Iron Man 2

I loved comics as a kid.  One of my earliest childhood memories is putting together a “Fantastic Four” jigsaw puzzle.  I collected comic books for a while, waiting at the newsstand while they put the new issues out, eagerly snagging all the titles I was fond of (mostly Marvel, but a few DC too).  For reasons too complicated (and embarrassing) to get into, I ended up selling my collection when I was about 13.  I think I got $50 for the lot.  If I’d held on to them and kept them in good condition, they’d probably be worth thousands now.  Sigh.  Anyway, I pretty much lost interest in comics at that time.  Later on I’d get into some of the hipster indies like “Hate” and “Eightball” but I’d put superheroes behind me.  Likewise, I haven’t had much interest in superhero movies, although there were a few I enjoyed (the second entries in the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises were both pretty good, and Nolan’s Batman films are enjoyable entertainment).  The first Iron Man left a particularly sour taste in my mouth, a tedious borefest of gee-whiz effects and dull characters.

But lately I’ve been tempted to see the upcoming Avengers, based on remarkably positive word of mouth and the fact that Joss Whedon is at the helm.  So I figured I better catch up with the other films in the series, just so I’d be up to speed.  I read the comics as a kid, but can’t remember a lot and besides, who knows what kind of inside connections there might be between the movies?  I want to be in the know.

Now I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.  Somehow even more boring than the first movie, the sequel is a humdrum mishmash of scenes that feel haphazardly smushed together.  Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) starts out as this arrogant dickhead and you can see the “redemption” coming, but even that is mishandled and unsatisfying.  Downey’s flippant attitude and weak one-liners make him an unappealing character… which would be okay if there was some other side of him that was interesting.  But no, just a half-assed alcoholic thing.  I spent the entire movie wondering who the hell Don Cheadle was supposed to be and what exactly his role is.  I couldn’t remember him at all from the first one.  Turns out he was replacing Terence Howard… who I also don’t remember from the first one.  The “villains” are Sam Rockwell playing some rival defense contractor and Mickey Rourke as Angry Man With Bad Russian Accent.  There’s astonishingly little action in the movie, and when it comes it’s simply more CGI creations slamming into each other with no sense of stakes or emotional involvement.  It’s as fun as watching someone else play a videogame.  And not even the good parts of a videogame.  It’s all a lot of loud and shiny nonsense.  Oh, and I don’t know what’s more irritating… hearing The Clash in such a lame movie, or hearing AC/DC at all.

Scarlett Johannson’s character provides most of the best moments of the film, which is surprising because I don’t really like Scarlett Johannson that much.  But she — along with Samuel L. Jackson — is a character I’m looking forward to seeing in the Avengers movie.  Iron Man?  I’ve had enough of him already.  Rating: Crap

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Last Life in the Universe (rewatch)

I really loved this time the first time, but it had faded a lot in my memory in the interim.  I had forgotten the stranger, more ambiguous elements that blow it wide open for interpretation.  The film’s mood is one that has a lot of appeal to me, one of those quiet, introspective “tone poems” with a lot of breathing space.  The gentle electronic score is truly divine, and Doyle’s photography is lovely, although I’m not entirely sold on the desaturated color palette.  Perhaps it matches Kenji’s deadened emotional state, though.  I’d also forgotten the mafia elements, which provide an occasional break in the more somber tones of the rest of the picture.

Tadanobu Asano (who is in practically everything — including, I just discovered, Thor) is terrific as always, but I’m actually more taken with Sinitta Boonyasak as Noi, a more engaging and entertaining presence.  With Kenji so withdrawn and interior, it’s up to Noi to provide most of the emotional beats, and Boonyasak conveys them quite nicely.  Speaking of Asano, there’s an amusing little insert of an Ichi the Killer poster, which also ties in to Takashi Miike’s brief appearance in the film.  I wondered if the delayed main title was inspired by Weerasethakul doing the same thing the previous year in Blissfully Yours, or just a coincidence.

