Engaging Culture

I should warn you that this review contains “spoilers.” That is, I have reviewed the film as one might review classic literature, with freedom to describe the plot and ending and relate them to the overall interpretation. If you cannot bear to know the ending and details in advance, I urge you to see the film before reading the review.

Iron Man 2

A few weeks ago, I gave Iron Man 2 a predicted score of 92. After seeing it, I must say that I think I was a bit generous. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the film. I really enjoyed it. The action sequences looked great, the snarky fast-paced dialogue that made the first one great was back, and I loved seeing the integration and development of the Avengers story line. Even the development of the characters old and new that I was worried about was not an issue, they were given plenty of time to build up their histories and motives. My problem was with what they were built up to, in the end it felt a bit too simple. It felt like the whole movie was rotating around Tony’s attitude change. He’s the only character that grows or changes. I expected Tony to sit down at his computer and type out the little moral lesson that he learned like he was Doogie Howser M.D. or something.

The film picks up about 6 months after Tony proclaimed to the world that he was Iron Man. In this time, Stark Industries has ceased providing the government with weapons, opening up to door for Stark’s biggest competitor, Justin Hammer to pick up the profits. I really like Sam Rockwell as an actor, he’s quirky and funny, and I hoped that he would really turn on the charm and go toe to toe with Robert Downey Jr. but he always seemed like a bumbling copycat who was relegated to always be two or three steps behind. I guess I really wanted to see another Obadiah Stane.

Tony is being pressured by a smarmy and highly irritating Senator (Gary Shandling) to turn over the Iron Man suit to the government. But as he says, “I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself.” Tony claims that no one currently has technology to rival his suit. But there is a new villain named Ivan Vanko. He is seeking revenge for his father, Anton, who was betrayed by Tony’s father, Howard. He builds a miniature arc reactor (just like the one that keeps Tony alive) to power the plasma whips that he wields when he ambushes Tony as he drives in the Grand Prix of Monaco. When he is bested by Iron Man (with the help of Happy and Pepper) he is imprisoned, but feels that he accomplished his goal of showing the world that behind that suit is still just a man that bleeds. Hammer gets the message and breaks Vanko out of prison staging his death, and puts him to work making upgrades on a line of military grade mechanized suits that he plans to unveil as a rival to Iron Man. The arrival of “Whiplash” and the revelation that someone is already abusing this Stark technology really puts the pressure on Tony to turn over the suit.

However, as the movie goes on, we realize that these two characters are not the real enemy of the film. They are simply the catalyst for a story arc and a reason for some expensive fight scenes. Unbeknownst to the world and even his close friends, being Iron Man is killing Tony, literally. The paladium core in the arc reactor is poisoning him. Confronted with his mortality and his daddy issues, Tony reverts back to the self-destructive narcissism that we saw at the beginning of the first film. The movie really begins at Tony’s birthday party, where he is wearing the Iron Man suit while getting sloshed and entertaining his many fans by doing a little stand-up comedy and fireworks display. In walks Lt. Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Tony’s long time friend. He can’t bear to watch Tony make a fool of himself anymore, especially since he used his government connections to stick up for him. He goes downstairs and dons another suit, this one a sleek silver model, reminiscent of the Mark II suit of which his character memorably said in the first film, “Next time, baby.” They proceed to battle, and for a moment we see all the gawkers from the party who have hung around to watch him fight his best friend. Tony unleashes a primal roar at them and we finally see the wheels coming off the tracks, he’s not just an eccentric billionaire, he’s in trouble and he’s battling more than sickness, more than super villains, he’s battling himself.

After summarily trouncing Tony, Rhodey flies off with his suit and brings it to his bosses in the military. His goal is not profit or notariety, but protection, he wants to see the weapon in the most capable hands, and being the patriot that he is, he assumes that to be the United States government. The emotionally and psychologically bruised Tony is in need of someone to coddle him and nurse him back to health. In walks Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury who tells him exactly what the audience has been thinking for the last hour, that Tony is acting like a selfish child and he needs to get his head on straight and stop passively preparing to die and get active about finding a cure. It’s during this chapter that we find out that Scarlett Johannson’s mysterious character is indeed an ally. She has been implanted by S.H.I.E.L.D. in his organization to shadow him. With the help of his father, Tony discovers a way to reverse the poisoning and become stronger than ever. Some people thought that the Avengers story-line was too pronounced in the film, but I think that it is necessary if the Avengers film is going to make any sense. Plus, all of these movies, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Thor, will help tell the back story of the Avengers so it can roar at full force when it releases on May 4, 2012.

