IRON MAN 3

Iron Man 3

Let me start by saying that I can understand why there are a lot of split opinions about IRON MAN 3. It's a film full of misdirection and deceptions, and I was a little distressed by a couple of them - which would give away too much to detail here. Suffice it to say that there were a couple of moments I felt somewhat cheated; and though I'll be vague about it I can say it involved Mandarin. Still, read on; while I gave the movie four stars, I believe down the road I might very well revise this to a five. I'll explain...

First of all, rest assured there is A LOT of action. And there are a lot of the Iron Suits, too...it's just that Tony Stark isn't often the one IN the suit. I found myself often frustrated by that fact: Iron Man interruptus, if you will. Either the suits were off on their own, or they were on other people, or they weren't working properly...something that seemed to occur almost constantly.

I saw it in Imax 3D, and it was well worth the extra $$ to do so (given the fact that $17 is a RIDICULOUS price for a movie ticket in the first place). The movie was lush, packed with detail, and continuously drew me "inside" it. The scenes of (don't panic about spoilers - these are in ALL the promos) Stark's house exploding and falling into the sea are meticulously crafted and extremely inclusive...I really felt the dimensional layers as the house was blown apart: I could feel the force of the detonation, and house collapsing, and the impact of the sea as the house AND Iron Man tumbled into it. Similarly, the moments where his suit fly through the air and "find" him, or the death-defying scenes aboard (and outside) Air Force One, and so many others throughout the film really do feel like you're there.

When it comes to the action you'd expect from a movie such as this, IRON MAN 3 is a rollicking, smash-mouth treat. Director Shane Black - whose only previous directorial role was on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which ironically served as Robert Downey, Jr.'s comeback film) - does a more-than-capable job, and the characters and events are big and loud. You'll feel like you are on a roller-coaster; while there are of course moments of crazy adrenaline rushes, there are also emotional ups and down. But Tony Stark is just as glib as always, causing almost as much damage with his mouth as he does as with his armor. I laughed a lot during the movie ... for those who care, Tony's mechanical manservant JARVIS (the voice of Paul Bettany) gets a good deal of air play here, and he's just as lovably bumbling as always.

Yet - and remember my dichotomy about this - the movie really focuses on Tony Stark OUTSIDE the suit. I wish the promos had clued me into this: our man Tony is experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because of what happened in The Avengers. Had I been informed of that I wouldn't have felt slighted, and I think it would have better prepared me for this movie. I found myself constantly disappointed, even cheated, by the absence of Tony WITHIN the suit. I realize now that was the only way I felt Iron man was indeed Iron Man. Yet I will declare that now, looking back, I feel good about the movie, and I'm glad to have seen Tony as a more "real" person, as a more human man, a man undergoing a metamorphosis.

There are other things about this movie that surprised me - and I'm sure will surprise you - that I will NOT tell you. Just realize that while this is a very action-packed movie, it is also a personal one. It's this kind of writing that has typified the action movies of today, making them stand out above their "super-hero" predecessors. Like the The Dark Knight movies of Chris Nolan, these new, and better, powerhouse films are focusing on their heroes' moments of personal growth, warts and all. It's a trend I'm really happy to see.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

As with the great John Ford (Young Mr. Lincoln) before him, it would be out of character for Steven Spielberg to construct a conventional, cradle-to-grave portrait of a historical figure. In drawing from Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, the director instead depicts a career-defining moment in the career of Abraham Lincoln (an uncharacteristically restrained Daniel Day-Lewis). With the Civil War raging, and the death toll rising, the president focuses his energies on passage of the 13th Amendment. Even those sympathetic to the cause question his timing, but Lincoln doesn't see the two issues as separate, and the situation turns personal when his son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), chooses to enlist rather than to study law. While still mourning the loss of one son, Mary (Sally Field) can't bear to lose another. Playwright Tony Kushner, who adapted the screenplay, takes a page from the procedural handbook in tracing Lincoln's steps to win over enough representatives to abolish slavery, while simultaneously bringing a larger-than-life leader down to a more manageable size. In his stooped-shoulder slouch and Columbo-like speech, Day-Lewis succeeds so admirably that the more outspoken characters, like congressman Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and lobbyist W.N. Bilbo (James Spader), threaten to steal the spotlight whenever they enter the scene, but the levity of their performances provides respite from the complicated strategizing and carnage-strewn battlefields. If Lincoln doesn't thrill like the Kushner-penned Munich, there's never a dull moment--though it would take a second viewing to catch all the political nuances.

