Stars - Robert Downey Jr, Jeff Bridges, Gwenyth Paltrow, Paul Bettany
Director - Jon Favreau
Memorable Quote - ' Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing.'
Review - I quite like the idea of trapping Paul Bettany inside a computer room and making him run my house and pretend not to exist. That's clearly what they did here, because otherwise the AI would be so ludicrously advanced that it is able to make sarcastic retorts, which is just ludicrous. Nope, definitely kidnap. Anyway, this is a fun little thing despite the overtones of capture, torture, and imminent death it begins with. There are a lot of humourous little lines, mostly delivered by Downey Jr ('I'm sorry, this is the fun-vee. The hum-drum-vee is back there'), and all the quirks we expect from a superhero delivered in a more modern setting - the cute assistant almost kisses him but doesn't, the wingman thinks he's crazy for a while, the bad guy is working in a war zone that is relevant to the real situation of the world. Tony Stark is possibly a bit cooler than most superheroes; more like James Bond than Spiderman, and a lot better with the ladies. He also has a flawed past - far from being a saint, he has spent his life developing deadly missiles, and now wishes to reverse that by creating... a massive suit that can kill people? I don't see how that could ever possibly go wrong. This has a little something even for the people who don't generally like superhero movies, and though I felt that there was a male bias I don't think it was overpowering. As part of a series, though, its real worth will be weighed against the movies that follow it, and as a fragment of a whole rather than as a stand-alone piece. 4/5
#2 - Precious
Stars - Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz
Director - Lee Daniels
Memorable Quote - 'Love ain't done nothing for me... but beat me... rape me... call me an animal! Make me feel worthless! Make me sick!'
Review - Oh, Lord. First of all, I do not recommend watching this movie if you are already depressed, as you will probably kill yourself around halfway through if you do. I'm not sure why Lee Daniels went about this in the way he did, but I think the only reasons that this has received any critical praise at all are the following:
1. No one wants to look cold and heartless
2. Some people cry in it
The main, major problem with this film was the fact that it was all far too detached. You can't get involved with Precious' situation because she refuses to: every time anything bad happens to her we are thrown into her dream-world where she is a slightly strange star, and so we can't sympathise properly. I'm not saying we need to see everything, but it certainly takes away a layer of realism. Another thing getting in the way is the casting, which is truly, truly bizarre. In a film about real life and the real world, what on earth convinced the director to cast Mariah Carey, Mo'Nique, and Lenny Kravitz, three RATHER FAMOUS people?! I can't concentrate in the scenes with 'Mrs Weiss' because I'm too busy thinking about how Mariah should go back to a lighter hair colour! I can't take the mother character seriously at all because she's flipping Mo'Nique! I also read on the cast list that the random, unexplained man in Precious' dream-sequences was meant to resemble Tom Cruise, which is odd considering that he looked like a toned-down version of Kravitz or something. What were they thinking? This is a horrible, horrible story, and the way it has been dealt with just makes me annoyed. By the way, also, the uplifting ending? What the hell? She's still unemployed and living in a halfway house, with HIV and two inbred children, and she hasn't even passed that test yet. How is that meant to be uplifting? She still has literally no future ahead of her, despite all the interference of the (unnecessary) lesbians and unruly gang of girls. None of them dropped out in spite of Ms Rain's warning, and the lame attempt to prove that the class really was a revolving door was to have a random kid pop up suddenly halfway through, which again makes little to no sense. The way that the opening credits were written in order to fake illiteracy was worse than condescending, and I'm not a fan at all of using poor grammar to signify poverty (I had to study 'The Colour Purple' a couple of years back, and was not impressed by the technique then either). I have only read a synopsis of 'Push', but from what I can see many things were left out, and I would have considered the father more of a threat if he was actually a character instead of a two-second cameo and some heavy breathing. The entire point of the journals is lost, as it seems that only Precious' story counts for anything in this adaptation, and her classmates are all but ignored as simple outlines of stereotypes and left at that. I felt bored by the end. Sure, I felt guilty about being bored, but I was bored anyway. It seems to me that this whole thing is just a parody of an Alice Walker book, rather than a story in its own right, and for that I can't respect it. 2/5
#3 - Let's Dance
Stars - Fred Astaire, Betty Hutton, Ruth Warrick, Lucille Watson
Director - Norman Z. McLeod
Memorable Quote - ??
Review - A highlight of this film was the costuming. For some reason I couldn't find any good stills at all, but Hutton's dresses throughout were beautiful, particularly her mourning dress near the beginning and the outfit she wore in Astaire's dream sequence. I have to say I wasn't much of a fan of Hutton's character in general - she was far too melodramatic, and I hated all the facial expressions and strange noises she made in the musical numbers, it was like watching a freak show rather than a dance. Astaire is predictably smooth, and of course this follows a very familiar routine common to many movies of the era, particularly musicals - rogue guy, usually played by Sinatra or Astaire, reunites with old flame and has to help her out of some difficulty, during which she falls for him all over again... yes, quite predictable, though it was fun to see how they would work their way out of all the little problems they got into, and some of the musical numbers were entertaining. It was amusing to see Hutton dressed as a cowboy for their saloon scene - I wonder if it looked strange back then? It showed off the fact that she was much curvier than leading ladies these days generally are, and raised some interesting points in my mind to do with the way film and media perceptions of women have changed over the years. Astaire is dominated by Hutton, and his solo number ("Jack and the Beanstalk") is the only time that he really stands out as anything more than a foil, so it may be a disappointing watch for Astaire fans. Either way, a nice afternoon in but nothing that blew my mind particularly. 3/5
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