Good Movies

I saw Iron Man yesterday. It's really good, thoroughly entertaining and very well-written. I wanna be Jon Favreau when I grow up.

It's even better because I have no emotional attachment to Iron Man. At the height of my comic book geekdom, when I was dropping $50 a week on my pull, there were a bunch of core titles I picked up all the time, and some I picked up every once in a while. In all of those years, I picked up a total of one copy of Iron Man, read and and felt, "Eh." Iron Man is one of the best characters to play in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but that's the extent of my good feelings toward the guy.

So I was pleasantly surprised to get completely sold on this guy, his world and adventures. Which, in a way, is exactly what a movie like this should be doing for the general audience. Apparently it worked... Iron Man opened to over $100m domestic, and almost as much overseas. It's a great debut for Marvel Studios. They've gotta be popping some corks over there.

Unlike other Marvel films up until now, I noticed a couple of slight nods to the rest of the universe. When Tony Stark tests the peak altitude for his flying suit, his on-board computer tells him there's only one aircraft capable of going higher: the SR-71 Blackbird. It doesn't explain further, but that's the plane the X-Men fly around in. And we get an introduction to SHIELD. Fun stuff... it'll be interesting to see if this'll turn into a trend among the Marvel titles, or if it's just this one instance. Outside of Daredevil/Elektra, the other Marvel movies have been careful to keep the focus on the main character and his little corner of the world.

I saw Pusher. This is a gangster movie outta Denmark, the first in a trilogy. The set-up isn't exactly game-changing: a drug dealer in Copenhagen has until the end of the week to pay off some Russian mobsters. But it's shot in a really grungy cinema verite style, and the acting and writing is fantastic. You're totally rooting for the pusher Frank, played by Kim Bodnia. This guy is phenomenal. Why he hasn't been brought over here yet, I don't know. He would be perfect to play the lead if GTA IV ever gets a feature treatment.

And I watched Dario Argento's Tenebrae. It's about an author who's written a very edgy, American Psycho-type international bestseller. While he's on a book tour passing through Rome, someone starts killing women in ways described in the guy's novel. The author is supposed to be our main protagonist, but he's a total smarmy douchebag. The actor seems like a guy who should be playing a doctor on a soap opera. On the plus side, the Goblin soundtrack is awesome, there are some really creepy sequences and... shit, it's Italian horror. 'Nuff said.

I also Netflixed Argento's Deep Red. It showed up, but the disc has no subtitles. Since I don't know Italian, I'm gonna have to send it back. First Zombi 3 shows up and won't play, now this. Netflix, I love you, but you're disappointing me in the Italian horror department. C'mon, show some love.