"Iron Man 2," "The Sound of Music," "Hard Candy"
There exists a list of things one must never do. Among them are "don't tug on Superman's cape" and "don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger." Suffice it to say, it is a comprehensive collection of sage admonishments. I would like to humbly add one more:
"Don't turn 'Iron Man 2' into a fucking commercial for the upcoming "Avengers" franchise."
To be fair, there was a pretty decent film in there somewhere. The plot didn't make a lot of sense (as Stark's implant is not connected to his circulatory system) and the pseudoscience was less believeable than the first one (the script kept mixing up "atom" and "molecule"), but Rourke played a decent villain and Cheadle was just fine as Rhodes. And, of course, Downey Jr. was as much fun as he ever is.
But the story was lumpy and inconsistent. It seemed to me that every scene with the (unnamed) Black Widow and Nick Fury was shoehorned into the film, as the scenes had little connection with the scenes preceding and following them. Samuel L. Jackson is really starting to bore me with how he only ever plays Jules Winnfeld and the Black Widow could literally have been played by a mannequin. She had very few lines and zero relevance to the story. Her entire job was focused on flopping those hilariously-fake tits around in front of the camera, probably at the exact moments when the test audience's attention lapsed the most.
But worst of all is something I'm almost a little ashamed to admit: it didn't have enough explosions. By which I mean the action sequences were few and far between. Normally, the lack of big dumb pyrotechnics and big dumb CG effects doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm not someone who exclusively enjoys the fartsiest of artsy foreign films about philosophy. But "Iron Man's" effects were particularly good, and very tasteful as well. "Iron Man" was, in my never-humble opinion, basically perfect for what it was trying to do.
It seems to me like they had a pretty solid script at one point, but someone leaned on them to make it a lead-in to "The Avengers," and so a lot of important stuff (like Tony Stark's raging alcoholism and Whiplash's and War Machine's character development) got compressed and deleted to make room for Samuel L. Jackson to be pithy and for Ms. Johansson to be Kung Fu Barbie.
But they saved the worst for last. The final showdown between Whiplash and Iron Man and War Machine lasts about 30 seconds. And that's being generous, it could have easily been about 25.
There's a lot of individual elements about "Iron Man 2" that work. The army, navy, air force and marine drones, for example, were great, albeit both underutilized and too easily dispatched. Stark getting drunk in the Iron Man suit needed to happen and needed to be the cornerstone of the plot. War Machine nearly stole the film when he (finally) appeared, and not just because Cheadle is a very accomplished actor. And Gary Shandling as Stark's senator foil was magnificent.
Unfortunately for us all, the producers definitely seemed more interested in advertising the next pointless superhero movie than making another good one. The phrase "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" comes to mind.
I never imagined I'd be saying this, but don't waste your money. Everything that made the first one good has been at best minimized and at worst wholly deleted by Marvel's marketing department. If you enjoyed the first one as much as I did, there is nothing for you here.
I don't know what possessed me to watch "The Sound of Music", apart from addressing a glaring omission in my appreciation for musical theater, but I think it may have been the snippet shown to the Holnists in Costner's "The Postman," which I watched for the 85th or 86th time recently. Everyone to whom I've mentioned this ends up gaping at me like I had casually mentioned that I've accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord, savior, accountant, publicist and fluffer. It's not exactly my normal fare: even the musicals I'm most fond of tend to involve transylvanian transvestites and grave-robbing drug dealers.
But, friends, I will tell you this: when "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" started up, this big, goofy grin twisted across my face and didn't loosen itself until the credits. Julie Andrews was even more of a delight than she was in "Mary Poppins" and I have a feeling I'm going to check out "My Fair Lady" and "Victor/Victoria" before too long, in addition to checking out more of Rogers and Hammerstein's stuff.
It was even a well-told story. From the moment they appear one is given to hate Uncle Child Rapist and the Baroness Cunt, but they both turn out to really not be so bad. In truth, I wasn't expecting more than Iago and Cruella DeVil but even there it surprised me.