DJANGO

I really liked Django Unchained, or as I like to call it: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence right through the eyeball and then the bullet continued through about 7 other torsos, shot out from a guy's belly button bringing a plume of intestines with it, ricocheted off someone's jugular vein, then snapped the cord holding up a chandelier causing said chandelier to plummet like a lead balloon, crushing the skulls of various evil varmints and polecats and then plunging into an occupied outhouse where the dynamite was also stored, causing the outhouse to explode in a crimson rain of blood, guts and offal.

CLOUD ATLAS

Have you ever felt hammered by a movie? Has it ever taken you days, weeks,
to integrate a movie, in your head and heart? Read on ...

If you see this movie, you'll probably see why some people don't like it. In
fact you may see different reasons for different people. A great movie allows
the individual to bring their own positive interpretation. Cloud Atlas also
allows the individual to bring their own negatives.

My own personal bitterness was "How come my heros always die, but your heros
always live happily ever after?" This hit me hardest as I was walking out of
the theater, but it still galls me to think about it.

You see, its like this: Cloud Atlas goes for power and effect. If they hit
something positive in you, you rave about it. If they hit something negative,
you hurt big time. This movie isn't about entertainment, its about achieving
enough kinetic force to shake you up. Its wrenching. And some people do not
like being shaken like a rag doll. More so, because as people have said,
Cloud Atlas is unlike any other movie ever made.

In a broader sense, I think almost everyone has at least one scene where you
ask yourself "Do I really wanna sit here and watch this?" The whole diversity
thing, not just diversity of people, but diversity of fates, gets close to the
point of overload with Cloud Atlas, and anyone who feels pushed over the redline
will walk out, having better things to do.

Again, its like this: If you can hold the movie at arms length, you're ok, but
if you step inside it, then its really disturbing. And I'm not talking about
the sex and violence either. Its the ideas, plural. There are so many ideas in
this movie, at so many different levels, its like a living fractal. Not ideas
just for the sake of ideas, not ideas just to shake you up, but ideas that
speak to you as a unique individual.

For me, Cloud Atlas is the most disturbing movie since Donnie Darko, although
they are radically different movies. But then again, some of it is funny, and
parts of it are exhilarating too. It has a mix of light and dark, it isn't all
dark. And it isn't "comic relief" either. Somehow, the lighter parts of the
movie are woven directly into the fabric of the story. It works amazingly well.

In technique, Cloud Atlas takes the concept of an ensemble movie, and re-invents
the entire purpose and effect of having an ensemble. And it isn't just in how
the actors are related, and who plays what role. One of the foundations of a
conventional movie is to build an association in our minds, between 1 actor and
the 1 role they play. Cloud Atlas demolishes that foundation and replaces it
with its own unique creation. Its disorienting, to such a degree that you can't
grasp it from other people's words. You have to experience it for yourself to
appreciate the *power* of it.

Cloud Atlas is also a film that has a voice, in particular on the subject of
artificial life. This topic has been around for many decades in science fiction
books and movies. But as technology seems to get closer to actually creating
it, fiction has gotten more sophisticated in how it expresses its message about
artificial life. That message is the most disturbing part of Cloud Atlas for me.
The writers see a storm coming, a new kind of storm that no one has ever seen
before.

I'm not talking about things like the Terminater and SkyNet. Cloud Atlas doesn't
deal with machines, it deals with souls. Sure, Cloud Atlas is fiction. But our
past is not fiction. We have an ugly history of repeating our mistakes. And some
mistakes only become fatal after they've been repeated over and over and over
again.

