IRON MAN
(Review)

Jon Favreau’s Iron Man has the distinction of achieving a number of firsts.
It was the first major hit of the 2008 summer (at the time of this review’s posting, the film is the third highest grosser of the year thus far, in the wake of The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull); it was the first film to be produced by Marvel Studios; it was the first in what looks to be another successful Hollywood franchise; it was the first Marvel comic film since Bryan Singer’s X2 that left me nearly completely satisfied, an agreeable taste of popcorn cinema that had just enough substance informing its four-colour antics to make it soar right over the heads of recent muddled and murky Marvel entries.
And, just like Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, it found a franchise star in the unlikeliest of Hollywood actors.


But the truth is, a large part of why Iron Man works is due to Robert Downey, Jr., whose Tony Stark is the lovable billionaire industrialist cad, who is made to suddenly face the brutal reality of his company’s weapons manufacturing.
Downey nails not just the all-consuming obsessive quality of the driven genius, but also the heartfelt sense of atonement Stark adopts after a weapons field test in Afghanistan turns into a three-month long imprisonment.
Understanding that the fruits of his company have been subverted and used against both innocents and the young American soldiers whose lives he’s been trying to safeguard on the battlefield, Stark takes it upon himself to once again wrestle with the conundrum of building a weapon of war to uphold the peace.


But this time, the weapon is solely under his control, in the hands of this flawed individual, whose call to heroism is fueled by the need to right the wrongs committed with the products of his industry, with the leavings of his genius (a theme ironically magnified in the film through the subplot which sees the development of the Iron Monger, the titular hero’s mechanical nemesis, his automated Other).
Downey manages to put this all up on the screen, while still keeping the rakish Stark a jaunty presence; unlike another troubled billionaire playboy, Stark isn’t the brooding type.
And yet, the sense of a burdened soul intent on making things right is still clearly evident.


This humour and humanity amidst the combination of Iron Man’s high-tech comic book world and the nearly pinpoint marriage of physical effects and CGI on-screen goes a long way in making this a summer Hollywood tentpole that’s about more than just the explosions and the adrenaline.
And in that particular corner, Downey is helped along by Gwyneth Paltrow (who plays Stark’s ever loyal girl Friday, Pepper Potts) and Jeff Bridges (as Obadiah Stane, Tony’s erstwhile right hand at Stark Industries). The performances from the trio suggest casual, comfortable relationships, grounding the movie’s fantastic goings-on in a realistic milieu.
I might have added Terrence Howard as well, but his James Rhodes doesn’t get much screen time, and seems to be in the film primarily for the purposes of introducing the character to this potential new franchise; in the comic books, Rhodes eventually dons a variation of the Iron Man armour as War Machine.


A more interesting introduction made in the film though, is that of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, which comic geeks will know as S.H.I.E.L.D.
This particular introduction of course, bleeds into that post-credits bit with Sam Jackson, which then bleeds into the Tony Stark cameo in Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk.
And that’s probably another Iron Man first: it’s potentially the first in a long line of interconnected Marvel Studios films.

Immediately (and to my mind at least, rather prematurely) following the box office success of Iron Man, Marvel Studios announced a whole slate of subsequent films, which included adaptations of Thor and Captain America, all leading up to a proposed Avengers movie.
They had the 2010 and 2011 release dates down pat, and they had logos for the film’s titles too. Of course, they had no scripts, no casts, no directors.
But that didn’t stop them from locking themselves into very specific release dates.

It’s this annoying tendency of Marvel to shoot themselves in the foot just when they’re getting it right that always bugs me.
As I mentioned in my review of The Incredible Hulk (see Archive), Marvel needs to cultivate a little more circumspection.
Just because their bad—or otherwise terribly flawed—adaptations (see any Marvel comic book film between X2 and Iron Man) make money, doesn’t mean they’re worth the celluloid they’re shot on.


There needs to be integrity, substance, and humanity in a comic book film to serve as solid testaments to a fact that we comic geeks have known for a very long time: that the comic book is a valid medium of artistic expression, that it’s about more than just fistfights and spandex, and that it certainly isn’t just for kids.
I’m happy to say that Iron Man is one from Marvel that makes that grade.
Here’s hoping they keep their eye on that more valuable, lasting prize.

Parting shot: For the record (and to paradoxically showcase that other, more readily apparent prize), as of August 10, 2008, Iron Man has a worldwide gross of $568,178,682, while The Dark Knight clocks in at a whopping $645,241,000 in only 24 days of release. (As a point of comparison, Iron Man has been in theatres for 101 days.)
Meanwhile, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has raked in $744,839,965 in 81 days of release.

(Iron Man OS courtesy of impawards.com [design by BLT & Associates]; images courtesy of guardian.co.uk, cinematical.com, ew.com, latimes.com, and wired.com.)

