Pop Culture Round Up: July 5-11

Pop culture madness this week, peeps.

FT has decided that yes, critics are in a crisis. Just after we were reassured by math last week!

On the plus side, critics are never wrong. They do experience some drama, though.

Democracy lives! For music, apparently.

If number four isn't true, I might be in trouble.

I agree with an handful of these.

YES! I don't care what it's about; I'd watch him in pretty much anything.

He may not be as dreamy as his brother, but I fail to see how a shot of eye candy would hurt the broadcast.

Heh. I'm going to start making fake artifacts to pawn off.

Film and theater critic Steve Vineberg reflects on the art of surprise.

Oh, good, Italian cinema is making a comeback. I'm not sure that I knew it went.

Okay, dudes, you might need to learn where to draw the line.

Hmm. I'm still wary about the prospect of Ritchie at the helm, though.

And finally, get your own Ikea furniture name.

Hancock (2008)

Story: After drunken, property damaging, publicity loathing superhero John Hancock (Will Smith) saves publicist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) from a train when his car gets stuck across the tracks, Ray invites Hancock home for dinner and offers to help make over his public image. Mary Embrey (Charlize Theron), however, thinks that this is a bad idea.

When Hancock flies, he doesn't streamline his body like a bullet like most superheroes. Instead, his arms and legs wave around herky-jerky, and he competes with planes, buildings, and birds for airspace. When he takes off and when he lands, he crumbles the earth beneath him, leaving small craters behind. He saves Ray only to receive a torrent of criticism from the amassed crowd (critical consensus: he should have gone straight up). He's blessed with supernatural abilities, and everyone, even small children on the street, think that that means he should use them to help out. No one seems willing to consider the possibility that maybe he just doesn't want to.

It's an interesting concept, and one that most superhero movies, whether they are based on comic books or are sui generis, rarely traffic in. Sure, nearly all of them address the idea that being a superhero has it drawbacks, but those are usually limited to their relationships with women. Spider-Man 2, arguably one of the best comic book movies ever committed to celluloid, devoted an entire act to the prospect that maybe, just maybe, Peter Parker wasn't ready to accept the responsibility of being Spider-Man. When he puts it aside, we find him much, much happier.

While they have special abilities, it isn't like superheroes are police officers, firemen, or EMTs. They didn't sign up for the gig, and they don't get paid for it. Initially, this is what Hancock is all about it: a man who doesn't want the responsibility and what happens when the public tries to foist it on him. Then the movie makes a sharp left turn, and, while it is surprising (you'll guess bits and pieces, but it's hard to put the entire puzzle together), it also drops what you were watching entirely. Too bad; it could have been one helluva movie.

The other movie is also pretty good, although it would have also been better if it had been an entire movie instead of half of one. It raises far more questions than it would ever consider answering including, most gratingly to me, [minor spoiler if you figure out what I mean] why all things don't apply equally to everyone. I've read that the original script, penned by Vincent Ngo, floated around for over a decade until director Peter Berg got a hold of it in 2006, and that the finished product is the result of extensive rewrites by, presumably, the other credited writer Vince Gilligan. I wonder which story was which, and which would have been the better whole movie to make it to the big screen.

Even so, Berg's got a masterful command of his camera and cast, and, while I found myself distracted (plot wise), it was always exciting to watch (visually). The cast is great, although Bateman is particularly noteworthy because his character is the only one to safely make the transition between the two movies. Also, did those make up artists have it in for Theron? Runny, smudgy black eyeliner and later reverse raccoon eye? I think so. B+

Pop Culture Round Up: June 28 - July 4

Don't worry! Movie critics are safe after all.

Unfortunately, movie stars are dead. This is news to me.

We should all mark our calendars for this.

Yay! So glad those Argentinians are willing to share.

I call this an invasion of privacy. Not cool, Judge.

"I'm going to go see if I can't get a wrench to strip my nuts. I thought it sounded sexy."

Sexy is not the way I would describe my latest Culture article, which, frankly, I don't like, but you can go ahead and read it anyway. I'll be back on track next month, I am sure.

