My Quest to See the 1000 Greatest Films: #780 Thru #799

Here is a look at the latest batch of twenty films in my Quest to See the 1000 Greatest Films.  A complete look at my quest can be viewed HERE.

#780 - The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) - (#131 on TSPDT)  More oft than not, the Best Picture Oscar winner is a rather tepid, ordinary kind of affair, and at first glance, The Best Years of Our Lives seems like it is going to be just that.  But then one gets a rather welcome surprise - the film is actually very good, and even maybe somewhat deeper than is to be expected.  The performances given by Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright and Fredric March really help this along.  Yeah, it does tend to get more than a bit schmaltzy now and then, but overall a surprisingly well-done piece of cinema

#781 - True Heart Susie (1919) - (#953 on TSPDT)  Griffith and Gish, together again.  The adorable Gish is at one of her more Gishier moments here and her performance makes this film shine much brighter than it most likely would have with someone else in the role.  Griffith, for all his supposed groundbreaking cinematic tricks and tropes (many of which should be rightfully attributed to others, but that is another story altogether), always had a rather Victorian mindset, but even with this inherent old-fashionedness, his films come forth as being ahead of their time in many ways.  But of course this film's best attribute is Gish at her Gishiest. 

#782 - The Spider's Stratagem (1970) - (#899 on TSPDT)  I would definitely call this lesser Bertolucci.  Sure it has some really fun cinematic moments - after all, it is Bertolucci - but overall the film drags too often to be considered great, and also too often to be included on this list, even at its rather low ranking.

#783 - Los Olvidados (1950) - (#115 on TSPDT)  I love love love this film.  No really, I love it.  I am not sure what I was expecting - my attitude toward Buñuel definitely runs hot and cold, though his Mexican period is usually the hotter era - but what I got was one of my favourite films of 1950.  In fact I would place this film, in all its Buñuelian glory (actually this is my favourite period in cinema, period), in my top 200 of all-time.  Maybe even in my top 150.  We will find out for sure when this whole quest is over and I actually compile said list.

#784 - The 47 Ronin (1941/42) - (#807 on TSPDT)  Grand and epic Mizoguchi.  Actually kind of boring, especially considering it is a film by a director who can make his winding camera make anything look good.  And yes, Mizoguchi's wandering camera does do its thing here, but even with my admiration for Japanese cinema and the Jidai-Geki genre particularly, I could not keep interested here.  A shame really.

#785 - The Shop Around the Corner (1940) - (#206 on TSPDT) Lubitsch is always great.  I tend to go more for his pre-code work but this is still a more than solid film with that always great Lubitsch touch and a pair of more than solid performances by James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.  Witty and sometimes wicked (though not the way he was in his best work (Trouble in Paradise and Design for Living) the film is perhaps ranked a bit too high here.  I will probably end up placing it around 600 or 650.

#786 -  Providence (1977) - (#408 on TSPDT)  A strange strange English-language film from the usually more Gallic Alain Resnais.  Fun and quite twisted, taking place mostly in the mad mad mind of Sir John Gielguld's eccentric dying novelist.  The fun comes with how the story keeps changing, keeps evolving as our writer changes the story of his novel.  Fun indeed.

#787 - People On Sunday (1930) - (#978 on TSPDT)  This one was a welcome surprise.  Having bought the Criterion Bluray more than six months ago, I finally took this one off the proverbial shelf, and plopped it in the player.  What came out was a fascinating half-doc, non-actor, precursor to all the verite and reality cinema that has recently pervaded the cinematic world stage.  I actually sat in what one could and would call rapt attention.  Why it is so low on the list while much inferior films are well above it, we may never know.  Personally I would place it in the top 200 easy.

#788 - Gunga Din (1939) - (#747 on TSPDT)  Evidently I did not know much about this film going in because I was expecting a much more dramatic film that what I got.  Perhaps something more akin to Lawrence of Arabia or maybe Sgt. York.  Instead, Gunga Din, though it does have lots of action and drama throughout, is a quite funny film.  Much more comedic moments that I ever expected.  This does not make the film any lesser to me though.  It is a very fun film, and Cary Grant and Doug Fairbanks Jr. are both quite fun inside the film.  Hooha!

#789 - La Région centrale (1971) - (#593 on TSPDT)  Really!?  Really !?  Now anyone who knows me knows how much I hate experimental film - at least 97% of it anyhow - so it should come as no surprise how dreadfully bored I was while watching this 3 plus hour (!!???) work of supposed art.  I mean really!?  Michael Snow plants a robotic camera on the top of a mountain and turns it on, letting it spin back and forth and round and round, recording the sky and the dirt and the trees, and lets it go for more than three hours.  Really!?  Are we expected to watch this and enjoy it?  It is ridiculous!  Sure, some experimental film works (most notably the Snow-directed Wavelength) and most of it only works in short form.  Perhaps these images would be a nice inclusion between scenes of a Tarkovsky film, but on its own, for three plus hours?  No thanks.  Why this is is ranked so high, or why it is even on the list at all, befuddles the fuck out of me.  This is not cinema - this is something else.

#790 - A Touch of Zen (1971) - (#470 on TSPDT)  This film kinda blew me away.  The classic wuxia film that inspired such modern day wirefu films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero and House of Flying Daggers, this King Hu work (my first and so far only look at Hu) is a blast.  Long, wandering camera takes, quick-paced bursts of action, visually stunning shots, this film is, well, like I said, it kinda blew me away.  So much so that I wrote a piece for The Large Association of Movie Blogs' Wuxia event.  It can be read at A Touch of Zen and the Art of the Wuxia Film.  And we have another one for my personal top 200.

#791 - The Black Cat (1934) - (#987 on TSPDT)  Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, what could be better?  Seriously though, this is a fun fun fun b-movie from the classic days of Universal Horror.  I could listen/watch Karloff do pretty much anything and throw him into a classic piece of horror, and you got yourself a blast of a movie.  It certainly is not a great work of cinema, but for those of us who love cheap b-movies (see, I am not really a film snob after all) it is a blast.

#792 - Outskirts (1933) - (#640 on TSPDT)  When it comes to the Soviet cinema of the 1920's and 30's, one could easily make a claim for a seen-one-see-em-all kind of mentality.  Save for Potemkin and The Man With the Movie Camera, and maybe Earth, they really do blend in together for this critic.  Just a few weeks after seeing this film, which I remember being a solidly-made work of Soviet Cinema, I really cannot remember much else of it.  C'est la vie.

#793 - Cabaret (1972) - (#264 on TSPDT)  Between its dark tragic humour, its seventies-esque cinematography, its flashy, decadent musical numbers, the giddy, twisted performance of Joel Grey and the lustful Liza leering, Cabaret is a a much better film than I expected.it to be.  I am not sure why I expected so little out of the film, but for some reason I did, and in the end I was pleasantly surprised.  Enough of a surprise that now I am going to have to go and adjust by Best of the 1970's list.  

