Iron Man 3 Review: A Tin Man's Heart.

I think we can all agree that “The Avengers” was an act nobody wanted to follow. This could have easily ended up as a colossal act of hubris by Disney by riding its best talent too hard until it broke. I can count on one hand the number of threequels that were any good, and only one that was actually great (Toy Story 3). But once again, Disney hired a talented director out of left field and let him do what he does best. The man is Shane Black, and he is responsible for one of my top tree favorite films “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Everything that made that movie great is firing on all cylinders in Iron Man 3. The unrelenting hilarious banter, overly intricate plot twists, and satirical subversion of tired action beats. All of these qualities keep it far above the realm of mediocrity which, sadly, 2 had dipped its toe into more times than it should have.

The story is much more compelling this time around and it actually manages to deliver the overdone “this time it's personal” monologue in such a quiet and matter of fact kind of way that I hadn’t marked it off as cliche until I sat down to write this thing. When the central villains take the stage, which for the third time features a violent renegade reined in by a corporate interest, The plot shifts into high gear and only slows to a jog once for the 60 minutes left. Which ends up being a perfectly fine direction, but I could have honestly watched Tony breaking down physically and emotionally in his basement for another half an hour. Those have always been my favorite parts of the series, Stark just trying to get a grip on his own head.

But this can't be a mini series and thus certain characters get the short shrift. Rhodes comes off as an after thought for the most part and Pepper, while still getting in on some choice action scenes, still boils down to a damsel in distress. But what you get in return is pleasantly surprising. The twist involving Ben Kingsly's “The Mandarin” is brilliant and Tony's strangely un-accented friend that he makes in rural Tennessee shares the best banter I’ve seen since...well, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”

What sets 3 apart from the others is its careful attention to the finale, I think we can all agree the first couple left much to be desired. Its a breath taking daisy chain of destruction connecting its two best set pieces that magically turns forty minutes into what seems like ten. Thankfully there's still plenty of that old Black dialogue magic left in the bag so the near unrelenting action never suffocates the film's easy charm.

That's the word I’d use to sum up Iron Man 3, charm. It's charming. Its the closest I’ve seen to a straight up marvel action comedy and I’m glad it was allowed to stick so closely to its talented comedy guns. It feels like the film Black wanted to make rather than the Avengers preview Favreau was forced to make. So yes, this is my favorite Iron Man and one of my favorite comic book movies in general. Its got kinks in its armor, but they just give it character. If this is the way we have to say goodbye to Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark than so be it. It was one hell of a retirement party

Check This Guy Out.

CRACKPOT THEORY: Bob's Burgers is The Simpson's First Worthy Sucessor.

Sometimes a show wins you over so gradually its hard to remember that you were ever against it. I'll say up front I never got “Home Movies” and I was way too young to catch “Dr. Katz” so when Loren Bouchard got a prime time Fox pilot my opinion, shared by many viewers, was a little more than a shrug. But I gave it a shot. The first episode wasn't bad, but it left me cold. If it wasn't for “Archer” and my weekly need for a Jon Benjamin fix I never would have stuck with it. And as you can probably guess, everything I’m about to write can be summed up by saying I'm glad I did.

ITS DIFFERENT ENOUGH

Its obvious the show's biggest sell is how similar it is to the Simpsons in concept, but the two are night and day. For one it comes from a background of improvised conversational dialogue and the biggest laughs for me always come from how something is said rather than what. Conversations erupt and and die down at unpredictable times blurring the line between script and performance just enough to keep things interesting as well as to set it apart from Fox's other animated offerings. Plus the tangents it goes off on are fun to listen to by themselves. Its a fun show grounded by dark, snarky realism that somehow makes it more savory than bitter.

IT HELPED ME FINALLY "GET" KRISTEN SCHAAL

I'd seen her around the Daily Show, her Comedy Central special, and a few other places. I thought she was ok, never really stood out to me the way Samantha Bee or Chelsea Peretti could. But once I heard her voice coming out of a ten year old girl, I got it. Something just clicked and I’d now call myself a fan. It is weird to think shes the only woman in the main cast that’s actually played by one, but that’s beside the point. As Louise, the maniacal mystery wrapped in an enigma and covered by rabbit ears, Schaal kills. Her background antics are always highlights and her central stories are amongst the best so far. In fact "Ear-sy Rider," in which her beloved rabbit ears are stolen, may be my favorite.