Remember to check out my advice column as well. This month I take on roommate troubles and a strange sex issue. Don't forget to send your problems, big or small, to advice@culturemagazine.ca.

Get Smart (2008)

Brief: Analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) longs to move up to the exciting world of being an agent like his friend Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson), but The Chief (Alan Arkin) wants to keep his top analyst. After CONTROL is attacked by KAOS and all the agents identities exposed, Max is promoted to Agent 86, partnered with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), and sent after Siegfried (Terence Stamp).

Has Hathaway lost too much weight? No, seriously. There's a hollowness to her face that, despite how great she looked in a series of fantastic Chanel (I think) coats, kind of weirded me out. Also weirding me out was the fact that she didn't seem to be having fun in this movie. I get that 99 is the straight man to Smart's bumbling idiot, but it's alright if the straight man looks kindly on the bumbler every once and a while. There's no need to be so uptight. Alternatively, make how uptight you are funny.

You know who did look like he was having fun, though? Johnson. I think I might love him a little bit. He's so cutely supportive of Max, and there's very little more satisfying for an office drone than to see him, having been forced into the office from the field, stapling a paper that was jammed and not removed to the offender's head. I only wish I could pull a maneuver like that at the office.

Carell is ideal for this kind of role not because he's made a career out of playing characters with an acute lack of self-awareness but because he's adept at drawing out the internal sweetness of a character. Sure, he's got the bumbling Clouseau thing down pat, but it's actually the smaller moments, like when he tries to bond with 99 over her recent plastic surgery by revealing that he just lost a significant amount of weight, that make his roles feel full fleshed and sympathetic. His way with a one liner helps, too.

As for the rest of it, directed by Peter Segal and written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, it's not quite there. It's funny, sure, and well paced for what should be a thriller spoof, but it lacks a sardonic bite that would make it over-the-top hilarious. The best sequence comes early in the film when, in an attempt to make 99 jealous after she refuses to quit dancing with another man, Max takes the hand of a large woman, leads her out on the dance floor, and, surprise, finds her a nimble dancer. The surprise, of course, is on us. Max never doubts for a second that he's chosen the correct dance partner. It's his steadfast commitment to an idea that seems implausible to us but ends up working out for him that seals it. If the movie had more of that and less of a good number of other things (continuity errors among them), it would have been better. Still, it was pretty good. Oh, and Arkin has the best comic timing of anyone, ever. B+

Wanted (2008)

Story: Accountant Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is recruited into The Fraternity, a super secret group of assassins lead by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), by Fox (Angelina Jolie) to kill the man (Thomas Kretschmann) who killed his father (David O'Hara).

Once again we dip into the comic book adaptation well (not that I have minded), and we come up short. Don't get me wrong - I don't begrudge director Timur Bekmambetov and screenwriters Michael Brant, Derek Haas, and Chris Morgan for dropping a lot of the darker elements of the story. I doubt that many people would want to go see a movie about a guy who choose to become an evil assassin even if it did feature Jolie's bare bottom. There's plenty of other places you can see that anyway.

While this movie is amazingly fun while you are watching it, it's also silly and insane and chock a block of things that are best left unconsidered. If, for example, you find yourself wondering, "Weavers?" during the opening, don't worry. They'll get to it in Act II, and it still won't make any sense. Just forget about it. Pretty soon there will be a montage! Montage!

As far as popcorn entertainment goes, this one rates pretty high. It's faux deep, goes to unnecessary lengths to establish how much of a doormat Wesley is, and features a good balance of topless actors with curving bullets. Sure, I still got worried that Jolie might just turn around and eat McAvoy for breakfast, so great is her power (plus her cheeks looked a little gaunt in some scenes), but she also gives this fantastic "Who me?" shrug shortly after she kidnaps him that sums up the character in such a way that I wonder why we don't have her star in more action movies. At least we have wet, shirtless McAvoy and his motor mouth to keep us company in the meantime. B

Pop Culture Round Up: June 21-27

Warning! Political satire may affect your view of political candidates!

