playing to the crowd, she hams it up, a photographer takes her picture, and the story makes the front page of a newspaper with the headline of “Who’s That Girl?”
So, Peppy does get into the movies just as “talkies” start to be made, George refuses to do sound movies, and his career fades as Peppy’s starts to rise.
Sound familiar? See any version of A Star Is Born.
The Artist sounds familiar, even though it’s silent.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
