Iron Man
Superhero Action Movie
- Written by a whole bunch of people
- Directed by Jon Favreau
After 15 days of documentaries, serious dramas, and dark comedies at the San Francisco International Film Festival, nothing cleanses the palette like a well-made, big-budget Hollywood entertainment. Iron Man fit the bill perfectly. While not up to the quality of Spiderman 2 (still the best superhero comic-book movie ever made), director Jon Favreau and his team of writers still manage to insert all the requisite thrills into a story strong enough to support the pyrotechnics rather than get buried by them.
That story concerns weapons tycoon Tony Stark, a selfish and egotistical (but brilliant) jerk played by Robert Downey Jr. After some weeks held prisoner by some Very Bad People With 
Accents in Afghanistan (their exact affiliation is never made clear), Stark has a change of heart and wants to get out of the death business. But he’s conflicted about his new-found pacifism, and secretly builds the ultimate one-man weapon–an armored, flying suit with guns and missile launchers attached–to help him keep the peace.
Of course, I’m using the term “strong story” in a relative way, since we go to different types of films with different expectations. If a Mike Leigh film had a story this implausible, we’d through bricks at the screen. On the other hand, we’re not disappointed if Leigh fails to deliver great-looking action sequences.
Favreau delivers them, effectively and generously. He knows better than to fill his movie with wall-to-wall action, and always ties the fighting to the story, making it all the more thrilling. And the action is choreographed and edited to show, rather than obscure, what’s going on. Iron Man’s fights lack the spatial incoherence that hurt the equally well-written and -cast Batman Begins.
Let’s talk about that casting. With his disreputable aura and problematic personal history, Downey isn’t your garden variety action star. On the other hand, he’s perfect as an hard-living playboy who can tell a bartender “I’m famished. Bring me a scotch.” And that makes him the right choice for Stark. (Strictly speaking, Iron Man isn’t a superhero, as he has no super powers. Anyone who put on the suit and learned how to use it could do the same things. But culturally speaking, he’s a superhero because he fights crime while wearing silly clothes. The same rule applies to Batman.) Among the supporting cast, Gwyneth Paltrow stands out in the Gal Friday role of Pepper Potts, turning a poorly-written cliché into a likeable screen presence.
Stay through the end credits. You’ll be rewarded.
light. He interviews them extensively in Standard Operating Procedure, shows us the letters they wrote home, and uses actors to re-enact some of the most gut-wrenching scenes they witnessed and were involved in. The result isn’t an easy film to watch. It has you squirming in your seat, trying not to turn away your eyes. It also forces you to ask yourself some very tough questions.
Having missed it in theaters, I took home a press screener DVD of 
ong-term psychological aftereffects of the devastating 2004 tsunami. The story concerns a young architect who comes to a small coastal town on a job involving the rebuilding on a luxury hotel. He stays at a much plainer hotel, and falls in love with the woman running the place. She’s moderately charming, he isn’t, and everything moves like a tortoise on downers. Any real statements about these two people as individuals or post-traumatic stress disorder in general never get through.
he disabled and the fully-abled people who care for them. A mostly wheelchair-bound support group, led by an incompetent yet self-righteous social worker, come to the home of a potential new member. But Geirr, boiling with rage since a car accident paralyzed him from the waist down, doesn’t want to join. When he finds it impossible to ignore the group, he sets out to disrupt the entire process.
I just saw 
ones, and the necessity of eating those loved ones’ corpses. Finally, two of them make a stunning trek across the mountains to find help. Only 16 out of the 45 people on the plane survived the crash and 72-day ordeal.
ng to her dog, and it’s much better than any film that meets that description has any right to be. Szaflarska is wonderful in the role–wistful, bitter, demanding of respect, a little crazy, with a tendency to spy on her neighbors. Not that she doesn’t have reasons. The yuppies next door want to buy her property and tear down the once-beautiful house where she spent her life. Despite the title, the film is not so such much about death as about how one spends the last years of one’s life.
other, maneuver around their mutual attraction, and talk about their very different attitudes about life and race. Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins make attractive and likable leads, and for the first hour they’re completely worth spending time with.