 

ITS NOT AFRAID TO BE SENTIMENTAL

The show has a heart and her name is Tina. Maybe the voice of  a 32 year old man doesn't sound right coming from a 14 year old girl. But it works hilariously well and despite the fact she is mostly played for laughs, when Tina becomes a focal point, you'll see the most brutally honest look at teenage sexuality I've ever witnessed. It's brutal, I feel I need to mention that one more time. Erotic zombie dreams, butt fixation, flirting with anything vaguely masculine, (including steer) she is routinely betrayed by her hormones. When the stories dive into her achingly pathetic quest for love they become greater than the sum of their parts. She's proud of herself and doesn't take any crap from the world. In many ways she's a much braver romantic than I, even though it kills me to admit it.


IT HIDES GUEST STARS IN PLAIN SIGHT

There have been a metric butt ton of guest stars on Bob's Burgers but I’d only caught half of them before the credits started rolling. More often than not I'd read the cast list and yell “that was him/her?! I had no fu**ing clue...” Both Sarah and Laura Silverman were regulars, (took me a year to figure that out) Kevin Kline was their land lord, (again, could have fooled me) and Jon Hamm was a talking super toilet. It's rare a show lets a guest's performance breathe and more importantly avoids the toxic influence of them actually playing themselves...The Simpsons is a dark cautionary tale in that way.

ITS MUSICAL NUMBERS (AND CREDITS) ARE ENDEARINGLY STUPID

But if there is one thing I’d like the show to be remembered for it's their admirably dumb musical numbers. They're too legitimately funny to ignore, too hastily put together to stand on their own, and yet so genuine that I grew to love them. They've started putting together a promotional cover series called “Bob's Buskers” and I really hope they stick to it. I actually have some new found respect for “BadTina.” So in summation, this is best animated family comedy since 1989. It may not ever reach the towering heights of The Simpson's first four years but come on, no one has. Its edgy, its sweet, its funny as hell and I look forward to it every week. I hope eventually some of you will too.

First Season Standouts

Crawl Space

Sexy Dance Fighting

Sheesh! Cab, Bob?

Art Crawl

Lobsterfest

Brian Fuller's Hannibal: The Best Thing Since Sliced Sweatbreads.

I'm gonna say it. The first three episodes of this new series is better than all the previous Lector films combined. I'm gonna skip the song and dance to jump right to my gut feeling, which is that this is one of the greatest police procedural shows ever made.

Its scary, its atmospheric, its inventive, its trippy, and every role is perfectly cast as well as expertly acted. This isn't just a breath of fresh air, its a damn hurricane. The problem is, I find it very hard to describe to those who have already made up their minds. To some this looks like a desperate network going back to well that dried up years ago and that’s true. But Brian Fuller has tapped that old well and hit a oil geyser filled with new ideas and possibility. The first two serial killers alone are more interesting than either Buffalo Bill and the Tooth Fairy, and on a related note, don't eat mushrooms while watching this show. Its a bad plan and I promise you'll thank me later.

Fuller retained the essence of everyone's favorite cannibal while also ingeniously rebooting Will Graham into a basket case with a condition called “perfect empathy.” A hokey tacked on super power if written by the likes of other lesser shows, but the flashback scenes it allows to take place coupled with Hugh Dancy's devastating performance makes the implied ridiculousness hypnotic. That's actually a good way to describe the whole show: hypnotic. 

Each scene in Lector's massive office will arrest every bit of your attention as you search Mads Mikklesen's face for any shred of blood lust or unspoken malice. Some may call his performance too understated, or worse, boring. You won't see him sucking the air like a wood chuck on Hannibal, but you will see him go to town on a pair of lungs with a cleaver and come on people, with someone like Lector less is always more.

