Pop Culture Round Up: erm, a really long time

Dudes, this isn't so much a round up as a build up of several weeks' worth of articles. Even so, let's deal with them, so we can start again fresh on Monday.

A.O. Scott on Roger Ebert going back to writing. As I recently received Roger Ebert's Four-Star Reviews 1967-2007, I have to agree. Ebert the writer is much better than Ebert the television personality.

What they said.

What she said.

Well, sure, that's all well and good, but I'd rather have someone tell me who the hell Sally is!

Okay, okay, but number four? Really? What else are you going to talk about? Cold fusion? I think not.

Edelstein on the best New York movies.

Alright, so Iron Man's already out, and it obviously didn't suck, but the article's still good.

The best part of this is the fact that I think he's only moderately kidding.

The episode's already aired (spoiler alert if you haven't already watched the full season of Gossip Girl, which you should really do immediately), but this site's still a delight.

Mick LaSalle knows the score.

Of their 50, I think 45, 29, 27, 24, 23, 20, 19, and 14 would be my top picks. Especially 45.

WHAT?

I'd like to tell you that I had a more serious or erudite response to Sydney Pollack's passing, but I didn't. His career was filled with a healthy mix of successes and misfires, and it looked like he was at the beginning of a fantastic acting career in his twilight years. I've gotten to the age now where I find 73 too soon. For the record, I liked his remake of Sabrina. I liked it a lot.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Premise: After a small time heist goes wrong, Harry (Robert Downey Jr.) accidentally stumbles into an audition and gets shipped out to L.A. to screen test for a movie about a heist gone wrong. His producer (Larry Miller) hooks Harry up with Perry (Val Kilmer) for some detective lessons. Then the bodies start piling up, and Harry's childhood crush (Michelle Monaghan) shows up in need of a real detective.

I realize that I am a little late to this party. I recall positive reviews when this movie was released November 2005, but I don't remember what stopped me from seeing it at the time. I just skipped through my archives for that month, and I can see only one real distraction. Maybe no one else was interested? Maybe it didn't open here? Actually, that's a distinct possibility.

And why haven't I see it since? Dunno, really. I have a feeling that I forgot all about it. Then Iron Man kindly reminded me that I love Downey Jr., and Scott Tobias did his part, reminding me that this movie exists and that I should see it. So I did. I didn't Zip it and wait for the next few years for it to arrive. I walked down to the video station, directly to the Ks, and picked it up.

Thank goodness I did. I can't believe I've been going through the last few years without ending conversations with, "What do I know? I suck the heads off fish!"

I can't believe I haven't been enjoying Kilmer and Downey in concert this whole time. Harry pretty much spends the entire movie freaking out and trying to seem like he is not freaking out. This is fun enough to begin with, thanks to Downey, but it's downright hilarious as he becomes more and more accustomed to his new, bullet riddled life. It's the kind of character and performance that could only, it has been shown, be balanced by Kilmer as Gay Perry (just go with it). Although he is smart and sarcastic, there's an extent to which Perry never gives you the full story, and he never will, so you just have to take everything he says at face value. It's oddly freeing.

Naturally I have to thank former golden boy writer and first time director Shane Black for all of this. Where would we be without him? No one does action buddy comedies better, and it turns out that we really did need his barbed, meta-take on his own experiences in the genre. It's insider-y without going too far down the rabbit hole, but it's greatest success is the way that, even when you are provided with a somewhat unreliable narrator, you are still expected to keep up and follow along. It's a nice change.

Also, props to John Ottoman's sleek, playful score, and to whoever I have to thank for the animated opening sequence. A

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

Plot: The Pevensies (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, and Anna Popplewell) find themselves pulled back into Narnia after Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) sounds the alarm. For the kids, it's been a year, for the Narnians, overthrown by the Telmarines and forced into hiding, awaiting the return of Aslan (v. Liam Neeson) and the kings and queens of old, it's been centuries.

Oh, dear. It's a shame I liked the first one so much, really, because this one is so disappointing by comparison. It's the fourth book as per my current boxed set, although I'm not surprised that they jumped ahead to this one. The Pevensies are peripheral to the action in The Horse and his Boy. It looks like they will continue on ahead with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader next. Ah, well.

