Iron Man 3: Cool your jets and enjoy

Well it's almost summer, and the for at least the second year in a row we've been presented with another entry from Marvel in the third installment of the Iron Man films, which most would argue have been the flagship attractions of the Avengers franchise. Before I begin this review, I would like to offer sincere apologies in advance to any of my comic-reading friends- I am no expert in the Marvel universe and thus my humble opinion is simply that of a layman and you can take it as you will.

Iron Man 3 catches up with Tony Stark not too long after his adventures with his Avenger buddies and apparently the experience has been too much for him, leaving him to a life of bad dreams and panic attacks. Apart from that though, life probably couldn't be better for our hero, especially since his girlfriend Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) runs Stark Industries and he gets to stay at home and tinker with his suits all day. Of course, all this comes to a screeching halt in the face of a terrorist named The Mandarin, who "teaches" the U.S. lessons by blowing up innocent people around the world.

In order to talk about Iron Man 3, I think we first have to honest with ourselves about the nature of the Avengers series. Let's face it, none of these movies have particularly amazing storylines, because truth be told, unless you are Christopher Nolan it's pretty hard to surprise anyone in this genre anymore. Fortunately for us, moviemakers realised a while ago that there are only so many ways to save the world that won't bore us to death, and so movies like Ironman and Avengers are ripe with action but also with a much more important element in humour. The Ironman series is and has always has been completely tied to Robert Downey Jr's ability to be like that one slightly jerkish friend you have and keep around because he delivers hilarious insights every once in awhile. Iron Man 3 is no different, and the Robert Downey Jr. show continues, aiding in any lacking moments with much needed injections of sarcasm and wit that only he can deliver. At this point in the series, Robert Downey Jr seems so natural in this role, perhaps because the Tony Starks' story of resurrection and redemption mirrors his own. In any case, as much as I've gotten used to Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man in the past few years, I'm not quite sure if I still find myself as much as a believer in the whole Avengers deal.


Throughout Iron Man 3, Tony Stark finds himself outnumbered, outgunned and hopeless, mostly as a result of his own former transgressions. The attempted character development and Tony's panic attacks are cute enough, but it's rather hard to explain to the comic book ignoramus in me why he doesn't just call up his avenger buddies to come help him when he's in serious trouble. But like I said previously, all this griping is just further proof that story really doesn't matter that much when it comes to these movies.

When I got my ticket for Iron Man 3, I expected laughs, some action, and some Gwyneth Paltrow, and that's exactly what I received. Sure, I still can't take Don Cheadle seriously in an action role,  and there has yet to be an Iron Man movie where the villain doesn't at some point use Stark's technology for bad (you'd think it wouldn't be so easy for others to use it) , but Iron Man 3 is still better than Iron Man 2 and for that I'll count my blessings.


Note on the traditional post-credit sneak peak: Really not so much of a sneak peak as an extra forty second scene that is pretty forgettable. It really is ok to leave and not stay the extra ten minutes-  hell you might even beat the traffic out.

It's a Disaster: Funny till the very end of it all.

Sometimes I honestly wonder if I look forward to watching adverts more than the actual movie sometimes when I go to the cinema. There are those adverts that make you bristle with anticipation (I think I almost cried during the latest Man of Steel teaser),  but there are others that generate a great deal less of a good response. I have already wrongly dismissed one movie in the past year  on the basis of its commercial in Django Unchained, and it seems I have done so yet again with the new black comedy It's a Disaster.

It's a Disaster is all set around a traditional couples brunch in the middle of what appears to be a very lazy saturday afternoon. Glenn, played by the delightfully awkward David Cross (Tobias from Arrested Development) , and Tracy (Julia Stiles) have recently begun dating and Tracy has decided to introduce her new beau to her friends. Unfortunately, it appears there could not have been a worse occasion to do this, with tension and an imminent breakup threatening to derail the dinner party long before an apocalyptic scenario unfolds.