With his new lease on life, Tony discovers a plot to use his technology against him. Hammer has pimped out the War Machine suit with all sorts of weapons and is presenting them at the Stark Expo when Vanko takes over and launches a full assault on Iron Man. The last 15 minutes of the movie are a frenetic action-packed barrage of explosions and CGI machines. The action comes in bursts so as not to overload you. You can fully appreciate every battle individually whether it is Iron Man and War Machine fighting side by side against dozens of Hammer-drones or Agent Romanoff’s Black Widow taking all comers in the hunt to stop Ivan Vanko before it’s too late. I had a great time. I’m ready and eagerly anticipating Marvel’s next offering. This one was about an inch deep, but it was truckloads of fun both in the script and in the visuals. I believe that comic books provide a treasury of source material for films, years from now I think film scholars will see superhero movies the same way we see westerns today. They are the films that form those simple impressions in the minds of our people about right and wrong. And even in a relativistic day like ours, in the end we all want the good guy to win and the bad guy to get his comeuppance. Iron Man 2 doesn’t disappoint on that front and I, for one, hope it never does. I give it a score of 89.

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I was born in 1983. The cold war was all but over. I’ve never seen an episode of M.A.S.H, and I’ve always known minivans, McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, and the Nintendo Entertainment System. David Letterman has always been on Late Night, and I can’t remember a time when FOX was not an available channel on our television. Perhaps the only thing that saved me from the nihilistic attitude stereotypically associated with the “MTV” generation was that my family didn’t have cable when I was growing up, we simply had a 40-foot tall antenna attached to our rural home and we could pick up signals from all the major networks. I remember watching Perfect Strangers, Night Court, Family Matters, Quantum Leap, Full House, and Matlock. I never had the privilege of having Walter Cronkite read the news to me; in fact I don’t ever recall watching television to get the news when I was growing up. We read the newspaper around my house and as soon as Netscape came out with the browser, I was on the internet. Television to me has always been about cheap entertainment, and by cheap I mean in cost and in value. I’ve never been much of a television watcher, always preferring film or the written word.

Network (1976)

So what is it about a film made seven years before I was born and focusing on a topic that doesn’t pertain to me that I find so appealing? That is a hard question to answer. I suppose it has to do with the cultural impact of television. Aldous Huxley said about television, “In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.” We have become a vegetable garden of people, we do nothing but absorb, hoping to be entertained. However, even a fleeting moment of entertainment only leaves us more hopeless because we have no one to share it with. As T.S. Eliot once said, “It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”

Yet, somehow despite the verbosity of Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliant script (I mean no one really talks like they do in this film), and the absurdity of the story, it has proven itself clairvoyant. We live in a world today that very much resembles the imagined world of the film. That is why I would classify Network as a Science Fiction film. It is a comedy and a drama to be sure, but the best Sci-Fi stories take a current trend and play it out to its obvious conclusion. Only a few years after this film’s release, FOX began to steal away ratings from the traditional stations by airing sensational fluff pieces. They became known for their willingness to air anything that would get the ratings regardless of what the censors at the FCC thought.

Network is really a remarkable film, it is not only watchable but compelling. It doesn’t have any computer graphics, no explosions, and no nudity, it is filled with long stretches of talkative monologues. It was made before the computers or the internet took over the world, but the actors made this film wonderful. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, half of those were for acting. It won three acting Oscars (only the second film in history to do so), and Paddy Chayefsky won for his brilliant script. Somehow, Rocky stole the Best Picture and Director categories. It is a film that few people my age have seen or even heard of, but it is a film that is worth every penny a DVD will cost you.