Sad.

Now Slate's in on the act? Do you want to know how much I treasure the semicolon? I once got out my white out pen and carefully altered a James Dean (shut up) poster with a comma because I felt that the semicolon was the correct punctuation. Do whatever you have to do to bring it back.

Crap. The situation just keeps getting more bleak for critics.

Oh, no, wait. Things are okay for theatre critics.

If you still want to give the impossible a try, here's some advice.

Oh, great. Now entire genres are dying. Or not. It's tough to tell with these articles.

Finally, some people are still happy about some things. Dennis Cozzalio would like to give you a primer in drive-ins, and Jack Coyle gives IMDb some props.

Sex and the City: The Movie (2008)

Note: I originally envisioned this as part of a "short take," but I abandoned the notion when I saw how long this was. Bear that in mind, as what follows is more of a rant than a traditional Feria Films review.

Spoiler-averse, take note of my lax attitude.

I love that unnecessary subtitle. It's like everything else in the movie. While Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Big (Chris Noth) have been together since we last saw them and plan to move in together, an expensive 5th avenue (I think) apartment leads to a decision to get married, which leads to getting jilted, which leads to silliness. So then we backtrack over what are supposed to be Big's commitment issues, but it ends up being about Carrie's crazy self-absorption issues. This, my friends, is kind of fantastic (at least as a notion. Execution? Not so much). Since the chronically underused and under-appreciated Cynthia Nixon is the only one who gets anything resembling an emotional subplot (you know, other than Carrie), I'm going to just skip right over pretty much everything else. In the midst of my sickness, my boredom, and my annoyance at the two people who came in an hour and half (!) after the movie started and insisted on sitting directly in front of me (!!), who then had the temerity to start loudly asking questions as to what was going on (!!!), I realized a few things that I didn't already know about my feelings re: SatC (the series or the movie).

They are as follows:

1. I really dislike the way that all of these people have apparently sprung, fully formed, from the Hudson, so little do they have in the way of parents, siblings, or childhood homes. I know that it can be difficult to weave a lot of these things in without making them plot points (like the ep where Miranda's mother died or the recurring character of Steve's ma), but it's so hard to swallow that they just have no ties. It's not normal.
2. I also really dislike the over-reliance on the concept of a "good" person. Pretty much any show with no religious centre has the same kind of quasi-morality to it, so I know it seems strange to call it out this one time, but I found the scene where Charlotte (Kristin Davis) reveals that she's stopped running while pregnant because she's afraid of what might happen so ridiculous when she compares it to Big leaving Carrie and Steve (David Eigenberg) cheating on Miranda, things that shouldn't have happened in her view because they are "good" people. What is that crap? What does that even mean? How does that fit in with the world view of an Episcopalian turned Jew? Neither of those things have anything to do with the (debatable) fact that they are good people and everything to do with the fact that Carrie planned a huge wedding without consulting her husband-to-be and (not unkindly) steamrolled over him when he stated his objections plainly and that Miranda and Steve had a strained, sexless marriage. While neither of those things mean that they "deserve" to be jilted or cheated on, respectively, they also don't have anything to do with Charlotte's point.
   
3. I really like Big. Who knew? The only boyfriend of Carrie's that I remember particularly liking was Berger, and that was only for the half a minute he wasn't a terrible boyfriend and even then mostly because he was Ron Livingston. But I feel bad for the poor guy. Yeah, sitting outside and waiting for her to get there is douchey and not trying to reach her any other way than her cell phone (get a clue, buddy! Try another line!) is similarly stupid, but so what? He realizes his mistake pretty quickly and, standing there in the the street pleading with Carrie and getting pummeled by flowers, I felt bad for him. It's like the episode where Carrie wants to meet his mother and he says no, so she stalks them in church. No wonder he doesn't want to introduce you, you selfish bint! I agree that Noth looks freakishly well rested, though.
   