This is one of the very few shows I have ever had to watch through my fingers and I've sat through a couple Saws and the majority of Dexter's run. Hannibal still managed to shock my dulled senses and no one is more surprised that happened than me. Mutilation and desecration is the rule of law on this set and it is definitely not for everyone. But if you are starved for violent, though provoking, and beautifully shot drama? It's all on hulu.com right now. What in god's name are you waiting for?!

Recommended Viewing:

Mads Mikklesen:
After The Wedding
Flame and Citron

Hugh Dancy:
Black Hawk Down

42 Review: Chadwick at the Bat.

There's no getting around it, the film 42 is a relic. I could make a half-assed Indiana Jones joke here, but... nah.This is a movie straight out of the early 90's, but the thing is, it's still a remarkable film from the early 90's. The opening scene with Ford's tin eared “old codger” voice talking about how it's time to integrate pro baseball while bathed in bronze quasi-holy light is as hokey as they come. I was ready to bail, that is, until the film's namesake finally made his entrance.

Chadwick Boseman plays Jackie Robinson like his entire career was leading to this role while never tipping his hand to the audience of any shred of desperation. He is beyond exceptional and I suspect we will being seeing much more of him in the future. When Jackie makes it to the bigs we feel for him, when he laughs we laugh with him, when his heart breaks under the daily barrage of bigotry so do ours. I hate to use the phrase “a star is born” but he has, and with the help of his equally compelling wife in actor Nicole Beharie we cross the line from a passable project to an labor of love. Sure you have to sit through the obligatory proposal/marriage/”you're special” pep talks, but thankfully the two get to share a couple touching left field (sorry) moments that spice the pacing up when it needs it most. And to be fair the final pep talk is all kinds of adora-awesome, which is now, obviously a word.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag of swings and misses (I'm so sorry). Christopher Meloni has a nice run for the first quarter as the manager that has to knock the less agreeable Dodgers into line and Alan Tudyk absolutely nails the thankless role of Ben Chapman. As the most outwardly racist caricature in a film chock full of the suckers, he's a flesh and blood Yosemite Sam. That may sound like a knock, but seriously, he is an entirely convincing Yosemite Sam. But we need to talk about Ford.

He's bad, really really bad. There's a stuffy odor of white man's burden around the character on paper and his forced voice always broke my immersion. He hasn't been a character actor before, to my knowledge, and this is proof positive as to why he never should be again. That’s not to say he doesn’t have a good arch or that his voice does eventually become kind of endearing, but he wears you down instead of winning you over. If half of his scenes were cut it would have been a better film.

You can usually tell when a film is made by people who wanted to be there versus when it was more of an obligation and 42 is definitely the former. It's a good story with good casting with a familiar yet affecting path to the end credits. Yes it's hokey, yes Ford is painfully miscast, and yes the racism is more than a little melodramatic. But you know what? I'd bet money on that part of American history being just as melodramatic as this film depicts it. And for every go nowhere scene with the Dodger malcontents there’s one with Jackie and Rachel, which is more than worth it. Also the scene near the end with a small white child reacting to a racist crowd was appropriately dark and showed a draft of a much better film that was probably sanitized...probably. I loved that scene and I really liked this movie. It's not a showstopping grand slam (SORRY!) but rather an honest, heartfelt double play. (I have a problem...)

That's the real Rachel in a picture that made my whole damn week.

Don't Starve Review: The Shadow over Farmville...smouth

Don't Starve is a game that really doesn’t want you to know what kind of a game it actually is, in fact, “Don't Starve” is the only direction you're ever given. 

As a lovcraftian mad scientist named Wilson, you make a devil's deal with a stranger in a suit for knowledge of the natural world. But upon the completion of your masterwork; you find yourself whisked away to an otherworldly wilderness where pigs live in houses, mushrooms drive you insane, rabbits scream, and frogs want you dead. What the hell are you supposed to do about any of this? Figure it out.

“This man did not know cold”

First I noticed that my character was upset by night fall, so I looked over at my building options on the other side of the screen. I saw a option for fire. Naturally I wanted a big stone fire pit, but I had no stones, and I had no logs. So I was left to my sapling twig devices and rode out the night lighting torch after torch, fearing the big white eyes blinking just out of reach of the light. 

