Posts tagged prison
Stone – Movie Trailer
Oct 27th
A convicted arsonist schemes to get out of prison by convincing his debauched wife to seduce his retirement-ready parole officer in director John J. Curran’s adaptation of a play by Angus MacLachlan (who also authored the screenplay). His career as a parole officer winding down after years of service, Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro) reluctantly accepts an assignment to reassess inmate Gerald “Stone” Creeson’s (Edward Norton) case for an upcoming parole hearing. Convicted of setting a fire to make the murder of his grandparents look like an accidental death, Stone will do anything to get out from behind bars, and his wife, Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), is willing to do whatever it takes to help secure her husband’s freedom — including seducing Jack. Meanwhile, Jack’s devoted wife, Madylyn (Frances Conroy), has suffered with the emotional weight of her husband’s demanding job for far too long.
“Stone” But None of Them Satisfying
Oct 27th
“But None of Them Satisfying”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
STONE is the latest movie starring Robert De Niro and Edward Norton, and then when you add Milla Jovovich to that couple of actor’s actors, then you have got yourself a movie, right?
Well,not so fast.
Next you need a believable story, a good script, and a satisfying ending, and this one fails on all three counts.
The movie begins with a dramatic opening scene in the past that will have repercussions many years later in the future.
Then we cut to a present-day funeral for a character named Robert Mabry, and his brother Jack says in his eulogy, “If it wasn’t for Bobby, I don’t know where I would have wound up.”
Jack is a parole officer who works in a prison, he is close to retirement, and he wants to keep his current cases to see them through to their reviews.
One of his cases is Gerald Creeson, who says that his people know him as “Stone,” and he prefers to be called “Stone.”
Stone tells Jack that he just wants to talk to him, and then maybe they can both get what they want. Stone says that he is so ready to be out of prison and what can he and Jack do to make that happen.
Stone has been married for nine years to Lucetta, he calls her a “dime,” a perfect “10,” and he says that she is an alien from another world. He asks Jack how long he has been married, and Jack tells him 43 years.
Stone was convicted of burning down his grandparents’ house, and he claims that his cousin killed his grandparents first, which Stone didn’t even know until after his cousin came outside and told him.
As you can tell, Stone talks a good story.
Then Lucetta, who is a grade-school teacher, starts calling Jack at home, wanting to meet him so that she can plead Stone’s case, all of which is against the rules.
But not against the rules of a movie story, right?
Eventually, Jack and Lucetta do meet, at first openly and then surreptitiously.
Unfortunately, this movie is constructed so that it contains what could have been any number of different endings, and any one of them would have been just as valid.
STONE, therefore, has many endings, but none of them is satisfying.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Takers” Expect to Be Surprised
Sep 1st
“Expect to Be Surprised”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
TAKERS is a crime caper with plenty of action, plenty of shoot-outs and chases, and plenty of surprises, the first of which is how good and entertaining it is in spite of not being very original.
It opens with a bank robbery by five professional and very efficient bank robbers who use one of the most innovative and imaginative means of escape ever conceived.
Meanwhile, across town two detectives are making a bust in an apartment, and one of them is Detective Jack Welles, played by Matt Dillon. One of the men he and his partner try to arrest escapes, and this event will play a major role later on in the story.
Then we cut to a man being released from prison. He goes by the name of Ghost, and he is released a year early because of good behavior.
Ghost used to be a member of the team of bank robbers, but he got caught during one of their previous jobs. However, he never revealed who the other members were while incarcerated, and now he feels that they “owe him,” especially his cut of the money from that previous job.
So, Ghost talks to the other five thieves and tells them about his plan to rob an armored car for $30 million.
The problem is that the job has to be accomplished in five days, and the team likes to take at least a year to plan a robbery. But as one of them says, “Bet big, win big. That’s the only way to play.”
Now, while we see them plan the complicated robbery, Jack and his partner are searching through the surveillance tapes of the bank robbery, looking for clues that will help them solve the case. In addition, there are family matters that Jack has to deal with, and so does the leader of the team of robbers.
The day of the robbery comes, and naturally everything doesn’t go as planned, but then the movie fun begins. There are chases right and left and in and out and over and under. And that’s just on foot.
And then just when you think the movie is over, something even more exciting happens to get your adrenalin running all over again, and that’s not even counting the double-crosses.
TAKERS is surprising, and expect to be surprised.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