#794 - My Life as a Dog (1985) - (#461 on TSPDT)  I have never been much of a Lasse Hallstrom fan.  His films have a solid directorial foundation, but they always end up eyes-deep in schmaltzy phlegm.  This rather trite, cutesy-pie film (and yes, a film that is essentially a tragedy in many ways can still be cutesy-pie) is far from a bad film, but pretty damn close to a really really annoying one.

#795 - To Sleep With Anger (1990) - (#904 on TSPDT)  Upon hearing my rather tepid response to this film, many fellow cinephiles got all up-in-arms about how great this film is.  Sorry, I just don't see it.  Directed with the most pedestrian, Made-for-TV blandness and with a screenplay (based on the play) that never takes it beyond the aforementioned pedestrianism, this Charles Burnett film (and he made Killer of Sheep, one of the best films of the 1970's) ends up being one of the least interesting, save for most of the so-called experimental nonsense, films on the list.  Sorry all you lovers out there, I must call myself a hater.

#796 - Caro Diario (1993) - (#853 on TSPDT)  I had only seen one Nanni Moretti prior to this and quite liked it.  This film is not near as powerful as The Son's Room, nor is it as cleanly made, but still this pseudo-doc creature, reminding me a lot of a funnier, more absurdist Kiarostami, has many fine moments - especialy the quite hilarious "surprise" encounter with Jennifer Beals (Jenneefer Beeeals!!).

#797 - Mephisto (1981) - (#827 on TSPDT)  When discussing the individual performances in  films, one of the most cliche'd, hackneyed things to say (and we see it so often in the poster blurbs of all those poster whores out there) is how an actor/actress gave a tour de force performance.  The saying is pure critical drivel, and people like Mr. Travers of Rolling Stone should know better (just to name the most obvious big-name culprit of the bunch).  Of course after watching Mr. Klaus Maria Brandauer's bravura (probably another cliche'd term) performance in Mephisto, one is probably bound to let oneself go and say such a thing about said performance.  I will not, but you get the idea.  Sadly though, once one gets beyond Brandauer's performance, one is left with not very much at all.  But still, we have that so-called tour de force performance to keep us busy.

#798 - The Fireman's Ball (1967) - (#746 on TSPDT)  Loves of a Blonde is one of my favourite films, but I cannot say the same for the director's follow-up.  But then I would not say it was all that bad either.  Milos Forman, before coming to Hollywood and making a series of award winning but disdainfully middling pictures, was kind of a big thing in  the sixties movement known as the Czechoslovak New Wave, and therefore was part of an experimentalist cinema group that incorporated political satire into a sort of documentary style production, using mostly non-actors.  This style gives Loves of a Blonde a rather remarkable sense of foreboding.  In Fireman's Ball, though there are many moments of sheer absurdist comedy that keep the film on track, it does not hold up as well as Blonde.  It is still a better film that most of his future Hollywood mediocrities, even his two most-overpraised works, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus.   

#799 - The Story of Late Chrysanthemums (1939) - (#265 on TSPDT)  Definitely one of Mizoguchi's greatest works - and that is saying a lot considering the auteur's oeuvre.  Tragic to its very core, this film with the questionable title (sometimes it is listed as Last Chrysanthemum) is a hauntingly beautiful film.  Mizoguchi's ever-roving camera keeps the action going in stunning fashion.  Definitely deserves inclusion on the list.

Film Review: Damsels in Distress

Aside from the lack of a French setting and the lack of anyone speaking French (though there is a lone French character here), Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress may very well be the Frenchest movie out there that doesn't have, well, that doesn't have a French setting nor anyone speaking French.  In other words, Damsels in Distress plays out, both narratively and cinematically, with a much more French aesthetic than an American one.  This is neither a compliment nor is it an insult, it is just an educated opinion from this particular film critic.   

What this new film is for sure, though of course this is mere opinion as well, is pure, unadulterated fun.   But it is a kind of fun with that aforementioned French aesthetic, which by definition shies away from any Americanized moviemaking traits such as over-explanation and typical three act story arcs, and therefore may very well be a welcome boon to we of the more cinepiliac bent, but will be, and has been from my perspective, the kind of so-called snooty art film from which the average multiplex moviegoer, and even many who call themselves indie film lovers, will run away from in either a fit of boredom at being subjected to something that is not so easily palatable and therefore not so easily understood for art's sake or one of indignation over their refusal to admit the damn thing went right over their respective heads.  In other words, Damsels in Distress is just the kind of film that this critic can hunker down and get all kinds of cozy with.  In other other words, it is a damn fine, damn witty and damn downright hilarious motion picture - no matter what anyone else may counter.

I keep harping on the reactions of the so-called huddled masses because as a person who not only writes about cinema for a living, but also runs an art house cinema with his lovely wife, I have seen first hand the droves of disgruntled filmgoers exiting the theatres with complaints of boredom and confusion over this very same film.  Whether they just do not get what is going on - the film is set in a rather straight-forward linear manner and should not be seen as confusing in any way - or they are just used to a less free-form style of moviemaking and inevitably become disinterested with Stillman's choices as a writer and director, not to mention his rather keen seventies-esque cinematography choices, I do not dare speculate.  But then I am not really here to take cheap jabs at those with more middle-of-the-road tastes than I or my film snob ilk (though, whether I like it or not, it is part of my rather snarky nature), so perhaps we should just end this line of questioning right now and move on to exactly what it was about this film that I enjoyed so much while others did not.

The smartness of the dialogue and the sly way Stillman manipulates us into changing allegiances several times throughout the film, are a big part of what this film does so so right.  Stillman, who has not made a film since 1998's acerbic look at the waning days of Studio 54, The Last Days of Disco, is the kind of filmmaker who would never pander to his audience - who would never dumb down.  Stillman's writing is pitch perfect in its wry and witty stylings and the way these words are put forth by the director's stable of peripherally known actresses is nothing shy of narrative brilliance, even if it is written and put forth in the most subtle, crafty manner.  The highlight of these aforementioned relative unknowns is Greta Gerwig.  Ms. Gerwig first gained cinephiliac prominence with the little-known but quite fascinating mumblecore film Hannah Takes the Stairs, before moving on to being Russell Brand's dream girl in the quite horrendous Arthur remake.  Gerwig is an actress who should be more well known than she is, especially after seeing her crazy-eyed sweetheart Violet in this film, and hopefully she will be as she has a Woody Allen film on this coming fall's horizon.

But it is more than mere words and acting that make this quite, unassuming film all that and a bag of chips.  Stillman's ability to blend a quick-witted, intellectuality (some would say, and some have said pretentious) with a unique charm that can only be called highfalutin' kitsch, makes for the most intriguing of films.  Sort of playing out as Heathers all grown-up - or at least slightly more grown-up - Damsels tells the story of a group of too-cool-for-school types who run a college suicide prevention center, and the random boys (listed as "Their Distress" in the credits) who either titillate or repulse their individual and oft-times ridiculously precocious sensibilities.  Stillman incorporates a real sense of old timey storytelling into his modern day march of mental problems, and thanks to Violet and her gal pal's idea of depression therapy through dance, a few fun dance numbers to boot scoot boogie to as well.  Why more moviegoers are not catching onto this film we may never know (though some rather snobbish reasons snarkily flit in and out of mind) but it is a shame that this film will be left wallowing in inevitable obscurity (outside of we freaky film folk) just because it is too smart or too witty or two "French" or too whatever.  But then, what a way to go.