The next day would be different I scoured the land for some flint, my option bar dinged and I could now cobble together an axe! A few more flints and I made a pickaxe. Now all I had to do was chop some trees and break some boulders and now I had my fire pit... but I couldn't light it in time and the darkness took me. Game Over.

“The fire provider had failed”

You're going to die in Don't Starve. You are going to die many, many, times. The only thing you can take with you is knowledge. Knowledge like “I really shouldn't go anywhere near giant spiders” or “I should try cooking raw rabbit meat before shoving it into my face.” Each time you die (and start over) you've hopefully died trying something different and thereby testing more limits of the game world. 

But dying isn't without it's own reward, the number of days you manage to survive are tallied into experience points on death. Which are then used to unlock new, more effective, or versatile characters. Maybe Wolfgang the body builder and his bigger stomach is more your speed or Wendy the little girl whose dead sister's ghost protects her at night (it's that kind of game). DS is very observant of how best to alleviate the tedium of starting over, from random wilderness generation to the new characters, no single play through is exactly alike. It works...for the most part anyway.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, STOP! ...where did you get that hat?

“It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things"

Don't Starve remains an experience I wanted to like more than I actually did. Which isn't to say I feel disappointed, or worse, ripped off. No, instead I can only call it a very good game instead of a great one. The resource management becomes a tremendous pain in the ass. For all the grass it takes to make a bed roll why does it magically disappear in the morning? You will probably end up spending half your time in the game picking berries or pulling up grass, and as disturbingly compelling as it is in the moment, you will find yourself getting up from your seat wondering “What the hell did I just spend the last hour and a half doing?”

This inspired lunacy can be yours for $14.99!

“It's Instinct Told a Truer Tale”

Here boy! Have thirty founds of manure.

But if I’m being honest, I just can't stay mad at this game. Its atmosphere and art style oozes wit and personality. It feels like something we'd like to imagine Tim Burton creating, instead of the drivel he actually makes, and that is an art direction worth praising. For every game day I spend picking grass, I’ll find something new and interesting the next. Maybe I’ll stumble across my beloved bouncing pet backpack Chester! Or a pig-friend resurrection stone, or a dead adventurer clutching a ruby, or... I don't know what! All I know is that I can't wait for DS to surprise me again.

         

Off My Chest: The Ratchet and Clank Movie, why I'm optomistic.

Yesterday I awoke to the startling news that there was

 A. A feature length film based on Ratchet and Clank was in the works, but more importantly...
 B. It was actually getting a theatrical release! 
The prospect was to me, a no brainier. Insomniac Game's animation has always been nothing short of feature quality. In fact, after finishing “Crack in Time” a few years back I was half convinced I’d already seen the R&C movie. The cut scenes were just barely below Pixar standards. So I’d like to get into why this property has the chance to be a real charmer as well as a movie that breaks video the game to film transfer curse, so lets get to it.

1. The Central Cast is on Board

Whether it's due to budget constraints or not, the cast of R&C wasn't broke and Rainmaker Entertainment isn't going to “fix” it with disinterested celebrity talent. As seen in the delightful teaser Clank sounds like David Kaye, Quark sounds like Jim Ward, and Ratchet sounds like James Arnold Taylor. Which is great because Taylor was the best damn thing that ever happened to the series and he remains an underrated actor in general. He's just one of those guys that can make any line sound funny, tense, or dramatic, whenever the script needs that little extra push. The stupidest thing the studio could have done was to recast him, so BRAVO.

   2. The Writing has Always been Solid

I was reminded the other night after catching “Paranorman” on Netflix of just how big a pass animated films get on scripting. Now I thought the film had its moments and the dramatic irony that’s revealed near the end was absolutely brilliant, but if I’m being honest with my self, the script was GOD awful. Even in Pixar films sometimes I find myself twitching in my seat if the characters start reading lines in a way no rational actor would read lines and it bothers me that no other critic seems to care. Because no live action film under the sun would get away with a character so bizarrely abusive as Norman's dad.

