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Greenberg (2010)
I have never wanted to punch Ben Stiller in the face as much as I did while viewing this movie. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy most of his performances and almost all of his films, but this one totally threw me for a loop. It's almost as if he played the part too well, and that things were just far too tragically realistic. I hated Ben's character - but I guess we're sort of supposed to hate him in order to understand him and sympathize with him... yeah, I get it. Whatever. Regardless; in this movie, he's a dick.
Firstly, it isn't funny. At all. Not a chuckle, not a giggle, not a single smile. I think I might have gone "huh" a couple of times, but no more. Of course I wasn't expecting slapsticky Night at the Museum or Something About Mary kind of funny....this wasn't even 'ironically' funny or 'feel good' funny or 'intelligent and funny!'. Once again, we are lied to by marketing. It's NOT a comedy. It's not a 'dramatic comedy' or 'drama-dy'. It was just sad. Patheticlly sad. It made me sad too. I actually feel worse for having watched it. I can't believe I watched the whole thing, waiting fruitlessly for it to get better - to redeem itself some way........ nada.
I guess Ben does a good job of playing the character - Roger Greenberg, a phobic and selfish loner from New York who is just released from a psych hospital and decides to spend a few months house sitting for his brother in L.A. The story is meant to be played out to be as realistic as possible, and the film is exactly that - literally to a fault. Greenberg comes off as a total A-Hole almost the entire time, and Florence (Greta Gerwig, the 'love' interest in the film) seems to be a wacked-out nympho for the whole film. A bunch of random shit happens, none of it of any real consequence. Nobody really changes at all, for better or worse. It's so realistic that it's pointless to call it entertainment. If I wanted 'drama' or 'comedy' like this, I could just look around me at my own world, instead of letting Hollywood (or TV) try to tell me what 'real life' is like....
I probably shouldn't blame either Ben or any other actors for this crappy movie. I should blame the writers and/or directors for thinking that this ridiculous 'go absolutely nowhere' excuse for a story was worth throwing money into to bring it to the screen. I guess all those hot directors and celebs needed something to do between good movies.
This isn't a movie - this is Hollywood masturbating....and it's not a pretty sight.
F
(F+, I guess, since I watched the whole thing)
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Iron Man 2 (2010)
I waited quite a while to see this film on DVD, having neglected to catch it in the theatre. I knew there would be more hints at the Avengers movie in it, and I knew they were moving the story along in that direction. I also knew that this would be the movie debut of War Machine, the Black Widow and Whiplash/Blacklash (same guy, right comic fans?). I also knew that we'd be seeing 'a new chapter in the life of Tony Stark/Iron Man'. This was all well and good - I got everything I was expecting from the movie, but nothing more, nothing less.
I'll say this til the day I die: I love comic books. I enjoy flipping through page after page of superheroes and supervillains pounding and zapping each other. What I don't find as enjoyable is the lead-in, usually starting around page 3 in most comic books, that sets up the action in the latter 1/3 of the story (or 1/4 if it has a cliffhanger ending). This movie seemed to be stuck on page 3 for most of it's running time, with way too much Tony Stark and not nearly enough Iron Man. Not that it wasn't good either way; the cast and story were intriguing and certainly not boring in the slower parts, but this seemed so out of context with the 'super' scenes.
Marvel movies have become pretty formulaic in the last few outings. When it comes to actually seeing your favorite superhero(s) do their thing on screen, there always seems to be a small 'sampler' action scene featuring the hero near the beginning, followed by a 'worthy-yet-somehow-unresolved' sequence right in the middle of the film, and then the 'ultimate showdown' scene in the last 20 minutes. Here's what I mean:
The Incredible Hulk
1. Banner changes to Hulk in warehouse (10 minutes in)
2. Hulk protects Betty from Military and then escapes (halfway)
3. Hulk faces and defeats the Abomination (last 10 minutes)
Spider-Man 3
1. Peter/Spidey fights Harry Osborn (first 10 minutes)
2. Spidey fights Sandman (little over halfway)
3. Spidey combats Sandman & Venom (last 10 minutes)
Iron Man 2
1. Tony Stark shows off his capabilities as Iron Man at the Expo (first 5 minutes)
2. Tony is attacked by Whiplash at the race track, changes to Iron Man to defeat him (roughly halfway)
3. Iron Man teams up with War Machine to defeat an army of dromes created by Whiplash and Justin Hammer (last 10 minutes)
I could give more examples, like X-3:The Last Stand, Spider-Man 2, Fantastic Four;Rise of the Silver Surfer, etc. All good movies, IMO, but all played out according to the same pace. This is not a Marvel-exclusive phenomenon, it's just the way that Hollywood makes these types of action movies these days. You'll notice that all of the examples I've given were sequels, and not the 'debut' movies of these comic characters. Those films have their own established formula to follow, being in effect the 'first appearance and origin' episodes. If there's one thing I like to do, it's to call down Hollywood for its repetitive and predictable nature, as well as their inability to capture the spirit of the original material, because nothing original comes from there anymore. Wake up, True Believers! They're destroying all our childhood heroes!!!!
Seriously though, I did enjoy Iron Man 2, despite its triteness. Unfortunately, there was a little too much focus on setting things up for more movies and not enough cool stuff happening in this one. I want to see more of Iron Man 'on the job' instead of 'behind the scenes'. Still, it was way better than the terribly boring Invincible Iron Man full-length animated feature from a few years back. I suppose I'd see this again, and like it.
B+
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