Look Out, The LAMMYs Are Back

Well faithful readers and true believers, as one can see from my Mack the Knife-influenced post title, it's that time of year again.  Time for the annual LAMMYs.  You say you do not know what the LAMMYs are?  Heavens to mergatroid.  Let us remedy that right now.  You see, the LAMMYs are the most coveted of awards.  Right up there with the Oscars and Grammys and Emmys and Tonys.  As of today, no one has ever won all five awards.  No one has ever become a LEGOT.  Anyway, I digress.  What the LAMMYs really are are the annual awards given out at The LAMB, or elongated for better explanation to those not in the know, The Large Association of Movie Blogs.  These are awards voted on by my peers (aka, other movie/film bloggers) and hold some esteem in the crowd I (sorta) run with.  Each year, akin to the Oscars and their ilk, nominations are handed out in fifteen different categories ranging from Best Movie Reviewer to Best Classic Film Blog to Most Prolific to Funniest Writer to, of course, the big kahuna, Best Blog.  There is even a Brainiac Award for the more knowledgeable set among us.  The nomination process runs until May 27th, and will be followed by a final voting for the actual awards, handed out, via cyberspace, in June.

Last year, in my first year of eligibility, I joined a not-so-exclusive club that also includes such famed and classic dignitaries as Errol Flynn, Maureen O'Hara, Joseph Cotten, Peter Lorre, Mirna Loy, Kim Novak, Edward G. Robinson and Marilyn Monroe.  Like them, I too was not nominated for a damn thing.  They for an Oscar, me for a LAMMY.  Oh well, I thought to myself, what great company to be in.  Seriously though, I really did not expect to receive any nominations, but I wasn't without hope.  This year though, is going to be my year.  I am hoping for at least two nominations - Best Movie Reviewer is my best and most desired hope, and/or maybe Most Prolific or the Brainiac Award.   Whatever the case, I still do not expect to actually win.  The awards themselves tend to go to the more established members of the LAMB, but still, as they are prone to say, the nomination is the real prize.  Granted, such a response is probably bullshit - of course it is better to win than to just get nominated - but really, I am hoping for, but not expecting anything more than a nomination or three.  But nominated or not, a fun part of the proceedings is putting together an FYC ad for the whole shebang.  Below is mine.  Appropriately, considering the title of my site, it involves the lovely Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard's classic Breathless.

If you happen to be one of the aforementioned LAMB compatriots, and therefore eligible to vote, you can do so at the 2012 LAMMY voting booth.  Perhaps during your perusal of the categories you could throw this old salt a bone or two of a vote, but only if you think I am deserving - or maybe even if you don't.  Now as anyone who collects comics or trading cards or anything of that ilk knows, there are always bound to be some variant editions.  Below are your very own collector's item variant FYC ads.  Enjoy.  And remember to vote vote vote.  And in all sincerity (see, I can do more than just snarky), good luck to all my fellow LAMBs.

Sister Clodagh’s Superficially Spiritual, Ambitiously Agnostic Last-Rites-of-Spring Movie Quiz

Every now and again Dennis Cozallio, the great film writer over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, comes out with a 30 or so question quiz that is posted on his blog and sent out to all those web-based critics and cinephiles for completion at their leisure.  Sometimes I participate, other times I do not.  Now the causes for my non-participatory parts of this equation really have nothing to do with the quality of the quizzes - for they are always fun stuff indeed - but more because I procrastinate and end up forgetting all about them.  Well not this time true believers (thanx Stan), for here is my completed quiz.  Take that!

The original post from Dennis' site can be read here and you can post yr own answers there as well.. 

And here is the quiz and my answers.

1) Favorite movie featuring nuns?  To be funny I suppose I could see Killer Nun or Nude Nuns With Big Guns (or even Lindsay Lohan at the end of Machete) but of course I will have to go with Black Narcissus.  Not only is this Powell/Pressburger film one of the best films ever made (nun-related or not) it also has Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron as the two sexiest nuns (in the most varying ways) ever on film.

2) Second favorite John Frankenheimer movie?  I have never seen either Birdman of Alcatraz or The Manchurian Candidate (believe it or not), nor have I seen Grand Prix (though currently perched rather high on my Netflix queue), and since Seconds is my sure fire fave Frankenheimer, I suppose I must go with the oft-overlooked 1964 film, The Train.  So there.

3) William Bendix or Scott Brady?  Gotta admit I do not know much about Scott Brady (I like his brother though) but since Bendix not only played Babe Ruth in a film, he was also a batboy for the Yankees in the 1920's and got to see the Bambino play (how's that for research for a role), I am going to go with him.

4) What movie, real or imagined, would you stand in line six hours to see?   Have you ever done so in real life?  I have never done so.  Perhaps an hour at most back in the day.  Star Wars.  Raiders.  The most recent was The Red Shoes at Film Forum two years ago.  Of course nowadays, with online tickets and advance ticket sales, lines need not be a big thing.   What film would I do that for?  Knowing me, pretty much anything I am really excited for.  I have no qualms about such a thing.

5) Favorite Mitchell Leisen movie?  I believe, though more thanks to Gene Tierney, Miriam Hopkins and Thelma Ritter than to Leisen, that I would call The Mating Season his best work.  Of course I have never seen Midnight, his most acclaimed work.

6) Ann Savage or Peggy Cummins?  Miss Savage may have been a great femme fatale in Detour, but no one beats Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy.  You would have to be crazy to not make this choice.  The sexual explosiveness of her character, her wild, untamed persona, the crazed look she gets in her eyes, and don't forget that cowgirl outfit, make this one a no-brainer in my book.

7) First movie you remember seeing as a child?  I have rather faint memories of watching Disney's The Jungle Book as a wee one, but considering it played in theaters the year I was born and was not rereleased in nine years later, I am guessing that was on TV (this was back in the days before home video possibilities).  I also remember seeing The Poseidon Adventure at our local drive-in when I was five or six, but the first film I remember seeing in a movie theater proper was Benji in 1974, when I was just seven years old.

8) What moment in a movie that is not a horror movie, made you want to bolt from the theater screaming?  The moment I realized I just spent hard-earned money on Titanic.  Seriously though, no matter how bad or even disturbing a film is (or even how dreadfully boring) I have never walked out, so I do not really have a serious answer for you on this one.

9) Richard Widmark or Robert Mitchum?  Now I love Richard Widmark.  His work in Pick-up On South Street and Kiss of Death are things of cinematic magic, but c'mon now, he is no Robert Mitchum.  Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter alone is cause enough to celebrate, and when you toss in things like Out of the Past, Crossfire, The Lusty Men, Angel Face, El Dorado and Track of the Cat...well, you get the picture.  He's Mitchum!