From the very beginning , the movie is set for some laughs- the opening shot being an old black and white photo of a seemingly wonderful beach, only for the camera to zoom out and reveal a bomb exploding in the ocean.


The film itself follows more or less the same approach, teasing you with normal scenarios and then turning them around on you spectacularly, meaning for some really funny moments. Truth be told, I've always been someone who can appreciate dark comedies, but I think even the most blithe of us all can appreciate the film's well thought out formula. This sort of comedy only works, I think, when everyone in the cast is capable of being funny, and director Todd Berger ensures this happens by giving everyone in the movie a role based on different stereotypical response to crises. Hence an hour and a half of laughing at a conspiracy theorist, a take-charge man, an in-denial woman and your expected "screw it all let's get high" crew, all try and coexist with the knowledge that they may only have a few hours to live. It all works really well, and the great thing is that movie doesn't even need to try that hard to be funny because the scenarios already are. In fact, the only thing that could really ruin a movie like this would be bad dialogue, but the writing is witty and sharp all the way through, resulting in one of the best endings to a film I've seen in awhile.


It's a Disaster is a funny, smirking sort of Dark Comedy, that would probably make you laugh even  in the midst of a real-life apocalyptic scenario. Perhaps its greatest strength is its ability to constantly quash its own predictability and offer up sumptuous surprises, which is no easy feat for any film and makes this money well spent.

The Place Beyond the Pines: An emotional powerhouse of unstable ambition

The relationship between a boy and his father is a peculiar notion that frequently asks the age-old question, does the apple fall from the tree? Rebutting the perturbing idiom, director Derek Cianfrance’s film “The Place Beyond the Pines” tracks the journey of four men, stunt motorcyclist Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), police officer Avery (Bradley Cooper), and their respective sons, Jason (Dane DeHaan) and AJ (Emory Cohen).

Narratively executed in three isolated, yet inter-connected tales, the film’s front-running story, Gosling’s, packs an emotional punch that sets the bar too high to follow. Luke, a stunt motorcyclist for a traveling carnival, learns that he knocked up former fling Romina (Eva Mendes) on his previous tour. Growing up without a father, Luke attempts to raise the boy and reconnect with Romina, a difficult task made worse by her current boyfriend. Desperate for money, and coaxed on by fellow motorcycle fanatic Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), Luke begins robbing banks to support his family.

The emotional depth of Gosling’s story let alone his and everyone else’s performance, creates an emotional momentum that is almost unsuccessfully carried on by the film’s trailing acts. Picking up now with Cooper, a police officer struggling with corruption in his profession, the overall film takes an odd misdirection that seems to come way out of left field. While the events of the second act feature a terrific villainous performance by Ray Liotta, and an outstanding enactment by Cooper, proving an incredible range of versatility, the relationships between characters begin to fell more contrived and superficial. Even more so, when fifteen years later we meet Cooper’s son AJ, the typical substance-abusing "daddy doesn’t spend time with me" kid.

While the character of AJ, co-pilot of our third and final story, seems artificial, Jason, Luke’s son and our other protagonist, redelivers the emotional stride that his father established in the beginning of the film. In a haunting manner, the rippling effects of the father’s sins come alive in this act, delivering an emotional finale summed up in one single shot of the film.

Despite hindrance by the over ambitious attempt at telling three tales in one, “The Place Beyond the Pines” is a tragic film worthy of much praise. A testament to Cianfrance’s ability to shock his audience, the film is an absolute must see for those curious about moral ambiguity, placing cops and robbers on a similar grounding, and psychologically unpacking the tantalizing expression, “like father like son.”

Ryan McCabe is a student majoring in Film and T.V. at NYU.  As a student finding his way in the film business at one of the nation's best film institutions, Ryan brings a unique perspective to this blog and recently voiced the roles of Peter Godwin and Theron Campion In Ellen Kushner and Neal Gaeman's  audio book The Fall of Kings. 

