Posts tagged novel
“Angels & Demons” Leaves Questions Unanswered
May 20th
Leaves Questions Unanswered
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
ANGELS & DEMONS is the much-anticipated follow-up to the highly successful and highly controversial 2006 THE DA VINCI CODE, and although it is entertaining, it is less satisfying.
The reason I say “follow-up” instead of “sequel” is that even though the story is identified as taking place after the events in the first film, the novel by Dan Brown on which this film is based was published three years before the novel of THE DA VINCI CODE was published.
The story begins with the death of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the Cardinals of the Church must choose the next Pope from among them to lead the world’s one billion Catholics.
Then we switch to the CERN Laboratory in Switzerland where the world’s largest particle collider is being used in an experiment to create antimatter.
The experiment succeeds, but one of the scientists is murdered and the antimatter is stolen.
Professor Robert Langdon, again played by Tom Hanks as the professor of symbology at Harvard University but without the ugly haircut this time, is summoned to the Vatican in Rome, because the four Cardinals who were favored for one of them to be chosen as the next Pope have been kidnaped by a group identifying themselves as the Illuminati, saying that they will kill one of the Cardinals every hour leading up to midnight, when they will destroy the Vatican with the stolen antimatter.
Langdon explains that the Illuminati is a secret organization dedicated to science and the search for truth, and when the head of the Vatican police asks Langdon, “Are you anti-Catholic, Professor Langdon?” Langdon answers, “No, I’m anti-vandalism.”
Now, the threat note from the kidnapers contains clues to where each of the Cardinals will be murdered, and so Langdon has to decipher the clues so that they can prevent their death.
And accompanying Langdon and the Vatican police is a beautiful scientist from the CERN Laboratory who can defuse the antimatter “bomb” if they can find if before its battery runs down and it explodes.
Confusing? Yes. Complicated? You bet. At one point I wrote in my notes, “What’s going on?”
The biggest question to ask ourselves, however, is “Why can’t science and religion just get along?”
ANGELS & DEMONS is entertaining, but it leaves too many questions unanswered.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Revolutionary Road” Death of the American Dream
Feb 19th
Death of the American Dream
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD has admirable qualities, but it is also a disappointment in many more ways than one.
Admirable, of course, is that it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, it was directed by Winslet’s husband, Sam Mendes, and it is based on the acclaimed 1961 novel by Richard Yates.
One of the disappointments is built into the story, which takes place in 1955 and is about what was known as “the American Dream.”
According to BREWER’S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE & FABLE, the American Dream is “a phrase epitomizing the democratic ideals and aspirations on which America had been founded, the American way of life at its best,” and back then that included a happy marriage, two children, a house in the suburbs, and a fulfilling job that is rewarding.
When the film opens, we see Frank and April meet at a party in New York City. Frank is a veteran of World War II, and April is studying to be an actress.
We skip ahead to when they are already married and April is appearing in a community-theater production with disappointing, humiliating results. Frank says to April, “Well, I guess it wasn’t exactly a triumph or anything, was it?”
On the way home, they get into an argument, Frank stops the car, he calls her “sick,” and she calls him “disgusting.”
Then we see a flashback to when they bought their house in Connecticut on Revolutionary Road.
Frank commutes to his boring job in New York City, and on his 30th birthday he does something that we hope is out of character.
April believes that Frank is the most interesting person she has ever met, and she tells him her idea that will change their lives forever. She wants to sell their house and everything else they have, move the family to Paris, and she will work to support the family while Frank will have all the time he needs to figure out what he wants to do.
Frank agrees, because their whole existence is that they are different from everyone else and that they are “special.”
However, they aren’t really special; they just think they are and have deluded themselves into believing that, especially when something happens at work that makes Frank get cold feet about Paris.
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD is the death of the American Dream with many false endings.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”