I find 6ixtynin9 a more enjoyable movie all around, but the mysteries of Last Life coupled with its meditations on loneliness and connections still make it a very endearing film, one that I should revisit more often.  Rating: Very Good

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Glengarry Glen Ross (rewatch)

When I last watched this in 2005, I said “I don’t know if I’d watch it again…. I’ve seen it too many times.”  It took 7 years, but I did finally watch it again (for what is probably at least the 10th time) and although I wouldn’t say it gets better every time, it doesn’t get any worse.  Mamet’s dialogue hasn’t lost any of its magical punch.  Such a wonderful dance of words, with all those distinct inflections and pauses and odd turns of phrase (“You would know if you ever spent a day in your life”) that sound wrong but so, so right.  And such delightful bursts of profanity, and even the names are memorable.  Bruce and Harriet Niborg (or “Harriet and Blah-Blah Niborg”), James Lingk, Mitch and Murray, and of course the notorious “Patel”.

And it’s delivered by one of the best ensembles ever put together.  Alec Baldwin’s brief appearance is rightfully lauded and remembered for its viciousness, and Jack Lemmon turns in possibly the greatest performance of his career.  Just the scene where he realizes he’s busted but he’s still squirming around in his lies is masterful.  All the others are pitch-perfect as well… Spacey, Harris, Arkin, Pryce.  It’s a wonderful cast.  And obviously, overwhelmingly male.  This is a film about defining manhood in the modern world, or at least in this corner of it.  Your only measure of worth as a man is your ruthlessness, your willingness to screw over the other guy by any means necessary.  Baldwin asserts his masculinity with the value of his car and his watch.  And the most incapable of deception is the most emasculated.  “I can’t negotiate” he says almost apologetically, as if unworthy of his gender.  And when hostilities arise and the profanities start flying, there’s usually a denigrating remark about one’s sexuality (“You fairy”) thrown in the mix.  Survival in this world means defending your manhood in no uncertain terms, and lording it over others.

Done with neo-noir style — the cool jazz and empty rain-slicked streets and bright colors in dark places — it’s an experience well worth returning to, with a screenplay that’s endlessly quotable.  Rating: Great

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Hiroshima mon amour (rewatch)

The first time I saw this, I loved it.  The second time, I liked it.  Now I’m somewhere in between.  It’s certainly an exceptionally well made film.  The cinematography (duties split between Sacha Vierny and Michio Takahashi) is gorgeous and evocative, bringing forth images and movements that’s often lyrical, often haunting.  Likewise, the editing is clever, pulling together past and present, France and Japan, creating thoughtful connections and juxtapositions.  And the music by Delerue and Fusco is lovely as well.  It’s a movie that looks and sounds fantastic, one can easily get lost in its aesthetic stimulation.

And its cloudy handling of memory and identity fits well into Resnais’ oeuvre, as “She” and “He” go through a confused mishmash of pronouns and tenses.  He is Hiroshima, she is Nevers, he is she and she is you and you were he.  The importance of remembering and forgetting, tied into the horrors of the war.  It’s a complex piece of work that, like Marienbad, doesn’t let you easily decipher it.  Are “She” and “He” metaphorical analogues for their respective countries, or are the countries emblematic of their characters?

But it doesn’t quite agree with me, at least not to the extent that Marienbad does.  The solemnity of the dialogue/monologue is almost laughably heavy at times, like someone’s mock idea of what “art movies” are like.  It works in Marienbad where the subject is so much more abstract, but when it’s supposed to be a couple talking honestly about their feelings, it rings false.  They’re both so dour and introspective, it doesn’t work as a believable love affair.  And on a personal level, I have a problem with characters who are this nonchalant about their infidelity to their spouses.  But if you accept the film on its own terms, on Resnais’s terms, it’s quite a marvelous and fascinating experience.  It takes some effort to get past all that weightiness, but the effort can be rewarding.  Rating: Very Good

