Tag: Gwyneth Paltrow

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”

The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson doesn’t make deliberately quirky indie comedies or inscrutable art house films. He makes fantasies. “The Royal Tenenbaums” is just the story of a dysfunctional family, not an epic voyage to the bottom of the sea or the tale of an adventurous talking fox, and yet it feels as wonderfully strange and exotic as any of those.

That’s because just about every Wes Anderson film ever made is the most wholly Wes Anderson-y movie you’ve ever seen. His style drips over every moment in his framing, his tone and his quirky imagination. “The Royal Tenenbaums” more than any of Anderson’s films perhaps is like visual poetry in the way the film’s offbeat dialogue punctuates his quick cuts.

His shots are exploding with wild imagery. None of it is natural or has a purpose; it is merely beautiful to look at. One room has two giant murals on the wall featuring tigers and hunters, and another room reveals the head of a giant stuffed badger to be mounted on the wall. Continue reading “The Royal Tenenbaums”

The Avengers

“This intergalactic energy cube ain’t big enough for the six of us,” “The Avengers” says with a forceful tone as it struggles to conceal a smile.

Joss Whedon’s superhero movie equivalent to The Travelling Wilburys fully knows how impossible it is to squeeze all of these massive folklore figures into one film. So when the whole serious side starts to cave and just gets silly, Whedon is there with a zinger to run with the moment.

“The Avengers” is a fun and smart movie in doses, one that surprises and dazzles when it isn’t talking your head off. Continue reading “The Avengers”

Review: Contagion

Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” is a precise, engaging and squeamish thriller about living in the modern age.

In a modern age of Twitter, text messaging and round the clock news, information can spread like wildfire. In the epidemic thriller “Contagion,” it merely takes one blog post to incite riots and one text to put a life in danger. And you wonder why these things are called “viral.”

Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” is a precise thriller that charts the rapid spread of a highly contagious and lethal virus, one that jumps from Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) as she returns from Hong Kong to quickly spreading across the globe.

It’s an engaging and squeamish thriller that makes you anxious to touch your face or move your foot on the sticky movie theater floor. And it’s because this is the sort of mass panic that would happen today. Continue reading “Review: Contagion”

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”