Netflix Review: Safety not guaranteed

Probably one of the best games I like to play with my friends is that of hypotheticals.  I really can’t explain just how enjoyable it is to watch each other struggle as we ask ridiculous questions such as “who delivers the eulogy at your funeral?”, or the inevitable last person on earth questions.  It is thus no surprise that I greatly enjoyed Safety Not Guaranteed, a film whose premise could probably fit well within our game.

Wanted: a partner to travel with me back in time, ready for danger and knowing that safety is not guaranteed. The above is the gist of the personal ad placed in a regional newspaper that engages a journalist (Jake Johnson) and his interns.  It turns out that this ad is not a joke, and that loner Kenneth (Mark Duplass- pete from The League) really does believe that he will be time-traveling. Of course nobody believes this guy, and the piece is intended to be a nice bit of comedic fluff for the newspaper.  Chief journalist Jake , has clearly used the situation to try and meet up with a former flame and so his wonderfully sarcastic, cynical intern is sent to investigate this weird so-called time-traveler, by posing as someone interested in his ad.  Naturally, the dude is an absolute nut, but it’s ok mostly because Mark Duplass is just that right amount of crazy to be humourous while gently reminding you of the singing homeless people you sometimes run into on the street; the pain and loneliness of their existence having long ago pushed them over some unseen line.

What makes this movie work is that it’s charming and is light and funny in every regard. It’s not a serious dramatic movie, but yet is capable of moments of supreme clarity, all the while not pretending to be anything that it’s not. The film is pretty predictable in some regards  and yet feels a bit too simple- as though it could be replicated as some sort of made-for-tv-hallmark-special.  Luckily for us, the writing and jokes are extremely well written and very well-delivered. Duplass’ craziness is so well emoted- so well controlled, that I almost forgot that he is the same guy I watch in The League. His chosen time-traveling companion is also a delight- her deadpan humour fitting well in the dynamic of the film, with its jaunty but real approach fitting her on-screen persona rather well.

Safety Not Guaranteed is a great Sunday afternoon movie, a little independent movie that has no grand assumptions about it identity, but holds true to its promise, delivering powerful messages without making you feel burdened. In fact, it got me thinking about what I would do if I traveled back in time, and what I would fix. I’m not quite sure what that would be yet, but I know I have no regrets for having watched a truly wonderful film. 

42: "Good" can't be good enough for a great man

I love baseball movies and yet I hate watching baseball. Don't get me wrong, going to games and relaxing, eating peanuts with your friends and family and occasionally paying attention to any juicy bits of action is really nice,  but we're only a couple weeks in and I'm already sick of seeing a million identical diving catches on SportsCenter's top plays. But somehow, I have never quite had that problem with films about baseball, and so I was excited about the latest entry into the baseball film category- a biopic about the great Jackie Robinson.

For those of you who don't know (i.e. you were cryogenically frozen for the past sixty years) , Jackie Robinson was the first black man to ever play in baseball's major league. One of the best to ever play the game, Robinson became the catalyst for the diversification of America's pastime, serving as a hero to a whole new generation of black sport stars who would change the landscape of sports to what we know today. Robinson's struggle to be seen as an equal in a league that didn't want him , seemed to me to be fodder for a guaranteed home run (yes the baseball puns will be abound in this one), and I came into the theatre not questioning whether it would be good, but great.

Right off the bat, something about the presentation of the movie seemed a little off. Biopics tend to be all over the place in terms of how they introduce their subjects, and at what part in their lives we find them. Unfortunately, the way the beginning of 42 is handled, it felt more like I was watching a Ken Burns PBS Special on the Jackie Robinson Era. While the background on the era was appreciated, it seemed to take away the majesty that one often finds so often in baseball movies. In the following scene we we're taken to the pivotal moment where Dodgers owner Branch Rickley decides he wants to sign a black baseball player. Not only are the acted reactions to this announcement worthy of a middle school christmas program, but surely the screenwriter could have included a lot of the background information from the beginning in the dialogue. I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure Rickley's staff had more to say than a muffled "you can't do that". I mean at least try something like "you can't do that, there's never been a negro in the major league... that's why we have the negro league". Boom. In thirty seconds worth of effort, the writing could have been that much better, and an out of place opening sequence need not have been shot at all.