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (Review)

Being a Nip/Tuck viewer, I was naturally curious to see Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Augusten Burroughs’ memoirs, Running with Scissors. How was I to know I’d be seeing one of the most singularly moving films of 2006?

Running with Scissors follows the bizarrely improbable but true story of young Augusten (Joseph Cross), who is basically abandoned by his alcoholic father (Alec Baldwin) and unstable, struggling poet of a mother (Annette Bening), and left in the “care” of his mother’s psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox).
In Finch’s cluttered, pink monstrosity of a house, Augusten meets Finch’s wife, Agnes (Jill Clayburgh), his daughters Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood), and Hope’s cat, Freud. His friendship with Natalie then leads him to meet Neil (Joseph Fiennes), Finch’s adopted son, who is both schizophrenic and gay, as is Augusten (gay, that is, not schizophrenic).
It is among these psychologically damaged individuals that Augusten struggles to find himself and his dream (which he at first believes to be the building of a hair empire, ala Vidal Sasoon, but ultimately is something else entirely).

As he had already proven in Nip/Tuck, Murphy is adept at sifting through the psychologies of the walking wounded, at showing the audience the scars of traumas past, and the odysseys we all need to go on in order to heal and find closure.
He brings that insight to bear on Running with Scissors, showing us the quirks and the insanities, as well as the humanity that lurks beneath the psychoses. Loony as some of them are, these are people struggling for some sort of normality, trying desperately to see past the delusions we all nurse to make things seem bearable.
The delusions springing from misplaced love and devotion are perhaps the most insidious mirages of all, and there are many of those in Running with Scissors, from Augusten’s need for a kind and nurturing parent, to Agnes’ need for a family to care for. Insidious because, as Natalie points out, sometimes, we can’t help but love someone who doesn’t deserve that love, because frankly, they’re the only ones in our lives.

Families (whether nuclear or extended) are always a tricky thing, a potential mine field of unspoken emotion, both good and bad. This is exacerbated by the fact that biology and genetics take the choice away from our hands; unlike our friends, we can’t choose our family. These are people foisted upon us by DNA, people we need to get along with, whether we like them or not.
And in a set up like that, love can blind just as easily as it can heal.

In Augusten’s world, the only other people are just as damaged as he, perhaps even more so. It is through this impossible situation of the blind leading the blind that Augusten must navigate as he comes of age. These are people who can’t really even care for themselves, much less for others.
And it is in this world that Murphy finds moments of poignant, painful clarity; when true love is communicated in the presence of a bag of dog food and an episode of Dark Shadows; when emotions are laid bare in the cramped confines of a car as rain falls in sheets outside; when a son’s tears roll down his cheeks at his birthday party.

And not only does Murphy find these moments, but he assembles a cast that brings those moments to wrenching life. These are fine performances, particularly from two of the youngest members of the cast, Cross and Wood, and the veterans, Bening (why does she keep on losing to Hilary Swank?), Cox, and Clayburgh (who has appeared on Nip/Tuck, as has Baldwin).
It’s probably only Paltrow who doesn’t quite come across as the Bible-dipping, favorite daughter; her performance doesn’t seem as honest as those of the other ensemble members. (Which is kind of sad, given my excitement at the reunion with her Shakespeare in Love partner, Fiennes.)

Still, this is a film that should resonate for anyone who’s ever thought, “Why can’t my family be normal?” And let’s face it: that’s you and me and every other one of the 6 billion souls on our planet.
This is a film that is both funny and moving, as life has the tendency of being. And despite it being based on a true story, it is at times, so bizarre that by film’s end, I’d somehow managed to forget I was watching real people and their fractured lives. It was something of a surprise to run through the “what happened to them afterwards” sequence which is a staple for based-on-a-true-story films.

Running with Scissors is a triumph for Murphy, who proves he is comfortable on the big screen, unlike some other TV writer/directors, who can’t seem to grasp the differences between the two media. It’s entirely possible in fact, that Murphy might be more at home in a finite setting like a feature film, as opposed to the continuous nature of a weekly TV serial. (Some of the best moments in the four seasons of Nip/Tuck can be found in particular episodes that are usually removed from the long-running plot threads, or in the season enders, as was the case with the Season 2 finale, which capped the stunning Ava Moore storyline, and which was the episode that featured Alec Baldwin.)

So, if you haven’t already seen it, this comes with my recommendations. However, if your tastes run more towards the Hollywood family dramedy (I loathe that marketing term) where everything is solved by an impromptu song-and-dance routine while lip synching to some oldie but goodie, steer clear of Running with Scissors. Like every sensible parent knows, it can be very dangerous.

Parting shot: As if to prove he likes working with familiar faces, Bening, Clayburgh, and Paltrow are all reportedly set to star in Murphy’s next feature, the post-Watergate set Dirty Tricks, with Jim Broadbent as Richard Nixon!

(Originally posted 021207)