So, yeah. It's too long and possibly the most exciting part was the moment when I observed that Pret A Manger exists in NYC, which fueled my hope that the chain will one day make it to Canada. The plots run the gamut from silly to ridiculous, there's approximately 80 fashion montages, and problems are often magically resolved. So, pretty much just like the series! C+

Pop Culture Round Up: June 2 - 20

Watch this trailer and get excited.

While I do agree with Sars that the Proust Questionnaire makes him look incomparably douchey, Dana Stevens has arrived on the scene once again to start turning the whole thing around. How does she do it?

Ack! Film critics are an endangered species, and it's possibly my fault.

Or maybe they're scheduled for a comeback?

First The Guardian has me worrying about the semicolon; now the Washington Post wants me to know that the sentence's days are numbered. Apparently that might be my fault, too.

Oh, sweet fancy molasses. "A new paradigm"? It's been going on for a while now, there, Fraizer.

On a positive note, I totally cannot wait to witness this development. They are going to circle each other like hungry cats, I just know it.

And, if you only read one article from this list, let it be this one. It's as passionate and as personal as anything could be, and, given that information about festivals in Calgary really doesn't apply to me, all the powerfully written to get my breath catching in my chest.

The Happening (2008)

Idea: After an assumed terrorist attack hits Central Park, Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) decide to leave Philadelphia to hide out in the country with Elliot's best friend Julian (John Leguizamo) and his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). When Julian decides to ditch Jess with Moores to go find out what happened to his wife, it's up to Elliot to protect them from what's happening.

Oh, you love it.

I think I am just going to come out and tell you what the Big Bad here is. It's all over the damn intertubes these days anyway, so you might as well hear it here last: it's the plants. There you have it. The plants are pissed because of pollution or global warming or some such, so they decide to get together and rapidly evolve some toxins to kill everyone in a tight north eastern corner of the US as a warning (or something). A guy (Horace, as he'll always be to me) who runs a nursery figures it out and just straight up tells Elliot, so there's really no reason for me not to just tell you.

Given that writer-director-producer M. Night Shyamalan himself lowered my expectations going into this thing, I even can't say that the bar was set too high walking in. Even so, I found myself in minor awe over how bad it was. I spent a good chunk of the movie (you know, after we all figured out that it was evil trees), looking at how bad Sanchez was, how completely out of left field Leguizamo's line readings were, how risible Deschanel's performance was, and how wildly unconvincing Wahlberg was at every turn, and thinking about how I would like to take the opportunity to have Wahlberg in particular meet me over at Camera 3 to discuss how he, himself, is better than this and that he, himself, should know better, when it occurred to me that this was all on purpose. The tin-eared line readings, the ridiculous turns of phrase (e.g. "the town of Princeton." Oh, thanks for that. None of us have ever heard of bleeding Princeton before, so I am glad you explained that it is a town. Maybe you should have also told us that it is in New Jersey in case we forgot about the whole nor-east thing), the habit of having Wahlberg look directly into the camera and utter things like (and I am not making this up), "Why are you giving me one useless piece of information at a time? What's going on? Hey, why would you just stop?" It was all on purpose.

And when you look at it that way, it's actually a pretty good B-movie. If that's the level on which it is meant to function, it succeeds for the most part (we'll get to the other parts in a minute). It's got a good combination of camp and gore, not wholly unlikely the seriously underrated Supernatural, minus the hard bodies, deep wells of angst, and tough guy jazz hands. For that reason, it's really only Shyamalan himself that I'd like to see over at Camera 3.

Camera 3: Dude, wtf? You think this is a B-movie? Have you seen a B-movie? Do you know why this doesn't cut it as a B-movie? Because it has moments of legitimately good filmmaking, which makes the rest of the laughably bad running time all the more difficult to bear. It's mean. You know, I get that it must be hard to be you, that you don't want to be the guy who does the movies with the twists nor do you want to be the golden child gone to seed. There's something almost Welles-ian about what's become of you, and that must suck. Too bad, so sad, let's move on already. First off, if you are going to make a B-movie, I would recommend that you go for broke, Grindhouse-style. Make the gore ridiculous instead of horrifyingly gross. Don't give us occasional sequences of genuine terror, like when the bodies come raining down on poor Richard. It should be silly. The bodies should have, I don't know, bounced or something. Do me a favour. Watch that scene where Elliot tries to talk a houseplant into not killing his family. Watch it again. Watch it a third time. That scene is funny. We weren't laughing because it was bad. We were laughing because it achieved its goal of being funny. Build from there. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until you listen: find a writing partner. Heck, find a story partner. Find someone whose opinion you trust and you'll listen to, and stick with that person. I have every confidence that you'll get richer rewards if you do.

