Iron Man 3: Fun and not Stupid (A revolutionary concept)

Note: This blog is spoiler heavy all the time, but the following post spoils elements of Iron Man 3 that will have a strongly negative effect on your enjoyment of the film if you haven't seen it already. 

I enjoyed Iron Man 3 but it took me a while to get there. From early on in the film, I found the chief antagonist's iconography unsettling. Really, I thought to myself. We're going to go with clumsy caricatures of scary Muslims? What is this, the opening five minutes of a Transformers film?* It actually got to me and took me out of the experience of being in the cinema. Now, this wasn't the film's fault, at all; I started wondering if I was taking crazy pills, or if America was just as bad I used to think it was and that critics whose work I liked were happy to overlook some jingoistic rabble rousing crap because there were lots of things that go boom and Robert Downey Jr. being funny. 

*I find the anti-Muslim stuff in Transformers films really odd. It's shoehorned in early on so we can see a handsome white man (Josh Duhamel) defend our freedoms against monstrous hordes of scary people of colour. Then it moves on to robot fights with the racism relegated to the comic relief. 

Oh, ye of little faith (well... me, in this instance). I don't think Ben Kingsley is particularly mind-blowing in the film. His accent as the Mandarin is bizarre, though his performance doesn't fit into Kermode's Law of Kingsley: "When he's good, he's very very good and when he's bad he's Gandhi"; my issue is with the laziness of his "Brit drinking lager and watching football" performance, a trip beyond broad comedy and into caricature in my humble opinion. At any rate, the whole conundrum of Kingsley's performance arises due to the film's great twist: that the Mandarin was a sham used to hide the fact that Killian's weaponised henchmen were exploding more or less accidentally.  

How wonderful this was. For one thing, I didn't even know there was a twist in this film. So often in film culture today the twist is marketed as a feature that the effect is automatically reduced. Not so in Iron Man 3. What was so fantastic about this for me though, and what inspired me to write on it (as, to be fair, there are many excellent reviews of the film out there already) was how this twist turned the entire film on its head not just from a narrative standpoint from political and aesthetic standpoints. The vulgarity of the vaguely anti-Islamic portrayal of a supposedly Islamic terrorist makes more sense once the viewer realizes that the creator of this ruse is deliberately playing up to those prejudices. Iron Man 3 was not, as I had feared, another example of post-9/11 fear and prejudice seeping into an ostensibly harmless blockbuster film; Iron Man 3 actively mocks and derides that prejudice. 

Now, I don't want to get carried away and start talking about intricate political commentary within the DNA of the film; we're not talking about 28 Weeks Later here.* I'm not convinced that there is meant to be a specific "message" in the film beyond the thematic journey for the story's central characters. I do like to think, however, that Shane Black is taking the piss a little bit here. It turns the whole film on its head. In its own subtle way, Iron Man 3 has its cake and eats it too. It's big, it's goofy, Downey does his Downey thing. It's not stupid though, and Downey's thing goes in different directions, particularly with a PTSD story that would have been nightmarish with a mediocre actor. Action films don't have to be high brow (and in fact shouldn't be), but it's nice to see filmmakers understand that you don't have to immediately skip to the bottom of the barrel either. Not that I'm surprised, with Shane Black involved. Hopefully we're going to see more approaches like this in the next spate of Marvel movies. Films that are fun but not stupid. The two do not have to go together, you know. 

*One of these days I'm going to sit down and write about the political message embedded in 28 Weeks Later. It's amazing.

A Failed Attempt at Dr. No

I don’t like Bond films. I lasted a few minutes into Dr. No as part of an honest attempt to see where the appeal lays with this character and his endless shagging adventures. The latest Netflixpocalypse was on the horizon and I wanted to give the film a fair chance. But yet again, as has happened often before, I got bored and lost interest. I don’t quite recall what was happening when I gave up on the film. That was a major part of the reason that I gave up.

