Posts tagged Robert De Niro
The Big Wedding – Movie Trailer
May 10th
With an all-star cast led by Robert De Niro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, with Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams, THE BIG WEDDING is an uproarious romantic comedy about a charmingly modern family trying to survive a weekend wedding celebration that has the potential to become a full blown family fiasco. To the amusement of their adult children and friends, long divorced couple Don and Ellie Griffin (De Niro and Keaton) are once again forced to play the happy couple for the sake of their adopted son’s wedding after his ultra conservative biological mother unexpectedly decides to fly halfway across the world to attend. With all of the wedding guests looking on, the Griffins are hilariously forced to confront their past, present and future – and hopefully avoid killing each other in the process.
“Silver Linings Playbook” Contrived and Over the Top
Feb 6th
“Contrived and Over the Top”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Silver Linings Playbook has already won some awards and will likely win more, but some of you might be disappointed in this so-called “dramedy” about two troubled souls.
Bradley Cooper stars as Pat, he is in a psychiatric facility in Baltimore, where he has been ordered to stay by a judge after Pat went home, found his wife Nikki in the shower with another man, and went berserk, which is now referred to as “the incident.”
While there, Pat has been diagnosed as being bipolar with mood swings, but we see him on the phone talking to someone, and he says, “I’m better now, and I hope you are, too.”
After being in the facility eight months, Pat’s mother takes him out and drives him back home to Philadelphia, where Pat will now live with her and his father, played by Robert De Niro.
You see, Nikki has left Pat, sold their home, and now has a restraining order against him, but Pat plans to get in shape, get his old job back as a substitute history teacher, and get Nikki back, too.
Pat’s mother tells him that she didn’t tell his father that she was bringing Pat home and to take things easy, because his father lost his job and is now a small-time bookie, who is also a fanatic obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles professional football team.
In fact, Pat’s father is such a fanatic that he had his own “incident” in the past and is now banned from ever attending another Eagles home game.
Meanwhile, Pat is invited to Sunday dinner by his friend Ron, who is married to Nikki’s friend, Veronica, they just had a baby, and Ron is feeling crushed.
Veronica’s sister, Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is also at the dinner, and she has problems of her own, having recently lost both her husband and her job. Her husband was a policeman who was killed on duty, and she lost her job for reasons I won’t go into here.
Well, you can guess that Pat and Tiffany will have a troubled relationship, that they will have many obstacles to overcome, but not that the climax is a big dance contest, which substitutes for the Big Game at the end of many movies.
Silver Linings Playbook is too contrived and over the top.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Limitless” More Like ‘Overblown’
Mar 29th
LIMITLESS takes its title from the idea of how many opportunities are available to us if we were able to use 100% of our brains instead of the mythological 20% that we use in our everyday lives.
However, scientists say that we already use 100% of our brains, and so the premise of the movie needs a better explanation.
Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Morra, a writer with a book contract, but he looks more like someone with an alcohol or drug problem.
That might be because he doesn’t act like a writer, either, because he is behind on his book, having written only one word, and that word is the first-person, singular pronoun “I.”
Eddie gets even more down on his luck when his girlfriend Lindy breaks up with him, but then his life changes dramatically when he accidentally meets the brother of his ex-wife on the street.
Vernon tells Eddie that he is working for a company that has come out with a new pill called NZT48 that lets you access 100% of your brain, but then he gets interrupted by a phone call and has to leave.
However, Vernon gives Eddie his business card and one of the NZT pills “on the house,” saying that they normally cost $800 apiece.
And the rest, as they say, is this movie.
Special effects show an impression of what happens to Eddie when he takes the pill. “I wasn’t ‘high,’ I was just clear,” he tells us in voice-over narration. “I knew what I wanted to do and how to do it.”
And he does. The next morning, the effects of the pill have worn off, and Eddie gives his book manuscript to his publisher, saying that if she doesn’t like it, he will return the advance.
Then when Vernon doesn’t return Eddie’s calls, Eddie goes to see Vernon with the objective of getting more pills.
And here is where the movie starts leaving the audience with unanswered questions.
Here is also where more characters enter the story, including a Russian loan shark and his hooligans, a financial businessman played by Robert De Niro, a mysterious man who seems to be following Eddie around New York City, and even Eddie’s ex-wife, Melissa.
LIMITLESS makes a thriller out of limitless opportunities, but it is more like “overblown” with unanswered questions.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