10) Best Movie Jesus?  Great question, and I have a great answer.  Enrique Irazoqui in Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew.  Runners-up include Willem Dafoe in Scorsese's Last Temptation, Jeffrey Hunter in Nick Ray's King of Kings, and less traditionally, Don Sutherland in Johnny Got His Gun and Graham Chapman in Life of Brian.

11) Silliest straight horror film that you're still fond of?  Many horror films are just silly by nature but that is the charm of them.  I think any of the films by the infamously bad director Edward D. Wood Jr. would need to be included here.  Yes he was a terrible filmmaker.  Yes he couldn't make a competent shot if his life depended on it.  Yes his films are some of the most laughably bad works of horror/sci-fi ever made - and that is saying a lot considering the history of the genre.  But still, no matter the quality, Ed Wood loved making movies.  He was rapturous about the medium and would put everything he had into his films, trying harder than most of the hacks calling themselves directors in today's world.  He was an auteur of the genre and should be praised for his love of cinema, even if the finished product was quite ridiculous indeed.

12) Emily Blunt or Sally Gray?  This is an easy one, but only due to process of elimination.  You see, as far as I know, I have never seen a Sally Gray film, or if I did, it was not very memorable at all.  So, with that being said, my answer must be Ms. Blunt.  Now don't get me wrong, I actually like Blunt as an actress, though she does delve a bit too much into the schmaltzier side of town, but even if I did not, I would have to default to her anyway.

13) Favorite cinematic biblical spectacular?  If I actually believed in the idea of guilty pleasures (why should one feel guilt over something they enjoy!?) this genre would certainly be one of them.  So much so that it is quite difficult to pick just one.  My favourites, in no particular order, are Nick Ray's King of Kings, Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah and Victor Saville's much-chastised (even by star Paul Newman himself in later years) The Silver Chalice.  If we went back even further in the annals of history, we could add Howard Hawks' Land of the Pharaohs and Michael Curtiz's The Egyptian, but I suppose those are not necessarily biblical spectacles so much as ancient history spectacles.

14) Favorite cinematic moment of unintentional humor?  Does it make me a bad person to answer with the Singin' in the Rain rape scene in A Clockwork Orange?  Oh well, c'est la vie.

15) Michael Fassbender or David Farrar?  Man what a choice.  Both have a strange sexual predator vibe going on in nearly every one of their respective performances.  Still though, even with his performances in Black Narcissus and Gone to Earth (my two favourites) I believe Mr. Farrar is going to lose out to Herr Fassbender.  From Hunger to Fish Tank to Jane Eyre to Shame to his turn as Archie Hickox in Inglourious Basterds (the unfortunate victim of the number three) and his portrayal of one of my all-time fave X-Men, Magneto, Fassbender is the one who makes this straight man go all weak in the knees.

16) Most effective faith-affirming movie?  I know the question is alluding to faith in a higher being, God, Allah, Krishna, Jesus or whatever they are calling it nowadays, but my answer goes a slightly different direction.  I believe the second half of Murnau's Sunrise, where the couple go to the big city and find each other again, I mean really find each other again, is one of the best proofs of the existence of some sort of higher calling or power or what-have-you.

17) Movie that makes the best case for agnosticism?  Forrest Gump.  If we are to believe that God is accountable for the lifelong survival of the Gump-Dogg (and the downfall of all his less angelic compatriots) then that is a God with which I want nothing to do.  Well, also the fact that no loving god would ever make me sit through that damn movie...

18) Favorite song and/or dance sequence from a musical?  In a serendipitous moment of perfect timing, my latest "Best Of" list for the fine folks over at Anomalous Material (coming to a world wide web near you sometime next week) is on this very same topic.  As a preview of this list, my resounding answer here is the ballet finale in The Red Shoes.  Other great moments of the genre include "Remember My Forgotten Man" from The Golddiggers of 1933, "The Trolly Song" from Meet Me In St. Louis and "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  Enough of the preview, check out my upcoming list for the full story.

19) Third favorite Howard Hawks movie?  After my two favourites, Rio Bravo and His Girl Friday, comes the film in question, Only Angels Have Wings.  This is a choice that may take some by surprise, being a film that usually gets pushed aside when discussing the films of the great Howard Hawks.  It is a sweet, beautiful film that deserves more recognition than it gets.  No matter the greatness of films like The Big Sleep, Red River, Bringing Up Baby, Scarface, To Have and Have Not, Air Force, The Criminal Code and Dawn Patrol (and this list could go on and on), Only Angels Have Wings rises above all of them.  Well, except those aforementioned top two.

20) Clara Bow or Jean Harlow?  I have always been a dark-haired kinda guy, so I am going to go with that adorably sexy "It" Girl from Brooklyn, Miss Bow.

21) Movie most recently seen in the theater?  On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming?  Theater: Damsels in Distress.  DVD: It's Always Fair Weather.  Blu-ray: People on Sunday.  Streaming: It's been a while, but the last one was The Nutty Professor (the Jerry Lewis version of course).

22) Most unlikely good movie about religion?  Monty Python's Life of Brian which was not only a Pythonesque game of whirling dervishing cinema, but also a rather poignant and thoughtful look at faith and belief.  Either that or Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

23) Phil Silvers or Red Skelton?  Actually, I have always found Mr. Silvers' comedy to be rather smart and sassy as opposed to Mr. Skelton's slaphappy idea of comedy.  Okay, they are both pretty slaphappy, but Silvers decidedly less so.

24) "Favorite" Hollywood scandal?  I like that favorite is in quotes.  Anyway, there are so many good, ripe and juicy ones, that it makes it kinda hard to choose just one.  I believe I will go with a lesser known one, and leave all the big name ones for others to sort through.  I love that Gloria Grahame was cheating on her hubby Nick Ray with Ray's thirteen year old son from a previous marriage.  I also love that seven years later, Grahame and her now twenty year old former stepson were married.  I love that they actually had a baby together that was of course the grandson of Nick Ray.  Ain't love grand?  And this was all in sunny California and not Mississippi or West Virginia.

25) Best religious movie (non-Christian)?  Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo?  No?  Okay, how about Star Wars.  The force and the ways of the Jedi are more than loosely based on the Eastern religions of Taoism and Shintoism. And Jedi is the fastest growing religion in the world.  I may be a total nerd for saying this (or for knowing the rate of growth of a movie religion) but so be it.  May the force be with you.

26) The King of cinema: King Vidor, King Hu or Henry King? (Thanks Peter)  Though they all have their own manner of greatness (I just saw Hu's A Touch of Zen for the first time recently and was pretty much blown away as they say - my ramblings of which can be read here) but between the one two punch of The Big Parade and The Crowd, my answer must be King Vidor.

27) Name something modern movies need to relearn how to do that American or foreign classics had down pat.  Howzabout being able to tell a story without having to explain every little thing in detail?  I remember watching Inception when it first came out and getting pissed off every time someone in the story paused to explain everything to Ellen Page's character, a character whose seeming only purpose was to hang around so things could be explained to the audience through her.  We are not total morons who need every little thing explained dammit.  Or at least we should not be, even if many moviegoers have been turned into the type of people who no longer understand subtly.  

