Frost/Nixon – Movie Trailer
Dec 5th
Hollywood heavyweight Ron Howard adapts playwright Peter Morgan’s West End hit for the silver screen with this feature focusing on the 1977 television interviews between journalist David Frost (Michael Sheen) and former president Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). At the time Nixon sat down with Frost to discuss the sordid details that ultimately derailed his presidency, it had been three years since the former commander in chief had been forced out of office. The Watergate scandal was still fresh in everyone’s minds, and Nixon had remained notoriously tight-lipped until he agreed to sit down with Frost. Nixon was certain that he could hold his own opposite the up-and-coming British broadcaster, and even Frost’s own people weren’t quite sure their boss was ready for such a high-profile interview. When the interview ultimately got under way and each man eschewed the typical posturing in favor of the simple truth, fans and critics on both sides were stunned by what they witnessed. Instead of Nixon stonewalling the interviewer as expected, or Frost lobbing softballs as the truth-seekers feared, what emerged was an unguardedly honest exchange between a man who had lost everything and another with everything to gain. In this film, viewers are treated to not only a recreation of that landmark interview, but a behind-the-scenes look at the power struggles that led up to it as well. Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Brian Grazer team to produce a film adapted for the screen by original play author Morgan (The Queen and The Last King of Scotland).
“Australia” Simple Stories Writ Large
Dec 4th
Simple Stories Writ Large
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
AUSTRALIA is the big epic film starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman that was directed by Baz Luhrmann and which will likely remind you of many other movies and possibly annoy you with its many endings.
The difference between all those other movies and this one? All those other movies are stitched together into one movie and relocated Down Under in Australia just before World War II.
The reason there are many endings? All the stories are stitched together, one right after the other, each with its own ending, so that just as you think the movie is over at one satisfying ending, another familiar story begins with the same characters and leading to another ending. More than once.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: Hollywood has run out of ideas. This time, big time.
The first story begins in September 1939 at a cattle station called Faraway Downs in the Outback of Australia. We hear the narration of Nullah, a little boy who says he belongs to no one, because he is a “creamy,” a child of mixed race whose father was white and whose mother is an Aborigine.
Nullah sees cattle being stolen, comes face to face with the body of a murdered man, and then proceeds to tell the story of whom he calls “The strangest woman I’ve ever seen.”
She is Lady Sarah Ashley, and we see her in England complaining that her husband spends too much time in Australia. So, she travels to Australia in order to sell Faraway Downs and return to England.
Then we meet The Drover, whose occupation is to drive cattle from one place to another. He was sent to meet Lady Ashley in Darwin and take her to Faraway Downs.
They “meet cute,” with a lot of cheap laughs. They travel to Faraway Downs, which is no easy task. She learns that her husband has been murdered in a connection to steal her cattle and buy out Faraway Downs by a competing rancher.
Then comes the “Cattle Drive” story in which seven people–Lady Ashley included–drive 1500 head of cattle to Darwin to sell to the Army. If you have seen one cattle-drive story, you have seen this one.
But, wait! There is more. Many more.
AUSTRALIA is nothing but simple stories writ large.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Colorado Magazine December 1st – 7th, 2008
Dec 1st
It’s time now for Colorado Magazine’s 2008 Holiday Television Special with Jann Scott, Colorado’s number 1 TV talk show host. In this episode Jann visits with, Art Cleaners, Perry’s Shoe Shop, The Wild Bird Center in Boulder, Customized Nutrition and Exercise, Jalino’s Pizza, Orchid Pavilion, The Drum Shop and a hotshots movie review by Dan Culberson of the film Zack and Miri all right here, right now, on Colorado Magazine.
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