Iron Man 3

“Iron Man 3” and its franchise as a whole has resisted a firm genre label because it’s trying to be everything at once and just feels like nothing at all.

How would you put a label on the “Iron Man” franchise? What is it about this franchise that has allowed it to survive reboots, drastic recasting, self parody and made Tony Stark the most likeable character in the complete Marvel Universe?

The popular candidate is Robert Downey Jr., but his on-camera chemistry with Gwyneth Paltrow is part of the reason the franchise has resisted description. These two are screwball comics on par with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and their dialogue mixed with their story in “Iron Man 3” comes across as part comedy, part action movie, part superhero fantasy, part conspiracy thriller and even part social commentary.

“Iron Man 3” and its franchise as a whole has resisted a firm genre label because it’s trying to be everything at once and just feels like nothing at all. Continue reading “Iron Man 3”

Flight

“Flight” is a stirring, suspenseful and even hurtful portrait of alcoholism, but it is studio filmmaking that takes us for a ride, proving that some people need to embrace the edge to even stay upright.

“Flight” proves this so strongly in an early action scene that would befit “United 93.” Captain Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) is a pilot who has just taken off into rocky, severe turbulence. He pushes the plane past its speed limits to break out of the storm into clear skies, but all the danger is necessary to stay safe. The twist is, he’s drunk as a skunk. He stayed awake the entire night in bed with one of his beautiful flight attendants and capped off the morning with some hits of cocaine, his way of instantly beating a hangover where an aspirin won’t do.

But nearing descent, the plane suffers a critical mechanical failure, and Whip executes a daring maneuver, turning the plane upside down to counter the rapid decline and carry into a glide. In the inevitable crash, only six of the 102 people onboard are killed, and Whip is hailed as a hero.

Whip’s dilemma is that if he were to embrace his heroic side by basking in the press, it would soon be revealed that he’s an addict and that he may have been responsible for the accident. It doesn’t matter that the plane was found to be faulty, and the news that no other pilot put through the same simulated conditions somehow hits a hollow note. What’s important is that we trust him and that he can trust himself.

Denzel Washington’s nuanced performance convinces us that Whip is a man in control and fully aware of his vices. He boldly asserts to his girlfriend Nicole (Kelly Reilly), another addict, that he chooses to drink and that he doesn’t need AA because he is the pilot charting his own course. We sympathize with Whip because few actors other than Washington could appear so effortlessly confident, and yet his actions remain questionable, his emotions remain guarded and his personality remains a mystery.

The movie is directed by Robert Zemeckis, making “Flight” the first live-action feature he’s directed since 2000’s “Cast Away.” Like that film, it’s about a man getting to know himself, isolated from the people he cares about, but it tells it all through moments of state of the art special effects and action. The flight scene in particular is done with a firm hand and clear eye, not the jumbled images of a man impaired. It provides the metaphor of being fully aware of our downward spiral and an inability to stop it.

In the same way Whip softens the blow of the crash, “Flight” succeeds brilliantly in telling this layered story with moments of levity and excitement. John Goodman is hilarious as an oafish drug dealer just as controlling of his reckless behavior as Whip. Rarely has a scene in which the hero of a drama hits rock bottom been this funny, but Goodman helps it hit just the right note.

Robert Zemeckis’s recent animated films have been a mixed bag to put it politely, but “Flight” is a wonderful return to form with a great story and performance at its core.

4 stars

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Steven Soderbergh takes the heist movie to the art house with his “Ocean’s Eleven” remake.

 

“Ocean’s Eleven” was when Steven Soderbergh took the art house to the mainstream. It wasn’t Oscar bait like “Traffic” and “Erin Brokovich,” and it wasn’t gritty and experimental like “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” It was just pure Hollywood fun in the biggest way possible, which is probably the reason why most critics were unkind to it. To see such a gigantic studio picture with no lofty ambitions come from an otherwise serious director was like a concert pianist pounding out a little honky-tonk, as Roger Ebert put it in his 2001 review.