The kids are much better than I remember them, particularly Keynes as Edmund and Henley as Lucy. We'll see more of them in the upcoming movies than the other two. They had better make them quick, though. They're both growing up fast. It's too bad, as well, that we'll see less of Moseley in particular. He makes Peter's teenage entitlement believable, and the fact that he has a reason to feel that way (he was High King, after all) makes Peter pitiable rather than irritating.

As for the biggest recent addition? He's pretty, but Barnes is encumbered by the attempted Spanish (?) accent, and by figuring out how to act a powerful sexual attraction in a quasi-religious* children's movie. I suspect that's a difficult thing. Maybe he'll grow on me in future installments.

*Why the quasi? While I still think the supposal was deftly handled in the first outing, there's nothing particularly Christian in this one. The focus was more on fighting.

Director and co-writer (with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) Andrew Adamson has surer footing this time. The movie's surprisingly tense for the fact that it's also often boring. I suspect a lot of the tension derives from the fact that these are children throwing themselves into battle, and they do it without Aslan there to protect them. Lucy sits a lot of it out on principle (not that anyone comes out and says that). The Narnians, led by the incomparbly voiced Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep, are as wonderfully eclectic as the first time around. Peter Dinklage is especially good as Trumpkin.

I just wish there had been more for them to do. It takes a long time to build to the big, climatic battle in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and it should. It's about how faith in things unseen pays off. This movie just has such an in between-er feel that I wonder what will become of the other five. C+

Speed Racer (2008)

Short: A decade or so after his older brother's (Scott Porter) death in a race, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is taking the racing world by storm. His parents (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon) are proud but wary, his girlfriend (Christina Ricci) feels neglected, and big corporate sponsors (Roger Allam) are calling. Speed turns down a lucrative deal, and he puts his career and his family in jeopardy as a result. In the end, he hooks up with a similarly hogged tied racer (Rain) and the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox) to clean racing up.

For reals, you guys. I've seen both "Go, Speed Racer, Go Away" and "No, Speed Racer, No" as review headlines, and they're both warranted. This movie sucks. Sadly, the writing-directing Wachowski brothers don't seem to realize what a turkey they've made.

It's too bad, really, because it has the makings of a great midnight/cult movie if only they would just let the bottom fall out already. Between Trixie's get ups, the insanely deliberate cartoon calibre acting, and all the serious arms, it at least has the makings of a great drinking game. Drink if everyone completely overreacts to the situation! Drink every time you notice a dropped plot! Drink every time a gent with serious arms wears a sleeveless ensemble for no good reason! You'll be drunk pretty quick, which is probably the best way to watch this movie anyway. Come to think of it, I was a little bit buzzed when I saw this, and it was still interminably boring. If I hadn't been Colbert-ly cursing Rain every few scenes, I don't know what I would have done.

Hirsch has reportedly already fired his agent, and the film is busy tanking, so I suppose there's no reason to beat a dead horse. The only person I really feel bad for, to be honest, is Scott Porter. He works those arms, he makes racing seem downright sexy, and he's a fantastic actor to boot. The first season of Friday Night Lights should have been his Emmy season, but the Emmys hate shows that are good, so that wasn't going to happen. Now this movie is obviously not going to be his big break. Hey, casting directors! Look over here! Call up Porter's agent and get his reel, okay? You'll thank me. And the rest of you? Don't bother with this movie. You'll also thank me. D-

Iron Man (2008)

Premise: Womanizing billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) builds a suit out of scrap after he's kidnapped in Afghanistan* by a multi-national group of terrorists. After his escape, Tony seeks to perfect the suit and right the wrongs he realizes were a result of the under the table dealings of his business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). Don't worry - Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) are along for the ride.

There's something about Tony Stark as a superhero. He's not your obvious choice. Sure, he's got the obligatory dead parents (cf the Waynes, the Els, the Parkers), but that's about it. He's not all tore up about it (at least not that we see this time around); it's not what's driving him. Instead he's a wildly successful middle aged man suddenly confronted with the reality that he is personally responsible for others' suffering, and he resolves to do something about it. That's brave and crazy.