28) Least favorite Federico Fellini movie?  A friend of mine would answer this by saying a tie, between all of them.  I am a bit more on the pro-Fellini side though so this is not my answer.  I suppose I would have to say Satyricon.  It is not terrible, but it is the most incomprehensible of Fellini's oeuvre.  This does not necessarily make it a bad film, but we must make our decisions.

29) The Three Stooges (2012) - yes or no?  Since I am a freelance kind of film critic (as in nobody pays me for this shit) I do not have to sit through a lot of the bigger pieces of cinematic sludge that come down the proverbial pike.  With that thought, please allow me to claim that I have not seen the 2012 version of The Three Stooges, and therefore can not make a claim as to their validity.  Should it have been made?  Probably no good reason for such a thing, so no.

30) Mary Wickes or Patsy Kelly?  Oh, this is a no-brainer.  I love Mary Wickes in every damn thing I have seen her in.  Her role in White Christmas, as well as the rest of that holiday classic, will always have a warm place in this not-so-secret sentimentalist's heart.

31) Best movie-related conspiracy theory?  I cannot think of a specific one off-hand, so let's just make one up and say the Academy Awards.  How there not be some sort of heinous conspiracy when things like Forrest Gump beats Pulp Fiction, Kramer vs. Kramer beats Apocalypse Now, Dances With Wolves beats Goodfellas, Ordinary People beats Raging Bull, Crash beats Brokeback Mountain - and the list can go on?  I could ramble on all night so let us move on.

32) Your candidate for most misunderstood or misinterpreted movie.  David Lynch's Wild at Heart.  A brilliantly subversive take on the inner id of The Wizard of Oz.  I remember when the film first came out, and I was working as a projectionist at a local cinema. I actually got into a heated argument with the local newspaper's film critic (back when local paper's still had film critics).  She found it loathsome and repugnant.  I found it to be a dark and demented work of pure and quite audacious cinematic genius.

33) Movie that made you question your own belief system (religious or otherwise)?  Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.  'nuff said.

Film Review: The Avengers

A man out of time, a born leader.  A cocksure genius with a penchant for suits of armour.  An Asgardian god, the son of Odin.  A femme fatale who's bite packs quite the wallop.  An assassin who can make a bow and arrow sing with death and destruction.  Oh yeah, and they have a Hulk.  Captain America.  Iron Man.  Thor.  Black Widow.  Hawkeye.  The Hulk.  These are the band of wouldbe misfits that super-spy Nick Fury has assembled to save the Earth from certain doom.  These are the heroes, the superheroes if you will, who come together, albeit it more than a bit uneasily at first, as is par the course for such a clash of titans, to form the Earth's, and Marvel comicdom's, mightiest heroes, The Avengers.  Natch.

Following up on the momentum of a string of precursors that included Iron Man 1 and 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger (there were a couple of rather lackluster Hulks as well, but no one seems to ever mention those anymore), this Joss Whedon directed culmination of all the aforementioned preliminary superhero giddiness (another culmination will surely come with The Avengers 2 in a few years, after another string - phase two some are calling it - of entries into this multifaceted franchise) is rife with possibilities, while at the same time acting as one huge ass risk.  Sure, it will make money (opening weekend may very well be a record-setting time) but will it stay true to those already in love with these iconic characters, those who have grown up with them.  In other words, will the fanboy, casual and hard core alike, be satisfied with this culmination?  Of course with a fanboy of sorts (and actual comic book writer) at the proverbial helm, the answer could and should, and is a resounding yes.

Reprising their roles as the stars of the aforementioned multifaceted franchise builders, the film stars Robert Downey Jr. as the invincible Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, Chris Evans as that man out of time, Captain Steve Rogers, the formidable Captain America, and Chris Hemsworth as the Asgardian of myth, The Mighty Thor, as the core - the big three if you will - of The Avengers team.  We also get Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanov, The Black Widow (she too reprises her role from Iron Man 2), Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton, the archer better known as Hawkeye (after his brief cameo in last year's Thor) and first timer Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Bruce Banner, the alter-ego of that "other guy" with the rather severe anger management problem (Ruffalo is the third Hulk in as many movies, but who's counting).  Toss in Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Colbie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill and Clark Gregg reprising his role as Agent Phil Coulson - not to mention Gwyneth Paltrow in a glorified cameo as Pepper Potts, assistant and love interest to Downey's Stark - and you got yourself a fun, action-packed superhero extravaganza.   But what is it really all about?

Now I am not here to give a lesson in comic book culture or Marvel Comics mythology, for one must assume that those seeing the film, or at least those wishing to read more about it, are already well-versed in who The Avengers are and what kind of history these characters have with each other.  Granted, the universe inside Joss Whedon's movie is a bit different than that of the regular Marvel Universe - this team of Avengers is actually based on The Ultimates, a variant version of the main Marvel Universe, but again, those who are interested in such things are already in the so-called know - but still, there is no need for anything more than mild hashing out of the story and its characters, so I will give that to you rather quickly and mostly painlessly now.  I suppose my goal here is to bring together those forces of fanboydom and those of the more cinephiliac bent - both a sort of hipster-esque outcast - and get them to shake hands somewhere in the middle.  In attempting so, here is what is up for those not in the superhero know.

In the so-called beginning, a man named Stan Lee created a group of superheroes called The Fantastic Four, and ushered in what would come to be known as the Silver Age of comics.  Lee, along with his compatriot Jack Kirby, would write and draw (respectively) some of the most groundbreaking works of comicdom in the era - The Amazing Spider-Man, The Uncanny X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and Daredevil, Man Without Fear were just a few among them.  The most pertinent to our little story here was a comic called The Avengers (or The Mighty Avengers if you will), a band of misfit superheroes who were stagnating on their own until Lee and Kirby brought them together to battle the Asgardian god of mischief, Loki.  Now the story went a bit differently back then - there were two characters, The Wasp and Ant-Man, who are not now among our founding heroes, and Captain America would not show up until issue four (as I said, Whedon's film is based more on an updated, more retconned version of the story) - but the basic gist is the same.

Brought together by the aforementioned Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D., a super spy organization that polices the planet (think a world-wide über CIA kind of thing, but with flying aircraft carriers), or should we say manipulated into coming together by Fury (any regular Marvel reader knows such a thing is pure Fury), our intrepid warriors - Earth's Mightiest Heroes as Downey's Iron Man tells us in his usual snide and snarky way, one of many winks and nods to the comics - are forced into battle to stop Loki, and the forces that are secretly controlling him from the far reaches of space, from destroying the world.  Not an easy task one might say, but for The Mighty Avengers, all in a days (very hard) work.  The soldier, the genius, the warrior, the spy, the assassin and the monster come together and become the superhero super group that we have all come to know and love from a lifetime of comic book reading.  Well at least the nerds among us - this critic very much included.