Thankfully, the storytelling seems to go a lot better. The fact that much of 42 takes place when Jackie is signed to the Dodgers' feeder team and works his way up turns out to be a brilliant move, as it gives us time to get to know the central characters before some of Jackie's biggest trials are met. Harrison Ford is expectedly good as Rickley, although I don't think he is ever given enough material to really satisfy his justification for wanting to sign a black player in the first place. The acting by Chadwick Boseman as Robinson is sturdy, but by no means anything to contact the annals of history about. He is certainly no Jamie Foxx in Ray, or Sean Penn in Milk, but that's ok, because that's not the sort of movie 42 is.

42 is not daring or particularly life-changing, but it's not mediocre or irreverent either. In fact, I think it's only real problem as a movie is that it is perhaps a bit too focused on being accurate without using some of the historical tools at its disposal. Directors have long used the sanctity of America's pastime to produce philosophical forays into the American experience and there is perhaps no better launch pad to talk about the evolution of race-relations in the States than the story of Jackie Robinson. 42 never shies away from this, and does a fair job of showing some of what Robinson had to deal with, but it fails to drape its hero in the godlike fashion that we expect from great baseball movies and that he deserves. In fictional characters like Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez (The Sandlot) to Roy Hobbs (The Natural), we're given a myriad of figures who are rather human and commit godlike deeds as we watch in awe. Somehow, 42 has managed to take an extraordinary man who commands respect like a deity in his sport,  and made his accomplishments seem somehow less awe-inspiring, even though both your natural knowledge of the subject and the context of the film repeatedly tell you otherwise.

Baseball, in a classic sense, is all about the mythology, the superstition, the fear of being struck out and gunning for a homer all the same. But 42 seems to miss these elements, and in the end a promising hit turns out to be just another pop-fly, caught and quickly forgotten; everything that Jackie Robinson and his legacy are not.

A tribute to Roger Ebert

I scanned my facebook newsfeed this afternoon, and was delivered a small shock of sorts. Roger Ebert, the renowned movie critic and one of my heroes was dead. I knew this not from any "Rest in Peace" statuses (though there were many later), but rather from the simple changing of a profile picture by one of my friends. My friend Jake had the good fortune to meet Ebert at a book signing in Chicago a while ago, and the picture says it all; the grin on my friend's face matching the old gentleman's beside him. Ebert's smile of course wasn't nearly as voluntary as my friend Jake's - a malicious cancer that led to the removal of  his thyroid  in 2006 saw to that, but his eyes in the picture reveal a wit undimmed and a spirit stronger than ever.

The great Roger Ebert

I'm afraid it was this older and more frail Roger Ebert that I really knew of. Like most college students my age, I had been far too young to appreciate  Siskel and Ebert at the Movies, and living in England and Belgium with basic cable prevented me from watching any of his later T.V. shows as great as they were. Considering this and the fact that I never met the guy, one could question my having dedicated an entire blogpost to my thoughts on this man, but I would beg to differ. 

The Roger Ebert I knew of was a man who could no longer speak, but whose writing soared to heights that are only worthy of those forever remembered. As I became more and more interested in movies in high school,  it became a regular occurrence for me to look at one of his reviews soon after watching a movie I had enjoyed. There was something comforting about knowing Ebert agreed with you about a movie, and a weird sense of accomplishment when he didn't. Most of the time we agreed, and I would marvel at the work of a man who seemed able to take everything I had felt about a movie and make it into a coherent, funny and insightful review. Ebert could be erudite and showcase his knowledge of film without being too lofty or condescending, but never degraded himself to those two word quotes fit for airing on commercials five weeks before a film's release, that are clearly given on the way to some studio-sponsored free buffet. 