Peter Finch will always be remembered for his role as the “Mad Prophet of the Airwaves”, especially as he told his listeners to get up, stick their heads out their windows and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” He died just a few months before the Academy Awards, and remains the only person to win the Best Actor Oscar posthumously. He delivers his lines with such conviction and passion that you could easily be fooled into thinking that hie has been touched by some spirit that is guiding him towards a truth that he must proclaim to the masses from his own Mt. Sinai inside our televisions. And Faye Dunaway is frenetic and driven as this woman in a man’s world. She is obsessed with nothing more than the ratings numbers. She plays them like the stock market, unconcerned with the content of the show, only whether people will tune in or not. She is probably best known for her role in Mommie Dearest, but I think that this was a far superior role and it is the only one to win her Oscar gold.

If you’ve never seen Network, you owe it to yourself to add it to your Netflix list at the very least, but I would advise buying the DVD, because once you see it, you will want it. It is a classic. It speaks to our human condition, our desire to be spoon-fed and entertained. How many churches have been ruined because their members attend to be entertained week in and week out? Christians should not be like the people in this film. We should not be like so many are today. We can talk about the internet and video games, but it is that simple box that sits so comfortable in our living rooms that sucks the life out of so many of our families and melts our children’s brains to mush. Listen as Howard Beale tells you about the great evils of television in my favorite scene of the film. Warning: There is some language… watch at your own risk!
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Once upon a time, Jennifer Lopez actually gave me hope that she could be a quality actress. That was back when she took roles in movies like Selena and Out of Sight, before she fell prey to the desire to be popular and took roles in God awful movies like Gigli and Monster-in-Law. However, she’s been off the big screen for four years and I had high hopes that perhaps that break was what she needed to get some sense. Oh, how wrong I was.

The Back-up Plan was the worse piece of drivel that she’s created yet. The worst part is that the concept isn’t a completely bad one. A woman is fed-up with men to the point that she has decided to forgo men all together and “start a family” (a.k.a. have a child) on her own. But she meets the man of her dreams only moments later and must confront him with that information. However, unlike most rom-coms, this one doesn’t put that revelation in the third act only to have him run out and then come crawling back for the final kiss. Instead, it is about this woman and her issues. She tells him and he sticks around and genuinely loves and cares for her, but she has been bitten by so many bad relationships with men that she is always paranoid that around the next curve, he is going to come to his senses and leave. She has issues with being loved, and don’t we all.

But this great concept for what could have been a phenomenal film turned into a game of let’s watch the beautiful girl make a fool out of herself with poop and vomit jokes. I don’t want to go into just how bad it is. I will simply put it this way, my wife and I have three small children and while all of the gags involve things that we deal with regularly either as parents or a couple there were several times when my wife had to turn away to keep from throwing up.

When you add to the un-funny humor the fact that there is almost no chemistry between Lopez and Alex O’Loughlin this movie goes from failure to disaster. The most awful part is that I am getting word that actual people in actual theaters have sat down and watched this movie and laughed and enjoyed it. These people inhabit a world that I am not remotely interested in visiting. Ladies, if you are watching this movie hoping that Stan “The Goat-Farming Man” might just step out into your lives, forget about it. A man that perfect doesn’t exist on this green planet. Oh, sorry, he does have a flaw… he’s in night school! That’s right the worst part about him is that he is bettering himself by going to school at night. He is a ruggedly handsome, leather jacket wearing, goat farmer, complete with tractor (which he rides shirtless and covered in baby oil). He lives just outside of the city, making his organic cheeses, but is always conveniently in the city at a trendy farmer’s market. There is no conflict in this film, it is a daydream for mentally unstable women, preaching you the lie that there is a perfect guy out there who will complete you in every way.

I had hopes and they were smashed to pieces. But I didn’t leave without some deeper insights into myself and the human condition. How could I not, the whole film is about how screwed up this girl is. And when you think about it, we’re all screwed up the same way. The Bible says that we’ve all sinned. We’ve all bought into the lie that this world has what we want, and we have had our hearts and spirits broken. I know that I’ve felt like Zoe, that I wasn’t worth God’s love. I wake up every day wondering if he has left me and forsaken me, despite the fact that he told me he never will (Hebrews 13:5). Because I’m not worth it. When I look at the stars and the galaxies and the beauties of this earth and then I look in the mirror, I think that God has much better things to do with his time than to love me. The hard journey of a Christian is not to earn God’s love, but to accept it. We will never deserve it, but he gives it freely. Conceptually, I give it a 90, but for dunking my hopes in the toilet and then pooping on them, I give it a 40.

