What Keith's Watching: Iron Man 3 (2013)

I'm going to get some flack for my next statement. I like Iron Man 3 way more than The Dark Knight Rises. Iron Man 3 is probably my favorite superhero movie ever. It knocks down Superman II and The Dark Knight to the #2 and #3 spots.

Now, is the acting as mind-blowing as Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight? No. Is the cinematography as "visionary" as Nolan's Batman? Not really. It's stylized in a fun way. They don't play around with shadows as much as Nolan's crew, but they shouldn't, so it works out.

Iron Man 3 gives me exactly what I want from a superhero movie. There are so many great moments in there and moments that make you want to get up and cheer. (The Air Force One sequence, especially.) I didn't get that from The Dark Knight Rises. It was very dark and left me feeling a little depressed. Sure Nolan's Batman has a better character arc across the trilogy, but Tony Stark has a better story in his third outing.

The story arc relies heavily on what happened in New York in The Avengers, so that is a little bit of a shortcoming. Iron Man 3 does a pretty good job of trying to explain it, without bogging us down in exposition. Which is a huge plus in this movie. The action starts right away after a brief 5 minute visit to 1999. The rest of the setup is done as we move along, without pausing the pace of the movie.

The main complaint I've seen from people is the Mandarin. Sure, the Mandarin in the movie isn't the Mandarin in the comic books, but as a comic book fan, I didn't mind it at all. In fact, I loved it. It was fresh, and unexpected. The whole movie has this energy of fun, excitement, and freshness to it that I love. Maybe it's because I love Shane Black movies. I'm a little biased, but I don't think that's entirely it. Sometimes Iron Man 3 feels like a spiritual sequel to Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, so maybe my love of that movie also influences my enjoyment of Iron Man 3 and why I always think on the henchmen at the end is a Val Kilmer cameo.

But honestly, I don't think my enjoyment of Shane Black movies influence my love of Iron Man 3, other than the fact that Shane Black has worked on and made great movies. I've watched Iron Man 3 many, many times since it came out on DVD  and I have yet to grow tired of it. The pacing never seems off, and the story never drags. The world is richly constructed, so every other time I watch it, I find some new little addition. Like I said, Iron Man 3 gives me everything I want from a superhero movie, or any movie for that matter: excitement, fun, laughs, surprises, suspension, redemption, and an optimistic feeling when the journey is over. I wish every movie gave me that.

VERDICT: Must Watch (unless you don't like fun)

What Keith's Watching: The Bling Ring (2013)

Another movie based on a true crime story, but unlike Pain & Gain, I enjoyed this one. It didn't feel like they were trying to make a Hollywood movie about what happened, but instead tell an authentic version of the events. The alleged criminals are never elevated to the heroes of the story and the victims are never the butt of a joke.

The Bling Ring gives us an in with one of the characters and makes us feel sympathetic to how he just got in over his head. He just wants to fit in and gets caught up in trying to do so. It's a feeling we can all relate to, so we don't feel completely out of sync with the movie. We understand why they're there. In fact, the movie does a great job in trying to help us understand that all the crimes boil down to that feeling of trying to fit in and get The Life. We all aspire to that level, so once we get it, it'd be hard to give up.

I also wonder if the thievery was really as easy as portrayed in the movie. It seemed like part of the reason they committed these crimes was the ease which they could. Doors and safes were unlocked. All the teens had to do was hop a fence and pull a handle. It doesn't make it okay, but makes me wonder what this group would have done if the doors had been locked and the keys unavailable.

The movie is beautifully directed by Sofia Coppola. There are times when you can see her learning from her father and even improving on style. The acting is great and Emma Watson is the real standout. She's almost unrecognizable. I never once thought of her as Hermoine Granger. Her performance was even better to me once my fiancee informed me she was the girl from Pretty Wild. A girl whose only reference to me is that clip from The Soup when the Vanity Fair article came out and Alexis Neiers had to repeatedly record a voicemail message to the reporter. (If you haven't seen the clip, you should.)

The Bling Ring is a great film that I think should be put up there with The Social Network as a window into what our society has become these days. Especially to younger generations. It shows the influence of the internet and fame and the idea that success is equivalent to the things we own. Somebody really needs to show these kids Fight Club.

VERDICT: Watch It

The aforementioned clip from The Soup:

Cracking the Spine on Casino Royale

I have a confession to make: I have only recently read a James Bond novel. Despite having loved the films for years, I only now decided to take a chance and check out what Ian Fleming did that started the whole phenomenon off sixty years ago. Thinking about it though, I imagine that most of the moviegoers that saw Skyfall never read a Fleming novel either. I’m probably not in the minority, so this probably isn’t a confession as much as a way to open this piece.

What is to be gained after watching all the movies in order and then reading your first Bond novel? Starting at the beginning, Casino Royale, gives the reader a different appreciation for the Bond character and for what Albert Broccoli and Harry Staltzman were trying to achieve in the films. And you get all this despite Fleming still being a “young,” amateurish author still trying to find his style at times.

