Iron Man 3: The Art of Misdirection

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Iron Man 3

I have a hard time understanding superhero movies where the alter ego gets more screen time than the hero. Fifteen – twenty minutes out of an hour and a half runtime is a terrible ratio. I don’t know the exact amount of time Stark was in the suit, but it wasn’t enough to feel satisfying.

I enjoyed the movie. It hit all the right buttons. No one can play Stark like Robert Downey Jr. The special effects were brilliant. Best of all, Shane Black’s buddy-cop humor was as sharp as Wolverine’s adamantium claws. I left the film feeling like a child who wanted McDonalds but got a Mom burger.

And just like a Mom burger, with time I came to realize how much better Iron Man 3 was than a McDonalds burger.

It all came together for me during a conversation I had a few days after watching Iron Man. We’re both of a kind that likes to stay through the credits, even before they had the special teaser scene at the very end. While I can’t say I read all of the credits, I do scan them. Sometimes there’s interesting information in there. Somehow I missed an important line in Iron Man 3‘s credits: “Tony Stark will be back.”

Hmmm, I thought when my friend told me about this. The cogs started turning. The movie had made a point of having Stark say, “I’m still Iron Man” (without the suit). The whole thing came together when my friend pointed out that there were quite a few scenes where Iron Man, i.e. the suit, wasn’t being piloted by Stark.

Ah ha!

After Loki’s attack in NYC, Stark had lost himself in trying to make plans, and suits, for all contingencies. As a result the suits became a crutch that was holding him back. More precisely, it gave him the hubris to think that with all his suits he was invincible. He lost sight of the fundamental fact that even without the suit he is Iron Man.

So while it might seem like Black had missed the point in making a super hero movie, Stark needed to get away from the suit. To that end there’s something much bigger going on behind the scenes in the Marvel movie universe. And while the after credit scene was interesting, the real reveal was “Tony Stark will be back.”

Well played Black. Well played Marvel.

G.I. Joe Retaliation: Blind Master RZA… Huh?

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Making a live action version of a cartoon in the “gritty reality” zeitgeist in films these days presents an interesting challenge for filmmakers. For instance, how do you make a silver headed man named Destro realistically? More often than not, Destro spends most of the movie looking like a normal man, then in the last ten or fifteen minutes there’s the transformation. Camp is best masked by allowing it little screen time.

This presents the audience with a similarly interesting challenge, namely, buying into something as completely unbelievable as a silver headed man named Destro. Bottom line, you’ve got to know what you enjoy and what you don’t. For some, no matter how well established, Destro will never be a believable, or interesting, character. If you happened to have grown up playing with G.I. Joe action figures and/or watching the cartoon, you might be more forgiving.

Having established the story with The Rise of Cobra, Retaliation has an easier time getting into the story. In other words, Cobra Commander can run around with his reflective mask, there can be fantastic futurific weapons and vehicles, and impossible ninja fight scenes can happen without a lot of “blah, blah, blah.”

If you’re going to the movies to watch cool fights and explosions it’s better to have as little exposition as possible. And that’s what Retaliation delivers. We get to see the Joes doing some major ass kicking. We see them betrayed (and unlike the cartoon people die). We watch Cobra take over. We see the Joes regroup. And, finally, we see the Joes save the day.

The Rock is perfect as Roadblock. Adrianne Palicki is totally smokin’ hot as Jayne. Byung-hun Lee and Ray Park destroy as Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, respectively. At this point in the game I can take or leave Bruce Willis. He’s in every other action movie, and while I like him as an actor, there are plenty of other people who are just as good. Can we get a little, just a smidgen, of diversity here?

There is one casting choice that is just too much to suspend disbelief over, RZA as the grey-haired Blind Master. I really dig Wu-Tang. I love what RZA did with Afro Samurai. But he’s just not a Blind Master. I know how stupid it sounds to say I can be all in for all of the other bull mess, even the unnecessary middle finger to Best Korea, but RZA was the proverbial fart in the elevator. I haven’t seen The Man With the Iron Fists, which might change my thoughts here, but I doubt it.

I’ll say this, you can live your entire life, happily, without ever seeing this movie. You won’t hurt anyone’s feelings, too badly, if you give it a miss. There are better action films. That said, if you were into G.I. Joe as a kid, or just want some mindless action to take you away for a few hours, G.I. Joe Retaliation will scratch that itch.