Now, I really don’t like negative articles. I mean, writing negatively can be fun if you have a bit of joy in it. Mocking the Twilight films is, for example, an almost victimless crime: Twilight fans will refuse to countenance my opinions (or acknowledge that I am joking in a mostly constructive manner) while I sincerely doubt anyone thinking of watching an entry in the series will be put off by an adult male blogger detailing the psycho-surreal nature of his enjoyment of the films in opposition to their intended message or aesthetic. No, I think I’m on fairly safe ground making fun of Twilight films, as if you like the films that much you really shouldn’t be offended because in essence your first reaction is correct: I don’t know what I’m talking about. At least not in any manner that would fit your definition of literacy in Twilight fiction.

That’s not meant as a cop out, it’s meant as explanation. I don’t get it. So, when I state that I don’t get it, it means that I well and truly do not understand the appeal. I’m not making judgements on individuals that do enjoy it or do get it. Thus I come back around (finally) to Bond.

I just don’t get Bond. Maybe it’s his arch-Britishness. I’m not sure. There’s something about the Bond films that just seems so homely and lacking in the glamour they supposedly have. Tacky, really. I’m no snob when it comes to older films, and I am very aware that fashion has changed throughout the decades. I don’t dislike Bond because I think it’s cheap. I dislike Bond because I think that it feels cheap.

For example, take the assassination that opens Dr. No: it’s fantastic, really. The marvelous opening credit sequence gives way to the three blind men pottering around Kingston, Jamaica. Their assault on the British secret agent is really rather wonderful; I’d be surprised to see a character removed in that manner today, with his final act on screen something so banal as reaching for something in his car with the camera looking on from inside the car. The three actors playing the assassins pop into view like something out of a cartoon. It’s fantastic. It’s cool. I’m beginning to believe, as Morpheus would say, his temples throbbing.

But then something happened. I had never realized that Bond’s habit of supplying his surname before his Christian name was initially a response to an alluring female opponent in a game of Blackjack. Still cool. Still interested. Then Bond visits M, flirting with Ms. Moneypenny on the way in and I’m reminded…

I’m reminded that I really don’t like this character at all. I just can’t get on board with it. I know it was a different era and I know that Bond has moved on as a character since then but I can’t shake how uncomfortable the whole setup makes me feel. There’s just something so backwards and boring about his manliness. The action always feels subpar, the sexual innuendo more frustrating that fun, and not because I’m sexually frustrated but because it all seems so pointless and needlessly patronising. I know a large part of Bond’s appeal is that he is an embodiment of the “tall, dark and handsome” archetype but I can’t help but think of him as a bit of a pratt. Leaving the pistol he’s been ordered to use in place of his beloved Beretta with Moneypenny was quite cool, but it was too late. I’d had quite enough of watching men with upper crust accents discuss strategy before heading out to pinch a few bums. I’m done.

Now, again, let me stress: I’m not trying to be a negative jerk about this. Bond just doesn’t do it for me. He may well do it for you. Lord knows the series has millions of fans. I don’t write in my blog to rant at the world. To be perfectly honest, I’m rather disappointed: I had assumed that watching some of the classics would finally turn me on to what I’d been missing. I couldn’t even get half an hour into what I understand to be one of the true classics. How on earth would I manage to get through some of the more mixed efforts? Then again, perhaps I’d like them. It’s entirely possible I imagine that I will one day sit down to write a “Dalton the best Bond” article. Then again maybe not.

So why write about it at all, then? Well, I’m fascinated by the disconnect. I mean, I understand why I don’t like Taylor Swift’s music: it’s not intended to perform the function that I ascribe to music. Taylor Swift fans participate in an entire culture, that of being a Taylor Swift fan. The music is secondary, if that. No, the Bond films are more confusing because they are more difficult to dismiss. Many people like them, and for different reasons, with differing levels of acceptance of the films’ various flaws. Some insist there are none, some find the flaws to be part of the overall positive experience.

And I’m missing out. I just don’t get Bond, and frankly I wish I did. It’s just too old, too sexist, too boring, too oddly comfortable with glorifying the British elite. It’s just not my thing. 