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The Wicker Tree

Robin Hardy’s 1973 classic The Wicker Man is one of my favorite movies in the world.  It’s a gloriously strange and unique film, mixing horror, suspense, music and comedy with both innocence and menace.  There’s nothing else quite like it, a wholly original piece of work that weaves a spell over the viewer.  It may seem unfair to measure this film (based on Hardy’s novel “Cowboys for Christ”) against its predecessor to see how it stacks up, but Hardy is practically begging the comparison.  The story concerns a rosy-cheeked country/gospel singer and her beau, invited to a small Scottish village, ostensibly to convert the local heathens.  But as you may have guessed, it’s all a ruse to ensnare them in a pagan ritual.

This attempt to catch lightning in a bottle twice fails on several levels.  In the original, Sergeant Howie’s quest for the missing girl drives the plot forward, gives the “hero” a reason for digging into the village’s secrets.  Here there’s no such momentum.  The little we see of the paganism is revealed haphazardly, an occasional bone thrown to the audience.  It throws off that balance of innocence and menace.  The tone is still weird, but not in a compelling, consistent way.  The attempts at humor are weak, and the themes of Christian self-righteousness barely explored.  There’s also a cameo by Christopher Lee that’s completely useless, dare I say boring.  It only serves to remind the viewer that you’re not watching The Wicker Man.  And the titular tree feels more like an afterthought than anything else, another unnecessary tie-in to the original film without its awesome power.  I almost forgot to mention the ridiculous “nuclear accident” subplot, a lousy attempt to provide motivation where none is needed.

It’s not a total loss, however.  The music isn’t nearly as memorable, but there are a couple of good tunes.  Britannia Nichol and Henry Garrett aren’t that great, but surprisingly not awful either.  More satisfying are Graham McTavish in the update of the Christopher Lee role and amazingly named Honeysuckle Weeks in a part that’s roughly analogous to the Britt Ekland part (although with a silly character shift at the end).  Except for a few cheesy effects, it’s shot very nicely.  And there are odd, unusual bits to savor, just not very many of them.  But on the whole, I can’t recommend it except as a curiosity for fans of The Wicker Man.  Maybe it’s not a complete disaster, but it is a misstep that’s unlikely to gain anywhere near the same cult following.  Rating: Poor

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The Cabin in the Woods

When my wife and I first started seeing each other, we went to the movies all the time.  Just about every weekend, and usually a double feature.  I estimate I saw at least 120 films in the theater between 2002 and 2004 (most of them terrible, but my wife has very different taste than I do, and I didn’t really care that much).  Then it tapered off, and we both got much more comfortable watching movies at home on DVD.  In the past five years, I’ve been to the theater only a small handful of times.  The last one was Inception and that was only because my dad was in town and it was something to do.

In a perfect world, the theater experience should be the ideal one.  A dark room, a large screen, an appreciative audience, killer sound system.  But I discovered I haven’t been missing much.  The one advantage is that seeing a movie during its theatrical release gives you the opportunity to discuss it at the same time everyone else is.  I’ve been late to the party on all the newest films.  But I still prefer the home experience.  Endless commercials and trailers for movies I’m not interested in.  A seat far less comfy than my couch.  A guy right behind me munching loudly from his bottomless tub of popcorn.  A couple arriving 15 minutes late (why even bother?) wanting to squeeze past me.  No thank you.  I’m not writing off the theater entirely (it was nice for a hermit like me to do something outside of the house for once) but for the most part, I’ll stick with my couch.

