Posts tagged one day
“Quartet” More Than Just the “Big Game” Gala
Feb 17th
“More Than Just ‘The Big Game’ Gala”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Quartet is another in a string of recent movies about colorful, quirky oldtimers, the first film directed by actor Dustin Hoffman, and much more entertaining than you might have expected.
The credit for a large part of that has to go to the cast, which includes Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, and Michael Gambon.
The film is adapted from the 1999 play written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Donald Harwood, and it takes place in England at Beecham House, a home for retired musicians.
Consequently, the film contains plenty of delightful music, as we encounter many of the residents throughout Beecham House doing what they have done all their professional lives: performing music and singing.
One day a new resident arrives, Jean Horton, played by Maggie Smith, who is so well known that when she walks into the main hall, the residents recognize her and give her a standing ovation.
However, Jean is not as pleased to be there as the other residents are pleased to see her, and at one point she says, “This isn’t a retirement home; this is a madhouse.”
Now, a major plot point is a tired, old hackneyed one: The retirement home is in financial difficulty, and it needs to raise money to keep it going, which is achieved every year by a so-called Big Gala performance by the residents to which tickets are sold to the public.
However, this year tickets are down by 60 percent, and the musical director has to come up with a great idea in order to increase the ticket sales.
You see, the arrival of Jean means that all four performers of a famous quartet of opera singers who sang together in the Ritoletto opera by Guiseppe Verdi, the most important opera composer of the 19th century, are now staying at the retirement home.
Unfortunately, Jean exclaims that she doesn’t sing anymore, and that is final. But more important, bad blood exists between Jean and another member, Reginald, because they were once married to each other and the marriage ended very badly, so badly that when Reginald learns that Jean now lives there, he wants to move.
Well, you can see where this is going, can’t you?
Quartet is much more than just “The Big Game” gala at the end, and it is funny and also very entertaining.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Amour – Movie Trailer
Feb 5th
Amour represents an honest, heartwrenching depiction of deep love and responsibility. Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has an attack. The couple’s bond of love is severely tested and the other must assume the role of the caretaker in this compassionate yet unsentimental drama from director Michael Haneke.
“Chernobyl Diaries” or, Attack of the Chernobyl Zombies
Jun 2nd
“Attack of the Chernobyl Zombies”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Chernobyl Diaries is a horror movie that takes place at the site of the 1985 Chernobyl disaster of the meltdown of the nuclear reactor.
And of all the horror movies that take place at the site of a nuclear meltdown, this is one of them.
Would you be surprised if I told you that there were six young people involved in the story?
Paul is an American living in Russia after having had some sort of falling out with his family.
Chris is Paul’s brother, who is traveling in Russia to visit Paul, and with him are Chris’s girlfriend Natalie and Natalie’s best friend, Amanda.
And then there are Michael and Zoe, who are tourists from Australia, and who join the group when Paul arranges an “extreme tour” for him and the others to take.
Paul knows a former Russian soldier named Uri, who is now an extreme tour guide, and Uri is going to take the six young people to visit the abandoned city of Pripyat, which used to be the home of the workers at Chernobyl and their families before the nuclear disaster.
Regarding the abandoned city, Uri tells his clients, “Nature has reclaimed its rightful home.”
Would you be surprised if I told you that the abandoned city is not totally abandoned?
After being turned back at the official checkpoint entrance to the city, Uri drives his van and its passengers around the back to his special entrance.
Uri says that the radiation levels are low enough to be safe now, and besides, they are going to spend only one day inside the city.
Would you be surprised if I told you that they end up spending more than one day there?
Okay, they hear a scary noise inside one of the abandoned buildings, and they see something that Uri says he has never seen before on his previous trips to Pripyat.
Now, would you be surprised if I told you that when they get back to Uri’s van to leave that it won’t start?
Would you be surprised if I told you that when darkness falls, bad things start to happen to seven people one by one?
Chernobyl Diaries could have been called “Attack of the Chernobyl Zombies,” and I’m not surprised that I didn’t find it scary and I didn’t like it, either.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”