Director Whedon, that fanboy fave who has not only created some of the most endearingly cultish characters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her supernatural posse, the cast and crew of Firefly, the lost souls of Dollhouse) but was also the driving creative force behind the first two year or so run on the critically acclaimed Astonishing X-Men series for the fine folks over at Marvel, makes it all come out smelling like the comic geek's wet dream come true - even if its level of smooth goodness may not transfer over to those non-comic moviegoers among the bunch (the ones that need more of an explanation that what I gave above).  In other words, the film, though perhaps not in the Wellesian/Fordian realm that something like Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight finds itself basking in, nor in that strange and obscure realm that Zack Snyder's Watchmen so perfectly niches into, will surely delight those in the proverbial know, bound to give fans of the comics several orgasms throughout - and judging from the cheers at the midnight showing that I attended, that is just what happened.

Now even though the battle scenes were above par, across the so-called board, blending green screen CGI technology with real hands-on buttkicking at least as well as, if not better than most films of the genre, it is Whedon's script, and the rendering of such by the actors, that makes this film shine brighter than any of its Marveldom, hero-building precursors, save for perhaps the first Iron Man.  Though many criticize the film for having too long periods of inaction between the big action set pieces, this is simply not true.  These places of so-called inaction (and really only those who go in for Michael Bay movies would complain about such a ridiculous thing) are where we get the hero-building that is so needed in the comic book world of the Marvel Universe, and Whedon integrates his film with a real sense of that very same hero-building and in a sense keeps intact everything that makes the Marvel Universe a living breathing organism - a thing that would have seemed nearly impossible just a decade ago.  The highlights of the film are not the big bang brouhahas where hero battles villain with the fate of the world on the line (though these are of course delicious to watch) but the smaller, almost aside-esque moments instead.  

Downey and Ruffalo especially marvel us with the chemistry they have and give off on screen, sizing each other up, and playing off of each others strengths and weaknesses of character.  Evans, as the stoic and noble First Avenger also gets in on the game, and Clark Gregg has some fine moments of his own, not to mention Tom Hiddleston giving his snarky all as bad guy Loki, but still it is Downey and Ruffalo who steal the show, both as men and as warrior and beast respectively.  All-in-all, The Avengers is a damn fine bang bang motion picture with all the requisite superhero banter one would, and should, expect, as well as some of the best action sequences in the genre's history.  But still, it is the little things that make the film work as well as it does, for what it is.  Downey's Stark wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt (think about it), Evans and Downey's two heroes sniping at each other as civilians but working as a perfect one-two punch in the field, the coolness of Ruffalo's Banner becoming the "other guy", the hero worship in Clark Gregg's eyes as his agent Coulson mews over Captain America, Hemsworth's Thor sheepishly mentioning his brother being adopted, the general banter between friends and enemies alike.

All the above, wrapped together so smoothly and seamlessly in Whedon's top notch (one could even say Tarantino-esque, albeit on the lighter side) script.  There are things that I could have liked better, most notably an expanded characterization of Hawkeye (he was always one of my favourite comic book Avengers, though I have always preferred the more arrogant old school version than the more stoic and determined modern day, Ultimate comics version that we get here), but overall we the fans, both casual and hard core alike, get a pretty damn fun piece of cinematic superhero entertainment.  Perhaps nothing that will top the critical annals of film history, but enough to make it, save for the aforementioned Watchmen and The Dark Knight (both above and beyond their ilk), one of the best pieces of its genre.  A pure and unadulterated blockbustery good time is to be had by all.  Simply put, in comic book movie terms, excelsior!  Those in the know understand.  'nuff said.

Retro Review: Thor

The following is part of a series where I bring back some of my "older" reviews (those written during my 2004-2011 tenure at the now mostly defunct The Cinematheque) and offer them up to a "newer" generation.  This is a special edition of Retro Reviews, looking back at the films that have led up to the May 4th release of The Avengers.

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Verily I doth praise thouest motion picture of the Mighty Thor, God of Thunder and bravest and most noble of all Midgard's Mightiest Avengers. Tis not the folly which most typically bewitches thou righteous and quite gallant genre. Thou knowest this to be true. Now there are several things wrong with the preceding three sentences (other than the sad fact that so low a percentage of the current populace speak in Middle English, especially comic-hewn Middle English). The first being that, as anyone who has read Marvel Comics knows (or knowest to be true if you will), Thor is, at the very least, equaled in both bravery and nobility by fellow Avenger Captain America - but that is a debate for another time and another movie (conveniently coming to a multiplex near you in just two short months).

The main problem with my opening is the fact that though Thor (the 22nd movie adapted from Marvel Comics) is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, full of moments of fanboy-intended giddy delights, tis not the Godly Asgardian wonder I had hoped (and possibly prayed to the Norse Gods) for. Still though, even though my (mostly) unrealistic aspirations were verily dashed, Thor, with its realm-hopping heroics and noble storybook questing (as well as a touch of comedy that harkens back to the comics), is a more than pleasurable entry in the (more and more every day) ubiquitous superhero genre, as well as a fun and nostalgic trip back to my boyhood days of reading the God of Thunder's exploits in the pages of the aforementioned Marvel Comics (not to mention my occasional adulthood forays back into the fantastical universe wherein I grew up).

Really though, besides being made as (somewhat) merely a precursor for the upcoming The Avengers movie (the eventual centerpiece bringing all of the Marvel Studios Universe together in one great big makeshift Cosmic Cube), the Kenneth Branagh directed Thor (and it really should have been called The Mighty Thor, but that is just a one-time fanboy's piffling argument) is a fine piece of action cinema. Even though Branagh's directing style is basically a non-style (the fact that the director had to compensate for transfer into 3D and therefore could not do too many tricks with his camera, only adds to Branagh's lack of auteurial signature) and his expected Shakespearean bent leaves a bit (but just a bit) to be desired (Darker Kenneth! Go darker!) the movie barrels along with a certain vim and vigor (and a mightily mythical bravado) that suits the history of the character to a veritable tee. 

Some of this may be due to Branagh's skillful yet somewhat forcibly narrowed direction (the Irishman claims a childhood love of the character of Thor) and some may come out of Marvel Comic's brilliant J. Michael Straczynski's story idea (the screenplay was then written by Don Payne, Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz, the latter two having also written the script for the upcoming X-Men: First Class) but as they say, if you do not cast your movie properly, then nothing in the world is going to save it. I do not know if they actually say that or not (personally I have never heard anyone say that, and it probably isn't even true anyway) but that was my way of segueing into the following statement. As far as I am concerned, Thor is cast just about right no matter where you happen to look. There. I said it. 