Regarding the "everyone's connected" philosophy, I thought this works great
as a narrative device, without me feeling (today at least) that I personally
subscribe to that philosophy. I would hope this philosophy doesn't deter
anyone from seeing the movie, because I think they turn it into a positive
thing, even for people who don't agree with it. Its part of how the story
is built, and built very well.

Another area where Cloud Atlas pushes the envelope is in taking all the actors
and doing radical, (sometimes humorous) make-overs to fit them into a character.
This itself has offended some people, because Cloud Atlas doesn't apply any
limitations at all, and it has dozens of makeovers. This is very different than,
for instance, Looper, where the make-up and acting are all focused with
overwhelming skill into changing 1 single person into another single person,
with absolute conviction. In Cloud Atlas, the transformations are beautiful,
striking, uncanny, other-worldly. It becomes another way in which this movie
hammers at you.

If you decide, like me, that Cloud Atlas is indeed a masterpiece, you will
probably have one moment, one scene, which pushes you over the edge and into
the realization that it *is* a masterpiece. Not necessarily the most powerful
scene in the movie, but the scene where the sum of it all finally overloads
your doubts.

For me, that scene was where we first see Doona Bae as Tilda. I've never seen
anything like that in a movie, and it took me about 15 seconds to just begin
to parse what I was seeing. The sheer creativity, the imaginative beauty of
the character, connecting outwards into 2 hours of the vast scope of the movie,
just blew me away. Truly, a masterpiece.

PROMETEUS

You want an alien world created anew, with wonders and horrors lurking in its furrows? You go to Ridley Scott, of course, spectacle maker and pictorialist par excellence. So Prometheus is bound to be eye filling, with fully wrought planetary vistas and occasionally jaw-dropping visual coups. And did we use the word alien back there? Yes, folks, Prometheus is a prequel, in a sideways sort of fashion, to Scott's 1979 Alien original--or at least it's a long-distant stage setter for that story. This one begins with a space mission that could reveal the extraterrestrial roots of Earth, although what's buried out on the planet turns out to be much more complicated than expected. In the midst of suspenseful episodes (and a few contrived plot turns), Prometheus reaches for Big Answers to Big Questions, in a grand old sci-fi tradition. This lends the movie a hint of metaphysical energy, even if Scott's reach extends well, well beyond his grasp. The hokier moments are carried off with brio by Michael Fassbender (the robot on board), Charlize Theron, and Idris Elba, and then you've got Noomi Rapace entering the badass hall of fame for a long, oh-no-they-didn't sequence involving radical surgery, which might just induce the vapors in a few viewers. Even if Prometheus has its holes, the sheer size of the thing is exciting to be around. Because this movie is gigantic. --Robert Horton.

A team of scientists journey through the universe on the spaceship "Prometheus" on a voyage to investigate Alien life forms. The team of scientists becomes stranded on an Alien world, and as they struggle to survive it becomes clear that the horrors they experience are not just a threat to themselves, but to all of mankind. 

EXPENDABLE 2

Let's get one thing straight. You don't go into a movie like The Expendables without knowing what you are getting yourself into. If you've seen the first film and enjoyed its larger-than-life salute to big 80's action stars then you know exactly what you should expect from the sequel. It's more of the same formula: Big on star power machismo, ammunition, and one-liners and simple on plot, exposition and intelligence. The bottom line is; you don't watch The Expendables expecting any Academy Award winning performances. If this doesn't sound like kind of movie that you would normally enjoy watching then you came to the wrong party.

The Boys are BACK: Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross, Jason Statham as Lee Christmas, Dolph Lundgren as Gunner Jensen, Terry Crews as Hale Caesar, Randy Couture as Toll Road and Jet Li as Yin Yang while Mickey Rourke is out as Tool but the testosterone meter is still off the charts. Liam Hemsworth joins the team as the youngest "expendable" Bill the Kid. The Expendables have been recruited by Church to stop weapons-grade plutonium hidden in a Albanian mine during the Cold War from falling into the wrong hands and it's time to bring in the Dirtier Dozen.