Will Graham's Humanity

Over the weekend, inspired by the recent TV series Hannibal and the odd Hulu Plus policy that had made the pilot freely available but had apparently restricted the second episode to online only, I wandered over to my bookshelf and grabbed my old copy of Manhunter. It's a great film, and I didn't feel like hooking the computer up to the television. Hey. It was a long day. Enough with the judging. 

You shouldn't be judging anyway. Manhunter is fantastic. It looks beautiful. Mann is in top form, putting his characters in sterile consumer catalogue shots from the future and making it look beautiful. This is a film that happily dates itself but actually comes off looking better with age. The performances are wonderful too, with Brian Cox fantastic as Hannibal Lecktor for all the psychopath thriller genre hipsters out there. Dennis Farina puts in a remarkable performance as Dennis Farina, which is to say that he's really, really great. William Petersen reminds us of a gentler time, when CSI was but a glint in his steely eyes, putting in a very nice performance as Will Graham, the empathetic investigator called in to try and find a serial killer before he strikes again. 

The killer adheres to a lunar cycle, but the plot doesn't put an awful lot of stress on the "countdown" leading up to his next insane attack until one of the better scenes in the film: a hectic attempt by Graham and the FBI to decode secret messages between the killer and Lecktor without alerting the latter to their interference. This is a story concerned almost exclusively with our protagonist. Graham is genuinely tortured. We're shown him hugging his wife, fighting with her, talking to his son in the grocery store, but we're ushered away from maudlin shoegazing throughout. It's the little things that keep me interested in Graham. Calling his wife in the middle of the night to connect with another human being amid the horror of his investigation. His final act, a rash decision that effectively puts the lives of other police officers in danger, can be read in two different ways: a cheap action film denouement that doesn't mind sacrificing unidentified minor characters or a foolish decision by the protagonist borne of his own fragile state of mind and desperation. I choose to believe that it is the latter. 

I suppose it's possible I'm giving Manhunter too much credit, but mostly I wanted to write about how much I like the central character. Will Graham is the best character that Thomas Harris has brought us. Lecter (or Lecktor) has never really graduated into some kind of popular cultural bogeyman; rather he has remained a "classic character" played by Anthony Hopkins, a perception that ignores Cox's prior performance and that is only now being challenged by Mads Mikkelsen's performance in the new television show.  Whether you consider Hopkins' performance to be comically overblown or not,* Hannibal Lecter seems, these days, to inspire television and film executives more than he does actual genre fans. He has graduated from a genuinely powerful pop culture figure to a character that will be wheeled out in front of us at every opportunity, slurping and leering and grasping at our wallets. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of people working in entertainment with market research that would point out this doesn't seem to sap the depth of the character's popularity. 

*For what it is worth, I do not. It's easy to criticize Hopkins but his Lecter, particularly in Silence of the Lambs, was genuinely successful. In many ways the criticism of the character is an inevitable product of Hopkins' success in portraying him.  

No, I find Will Graham a lot more interesting than Lecter, and I suspect that not only am I not alone, but that I am part of a sizeable constituency among the audience for network television crime thrillers. With Hugh Dancy's portrayal of the character in the new show, I find myself remarkably happy to welcome the troubled investigator back. True, the character was revived in 2002's Red Dragon, but I'd really rather not think about that too much. Dancy's Graham shares a lot in common with Petersen's: the guy's got what we used to call "issues." Ask your parents and older (and therefore cooler) friends, kids. However, unlike so many other characters, Graham's issues feel tangible despite the relative lack of detail fed to the audience, genuinely visceral when conveyed. Television and film are often remarkably violent with no sense of responsibility whatsoever. I do not subscribe to theories that this affects the behaviour of individuals out there in the real world (if it truly does exist) but I know that cheap violence lessens dramatic effect. In a medium (network television) where gore is rather common, it's refreshing that we have a show in Hannibal that stops and shows you just how difficult this is for our protagonist to take. 