Finally, I was behooven by the esteemed bloodangel to reconsider Ellen "Juno" Paige's acting credentials by watching one of her earlier films, "Hard Candy." And reconsider I did! Despite her eerie, unsettling resemblance in both form and movement to Haley Joey Osment, Miss Paige has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she can do quite well when not shackled to a script as insulting as "Juno."
It's a time-worn tale: a 14 year old girl seeks out a pedophile on the internet, they meet, she ties him up, and tortures him for his crimes. I think Echo or Calliope did that in Greek myth.
But while the premise might be a bit unusual, that's hardly the only thing. The direction, cinematography, and set design are all unusually good. As are the performances of the two principle actors. As, indeed, is the script.
That rank hack Diablo Cody really should have learned a lesson here: Ellen Paige can pull off shockingly mature-for-her-age (think Natalie Portman in "The Professional" only moreso), but not in the presence of "ironic" hamburger phones and Sunny Delight. And that misusing Ms. Paige should be a crime punishable by having your thumbs cut off, your tongue pulled out, and your eyes put out so that the only way one might ever write a script again is by banging it out in Morse Code against your headboard.
I simply cannot wait to see more of her in the upcoming "Kick-Ass" ripoff "Super" and in "Inception." The girl might well be the next Jodie Foster.
But anyway, "Hard Candy" constantly challenges the viewer to determine who the hero of the story is and who the villain is, and does so in an amazingly stylish manner.
Iron Man 2: C-
The Sound of Music: A
Hard Candy: A
EDIT// Additionally, I think I'll head this off at the pass.
No, I don't "hate everything." I simply hate everything that's not very good, and your sentimentality, admirable as it may or may not be, is immaterial. "Iron Man" was, like I said, essentially perfect. Tightly directed, expertly written, great effects, superbly acted. It's good enough that I dispense with the "superhero-" qualification when I talk about it.
This one wasn't nearly as good. I respect quality, and there are a lot of films (some intentionally good, some quite unintentionally so in the case of "Hackers") that I can go on and on singing their praises. There were two in this here review.
Neither of them was the great sequel I had been champing at the bit for since the credits rolled on the first one.
"Don't turn 'Iron Man 2' into a fucking commercial for the upcoming "Avengers" franchise."
To be fair, there was a pretty decent film in there somewhere. The plot didn't make a lot of sense (as Stark's implant is not connected to his circulatory system) and the pseudoscience was less believeable than the first one (the script kept mixing up "atom" and "molecule"), but Rourke played a decent villain and Cheadle was just fine as Rhodes. And, of course, Downey Jr. was as much fun as he ever is.
But the story was lumpy and inconsistent. It seemed to me that every scene with the (unnamed) Black Widow and Nick Fury was shoehorned into the film, as the scenes had little connection with the scenes preceding and following them. Samuel L. Jackson is really starting to bore me with how he only ever plays Jules Winnfeld and the Black Widow could literally have been played by a mannequin. She had very few lines and zero relevance to the story. Her entire job was focused on flopping those hilariously-fake tits around in front of the camera, probably at the exact moments when the test audience's attention lapsed the most.
But worst of all is something I'm almost a little ashamed to admit: it didn't have enough explosions. By which I mean the action sequences were few and far between. Normally, the lack of big dumb pyrotechnics and big dumb CG effects doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm not someone who exclusively enjoys the fartsiest of artsy foreign films about philosophy. But "Iron Man's" effects were particularly good, and very tasteful as well. "Iron Man" was, in my never-humble opinion, basically perfect for what it was trying to do.
It seems to me like they had a pretty solid script at one point, but someone leaned on them to make it a lead-in to "The Avengers," and so a lot of important stuff (like Tony Stark's raging alcoholism and Whiplash's and War Machine's character development) got compressed and deleted to make room for Samuel L. Jackson to be pithy and for Ms. Johansson to be Kung Fu Barbie.
But they saved the worst for last. The final showdown between Whiplash and Iron Man and War Machine lasts about 30 seconds. And that's being generous, it could have easily been about 25.