The Host: Twilight 2.0

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I married on April Foods Day 2012. Why? Because I love pulling off the perfect practical joke. Also, April Fool’s Day is my favorite holiday and my wife is just as “traditional” as I am. Though she is not continuously devious as I am, she has managed some very good stunts. The best was her tricking me into marrying her on April Fool’s Day.

For our anniversary this year she’s struck again. This time she tricked me into watching The Host. In hindsight her plan was flawless. First, I don’t like to know much about the movies I go see beyond the genre, or writer, or director. In other words, I only want to know if the film is one that I might like seeing. Second, I was completely ignorant about The Host, so she sold me on the film with, “It’s about aliens taking over people’s bodies.”

Cool.

To her credit, she didn’t lie. That is an aspect of the film, and the title bares that out. If I had bothered to at least read the tagline on the poster I would have been warned of the true nature of the film: Choose to Believe. Choose to Fight. Choose to Love.

Oh. Hell. No.

Alas, I didn’t read it. I was blissfully unaware floating in the heady air of love myself. I was on a date with my sweetie, for our anniversary.

Ah.

I was put on alert when the pre-show was a bunch of interviews with Shovel Face (Robert Pattison) of Twilight fame. See, the Alamo Drafthouse has specialized pre-shows for all movies. The pre-shows are generally humorous, but always have something to do with the film being screened. They often have the actors of the film, or the director’s other films, or something along the same theme. Hmmmm. Shovel Face? Wait—

“Yeah. It’s written by Stephanie Meyer. I thought you knew,” she said innocently, doe eyes blink, blink, blinking.

[record scratching as the head is pulled off]

Mother. Fucker.

The lights went down. I was hot. She knows God damned good and well that I don’t look into movies before I go see them. And when I had asked her what The Host was she only offered, “It’s about aliens taking over people’s bodies.” She had me. Touché.

Well played, mon amie.

The Host is masturbatory aid for women who get off on hot three ways with two guys. I’m no prude, and have no problem with two guys on a girl, but this crap is worse than porn. With porn it’s the actors who are getting fucked. 

The whole runtime I’m thinking, “What’s next?” The Meyerverse formula is [genre] + [uninteresting yet amorous young woman] + [two hot guys (or one hot guy and one slightly mongoloid shovel face)] = dumb ass story. First was vampires and werewolves. This time it’s aliens. Next time maybe Luchadores, something for the hispanic viewers? Misery loves company. Why keep it all for the Wonder Bread Chalkies. Maybe time traveling space monkeys? Or why not cut through all the innuendo and bullshit and go straight to two giant cocks and a pussy? To make artsy it could be two roosters and a cat. Get it? Huh? Huh? Get it? It could be shot in black and white and have a lone cello playing the entire score.

Oooo. Dark and moody like a raven’s soul.

I’m not angry, with my wife. I’m not one of those assholes that can dish it out but can’t take it. She got me good, just in time for our April Fool’s anniversary. But, revenge is a dish best served cold, and oh how I’m looking forward to my meal for her.

Dark Skies: Instinctually Frightening

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Being completely powerless in a fight or flight situation is counter-intuitively calming. Most of us tend to get a bit overwrought when describing how bad we have it. So let me clarify here. When I write completely powerless I mean just that. For example, you’re completely powerless when you’re dying.

On February 6, 2005 I woke up having a heart attack. It was a total blockage. Had I not woke up when I did, I never would have. When I realized what was happening everything got quiet, just like in the movies. There was a moment where I wanted nothing more than to run, to claw my way out of myself. Pure terror. If I could only be somewhere else. Anywhere.

But I couldn’t. So, I was enveloped in the quiet calm.  

Dark Skies is the story of the Barrett family, a typical wonder bread suburban family: Daniel (Josh Hamilton), Lacy (Keri Russell), Jesse (Dakota Goyo) and Sam (Kadan Rockett). They have normal middle class problems. Daniel lost his job in the economic downturn and is having trouble getting back into the job market. Lacy is having to carry the family finically and is having a hard time doing so. Jesse, the eldest son, is hanging out with a ne’er-do-well older boy. And little Sam is lost in the shuffle.

Then someone takes everything out of the kitchen cabinets and stacks them in an incredible geometrical mobile. At first the strange events are easily blamed away, i.e. it’s the children acting up. After a while it’s obvious that the someone is not the boys. Someone is breaking into their house despite the security systems. At first content to rearranging their stuff, later the someone becomes interested in the family members themselves.