That's the central mechanic to Will Graham as a character, and it's what makes him compelling. Hannibal seems to understand this, which is great; Lecter only really becomes tedious when he's taken for granted either through too much attention being paid to him or too little. When used correctly, you can see why the character is so popular. Using him correctly means placing him in opposition to Will Graham and developing that relationship. Going backwards in Graham's story makes perfect sense. One of the few things I found interesting about Red Dragon was the decision to actually show us the moment in which Graham realized he was betrayed, though truth be told once I had seen it wasn't sure I had needed to. It's almost a throwaway line in Manhunter, the complex relationship between Graham and Lecktor something that is simply presented to the audience and that works thanks largely to Petersen's and Cox's performances. It was always going to be an interesting topic to go back to. There's nothing for Graham going forward; once he has caught the Tooth Fairy he is finally done, emotionally spent. Having a Continuing Adventures of Will Graham storyline would be utterly ridiculous, though I suspect we have been saved from it only because there has been so much focus on Lecter. The development of the relationship between the two has always had potential because Graham, despite his virtually superhuman abilities as an investigator, is profoundly human and more horrified than most fictional investigators by the crimes he was written to solve. I'm thrilled to see this dynamic explored so skilfully in the new show, honestly. I was extremely pessimistic having seen the promo spots. It seems that Hannibal has garnered a lot of positive reaction and I'm not surprised. I hope this show gets the support it deserves. 

NOTE: I haven't mentioned Clarence Starling here at all. This is largely because I don't recall enough of the Silence of the Lambs either in film of novel form (The Silence of the Lambs is the only Thomas Harris book that I have read). The complete absence of any mention is also because I want an excuse to watch The Silence of the Lambs again soon. Maybe I can write out a Starling v. Graham showdown.

Room 237: Genocide, Moon Landings and a Sex Room

Room 237 is a film about ideas. It particular it is about the idea of developing your own interpretations and the joy of discovery that comes with realizing something new about a piece of art (or entertainment, depending on your viewpoint) consumed by millions of others. That chemical reaction in your brain that rewards you for creativity, the joy gained from using your brain and figuring something out on your own. The film is about the inherent joy in interpreting a piece of art in the way that you choose to interpret, a vigorous defence of the postmodern right to infer meaning from work created regardless of whether the intent of the author was aimed in that direction or not.

Room 237 is a film about people. Deluded people, sometimes slightly worrying people. It warns against the perils of falling into your own imagination, of convincing yourself utterly of something that just isn’t there. Those chemical reactions in your brain that tell you something that nobody else can see because it just isn’t there. You’re not seeing anything. You get the same joy of discovery but it is an empty joy. Not that you know. The film is a repudiation of the postmodern idea that one can interpret artistic work in any manner than otherwise intended. If we can, where do we stop?

These are two different ways of looking at this film. I’m being a little cute here, and if I wanted to be completely unbearable I’d crank out another two or three separate interpretations. My aim isn’t to ape the structure of the film though but to comment on it some. Of the two interpretations here, I support the latter as I suspect will most. I do think that we can interpret works of art in ways that were not necessarily originally intended, but Room 237 is a splendid illustration of just how far that can go. How ugly it can get.

Ugly is the word. Room 237 is often very funny. It’s a joy to watch, though I certainly worried at myself as to whether I was engaging in cheap schadenfreude at the expense of people that might need some kind of clinical help. It’s beautifully made. After seeing the film it dawned on me that I had actively enjoyed the use of footage from Kubrick films to convey emotions and actions from the conversations in voiceover (such as the act or surprise or entering a cinema) but by about a third of the way through had become completely used to it. I want to watch the film again to specifically focus on how well this was done, though in truth I suspect it fades a little towards the end as the audience is invited to focus ever more centrally on visual imagery in The Shining and the interpretations of the film’s participants. Room 237 has a lot going on, and so it’s never in danger of being seen as a limited party trick, a one-note mockery of innocent and deluded individuals. The film does not seek to defrock its interviewees, it simply presents their theories.