Chris Hemsworth (seen briefly as pere Kirk in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot) makes for a good God of Thunder. His acting ability is perhaps rather limited (though I have not seen enough to rightfully judge such a thing) but his look fits the character and really, what more can we ask for. However, it is the addition of newbie Academy Award winner Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, astrophysicist and mortal love interest to Thor, and token Scandinavian Stellan Skarsgård as Dr. Selvig (placed here possibly to give the inherent knowledge of Norse religion a respectable emoter), as well as Sir Anthony Hopkins as Odin the Allfather, daddy of all daddies, that gives the film a bit of thespianic respectability. This way Hemsworth can do the posing and not have to have the added responsibility of acting - though he does indeed do a fine job with the character so perhaps my passive-aggressive jabs are a bit unwarranted. But hey, he's a God, he can take it. 

The other fun performance in the movie is Tom Hiddleston as Loki, mythical mischief-maker and jealous brother to Thor (and one of my all-time favourite Marvel villains). Fellow critical compatriot Glenn Kenny hilariously describes the Godly brothers as "pro wrestler Chris Jericho and goth-rock combo Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy." It is the morose character of Loki who, if Joss Whedon's The Avengers follows its comic history, will be integral in the formation of the superhero supergroup. Loki, along with fellow Asgardians, the Lady Sif (a smokin' Jaimie Alexander), the Warriors Three (Josh Dallas, Tadanobu Asano and Ray Stevenson as Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg respectively) and the stoic gatekeeper Heimdall (played by African-Anglo actor Idris Elba in a move that was probably strategically made more by the PC lawyers than any sort of artistic consideration - though he does a perfectly fine job and probably too much has been made of his casting choice to really add to it here) collectively help to bring this world of Gods and men to life. 

But enough of all these sundry items so requisite in some reviews and/or critiques. What it all comes down to is this: is the damned movie any good!? I suppose my answer would be yes. Perhaps it doesn't have the grand operatic style of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies (though always being a Marvel over DC kind of guy, I cannot help my great respect for these films, brought forth more by the auteur's bravura filmmaking style than by a sudden love for the heroes of DC) nor the cool pleasure of the first Iron Man (the second one leaves a bit to be desired) but Branagh's (Mighty) Thor is more than equal to the heights of other Marvel movies like the first two entries in both The X-Men and Spider-Man franchises. Yet in the end (and I don't mean the obligatory post-credit Nick Fury/Sam Jackson tag) what Thor does more than anything else, especially to this comic-raised critic, is make me wish The Avengers (Best. Comic. Ever.) were coming up immediately after. 

Perhaps, as others have noted (and I myself just more than alluded to), Thor, like Iron Man 2 before it and Captain America after, is nothing more than one long trailer for the upcoming Avengers conglomeration (complete with an all-too-brief cameo by Jeremy Renner as everyone's favourite archer), and in a way that is indeed an annoying trait in the genre these days, but with its epic, grandiose storytelling (and yes, Shakespearean in many ways - thank you Mr. Branagh), sleek special effects and otherwordly design (damn the naysayers that claim Asgard looks weak!) and slew of intriguing characters (methinks the Mighty Thor has always intrigued this grown-up child) and the actors playing them (could have used a bit more of Hopkins as Odin though - he seemed to have very little to do) Thor is indeed well worthy of thouest title of God of Thunder emblazoned across its poster. And to hurry them along as much as they seem to be hurrying themselves, let me finish with this plea: bring on Steve Rogers and that iconic shield. Verily, I command thee! 

[Originally published at The Cinematheque on 05/12/11]

A Touch of Zen and the Art of the Wuxia Film

Wuxia.  In Chinese, the word Wu means Martial or Military.  Meanwhile the word Xia means Hero or Honour.  Put these words together and you get Wuxia, the traditional Chinese narrative genre of Martial Arts, or the Martial Hero if you will.  It is a genre, a style of storytelling that is highlighted by a chivalrous code not unlike that of the Japanese Samurai or the European Knights of legend and lore or the Western gunslinger in the proverbial white hat.  Though the term Wuxia may well be of more recent coinage, these tales have been in the Chinese tradition - in their books and plays and oral storytelling - for at least two thousand years.

This traditional style of adventure story of course translates perfectly into the more action-oriented, and more honourable-styled cinema of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.  From the Golden Age of the early 1930's and 40's Shaw Brothers films to the new age of Wuxia seen in the 1960's and 70's films of King Hu to the modern day Wire-Fu equivalents like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and House of Flying Daggers - even Kung Fu Panda if you insist - this tradition of martial arts, which includes super-stylized and super-acrobatic choreography as opposed to the more down-to-Earth, Fists of Fury stylings of Bruce Lee and his ilk, makes up the most spiritually and most artistically relevant element of the genre of martial arts cinema.  It is this tradition, this style, that is being celebrated in the inaugural edition of Foreign Chops, a new monthly feature that will recognize a different foreign film subject each time.  This monthly event is hosted by the fine folks over at the LAMB (Large Association of Movie Blogs for those not in the know).  So, without any more needless further ado, here is my contribution to the Wuxia party.

Originally released in 1970 and 71 in two parts before being unified into one great big creature (the whole bloody affair one might even say), the three plus hour Wuxia masterpiece A Touch of Zen by King Hu, may very well be one of the most underrated works of cinema in history - and this is not mere hyperbole, this is, sad to say, just sheer cinematic fact.  So many praise those more modern-day works that are so obviously influenced by Hu's now classic genre work (more on those in a bit) but so little do we hear about this Wuxia that arguably started it all.  From its opening shot to its epic finale, and encompassing its rapid-fire fight sequences that play like some sort of training manual for every martial arts film that came after it, and full of a melodic cinematography style that can only be described, no matter how cliché it may sound, as haunting, A Touch of Zen is a mesmerizing work of Wuxia that may very well be - and this too is not meant as mere hyperbole - the finest specimen of its species.  And I ain't just whistlin' The Girl from Dabancheng.

Taking a stronger spiritual bent than most Wuxia films, Hu gives us a hero that through inevitable and apparent death - he bleeds gold - becomes an enlightened soul, even alluding to the fact that he may even be Buddha himself.  Of course this spirituality does not mean we are left without the quite kick-ass, mythical battle scenes that come part and parcel with the quite enlightened genre.  Using the technique known as Qinggong, where fighters seem to have superhuman powers of agility and are able to leap bounds around everyone else, we are given these great and mythical battle scenes that would go on to inspire so many films of today's version of the Wuxia genre.   We can see more than mere nods to A Touch of Zen in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers (the central battle in the bamboo forest is pretty much extracted from here into the latter) but still, so many have forgotten Hu's original in the face of the more modern extravagances of the Wire-Fu films.  We can even see the influence in Star Wars, where Asian films aficionado George Lucas uses the fighting style of Qinggong for his breed of Jedi warriors - but still so few remember poor King Hu and his Taiwanese masterpiece A Touch of Zen.