Still, I didn’t have much else on my plate and I wanted to see this so I took the trip.  I am a fan of “Buffy” and “Angel” and “Firefly” so a Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard production with such good word-of-mouth sounded like a safe bet.  And it was.  It’s in the tradition of self-aware horror/comedies like The Evil Dead and Scream (and loaded with references to plenty of others… another area where a pause feature would be handy) but with enough originality and surprises to feel fresh.  The horror genre is one that gets “subverted” a lot, but Whedon and Goddard managed to come up with a few new ways to turn it on its ear.  There were some parts clearly meant to be funny that I wasn’t very amused by (mostly involving the Fran Kranz character) but there’s a lot of humor — especially that in the usual Whedon vein — that works really nicely.  The performances generally aren’t that great, not that they necessarily need to be in this style of film but it might have helped a little.  However, it’s a lot of fun and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.  On my couch.  Rating: Very Good

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Citizen Kane (rewatch)

What kind of review shall I write for Citizen Kane?  Shall I acknowledge the film’s titanic canonical stature, its topping of the Sight & Sound poll for 5 decades running and probably on track for a sixth?  Its seemingly unassailable position as “one of the greatest films ever made” if not the greatest?  Its entry into the common vernacular as the movie by which all others are judged (“Well, it’s no Citizen Kane…”)?

Shall I discuss the influential technical achievements?  The gorgeous lighting that sets the tone for the next several years of film noir?  The beautifully executed deep focus photography by Gregg Toland?  The numerous special effects, many of them practically imperceptible but all the more effective for it?  The gothic look?  The visible ceilings and low angles?  The sound effects and Herrmann score?  The production design and the makeup?

Shall I talk about its multiple flashback structure?  The “unreliable narrator” motif?  The phony newsreel footage, or the “Rosebud” McGuffin?  Shall I critique the performances, pointing out which ones work and which ones don’t and which ones are forgettable?

Shall I expound on the film’s themes?  Loneliness, power, ambition, pride, arrogance, media manipulation, what is it to know a man?  Shall I cook up some offbeat theories and interpretations of my own?  Maybe it’s all a grand allegory for the Spanish Inquisition.  Maybe it’s a dramatically revised version of “Beowulf.”  I’m not good at this.

Shall I pummel the reader with obvious trivia?  Did you know it’s based on William Randolph Hearst?  Did you know that no one is actually present to hear Kane’s dying words?  Did you hear about the clitoris thing?  You did, didn’t you?  Of course you did.

Shall I hop aboard the critical bandwagon and praise it as a masterpiece?  Shall I take the stance of the jaded filmgoer, who’s seen it all before (and better) and damn it with a resounding “meh”?  Shall I be the freethinking rebel and declare it an overrated piece of crap?  Side with Ingmar Bergman and claim it’s a “total bore”?

Shall I ask a bunch of rhetorical questions to disguise the fact that I have no godly idea how to write this review?

Shall I just throw my opinions out there casually, and ignore whatever “important stuff” there might be to say about Citizen Kane?  Isn’t that what everyone else does?  Is there no way to be at all original when writing about this goddamn movie?  And who cares what I think about Citizen Kane anyway?  You all have your own opinions already.  I’m not introducing you to this film for the first time, and if I am, go watch it quick before someone laughs at you for being so uncultured.

It doesn’t matter what I write, someone will disagree and want to start an argument.  And I don’t feel like arguing because I have no strong opinions about it.  That’s what it really boils down to in the end.  It would be silly for me to deny its profound and lasting importance, which I do recognize and admire.  There are scenes that are really dynamite (my personal favorite is the party with the dancing girls).  It’s a damn good movie with a lot of genius behind it, and kicked off one of the most interesting careers in cinema history.  But I feel no great affection for it.  I don’t get excited to watch it… hell, it’s been about 10 years since the last time.  For all its outstanding and influential qualities, it doesn’t blow me away with its magnificence or sweep me off my feet.  This isn’t a “meh” review.  It’s a quality piece of work.  It’s just not close to my heart.  Argue away if you want, though I’ve left you little of substance to argue with.  I’ll probably be busy watching something else.  Rating: Very Good

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What Have I Done to Deserve This?