What would you do to protect your children when there’s absolutely nothing you can do to protect them? How do you do anything when you’re completely powerless? Those sounds like a stupid questions, but that’s what makes this movie so terrifying. Those “chosen” by the someone are likened to lab rats. What can a lab rat know of the intentions, abilities, etc., of the scientists experimenting on them? This someone is so beyond anything we can understand that there are no possibilities beyond just letting whatever happen.

The problem is magnified in that if the Barrett’s seek help they only isolate themselves further. This isn’t a commentary on humanity’s callous nature. No one faults us for being wary of alien abductees. Their stories are unbelievable. Nor is the film simply saying “what if” these things really happened? What if these crazy stories were true? The power of Dark Skies lies in the fact that it is a horror film that places the audience into a situation of complete powerlessness, in that moment of pure terror where you’re all alone even in a room full of people. It’s not built around the traditional scares where something’s jumping out at you, though it does have those moments. It goes deeper, to that instinctual fear of death. 

Dark Skies is a great change of pace from the usual blood and guts horror films. It’s truly frightening.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone: That Painfully Awkward Friend

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Every group of guys has that one painfully awkward friend. A poor schlep who just cannot grasp he is hopelessly incapable of normal social interactions. Sometimes the group as a whole suffers the same denial. At least that is the case with my group of friends. We love our idiot, name withheld to protect the uhm-tarded—let’s call him Special J. Because we love him we turn a blind eye to his peculiarities. That is, until the roller derby fund raiser.

One summer years ago, our local roller derby teams were hosting a silent auction, which was anything but silent considering the music was raucous rock-a-billy music. Because we were broke we stayed at the stage. After a few rounds those of us who could dance, myself and the Special J not included, got out on the floor and started cutting the rug with the derby girls. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t tempted, but I knew better. When it comes to dancing I have two left hooves. By the end of the round we were nursing Special J fired up like a little kid on espresso at a petting zoo. He snatched the first girl that walked by and commenced his assault.

I can call what he was doing dancing only by comparison to a mosh pit. He was slinging the poor woman around so violently that she was more of a weapon than a dance partner. He managed to clear a huge swatch of the dance floor. The room was small so it was just the two of them. They attracted the attention of the bass player who looked ready to stop playing and come to the girl’s defense. Luckily Special J decided to stop slinging her about. When she got her bearings she stopped him, patted him on the shoulder and bolted off the dance floor. Special J just shrugged and started gyrating and hopping.

I have no idea what music/beat he was hearing, but it was not what was being played. When I could no longer watch I turned to watch the band. The bass player was still watching Special J, and was so put off by his dancing that he lost the beat. The moment is frozen in my mind: the look of horror in the bass players eyes, Special J’s dancing fit, the crowd slowing coming back to dance albeit staying clear of the wild man. My eyes were opened. My illusions shattered. My dear friend is a hapless dork.

Dance as if no one is watching. Hmmm?

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is the cinematic equivalent to Special J. Vegas magicians with mullets performing a tired old act for years is about as entertaining to watch as listening to a bass player being thrown completely off beat by the terrible dancing of one of your best friends. The fall and triumphant return of the washed up magicians is as thrilling as being slung around by some drunk toenail chewing goon.

Where it’s easy to turn a blind eye to your friend who’s awkward, it’s hard to watch Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi, Jim Carey and Alan Arkin flop around on the big screen. Primus was right when they said, “They can’t all be zingers,” but one expects something redeeming with a cast like this. Comedy is hard and audiences can be unforgiving. Or maybe it’s just me. I have a hard time stomaching bad comedy. I’m still gonna love Special J no matter what he does, but for Steve Carell’s sake I hope his next movie is better than this.

Big Ass Spider!: Title Says It All

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Big Ass Spider

In 2010 Rubber nearly killed movies for me. Generally all I want to know about a movie is the genre, writer, director, or star(s). I know what appeals to me and what doesn’t; I attend the former, avoid the latter. More often than not I don’t watch trailers or previews. I like a certain amount of surprise.

When I came across Rubber’s trailer I was instantly smitten. Robert, a tire, comes to life and then discovers his telepathic ability to explode people and animals’ heads. While traveling through the desert he develops an intense obsession for a mysterious woman. The tagline: Are You TIRED of the Expected?

Ah. Hell. Yeah.

Some films that are exactly what they advertise, some are pretentious garbage. Rubber was the latter, which is why it turned me off of movies. Luckily there are filmmakers like Mike Mendez who know a genre, love the genre and can produce a film that delivers. Big Ass Spider! is exactly that kind of a movie.