Above all, what made Roger Ebert so special to me, was that he was so much more than a movie critic. Whilst I loved hearing about how good or bad movies were, I read his reviews to try and piece together different parts of what was a truly fascinating man. Ebert, it seems, possessed an almost Forrest-Gumpian knack for being involved with all things Chicago. It was he after all, according to Oprah Winfrey, who convinced the icon to go into syndication in the first place. Towards the end, Ebert would entertain us, his fans, with tales of strange local bars, drunken interviews with classic movie stars, and his many views on life, all of which were always an amazing read. His opinions on things always came across as being so very genuine, all the while accompanied with devastating sarcasm and an incredible sense of humour. 

Ebert's determination to keep writing both for fun and for reviews even after the loss of his speech, is probably the greatest testament I can give to someone who has truly changed the way people think about movies. The man whose reviews and various publications I have followed for a few years now died today as one of the greatest critics and writers of his generation, and I am proud to have known of him if only for a short time of his life. 

Roger, it seems I hardly knew you, but know that your words have inspired me beyond measure to believe that one small, pudgy man can leave the footprint of a giant. 

Spring Breakers: "Better not bring yo' kids"

Every once in a while there arrive moments in life where you stop and wonder whether you are laughing because something is funny, or whether you are simply laughing to get through the weirdness of it all. For me, quite a few instances come to mind; a bad encounter with Mexican food in Florida among them, but it looks as though I will have to add Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers to that list as well.

I'm not quite sure what it was I was expecting when I went to go see this movie- perhaps a farce starring ex-Disney channel princesses having a Hangover-type experience whilst on holiday ,but that was not what I got. The movie seems to start out that way, as we are introduced to a sleepy college somewhere in Kentucky that is rapidly clearing out for spring break. Faith, the appropiately named supposedly-religious girl played by Selena Gomez, is planning to go down to Florida with her childhood friends, who for whatever reason have chosen quite a different moral path. The problem, it turns out is that they have no money, and thus no real way to get down there. Criminal activity ensues as the girls rob a chicken place to get money and then go down to Florida where upon renting scooters and snorting cocaine (how much money did these girls steal?)  things obviously go wrong.

credit to Eric Moyer for this gem

The thing that makes this film so interesting is the aura it gives at different times. Enter a world of neon lights and neon bikinis, of weird techno sequences not unlike those in Drive playing throughout some of the crucial moments in the film. Korine somehow manages to take a disney-channel original movie setup and make it dirty and grisly, forcing us to laugh even when maybe it isn't that funny. Korine seems to delight in beach party sequences that show wouldn't-want-your-mother-to-walk-in-and-see-you-watching-this-nudity, a dramatic emotional scene and the restatement (three or four times) of some saccharine line about wanting the best ever spring break. In fact, it's so over the top that at points the format can be maddening, but the people in the movie know this and run away with it.

James Franco is at his best as rapper/gangster Alien, the metal-grilled "friend" the girls make on the trip. If this is a tale about the distortion of innocence, Alien is a strange pied-piper figure leading our girls to lower levels of human depravity, every now and then spitting creepily delivered mini-poems and haiku that make you laugh because of the ridiculousness of the situations. In what is soon to be an iconic scene, Franco manages to turn his sung rendition of Britney Spears' Everytime into a surprisingly dark song.

Franco's "Everytime" scene

Franco is probably the only reason the movie works , and a lot of the other characters don't seem to make much sense or really fulfill any real purpose. In the end, only Alien pulls together the neon lights and twisted themes to make us feel like we've watched anything at all, and it's a shame he's not in the first half an hour of the movie. Spring Breakers was definitely a much better film than it could have been- it's a smart, funny, self-aware satire, that seems to want to hanker back to an eighties-film with its sequences.