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Warning: As you can tell from the title, this post contains censored vulgar language and descriptions of intense and graphic violence. If that’s not your cup of tea, I understand. Read with caution.

Kick-A** is the marriage of a raunchy R-rated comedy like Superbad or American Pie and an ultra-violent Tarantinoesque movie, with a superhero theme thrown in for good measure. It was written and directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) in collaboration with Mark Millar (Wanted) who was writing the graphic novel at the same time. Kick-A** has received a very mixed response from the community of film critics with a 77 @ Rotten Tomatoes and a 66 @ Metacritic at the time of publication. Roger Ebert gave it two thumbs down and said, “I find “Kick-A**” morally reprehensible.” While Richard Corliss of TIME said, “This is a violent R-rated drama that comments cogently on the impulses — noble, venal or twisted — that lead people to help or hurt others.” However, it’s controversy has not been enough to earn it the ticket sales that many were expecting, with a less than desirable opening weekend of 19.8 million. However, some have suggested that the low numbers combined with a spike in sales of the four-week old How to Train Your Dragon may indicate that large numbers of teens unable to buy tickets for Kick-A** bought tickets for the other with the hopes of sneaking into the theater.

I should warn you that this review contains “spoilers.” That is, I have reviewed the film as one might review classic literature, with freedom to describe the plot and ending and relate them to the overall interpretation. If you cannot bear to know the ending and details in advance, I urge you to see the film before reading the review. Unlike some other Christian reviewers, I don’t keep track of curse words and possible objectionable content. If you are a parent wondering if you should let your teenage kids go see this… don’t. As for adult viewing, the title of the movie is enough to offend many, and the creators were kind enough to release a red-band trailer, if it offends you, then don’t touch the movie. But I have a morbid curiosity for all things cinematic and cultural, so for better or worse, I watched it. If you want/need to read a synopsis there is a good one on Wikipedia.
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I had a great time watching “The Lovely Bones” last night, it was a full house. The acting was superb and the imagery of the film was amazing. Susie Salmon (Saorise Ronan) is kidnapped and murdered. What would be the tragic end of another movie, is just where the story really begins. The glimpse into the suffering of a family and a community at the loss of one of its children was very well done. I could feel the emotions of the father desperate for answers and the mother on the brink of despair.

The entire story was narrated by the dead Susie. After her murder, she “feels like life is leaving her” and she awakes in a gorgeous setting, “alone in her own perfect world.” We come to find out that she is not in heaven yet, she is in what the film calls, “the in-between.” And her job in this place/state is to forget all about her former life. Until she can leave it behind, she can’t progress to heaven. The place that she found herself in was described as, “not heaven and not the other place but a little bit of both.” The other place could refer to hell or Earth, we are not told which.

In reality, there is no place like that. No place of atonement or forgetting. The Christian has no need to make atonement or forget, Because Jesus has made payment in full and he will wipe every tear from our eyes. This would be an amazing film if Susie found herself face to face with the glory of God (though then the question of her faith would have to be answered since it wasn’t even brought up in the film) and she easily forgot all about the troubles of the world as she was completely fulfilled and made whole, transformed by the love of her Savior. Then the rest of the movie could have been about how the family coped with the loss, revenge, anger, drunkenness, denial, etc.

The most interesting scene of the film, from a social standpoint, was when the villain got his comeuppance. The theater burst into applause and cheers at the vindication, the justice, that they saw on screen. It was proof positive that no one really believes that truth is relative. We may claim to be “tolerant” and not judgmental. But every person in that theater was intolerant of the aberrant behavior of the villain. However if a “good person” were to have a similar fate, people would cry out, “Injustice! Where is God! Why do bad things happen to “good” people?” It takes biblical revelation to know that there are not “good” people. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and salvation is only found in Jesus Christ. Apart from him, we all are bad people who deserve to go to “the other place.”

From a Christian point-of-view, this movie could have shown a crowd of un-believers that justice belongs to God, and life and death are in his hands. They could have seen that there can be hope for life after death. And it could have given caution to those who believe themselves to be “good” people, that salvation is found in no one but Jesus.