Posts tagged one day
“The Descendants” Is Complicated, Confusing, and Funny
Dec 3rd
“Complicated, Confusing, and Funny”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Descendants is the latest movie starring George Clooney, but more importantly it is also the latest movie written and directed by Alexander Payne.
Now, you might not be that familiar with his name, but surely you are familiar with at least some of his other films. Payne also directed the 1996 Citizen Ruth, the 1999 Election, the 2002 About Schmidt, and the 2004 Sideways.
Clooney plays Matt King, a lawyer on Hawaii who hasn’t been on a surfboard in 15 years, and one day he finds himself faced with a number of big problems.
He is the trustee for the ownership of 25,000 acres of the last huge portion of virgin beachfront land in Hawaii that is owned by him and his seven cousins, they are trying to decide whether to sell it for development, and if they don’t sell it, the trust dissolves in seven years.
Matt’s wife, Liz, is in a coma from a boating accident, and the doctors don’t know if she will ever recover.
Matt is ready to be a real husband and a real father to his two daughters, but 17-year-old Alexandra and 10-year-old Scottie are becoming more problems than he is sure he can handle.
And on top of all that, Alexandra tells Matt that she saw Liz out with another man, and Matt discovers that Liz was in love with this man and was going to ask Matt for a divorce.
So, when we hear Matt say, “I know I can make things right,” we are not so sure that he can, and therein lies this excellent and very funny movie.
Matt believes that there is something wrong with his daughters, but he starts to bond with Alexandra in ways that he never could before when they begin a mission together to find out who the man is that Liz was having an affair with. Matt says that he just wants to see him, but we have to believe that Matt might want to do more than just that.
And when Matt discovers who the man is and what he does, he also discovers that there might also be a connection that could affect Matt’s decision about selling that huge portion of land that he and his cousins own.
The Descendants is complicated, confusing, funny, and also very excellent.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Tower Heist” High-Rise Hijack High Jinks
Nov 10th
“High-Rise Hijack High Jinks”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
TOWER HEIST has a story so topical that it could have been ripped from yesterday’s headlines–if a gang of bumbling thieves had schemed to rob Ponzi-meister Bernie Madoff’s penthouse of his stashed millions before he was sent to prison.
Ben Stiller plays Josh Kovacs, the building manager of a residential skyscraper in New York City known as “The Tower,” which is the most expensive real estate in North America.
Living in the penthouse of The Tower is Arthur Shaw, played against type by Alan Alda, who is best known for playing lovable rapscallion Capt. Hawkeye Pierce in the long-running “M*A*S*H” TV series.
Shaw manages money funds for financial investors, but his personality is such that he demands that Josh personally deliver all of Shaw’s meals, because, as he says, “I don’t want the help spitting in my coffee.”
Well, one day to the surprise of everybody except the members in the audience, Shaw gets arrested by the F.B.I. for securities fraud of epic proportions, which is of great importance to Josh, because he had convinced all the employees of The Tower to invest their pension funds with Shaw, and now that money is all gone.
So, when Josh learns from Special Agent Clair Denham, played by Tea Leoni, that $20 million is still missing from Shaw’s accounts, which they suspect was Shaw’s escape fund, Josh concludes that the money must be hidden in a secret safe in Shaw’s penthouse, he enlists the aid of some fellow employees, and they decide to break into the penthouse, find the safe, and steal the money, even though Shaw is under house arrest in the apartment, which is guarded by security cameras and F.B.I. agents outside the door.
Now, Josh IS smart enough to realize that they probably can’t do all this on their own, and so he also enlists the aid of a professional thief that he passes every day on his walk to work who is named Slide, whom he also knew as a kid, and who is played by Eddie Murphy.
Of course, nothing goes quite as planned, and they even have to change their plans when they do manage to get into the apartment, do find the safe, and do get it open.
TOWER HEIST is nothing more nor less than highly entertaining high-rise hijack high jinks.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
In Darkness – Movie Trailer
Sep 15th
From acclaimed director Agnieszka Holland, In Darkness is based on a true story. Leopold Socha, a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi occupied city in Poland, one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town’s sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected, the unlikely alliance between Socha and the Jews as the enterprise seeps deeper into Socha’s conscience. The film is also an extraordinary story of survival as these men, women and children all try to outwit certain death during 14 months of ever increasing and intense danger.