Oh my, what theories they are. The film is clearly an allegory for Native American genocide. Scratch that, it’s clearly an allegory for the Holocaust. Scratch that, it’s clearly an intricately coded message to the American people that Kubrick faked the moon landing footage. He can no longer live with himself by the end of the 1970s and has decided to come clean by making a horror film that discusses his role in faking the footage through visual symbolism and subtle inference. So subtle, in fact…

Well, you know where that sentence is going. The film is about sex, the film has an “impossible window” that’s part of a set architecture that just doesn’t work and is intended to discombobulate the audience and inform us of the chaos of life. The film is about… all these things I suppose. What worries me, and has worried me consistently, is the earnestness of the theorists who agreed to be interviewed for the documentary. They are each convinced of their own theory’s accuracy. This is most effectively highlighted when two interpretations are presented back to back over the same scene, one of my favourites from Room 237, wherein Barry Nelson gets up to shake Jack Nicholson’s hand and we can clearly make out a piece of paper lying in a document tray on his desk as an erection. Except it is also clear that he represents the United States. Maybe the two theorists can get together and discuss how the United States’ erections affect the manipulation of individuals. Horribly, I would imagine.

This is not my first encounter with worrying interpretations of The Shining. In fact, there are numerous theorists out there that either refused to talk to the filmmakers or were not approached. One of my favourites is Rob Ager, an intelligent man that presents some very interesting theories on why continuity in The Shining is so off before diverging into a bizarre argument about Woodrow Wilson and the Gold Standard. Ager becomes remarkably animated when discussing one of the central points of his argument, that photograph in which Nicholson’s character appears at the end of the film features lookalikes of Wilson and members of his family positioned in meaningful ways around the film’s protagonist. Ager at one point closes in on the face of the man he believes to be Wilson, and drifting as far from the academic tone of his reading as he will throughout his argument, enthusiastically expostulates “It’s Wilson!”

 

It’s not Wilson. It’s a white man with glasses, yes. It’s not Wilson. Just as that piece of paper is most likely not an erection. The film is most probably not an allegory of Native American genocide, or the Holocaust. The shots that cut from behind Danny’s trike on one floor to his trike on another floor do not have inherent narrative meaning but are simply conveying the swift passage of time.

Unless they are conveying meaning… This is where I have the biggest problem with the theorists participating in the film (and some who do not, like Ager). By reading so much into the film in such a specific manner, the possibility of more interesting artistic ambitions by Kubrick are ignored. Perhaps the problems with continuity stem from a deliberate reason to confuse the viewer and create a specific mental state (an argument that Ager pursues very effectively before losing the plot). Perhaps Kubrick is commenting on the relationship between the creator and his artwork. Perhaps Kubrick is layering on metaphors for all kinds of arguments including the ones discussed in Room 237 and beyond.

Or perhaps the continuity wasn’t quite right because Kubrick was too busy terrorizing Shelley Duvall. I doubt it, to be fair. Of all the arguments, I find those centered on the issue of continuity the most interesting. Those that infer connections bordering on the spiritual, such as the carpet in Room 237 being an intentional representation of sexual reproduction or one of the theorist’s young sons walking in and recounting a story that tied into her interpretation of The Shining years after Kubrick’s film was produced, are meaningless.

It’s also where the worrying comes in. Are these people okay? I genuinely fear for them. This is the same inability to understand reason and how to filter information that affects conspiracy theorists from Holocaust deniers to 9/11 truthers. How can they be so convinced of what they are seeing? Why do they ascribe such importance to The Shining? Do people really think that playing the film backwards and forwards simultaneously gives us significant insight into intended hidden meaning on the part of Kubrick, and that he intended for us to watch the film in that manner at some point?

Why are all these people wilfully ignoring Kubrick’s use of the visual language of cinema? I think this is the point that frustrates me the most. Yes, Kubrick knew what he was doing. Yes, he was a master. He was creating specific images to reach our intellects in specific ways. He did that through framing shots and shaping his narrative and working extremely hard to coax just the performance he wanted out of his leading actors. He didn’t do it by picking a certain type of carpet or hanging a framed poster of a snowboarder that we are apparently supposed to think is a creature from Greek myth. It’s fascinating, this complete inability to account for common sense. For example, why would Kubrick hire a Caucasian man that has skin that is “almost brown” to represent disadvantaged racial groups? Why wouldn’t he hire a person of colour? I guess because it would be dumb. You know, because the whole idea is dumb.