As for the rest of you, if mostly laughing at a crappy movie and sometimes having to cover your eyes appeals to you, go for it. C-

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Story: After five years in hiding, an on-the-run Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) heads back to Culver University, site of his gamma radiation poisoning, to gather data that may help him find a cure. His plan puts him in Betty's (Liv Tyler) path and gets General Ross' (William Hurt) attention. Ross brings Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) onto his team to help bring Bruce in and is so impressed that he decides it might be time to revive the ol' super solider experiment.

Full disclosure: I never saw Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk. You no doubt already know that this movie isn't supposed to be particularly related to that one, although there are little bits here and there that suggest that having knowledge of the ins and outs of that movie wouldn't hurt. I've wanted to see the other version for some time now, especially given its latter day critical revival, but I've never quite gotten around to it. Now that I've seen this one, I just might.

Which isn't too say that this one is bad. It's not at all. I do wonder what kind of movie it would have been if Norton had been allowed to edit as well as do extensive, uncredited re-writes. Then he went a pitched what I now consider a classic Norton public pissy fit.* I suppose it's no different than an Alan Smithee film.

*He's the kind of guy that I like, but I wonder if he must difficult to get along with in real life. I don't mean to unfairly malign his character. He seems the it's-so-hard-to-be-this-smart sort, but I can't tell to what extent that comment should be sarcastic and to what extent it should be serious. Dude, maybe it is really hard to be Edward Norton.

I begrudge this movie for being so tight lipped. Banner's initial exposure, first Hulk attack, and subsequent life on the run are over and done with inside of an opening credits montage. We get a few snippets of exposition here and there, and it's obvious at several points that they are being deliberate obtuse in order to furnish further sequels. It wasn't even in the usual way, where something is left dangling shortly before the climax, and all of us who have seen a movie before know that that's going to be the basis of the sequel (although that happened as well), but several times in each of the acts did conversations and ideas worth exploring come to abrupt end instead of a conclusion. More true to life, I suppose, but this movie could have been improved by following even one of them through. Mostly I would one day like to know how Banner could be so stupid as to not realize what he was really working on and to test it on himself without having first tested it on, say, some sort of laboratory animal or similar.

Not that Norton makes Banner seem stupid. As Bruce, he's hemmed in on all sides by something he can't control and doesn't wish to, and Norton makes that play heartbreakingly without ever once being two-dimensional. Inside of Bruce is something that wants out, and he wants out of that contract, and neither one of them knows how to make that work.

Hurt is wonderfully gruff and arrogant as the General, and Roth makes a fantastic villain, largely because there's nothing all that villainous about Blonsky. He's a lifelong solider who wants to solider better. But it's really Tyler who shines as the fearless and devoted Dr. Elizabeth Ross. More so than anyone I've seen before, she creates a completely believable and touching relationship with mostly CGI creation. It's something other actors would do well to study.

Louis Leterrier's direction, while not particularly personalized, gets the job done. That's the movie in a nutshell. It gets the job done, doesn't screw anything up, and gives you more to go on in the future. Mind you, I could be biased because I'm pretty sure that anything with a Tony Stark cameo is going to look good to me. B

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Idea: After Harold Oxley (John Hurt) is kidnapped, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) teams up with Mutt Williams (Shai LaBeouf) to rescue Ox and, it turns out, Marion (Karen Allen) from the Soviets led by Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). They are all after the crystal skull believed to be the key to finding El Dorado.