The character of Bond in the novel is very cold. The comedy that the Bond films are known for is entirely absent in the novels. I had heard this somewhere, so I wasn’t completely surprised, but what did surprise me was the level to which the character seemed to be void of emotion. The novel follows closely with the story of the film, so that in both Vesper is kidnapped by Le Chiffre. During the chase sequence in the novel, Bond considers Vesper as collateral damage if necessary. If anything happened to her, he’d simply go back to his hotel room and just go to sleep. In the morning, if anyone asked him what had happened, he had several lies prepared. In the film, we get the idea that he has already started falling in love with Vesper by that point. In the novel, this may be true, it may not be. It’s very unclear.

Bond’s muddled feelings lead me to another problem I had with Fleming’s novel – perhaps the biggest. The torture scene happens – slightly different from the film, but the pieces involved are the same – then Bond spends a while recovering in the hospital. Somewhere in that time, Bond has started falling in love with Vesper despite refusing to see her during his recovery. He doesn’t want to see her at first, then they start seeing each other, they end up at a little hotel outside the city to relax further and Bond is deeply in love at that point. He’s so love-struck that he even plans to propose to Vesper.

It could be said that this comes from his near-death torture experience, which does seem to have a profound impact on Bond to the point where he confides in Mathis his plans to leave the spy game. This speech is a bit heavy-handed. For a majority of the novel, Bond is always very brief in his speech. He’s straight to the point and not prone to soliloquy. (Think of the Bond we see in the movies, particularly Craig and Connery.) But suddenly we are “treated” to quite the dissertation on the nature of good men and evil men. This is where the novel falters for me. The speech does explain the effects that Le Chiffre had on Bond, and perhaps why he is so eager to run away with Vesper. In future novels, it may even be a recurring event that explains the actions Bond takes, but the writing just seems so out of place as the cold-hearted Bond suddenly becomes a philosophy major three-quarters into Casino Royale.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the novel immensely, but I think I was expecting a little more from the novel that started the character of James Bond. Its style was both a positive and hindrance. Fleming’s brief simple style was perfect for Bond’s brevity. Bond does not get caught up in unnecessary details. He focuses on what he needs, and so the reader is given exactly what they need. At the best moments, Fleming’s style is reminiscent of Hemingway in the depth mined from short, simple sentences.

At its worst, his style leaves out too much and makes hard transitions between scenes. Or in the aforementioned “good and evil” speech, becomes too overt with its point because Fleming was unable to find a better way to illustrate Bond’s psyche. I can’t help but wonder if some of this would have been cleared up had Fleming taken more than two months to write it. 

The only other fault of the novel, which is less a fault of Fleming’s and more the fault of the modern world we live in and the ethnocentrism of Americans. Fleming being a well-cultured Brit familiar with most of Western European culture, drops in many culturally specific terms that I am unfamiliar with. Part of it is because these terms are outdated, but part of it was because I am unfamiliar with that part of the world to the level that Fleming is. It leaves me playing catch up at times and trying to deduce what he’s talking about based on context. It takes me slightly out of the novel, but that’s my own shortcoming for not being born closer to France, or taking French in high school. (I opted for Spanish.)

Thankfully, the most confusing part of Bond, is explained in understandable, detail. After reading the novel, I finally understand baccarat. Fleming provides a few pages of explanation and I suggest you read the book for fun, but also so you understand what’s going on in the early Bond films. There’s a lot to know, but the basics of it are similar to blackjack in that the goal is to get to 9. (After you learn the rules, you will see that this is an extremely basic explanation. I’m just trying to prove I read the book, so my tenth grade English teacher doesn’t start giving pop quizzes.) After knowing the basics of the game, the baccarat section of the novel reads as intense as the poker scene played in the film. It’s so good in fact that in his New York Times review, Anthony Boucher suggested ending the book after the game was over.

I went back and re-watched the first introduction to Bond on film in Dr. No. Bond’s game against Sylvia Trench is a lot more interesting than I ever realized and is a better introduction to the Bond character. It shows the luck Bond gets and his indifference towards it.

Won by luck. Cares less than guy next to him. #BondYOLO

What did I learn from reading Casino Royale – my first Bond novel? Besides the rules of baccarat, I learned to appreciate the evolution of the character from print to film. Despite the growing pains of Ian Fleming’s style and voice, I see the gem that attracted Broccoli and Staltzman to James Bond.  I’m looking forward to working my way through all the novels to see how James Bond continues to evolve along with Fleming’s writing. Next up, Live and Let Die. I can’t wait to check out Diamonds Are Forever and compare it with that film. I’m also looking forward to Dr. No. I hear there’s a giant squid in it.

Things I Learned Marathon-ing Back to the Future

This weekend my fiance and I watched Back to the Future, then we naturally followed that up with Part II and finally Part III. To my fiance's credit, this was her idea. 342 minutes later, she loved the first one (which she was fairly certain she had never seen) and she hated the third one. She seemed indifferent on the second.