There are so many moments in the film that you can’t help but laugh at, wonder at, shake your head at. It is to the film’s credit however that it never seeks for this response aggressively. It doesn’t make fun of these people and it does not encourage you to do so either. By taking a genuinely impartial view, the makers of Room 237 have produced something very special, an insight into just how important films can be and the places those films can take us.

Room 237 has also reminded me how much I like The Shining. I’m going to watch it again in the next few days. I wonder what theory will present itself.

A Brief Rumination on Timecop

I turned on the television today, and for whatever reason, Timecop was playing. It probably started at around four in the afternoon. Why not? There is probably a demographic for which a 4pm showing of Timecop is perfect. I decided not to watch more than a few minutes. I got some Ron Silver bon mots and a couple of forced one liners from Jean-Claude himself (it’s really stunning how frequent they shoehorned those in) and went about the rest of my evening. I wasn’t in the mood, though I do like Timecop a lot. It reminds me of that feeling I had watching action films in my teens, when I was already old enough to know better but didn’t care. It reminds me of watching action films in my twenties, when the whole point of watching the film was to joke about how ridiculous it was. Overall, I enjoy films like Timecop on a lot of different levels. In some ways, I actually consider it to be pretty good.

As Jean-Claude Van Damme films go, it’s a masterpiece. The setting really works in its favour. As I explained to my wife while we watched Ron Silver and the Muscles from Brussels match wits, Jean-Claude Van Damme with a decent haircut is happy, with a beautiful wife and a bright future. Jean-Claude with a mullet is burnt out and spends his life going day to day with nothing on his mind but justice. This is the kind of film that uses a mullet to evince characterization. Go for it, I say. It’s fun. It’s goofy. The dialogue is terrible. But it has Ron Silver. It’s a film about policemen who travel through time and a corrupt senator who is travelling through time illegally to fund his run for president. In this context, Jean-Claude seems almost reasonable. Almost.

Then, however, it dawned on me. I feel silly for not noticing this before, especially considering the fact that I saw both films shortly after release, but…

Timecop came out three years after Terminator 2.

Three years!

Now, obviously people shouldn’t just give up making action films because Terminator 2 was amazing. It puts things in context though. Timecop is an early 1990s film in that really-seems-like-the-1980s kind of way. Mullets, bad music, evil fat cats… there’s probably a Vietnam War veteran in there somewhere. I can’t remember. I’ll have to go and watch Timecop again. It’s the only way to be sure. Timecop seems like a film made a full decade earlier than Terminator 2. It’s astonishing they were made within such a short span at all.

There are clear disparities of course involved in each production. Budget, writing, giving a crap about making a decent film… To be fair though, all this does is remind us how amazing Terminator 2 really was. Go and watch Commando. I’ll wait.

Ok, it’s pretty great right? Feeding the deer at the start, just killing lots of people for no reason, his name is John Matrix. Notice how ridiculous Schwarzenegger is: he’s a cultural artifact more than anything else.

Anyway, now go and watch Terminator 2.

Holy crap, right? It’s bloody amazing. Let’s go ahead and watch it again.

Yes! What a great film. What an astonishing action film. So quotable, so intense, so wonderfully paced… Amazing.

So why on earth have I ever watched Timecop at all, let alone more than once? Well. Van Damme, clearly. This is a guy who would do the splits at some point in the film. That was his thing. It makes me wonder, do we have any figure like that now? Not really. Maybe Keanu Reeves, in a weird way. Bruce Willis has transitioned from being the action star you could take seriously to an actor who occasionally makes films that remind you he used to be an action star. Now, he’s something else entirely.

I feel like we’re in a fallow period for Timecop-like films. A big part of it is hindsight I suppose, but I do worry. I mean, the Transformers films are just garbage. I hear the Universal Soldier sequels get pretty ridiculous, but does that count, seeing as the franchise started with a Van Damme classic? I’m not sure really. Maybe my standards have improved.

Nah, it can’t be that.