Posts tagged romantic
“When in Rome” Can’t Say Enough Bad about It
Feb 11th
Can’t Say Enough Bad about It
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
WHEN IN ROME calls itself a romantic comedy, or “rom-com,” but is so bad that it deserves a new label of “abom-com,” for abominable comedy.
The only reason this movie will be mentioned again this year is if another movie is so bad that it is compared with this one.
Here is how bad it is. You know what a “Greek chorus” is, a group of actors in a drama who participate in or comment on the action?
This movie has what could be called an “idiot chorus,” and not only one, but two! Both the female lead, Kristen Bell, and the male lead, Josh Duhamel, have a group of three friends who just look goofy and act dumber than the leads.
Bell plays Beth, who has the unlikely job of being a curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, but the movie explains this away by saying that she is the youngest and least experienced curator at the museum.
Beth’s younger sister, Joan, is getting married in Rome, and while Beth is there, she overreacts to what she mistakenly thinks is a setback in a possible new relationship with the groom’s best man, Nick, played by Duhamel, and she takes five coins out of the Fountain of Love, saying, “Each one of you is a desperate wish for love that is never going to come true.”
Beth takes the coins back to New York with her, and then we learn about the legend that if you remove a coin from the Fountain of Love, the person who threw if in will fall in love with you.
Surprise! Surprise! All of the coin tossers were men, and they all just happen to be in New York, except for one, which is explained later.
So, now Beth finds herself being chased–stalked, actually–by a group of idiot suitors, including a manic painter, a self-absorbed model, an insecure street magician, and a sausage magnate played by Danny DeVito.
This movie is so bad that one of the idiot suitors has a secret that was kept during the publicity for the movie, but if that secret had been revealed and exploited during the publicity, it would have made the movie funnier and more interesting.
WHEN IN ROME is so lame that I can’t say enough bad about it.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Broken Embraces” More Interesting and Terrific As It Goes Along
Feb 4th
More Interesting and Terrific As It Goes Along
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BROKEN EMBRACES stars Penelope Cruz in her fourth film with writer-director Pedro Almodovar, and it is a very good romantic mystery that will keep you interested and trying to guess its secrets up until the very end.
The time shifts between 2008 and the early 1990s in Madrid, and the story involves the relationships of a beautiful sexy woman, an old wealthy businessman, and a young handsome filmmaker and how their lives became intertwined.
We first meet Harry Caine, who is blind and who writes movie scripts.
A young woman he has just met is reading the newspaper to him in his apartment, and she reads the notice of the recent death of Ernesto Martel, a famous businessman who had spent some time in prison.
After she has finished reading to him, Harry asks her to describe herself for him, uses his hands to confirm her description, and the next thing we know, they are making love on the couch.
When the young woman is in the bathroom, an older woman named Judit Garcia lets herself into the apartment, and after the young woman has left, Judit confronts Harry about his indiscretion.
Harry says, “All that’s left is for me to enjoy life.”
Judit has a son named Diego, who also helps Harry, even to the point of their trying to write a movie script together. Then when Judit goes away from Madrid for two weeks and Diego has an accident that sends him to the hospital, Harry starts telling Diego the story of the love of his life, Lena, which we see as the details unfold.
It was back in 1994 when Harry met Lena and Ernesto. Harry’s name was Mateo Blanco back then, and he was a movie director.
But most important, he wasn’t blind.
Lena was Ernesto’s mistress, she wanted to act in the movies, and she showed up to audition for Mateo’s next movie, GIRLS AND SUITCASES.
However, Ernesto was extremely jealous of Lena, and so he sent his awkward son to follow Lena wherever she went and film her under the pretext of making a documentary.
You can guess what happened next. Lena got the part, she and Mateo fell in love during the making of the movie, but then what happened?
BROKEN EMBRACES gets more interesting and terrific as it goes along.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”