Dir. Shane Black. Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Paul Bettany, Guy Pearce It’s really something that what makes this Marvel movie (what’s killing cinema in my salad days) interesting and enjoyable is its closeness to ”80s and ’90s action movies (you know, what was killing cinema when I was a little kid). Shane Black, who I… Read More Iron Man 3 (2013)
Dir. Jon Favreau. Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke I’ve been workshopping this take since about halfway through this movie, and here’s what I’ve got: this is a significantly more interesting movie than Iron Man. It is not necessarily a better movie than Iron Man, because there is some real flab on this movie: the… Read More Iron Man 2 (2010)
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Gary Oldman, Sam Troughton, Tom Pelphrey Thank God it finally happened. It took until he was near sixty years old to get to this point, but there is no longer any way for us to understand David Fincher as a cool director. There’s a subspecies of movie guy for whom I… Read More Mank (2020)
Dir. Ben Wheatley. Starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas Few scenes have stayed with me so viscerally as one from A Field in England where, playing out in monstrous slow-motion, a scholar with his mind ravaged by some magical power emerges as a diving rod, eyes wild, tongue out, rope affixed to him. It… Read More Rebecca (2020)
Seeing Things Secondhand 