Man, that was hard to write. Listen, for a straight forward action movie, there's a lot going on, and I don't want to give too much away. Actually, I want to give the entire movie away, which is why I should probably warn you know that there are spoilers ahead.

Okay, we good? People who don't want to spoiled about a movie that came out nearly a month ago have flown the coup? Great.

Aliens? Aliens? They went there? Oh, pardon me, "interdimensional beings." There's an extent to which I realize that maybe I shouldn't hold any of this against them, that I recognize that the movies are supposed to be this silly comic book-B movie hybrid adventure, and that I can forgive a fair number of flaws because Steven Spielberg remains an exciting director, at least visually. Even the concept of Mutt, Indy's long lost son, with the self chosen dog name and the Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones costume, works.

Now, I like LaBeouf. At least I think I do. I can see how he's poised to become a big star and the idea of churning out summer blockbusters for the next few years with a handful of other smaller, more serious pictures in between must be appealing to a young actor. I gave him props for making Transformers a lot more fun than it would have been with pretty much any one else in the role. But while he brings great energy to this picture, as he did with that one, there's something the matter with him. You know, besides his weird head. He lacks chemistry with pretty much anyone, and he doesn't have a lot going in the way of charisma either. Still, he's likable. Even so, I'm not sure I would want to see, as was so obviously suggested in this movie, a new version of the franchise with Mutt at the helm. I mean, would you really go see movies called Mutt Jones and the [whatever you go to after you already went there]?

Alright, I suppose previewing movies that don't even exist is beside the point. This movie's alright. It's fun and funny, making sure to poke fun at Indy's age without taking it too far. It does itself a favour by reviving Marion instead of sticking Indy with some age inappropriate partner. Mutt the concept works better than Mutt the actual character, particularly when he goes swinging through the jungle with the help of some rather kind primates, but it's not something that can't be improved with time.

Basically, it's not so bad that you that you'll ever find yourself wondering, "They restarted the franchise for that?" but not so good that you'll be able to stop yourself from wondering why they couldn't have come up with something just a little better in the intervening decades. At least John Williams' score is just as fun and as rousing as ever. B-

"So here's some advice I wish I would have got when I was your age: Live every week like it's shark week."

Hey, remember that time when you were like, "Hey, guys, don't you think Actor X is so hot?" and your friends were like, "Ew, dude." That time sucked. I know the feeling. Check it out five times over in my latest Culture article.

Also, sure, I talk a good game when it comes to movies, but what else can I do for you? Glad you asked. Starting this month, I will take on your problems, issues, and grammatical confusion in brand new advice column. Boy-girl stuff? I've got an opinion about it. Forgot what happened in that movie that time? I’ll figure it out. Can’t remember if “between you and me” or “between you and I” is grammatically correct? I’ll tell you, and I’ll probably make fun of you. Just don’t come at me with that damn “try and [verb]” construction. You either try or you do. Not both. It really gets my goat. Send your issues to advice@culturemagazine.ca, and check back in the Advice Tab.

Also also, since we are here, let's do some other little housekeeping things. I did go see Iron Man again, and it was just as awesome the second time around. The second act drags a bit the second time, but I still think the first is one of the best I've seen, so the grade stands. I've been thinking some more about Robert Downey Jr., and I think that perhaps his yell is akin to Joaquin Phoenix's whisper. You know how Phoenix plays all this different characters who mumble, smooth talk, and yell, but only once or twice a picture does he drop down to a whisper? And you just know that whatever is said in the whisper is the best insight you are going to get into the character, so you hotly anticipate it and keep it close in your mind for the rest of the film. RDJ's yell, specifically of another character's name, is like that in that it has the power to change your mind. Again, I know I sound crazy re: RDJ (although Sarah agreed with me about the thing we never heard!), but I'll tell you this. I've watched movies before. Like the rest of you, I've got a pretty good sense of what characters will live or die when it comes down to it. Still, even when I am assured of the outcome, RDJ's yell can make me think that that person might be in mortal danger after all. That's good stuff.

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.