But to see how much it gets right, how different it feels and how unique it looks at every moment in comparison to similar Hollywood capers like it is to realize that “Ocean’s Eleven” is a great film after all, and a fun one. Continue reading “Ocean’s Eleven (2001)”

Rapid Response: Boogie Nights

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights” is a hilarious movie about sexuality while also being an interesting take on a genre picture.

When Hollywood struggles because YouTube thrives, so does the porn industry suffer as anyone can film themselves having sex. Not every porn star can be Sasha Grey and find work with Steven Soderbergh.

Strangely enough then, Paul Thomas Anderson’s breakout film “Boogie Nights” has renewed significance. It’s the story of the rise and fall of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) as the veteran porn stars struggle to stay hard and horny as video tapes take movies out of the XXX theaters.

“Boogie Nights” isn’t really about porn, it’s just more open about its sexuality. (“Jack says you have a great big cock. Can I see it?”) The one-off joke is that this coming-of-age story of stardom and struggle is just the same even with a grindhouse quality filter. Anderson’s whole goal is not to make a genre picture but to make an art house movie that looks and feels like a genre picture. He did much the same thing with romantic comedies in “Punch-Drunk Love.” And it’s the reason why in “Boogie Nights’s” second half, the whole story seems to go off the rails when it becomes so drenched in painful and melodramatic self parody. The end belongs to another movie, and PTA finally acknowledges that shift with a 13-inch nod to “Raging Bull.”

Anderson wonderfully mixes style and kitsch here. The film has a vitality in its disco score that permeates the campy, referential ’70s vibe and carries through to the more depressing moments all bathed in jaded melodrama and cynicism.

His camera moves in ways that don’t intrinsically make sense, but they draw your eyes and your mind. Watch the camera crop out Burt Reynolds’s character to show Julianne Moore staring admiringly at the young, nervous Dirk. He doesn’t return the glance even though the camera does the same for him, and this is not necessarily a clue to her motherly infatuation with Dirk. But we’re captivated by the moment. The camera itself is alluring and sexy.

The early moments of the film are also plain funny as hell. Wahlberg was overshadowed by Burt Reynolds’s Oscar nominated performance (he turns into a sort of George Lucas of porn, and he’s capable of conveying a vision of porn that is simultaneously idealistic and perverse), but it’s refreshing to see Wahlberg when he was still the young Marky Mark posing for Calvin Klein. He’s been typecast in so many tough guy roles lately that it’s impossible to imagine him playing anyone like Dirk anymore.

John C. Reiley and Philip Seymour Hoffman are also riots. Hoffman especially is playing off type as an overweight, closeted gay man with an attraction to Dirk. As for Reiley, the camera stays put and lets him work. His best moment is when he asks Dirk how much he can squat, only to up Dirk’s ante by an absurd 150 pounds.

In the way you could argue we don’t have movie stars like Cary Grant and John Wayne anymore, we don’t really have porn stars like Dirk Diggler anymore. And for that matter, we don’t have other directors in America making movies the way Paul Thomas Anderson does anymore.

Iron Man 2

If “Entourage” were a superhero movie, it would be this one. “Iron Man 2” loves knowing that it has a cocky, self-centered character everyone loves and an actor that is not only convincing at playing it but whom everyone loves even more. It hypes up the pretty boy lifestyle to the point of being silly and on the verge of absurdity.

If everyone loved the original “Iron Man” because the Tony Stark secret identity was not a cookie cutter hero, dweeb or lone wolf, then reasonably no one should be amused by Robert Downey Jr.’s now extreme version of a cookie cutter narcissist. But maybe like many episodes of “Entourage,” it’s hard not to be amused. I found it odd how little Stark was impressed by his own ability to discover and create a brand new element in the short time frame of one montage. I wondered why he didn’t blink at the thought of drinking coffee in a diner with an eye patch wearing Samuel L. Jackson as he sat in full Iron Man uniform. I can’t say any of it was out of character, and I can’t say it was an inappropriate direction in terms of entertainment value. Continue reading “Iron Man 2”