Another obvious influenced modern day director is, of course, Quentin Tarantino.  Yeah yeah, I know, one would be quite hard-pressed to name a movie that was not an influence on QT, but still, Hu's film, along with other works of Wuxia, are a major influence on the director's work - especially his Kill Bill films.  Tarantino was actually a big part of bringing the genre back to the forefront of cinephiliac circles (though not to the general populace) and you can see this in his fight sequences and the suave chop-socky style of editing that the late great Sally Menke brought to his films.  This Tarantino connection actually could come as no surprise since the director's films are the modern day equivalent of the Spaghetti Western genre, and one can easily see how A Touch of Zen is the Chinese answer to something like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and/or Once Upon a Time in the West.  See how everything seems to come full circle.  But I digress, as we are here to praise A Touch of Zen and the Art of the Wuxia Film.  In sum I would just like to say that the future is dark indeed that does not have the knowledge of A Touch of Zen in it - so go out and watch the damn thing already.  It is easily available on home video, so there is no good excuse to not do such a thing.

Retro Review: Iron Man / Iron Man 2

The following is part of a series where I bring back some of my "older" reviews (those written during my 2004-2011 tenure at the now mostly defunct The Cinematheque) and offer them up to a "newer" generation.  This is a special edition of Retro Reviews, looking back at the films that have led up to the May 4th release of The Avengers.

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Iron Man 

It may sound quite snobbish (call me a pretentious prick if you must - it hurts me not) but the super-hero genre alone does not allow for a truly great film, which means that Iron Man, along with past compatriots Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Daredevil and X-Men, no matter how enjoyable they may very well be, are doomed from the very start to reach no higher than sufficently able or perhaps even popcorny-to-the-max. This is not meant as an insult to a so-called lesser art form, for I am a comic book geek from way back (and Iron Man being one of my favourites from back in his Bob Layton/David Michelinie, Demon in a Bottle days - see, I said I was a geek),  but just a fact of cinematic artistry.  And yes, though it is a lot of fun, made even more true by the pitch perfect performance of Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man does just that. 

There is no denying one of the best casting jobs in recent motion picture history - past tabloid bad boy Downey Jr. playing the drunken playboy Tony Stark a la Iron Man as if by osmosis - and there also may be no denying an above average screenplay - especially by genre standards - and a sly coolness brought to the table by Downey and director Jon Favreau, but there is also no denying that this is a comic book movie and being so (no matter what that blobbish blemish of an ogre Harry Knowles has to say about it) can never crawl any higher than its slightly above mediocre entertainment-for-entertainment's sake accomplishment we see on the screen.  I really wish it could, and perhaps someday it will, but for right now it may be quite fun, and quite adventure-riddled, but it is still something short of truly great.

Then again, perhaps true cinematic greatness is not really what a film like Iron Man should even be striving for.  I mean really, how can we seriously expect something akin to action classics like Seven Samurai or Stagecoach.  Perhaps sheer fun, just like one gets in the comics on which the film is based (even when they went deeper than expected) should be enough for any comic and/or movie fan.  And yes, if nothing else, this film is indeed fun.  Symbiotic lead performance aside, the cliche that befalls this film and its inevitable obviousness (is anyone even remotely surprised when the villain is "revealed"!?) not to mention its franchise-in-the-making nods and winks, is nearly enough to sink the film altogether, but in the end, it is its cockiness, its inherent fun, that saves the proverbial day. That and the surround-sound thump of Black Sabbath as the hero first kicks his requisite ass. Da da da da don. 

ed. note: A few months after writing this review, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight came out and I was proven wrong that there could never be a truly great superhero movie.  Oh well, it is good to be wrong in this case.

Iron Man 2

The first Iron Man movie, with its pitch perfect casting of Robert Downey Jr. as the titular hard-drinking, fast-living, egomaniacal, playboy superhero, and director Favreau's shoot first and never really ask questions at all action sequences, and a general irreverent outlook which was perfect fodder for such fare, was a surprisingly enjoyable Summer romp and one of the better superhero movies to come out as of late. This second edition of the franchise, mainly the first in a series of set-ups for the eventual Avengers Assemble uber-franchise set to start its engines in 2012, and now starring a seemingly bored Downey as an equally bored Tony Stark/Iron Man, is not only a much inferior film to the first, but also a frustrating let down in almost every department. 

Action-wise, it is as scattershot and poorly executed as a Transformers movie. Story-wise, it is mere boilerplate foreshadowing for the aforementioned supergroup movie extravaganza. Cast-wise it fares a bit better, but just a bit. Downey is still a joy in any role, though, as I said earlier, quite bored it would seem. Comeback kid Mickey Rourke plays at a frenetic kind of stoicism as requisite baddie Whiplash, even though his role is mere cliche. Scarlett Johansson looks great kicking ass in skin-tight leather as the master spy and femme fatale Black Widow but is nonetheless a drag. Gwyneth Paltrow, returning as Stark's sidekick and periodic lover Pepper Potts is even more of a drag than Johansson. 

Don Cheadle, as Rhoady/War Machine, may be a better actor than the rather lackluster Terrence Howard (who played the part in the first film and who was infamously ousted for part deux) but is given very little to do other than pose in a big-ass tin suit. Samuel L. Jackson is superfly as always as Nick Fury, but there is much too little of the superspy to make it worth your while. Only Sam Rockwell, as Stark's business nemesis and Whiplash's benefactor Justin Hammer, manages to do anything along the lines of stealing the show. In fact he does just that. Unfortunately there is not much of a show to steal in the first place. 

From an auteuristic viewpoint, unless it is directed by someone with the chops/cahones of Chris Nolan, no one expects greatness from a superhero movie in the first place (even this comic geek can admit that) but after the giddy popcorn ride of the first film - replete with the obvious title track blaring over Downey's excesses of bad boy charm - one hopes for something better than this mediocrity in iron clothing. Much like the third Spider-Man, which was enough to put that franchise in deep sleep for a while and send director Sam Raimi racing back to his schlock comic-horror roots (and incidentally making one of the best films of his career!), this second coming of Marvel's tin soldier is both too much and not enough. 

Seeming rushed and yet too laid back (I know, it makes no sense to me either!) Favreau's lack of directional skills, a thing that seemed to be a refreshing help the first time around - forget the dark, dank depths of the properly sinister Dark Knight, Iron Man is pure adolescent frivolity at its heartbroken metal core - ends up as much a hindrance this time as the shotty script that hovers around waiting for some hardpressed action scenario to rear its haphazard head. It may be a strange criticism, but it seems as though everything that made the first film work on the level it did, are exactly the things which make this followup misfire like a short-circuited repulsor ray. 

I suppose this being just a cog in the wheel of what someday is meant to be a fully interlocking cinematic Marvel Universe, where each film crosses over with every other film just like the comic book world does (and where one day we may very well see The Incredible Hulk smashing Iron Man's shiny tin suit all up!) means the sum outweighs the parts, and therefore we are meant to just sit through the fodder in fanboy hopes beyond hopes they don't screw up that aforementioned Avengers Assemble movie and all the comic adaptations that come after it. Of course if Nolan's Dark Knight (and to an extent, Zack Snyder's Watchmen) hadn't come along and raised the bar on superhero movies in the first place, perhaps the mediocrity of Iron Man 2 wouldn't seem all that strange after all.

[Iron Man originally published at The Cinematheque on 05/05/08 / Iron Man 2 originally published on 05/11/10]