Iron Man 2

Spoilers. People have been asking for an Iron Man 2 review. I totally liked it, but also find myself without that much to really say. The same people who asked me to review it also provided some thoughts of their own. So I thought I would chuck a bunch of stuff in this post written by different people and see what happens.

The main thing I had to say about it was that it felt to me like a new kind of blockbuster. The Dark Knight did too to a certain extent -- but the Dark Knight was a BAD new kind of blockbuster, one that tried to make SERIOUS, DOWNER points, one that lectured the audience (It was not the first, but it was big about it). That is not good summer blockbuster material.

Iron Man 2 was new in a good way. The scene in the diner with Samuel L Jackson was what made it clear to me. The logo of the diner is in the window and it is all yellow and orange. Like something from the 70s, but not exactly the 70s. And I realized two things. 1. The nebulous time superhero comics are set in is very like the nebulous time Tarantino movies are set in (People are texting in Death Proof but everything else about the setting seems 70s; in the comics in what war does Iron Man's origin take place?).

2. Iron Man 2 is good for the same reason Pulp Fiction is good -- and watching Samuel L Jackson in the diner is the overlap, the scene in both movies. Pulp Fiction is an irreverent, randomly and gratuitously violent film, but even though those were all things the audience, including my high-school-self, valued, this was not why we watched the movie. We watched for the dialogue, for the conversations. The revolution of having such a successful cool picture, a movie (along with Reservoir Dogs) it felt like my whole high school was obsessed with be about PEOPLE TALKING is kind of amazing, especially when people think high school kids are just idiots who want to see violence (and we were, and we did, but the talking trumped all).

“Avatar: my little cream soda, oh-well, oh-well!”

[Guest Blogger C Lue Disharoon gives us his take on Avatar.]

(with a minimum of spoilers, at that)

I’ve briefly encountered the criticisms related to Avatar, which were typically founded on reasonable observations. It’s true, there’s a science fiction story called The Martian Princess, and it’s true there’s a movie called Fern Gully, another one called Dances With Wolves; it is so, that many elements of said stories echo loudly within the 3-D enhanced cinema plexes of those familiar with them, who yearned for the mind-staggering visuals to be presented in context of a more original story. I follow you: you wanted the narrative to surprise you the way soaring down a cliff on those reptilian banshees might take one’s breath away.

You didn’t want to predict the love interest, the climax, or the treachery within the first half hour. Maybe you wanted something with more intricate characters, or for that Mega Gulp soda not to make you feel as though the Elf With a Gun stopped to jump up and down on your bladder for the last half hour (get this rebellion OVER with, dangit!). You probably skewed the grading curb occasionally, daydreaming through the molasses pace of regular classes (like the physics major, Cameron, who directed this movie). Maybe you would’ve liked something directed a little more at the rational neo-cortex and less in a limbo in the limbic brain. Once upon a time, all you wanted was for a cutting-edge special effects milestone to contain a story you found thought provoking, “oh-well, oh-well... (with apologies to the White Stripes).”