I now realize I have never had this issue with any R&C production. Never! While the stories almost always loose their steam and direction, the characterization and general dialogue was reliably witty and brisk. Seeing as “Crack in Time's” writer is clacking away at the script I could not be more pleased, as that was the most emotionally resonant chapter of them all... but not the best one. Speaking of which:

  3. Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek

Drek is confirmed as the villain and I am over the moon. Kevin Michael Richardson had simply too much fun playing what was essentially a loving homage to both Gordon Gekko and the Vogons respectively. His PSAs apologizing to planets he was about to rip to pieces were fantastic and echoed with diminishing returns in the series's subsequent villains. I'm certainly looking forward to Ratchet and Clank's initial more antagonistic dynamic, as Taylor wasn't cast until the second game, but choosing Drek over other more popular villains allows for faithful a re-boot of the origin story and that was honestly some of its strongest work. (and I just hope to god he gets to keep his ponytail.)

   4. It Means We're Not Done Yet

  
The last real entry into the franchise was over three years ago, since then there's been two poorly received multiplayer and tower defense re imaginings of the core gameplay. With the movie on the way it is simply not possible that there won't be a cannon entry either before or during its release.This is a good plan seeing as "Crack in Time" was the closest we've seen to a perfect R&C. In fact I think if they gave it another six months and made it just bit longer they really could have ended the whole series on one mother of a high note. But unlike say, god of war, there is a certain timelessness to these characters and situations that can (and has) stand the test of time and could very well go on forever. Nobody thinks Mario's outstayed his welcome, why shouldn't these guys stick around just a little bit longer? So to sum up my feelings on the movie...

It's about Friggn' Time.

Top of the Lake: The Best Kept Secret on Netflix

I don't know where it came from or when it got here, but after stumbling over this gem of a miniseries I am now honestly afraid to cancel my account ever again. Because after over twenty years there is finally( finally) a worthy successor to twin peaks, with Elizabeth Moss and the New Zealand wilderness as its stars.

Moss plays a detective brought in on a case involving a suicidal twelve year old girl and her eventual disappearance. Rote stuff on paper but the script, setting, and casting will make it so even the most bitter cynic will at least give the first couple episodes a shot. Because besides Kenneth Branagh's “Wallander”(also worth your time) there is really nothing else out there quite like it...and buddy this show is out there.

Note the fuzzy Chihuahua.

From the gleefully sexist local police station to the (kiwi neck?) meth cooking mini mafia as well as the battered woman’s naturist commune TOL has a riveting revolving door of sets and locations to the point where even if one gets on your nerves there’s another that’s worth sitting around for. There isn't a weak link in the cast and the brass ring of the leads are award worthy.

Really, if all I had was Peter Mullan I probably would have finished the series out of spite, because Mullan is honestly one of the best villain actors out there right now. But no, I also got Moss who not only nails the Australian accent, but gives the best damn performance of her career. After ten minutes of watching her play Det. Griffen I had all but forgotten about Peggy Olson. As a long time admirer of Mad Men, that was no small feat I assure you.

While the ins and outs of the ancillary conflicts of Laketop are interesting at first, when the case hits the doldrums around the middle of the third episode it hits them hard. It's not that I don't want to know why a bunch of middle aged women are living in shipping containers in the middle of a field, its just that I’d much rather know what happened to Tui and whether or not she's still alive. It's not a dip in quality...well it kinda is, but it remains very well acted and scripted. But it does turn into a soap opera for a good two and a half hours.

But you won't care once the finale revs up. It saves just enough little twists for the end to keep the average viewer entertained and rewards the more hard boiled police procedural veterans like me. So to sum things up, this a fantastic little miniseries for any one looking to scratch that creepy small town itch and for mystery lovers in general. Check it out.

P.S. There is a ton of middle aged nudity and sex. So now you know that.

Recommended Viewing

  Peter Mullan:

The Red Riding Trilogy

Session 9

Tyrannosaur






   









Elizabeth Moss:

The West Wing
  
 Mad Men...obviously.