Talk about your dysfunctional families.  Gloria (Carmen Maura) is a cleaning woman, addicted to No-Doz and when we first meet her she has sex with a stranger.  Her husband Antonio (Angel de Andres-Lopez) is a taxi driver with a talent for forgery, who longs to be with the German opera singer he used to chauffeur for.  Antonio’s mother (Chus Lampreave) is a tightwad who hoards mineral water.  Gloria has two sons… one sells heroin and the other is a 12-year-old who has sex with the fathers of his friends.  And that’s just in Gloria’s apartment.  Weaving in and out of her life are a prostitute, a little girl with psychic powers, a blackmailer, a kleptomaniac, an alcoholic, and a lizard named “Dinero.”  And then there’s a little murder….

This is an early film in Almodovar’s career, but you can see the style taking shape.  The outrageous melodrama, the stories-within-a-story (was that a soap opera or a really twisted coffee commercial?), the complex webs of coincidence, the garish color schemes, the black comedy.  Maura is terrific as always… I need to check out her work beyond Almodovar.  The film is funny and never dull, with some bizarre surprises (Gloria’s “payment” to the dentist is something else!).  It’s a nice-looking movie with no sour notes.  But it does feel kind of scattershot and doesn’t come together as beautifully as his best films.  The characters aren’t crafted with enough affection to make the viewer invested in their lives.  They feel incomplete.  There also doesn’t appear to be an overarching theme.  Most of the characters are trying to make a buck, but it doesn’t feel like the driving force behind the film.

But it’s a very enjoyable bit of entertainment with a lot of quirky edge to it.  Not too quirky for the most part, though there are a few moments which strain that boundary.  It’s an interesting glimpse into the development of the Almodovar style, and should be worthwhile for any of his fans.  Rating: Good

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Patton Oswalt: Finest Hour

I thought by avoiding this on television, I’d go into the DVD with a completely fresh perspective.  But, whoops, somehow I completely forgot that I’d already listened to the album.  So it wasn’t at all new to me, but there were still uproariously funny bits.  The whole “Give me all the ham” routine is hilarious, and there are other big belly laughs throughout.  Some have called this Oswalt’s worst special, but I enjoyed it more than My Weakness is Strong, which I thought was a rather appropriate title.  I was concerned that Patton was losing his touch, but here he’s got it back.  At least partially… there are parts that aren’t too great.  The “skunk” story completely fizzles out, despite how much Oswalt seems amused by it.  And I swear, I never ever need to hear another rant about how nuts it is to believe in the Bible.  It’s like the “airplane food” subject of alt comedy.  I’m on your side, guys, but that well has run dry.  Still, the good outweighs the not-so-good and there are plenty of chuckles to be had.  The DVD has some extra features, but the only good one is the encore revisiting the KFC material.  Rating: Very Good

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The Curse of Frankenstein

File this under “unpopular opinions” but I wasn’t too smitten with this, the first of the “Hammer Horror” productions.  It moves swiftly and features fairly strong performances by Peter Cushing as the Baron and Robert Urquhart as his mentor/sidekick Krempe.  The postwar theme of scientists fiddling with powers too great not to do evil is a somewhat interesting twist.  But I failed to be enthralled by the film as a whole.  Christopher Lee has an unusual staggering walk that makes the monster menacing (and a wonderful hint of anguish and sorrow), but we see very little of him.  Mostly the film concentrates on the relationship dynamics between the Baron, his fianceé/cousin Elizabeth (a cleavage-heavy, or heavy-cleavage, performance by Hazel Court) and Krempe as Frankenstein gets more ambitious and ruthless.  In theory, I don’t mind the film being focused on that aspect of the story, but I wanted a little more horror in my horror flick.  The color photography provides for a few lurid shots, but mostly it harms more than it helps, robbing the scenes of their gothic overtones.  I should also mention that I have no particular affection for the classic monster stories, so perhaps I am less appreciative of the variations on their telling.  So maybe I’m just not the right audience for this.  I didn’t hate it by any means, but I was also never excited to be watching it.  Rating: Fair

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