But what did I learn from marathon-ing these movies I'd seen many, many times before? A few things:

1. The first is the best. A damn near perfect movie that is only made more perfect compared to the other two.

2. The second has as many plot holes as The Dark Knight Rises.

3. We will fail to meet almost all of the 2015 requirements. The only thing we got right was the Miami baseball team.

4. The third is far more unrealistic than I thought as a kid. This is only true becauseI didn't have Deadwood when I was 7.

5. The recurring gags get old after the second one. By the time we get to the third film, it's nothing but callbacks to the other two movies in a Western setting. (They do have amazing restraint not having Marty skateboard around Hill Valley in the Old West.)

6. Turns out that Needles was not a character I kept missing in the first one. He was set-up in the future of the second film, but his importance is only really explained at the end of the third film. Fucking time travel. Speaking of...

7. Why the hell did Doc say the robbery was the main cause of his family's downfall when it was clearly the car accident? Sloppy work. Also, he looks down the barrel of a gun.

8. Aren't the Pizza Hut dehydrated pizzas the same as the NEW Pizza Hut sliders? (Ok. Maybe we got two things right.)

9. The repeating of what happened in the previous movie is a terrible plot device. It's kind of like watching TV shows on Netflix and every episode starts with "Perviously On..."

10. Hill Valley is way more fucking important than I realized.

11. How does future Biff keep getting rich when his casino is literally in a war zone? Also, do the muffins have an equal number of blueberries?

12. I wondered this before, but seriously... How the fuck did Doc Brown create a TIME TRAIN in 1885, or figuring the age of the kids - 1895? Why did he take it to the future first to get a hover conversation, then go back to get Einstein, then finally show up on the same fucking railroad track as Marty to say "Hi! We're still alive!" If it fucking flys, why does he bother using the railroad tracks! AND if he wanted the time machine destroyed, why did he build a new one?!

13. Why does Doc Brown turn into Willy Wonka at the end of the series?

14. Why did he set al his clocks to be 25 minutes late and call that an "experiment?" By that logic, I pretty much recreated that experiment all the time in college.

15. Blu-Ray ruins special effects. Not only did things stand out more, but you could also tell when stunt actors were involved. It was still close, but if you pay attention it's pretty fucking obvious. Also, some of the make-up now looks terrible 

16. The whole "chicken" thing was just an "easy button" for the plot. "What's his motivation?" "How about someone calls him chicken again?"

17. Marty goes from a decently smart guy, to an idiot. He's actually pretty good in the first one, quickly understands time travel when Doc explains it to him, comes up with the whole "Darth Vader from Vulcan" thing, hatches the plan to get his parents to fall in love. By the third, he can't keep track of days, doesn't understand the concept of gasoline, and thinks he'll crash into the fucking Indians at the drive-in!

18. From now on, I will only watch the first one. The plot makes sense, the characters are great, and Elisabeth Shue isn't in it. Crispin Glover is.

19. Marty had two very fucked up weeks in 1985, 1955, 2015, 1985A and 1885.

20. The only saving grace in the last two films is the chemistry between Doc and Marty.

So while the 6 hours of Back to the Future was fun, I probably wouldn't do it again.

Warren Zevon: My Favorite Songs Part 1

I woke up this morning after a very poor sleep, went down stairs, said good-bye to my fiance, and made coffee. (The last part is always key, otherwise I'd be fucking terrible to put up with.) While I was waiting I was listening to a little Warren Zevon.

Then it hit me, "Keith, you haven't fucking blogged in weeks. You should do a list of your ten favorite Warren Zevon songs just for fun this morning." I sat down with my coffee, scrolled through his catalogue to pick out ten favorites. That was when I realized how stupid my idea was. I can't narrow my favorite songs down to ten! 

And so, what follows is a quick list of 5 of my favorite Warren Zevon songs:

1. "The Factory," Sentimental Hygiene, 1987 - My favorite part of this song comes in the last lyric as Zevon fits "polyvinyl chloride" into the song without ruining it. (All I could find was this concert version. Still great, just slower than the album version.)

2. "I Need A Truck" (Outtake), Excitable Boy (2007 Reissue) - Just Warren Zevon on this track. Fucking beautiful in it's simplicity. (Don't let the weird truck images in this video distract you.)

3. "For My Next Trick I'll Need A Volunteer," Life'll Kill Ya, 2000 - There are a ton of good songs on this album, but this is a great example of Zevon's dark sense of humor that I just love. It's a great song about relationships and love that isn't sentimental sappy pop bullshit.

4. "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead," Mr. Bad Example, 1991 - A great example of Zevon creating a world and a story in song. (Yes, a better example would be "Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song)" but that's a little too on-the-nose for me.)

5. "Down in the Mall," Transverse City, 1989 - A song about consumerism that doesn't suck? This lesser known Zevon song is the musical equivalent of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. (Again, this is sadly the only version I could find. Skip 28 seconds in for the song to start.)

That's it for now. I seem to be stuck in a Warren Zevon mood - that's not a bad thing - so look for more songs.