There's a lot of individual elements about "Iron Man 2" that work. The army, navy, air force and marine drones, for example, were great, albeit both underutilized and too easily dispatched. Stark getting drunk in the Iron Man suit needed to happen and needed to be the cornerstone of the plot. War Machine nearly stole the film when he (finally) appeared, and not just because Cheadle is a very accomplished actor. And Gary Shandling as Stark's senator foil was magnificent.
Unfortunately for us all, the producers definitely seemed more interested in advertising the next pointless superhero movie than making another good one. The phrase "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" comes to mind.
I never imagined I'd be saying this, but don't waste your money. Everything that made the first one good has been at best minimized and at worst wholly deleted by Marvel's marketing department. If you enjoyed the first one as much as I did, there is nothing for you here.
I don't know what possessed me to watch "The Sound of Music", apart from addressing a glaring omission in my appreciation for musical theater, but I think it may have been the snippet shown to the Holnists in Costner's "The Postman," which I watched for the 85th or 86th time recently. Everyone to whom I've mentioned this ends up gaping at me like I had casually mentioned that I've accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord, savior, accountant, publicist and fluffer. It's not exactly my normal fare: even the musicals I'm most fond of tend to involve transylvanian transvestites and grave-robbing drug dealers.
But, friends, I will tell you this: when "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" started up, this big, goofy grin twisted across my face and didn't loosen itself until the credits. Julie Andrews was even more of a delight than she was in "Mary Poppins" and I have a feeling I'm going to check out "My Fair Lady" and "Victor/Victoria" before too long, in addition to checking out more of Rogers and Hammerstein's stuff.
It was even a well-told story. From the moment they appear one is given to hate Uncle Child Rapist and the Baroness Cunt, but they both turn out to really not be so bad. In truth, I wasn't expecting more than Iago and Cruella DeVil but even there it surprised me.
Finally, I was behooven by the esteemed bloodangel to reconsider Ellen "Juno" Paige's acting credentials by watching one of her earlier films, "Hard Candy." And reconsider I did! Despite her eerie, unsettling resemblance in both form and movement to Haley Joey Osment, Miss Paige has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she can do quite well when not shackled to a script as insulting as "Juno."
It's a time-worn tale: a 14 year old girl seeks out a pedophile on the internet, they meet, she ties him up, and tortures him for his crimes. I think Echo or Calliope did that in Greek myth.
But while the premise might be a bit unusual, that's hardly the only thing. The direction, cinematography, and set design are all unusually good. As are the performances of the two principle actors. As, indeed, is the script.
That rank hack Diablo Cody really should have learned a lesson here: Ellen Paige can pull off shockingly mature-for-her-age (think Natalie Portman in "The Professional" only moreso), but not in the presence of "ironic" hamburger phones and Sunny Delight. And that misusing Ms. Paige should be a crime punishable by having your thumbs cut off, your tongue pulled out, and your eyes put out so that the only way one might ever write a script again is by banging it out in Morse Code against your headboard.
I simply cannot wait to see more of her in the upcoming "Kick-Ass" ripoff "Super" and in "Inception." The girl might well be the next Jodie Foster.
But anyway, "Hard Candy" constantly challenges the viewer to determine who the hero of the story is and who the villain is, and does so in an amazingly stylish manner.
Iron Man 2: C-
The Sound of Music: A
Hard Candy: A
EDIT// Additionally, I think I'll head this off at the pass.
No, I don't "hate everything." I simply hate everything that's not very good, and your sentimentality, admirable as it may or may not be, is immaterial. "Iron Man" was, like I said, essentially perfect. Tightly directed, expertly written, great effects, superbly acted. It's good enough that I dispense with the "superhero-" qualification when I talk about it.
This one wasn't nearly as good. I respect quality, and there are a lot of films (some intentionally good, some quite unintentionally so in the case of "Hackers") that I can go on and on singing their praises. There were two in this here review.
Neither of them was the great sequel I had been champing at the bit for since the credits rolled on the first one.