The muscle and all-star power are man-uped the second time around. There's much more Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis this time who only appeared in smaller cameo roles as Trench and Church in the first film and there's more iconic 80's action stars that the fans have been begging to see like Chuck Norris as Booker a.k.a. the "Lone Wolf" and Jean Claude Van Damme as Vilain, and what an apropos "villain" he makes. It seems Steven Seagal is still the odd man out due to a publicized disagreement with the producer Avi Lerner, although when asked if he would be in Expendables 3 his response was "We'll see." Rumor has it that Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford have already been approached for the third one as well with plans to acquire Nicholas Cage and Wesley Snipes to the Expendables 3 dossier.

Expendables 2 is a blast if you can appreciate it for what it is; it's the guiltiest kind of guilty pleasure and it makes no apologies for being what it is. The first one feels almost like a dress rehearsal but the sequel is bigger and a lot more fun. There are hilarious one-liners and bad puns aplenty and the chemistry between these legendary screen icons takes badassery to a whole new cinematic level. The epic showdown between "The Italian Stallion" Stallone and the "Muscles From Brussels" Van Damme makes it worth the price of admission alone.

LOOPER (BRUCE WILLIS)

It is absolutely glorious when intelligent sci-fi not only re-emerges, but returns and flourishes with spectacular results. Tucked neatly into this technologically and sometimes extraterrestrial genre of film is time travel. While time travel films aren't always done right, when they are they make one hell of an impact; the "Back to the Future" films, the "Terminator" films, "Donnie Darko," "Time Bandits," "Twelve Monkeys," "Source Code," and the fantastic little Spanish film "Timecrimes" are just a few examples. Combine that potential with the impressive writer/director Rian Johnson and an incredible cast that includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt and you have one of the most anticipated films of the year on your hands with "Looper."

In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but 30 years from now it will have been. After being labeled as illegal, the ability to leap through time is only available on the black market. People who criminal organizations want to get rid of are sent back to 2044 where hired guns called "loopers" dispose of them. Loopers make very good money and Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is living the good life. When a looper's contract nears its expiration, the mob sends back their future self who they then get rid of and have the next 30 years to live their life. It's called "closing the loop." But when Joe's future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back, his life is turned upside down.

While you may not be able to totally buy that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a younger version of Bruce Willis based on looks alone (even with the use of prosthetics), Gordon-Levitt does deserve credit for developing the ability to act like Willis along with similar facial expressions, mannerisms, and body language. Bruce Willis' character is a really interesting piece of the puzzle. The older version of Joe is committing some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, but his reasoning for it is just. As you're shown his back story, you understand what he's going through and almost find yourself rooting for him. He's like a villain with heart.

Emily Blunt is really fantastic. This might be the most straightforward and emotional that she has ever been in any performance. The addition of her son Cid (Pierce Gagnon) may make or break the film for you as it goes down a path that may find you comparing it to other films. The Cid character is an intriguing one though as his emotions are out of control, but his intentions are good and he's fairly amusing more often than not. While Paul Dano doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, it's amazing that that underhanded smarminess he's often associated with is still able to shine through.

This is Rian Johnson's best work by a landslide and that's coming from someone who absolutely loves his first two films. While the concept is somewhat familiar, it's always going in places you don't expect them to go. Seth's (Paul Dano) side plot is around the time your jaw will hit the floor. The ending is really magnificent, as well. It feels tragic on one hand, but extremely fitting on the other. While the soundtrack seems to kind of pick and choose its moments to really stand out, there are a few instances where it's emotionally overwhelming. It will only get better in repeat viewings and listens.

"Looper" is an astounding piece of cinema no matter how you slice it. Featuring fantastic performances from the entire cast, absorbing cinematography, and one of the most unique concepts for a film in quite some time, "Looper" is one of the most creative, intelligent, and unpredictable films of the year.