Big Ass Spider! will never win an Oscar. It will be lucky to get a limited theater run. It is full of cheesy CGI, explosions and blood. There is the gratuitous girls in bikinis playing volley scene. The plot is typical “military science has over stepped its bounds and created a monster” construction. In a Q&A after the screening at SXSW, Mike Mendez himself admitted that there was a good likelihood that the film would eventually be the movie of the week on SyFy (though as of yet there’s no specific plans).

In other words, the title really does say it all.

While it would seem like I’m bagging on Big Ass Spider!, I’m really not. This movie is full of heart and a lot of fun. Alex Mathis (Greg Grunberg) is an exterminator, a regular Joe looking for the American dream. Actually, he is just looking for paying customers and a date. A trip to the ER lands him in the middle of a hunt for a genetically modified spider which is growing exponentially bigger. With the help of the hospital’s security guard, Jose Ramos (Lombardo Boyar), Alex has to take out a big ass spider to save the world, and hopefully impress the girl, Lieutenant Karly Brant (Clare Kramer). While Mendez was very limited in his means for effects, and the simplicity of the plot, it’s the strength of the chemistry between Alex and Jose that makes the film so entertaining.

If you are a fan of the big monster genre Big Ass Spider! is a great film to waste a Friday night on.

Evil Dead: Sick, Intense, Gory, Joy Ride Of A Remake!

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Evil Dead

What does a 454 big block, an amp that has a volume knob that goes to eleven, and the new Evil Dead all have in common? They are all balls-to-the-wall bad ass. Currently in film and television the zeitgeist is gritty reality, which is great, don’t get me wrong, but for those of us who are fans of the original movie, it is awesome to experience an over-the-top, completely unrealistic horror movie.

Evil Dead is a sandwich of bug nut crazy and gritty drama. The film opens with an intensity that pegs into the red. When I write intense, I mean cranked up to eleven. Seriously. What you see in the first five minutes of the movie really sets the levels for what’s to come. That’s why I cannot admonish strongly enough that you strap in and hold on tight.

Writer/Director Fede Alvarez then backs off, thankfully, to allow you to catch your breath. Here you are introduced to five twenty-somethings: Mia (Jane Levy), Olivia (Jessica Lewis), David (Shiloh Fernandez), Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) who have come out to the secluded cabin to help Mia quit her heroin addiction, cold turkey. The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis is found, passages read, and strange things start happening—to Mia.

Quitting cold turkey can lead to disturbing behavior, so Mia’s friends are understandably incredulous when she starts going mad. As you know, or could guess, from here on out it’s just a matter of how many of the five are going to die before they realize that the twitching, blood shot eyes and explosive vomiting are more than just symptoms of her detox.

Without ruining anything, by the time they catch on there is so much feces on the fan that it is completely lost under a metric-ton mound of muck.

Evil Dead is a fan movie. That is, it’s made by a Evil Dead geek, for Evil Dead geeks. If you are a fan, you will enjoy this movie. If you enjoy gore, this is a movie for you. If, on the other hand, you expect a little more than sensationalism from your movies this does have some flaws. First, the gritty reality slows down the film, and juxtaposed to the sheer intensity of the gory parts, the film feels disjointed and uneven. Second, the self-reference, the parts that the geeks will slobber over, can be a bit much when looking at the film critically. I am absolutely one of the window-licking geeks when it comes to Evil Dead, and the little kid in me loved all the call backs to the original movie. But, and there’s always a but, there were so many that rather than being a nice homage, it was as if Fede was too scared to allow his version of the movie stand on its own. The tributes were like training wheels on a Harley.

Thankfully Bruce Campbell does not make a cameo in the film. Ash is without a doubt an icon, but he is best left to the original. If he had been in this film it would have been too much, and even he admitted so himself in the Q&A following the film. This is something new, and as such deserves a clean start (which is why the amount of homage can be bothersome). Mr. Campbell loved working on this film as a producer. Besides, he’s ready to let someone new, and younger, take all the buckets of blood and yuck to the face. I can not blame him for that.

Speaking of the Q&A, just so you know, Fede Alvarez is already working on a script for a sequel—and, no, Bruce Campbell will not be in it, either.

Evil Dead is sick, intense, gory, puss-filled joy ride of a film, made by and for people who loved the original film. Taken in those terms this movie absolutely rocks. When available, this DVD will live proudly on your shelf next to the originals.