Which is what makes Downey Jr. such a perfect fit for the role. For all the comic book movies I've seen over the years (and let's face it: I'm a bit of a comic book adaptation addict), I would probably still say that I think the Tobey Maguire/Peter Parker match up was the best I've seen. Peter's a confused and struggling young man, and Maguire brings all the necessary pathos to the role while still being able to lighten it up when necessary (see the "Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head" montage in S2). But now that I have seen this, well, it just might be my favourite. He makes Tony complex without making him obvious; fun without being cartoony; angry without being self-righteous. It's a tall order not to take someone who could so easily be initially unlikable and give him a big, dramatic turn around. Instead, under Downey's care, he goes from being someone you wouldn't mind being friends with to . . . someone you wouldn't mind being friends with, only now he's got this cool suit. I know that must make it sound like the character doesn't undergo a change, but you would be wrong to think so. It's quite the opposite. He may change as a response to the external, but with Downey he makes the change entirely internal. He looks at himself and decides to do better first. Being better will have to follow. I could probably count on one hand the number of actors and actresses that could quickly bring all that to the screen with the same ease and grace, and some of them are dead.

Let me put it another way: right at the end, I heard him say something that he didn't say. Not to sound crazy or to put too fine a point on it, but, by the end of the movie, between his facial expression and mannerisms, and because he created a character that I could know so well so quickly, Downey had me hearing something that was never said. That's not talent. That's a gift.

And did I mention that he is really quite sexy while he's at it? He is. Mmrrow.

I got a little ramblely up there, didn't I? How's the rest of the movie, you say? Pretty darn good. I loved it. Directed by Jon Favreau from a screenplay by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, it starts with Abrams' favourite trope, but it excels from there on out. It spends what might seem like a lot of time on how Stark came to be in Afghanistan and then on his time there, but it ends up working for the film. It's never boring. In fact, it keeps moving quickly, so you don't have time to think about it too much. It introduces a lot of characters and locations in short succession without feeling that you've caught the exposition express (okay, it might feel that way a little bit at the awards show). You meet and find reasons to like Rhodie and Pepper pretty quickly, and, well, then we're off to the races.

And what a race it is. I'm pretty sure that the only other directorial effort of Favreau's that I have seen is an episode of Undeclared. I like him. He's got a good sense of how to pace the film, keeping it fun to watch while sprinkling in enough details for future installments (I saw evidence for at least nine more), and he gives his actors room to breathe. Of course, when you've got an exemplary cast such as his, how could you go wrong? Howard looks like he is having more fun than he's had in ages; Bridges is fantastic, as always; and Paltrow is fresh and just a little bit spunky. The chemistry between Paltrow and Downey is so sweet. He knows if he finally breaks through he'll risk losing her forever, but he just keeps chipping away anyway.

If you add to that Ramin Djawadi's lovely melody for them, then you're done for. Djawadi's electric guitar driven score is exciting, sexy, and fun without ever calling attention to itself, based, or so I've heard, entirely on Downey's moods in the scenes as Stark. It was in his scenes with Paltrow that I noticed how much I was digging the score, and I found myself glad to hear that theme come back again, although it wasn't in any way obstrusive. It was just plain good.

After I saw the movie, I thought I would probably give something in the B range. Now, for the life of me, I can't remember why I would grade it so low. Sure, it's not brilliant. Certain scenes probably won't be keeping me up at night years from now. But why rate entertainment so low? Why doesn't wanting to see something again and again count for more? Isn't Downey's performance alone enough to rate something better? You know what? At least for now, I think it is. A-**

*I believe in the original series it was the Vietnam war. I think moving it forward to now was the right choice.

**I do have plans to see this again soon, so this grade is subject to revisal upon subsequent viewings.

Hey, everybody! North Korea's going to launch a nuclear missile. Hey, Mom!

When in doubt, stick to Jon Stewart. When in doubt as to whose directorial debut had enough sticking power to launch a career, read my latest Culture article.

P.S. What's going on? Am I on a break? Yes. I should be back to my regularly scheduled posting next week.