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The prospect of seeing “The Love Guru” had me heartened to hear that Deepak Chopra has a sense of humor but somewhat disheartened at the idea that his might be better than Mike Myers’ at this point.
As I arrived 10 minutes past the start time for “The Love Guru” — leaving me no time to ingest the amount of alcohol necessary to make it through the movie — and was holding a guest pass from the Tribune (no good at the Horizon for new movies), I opted to see “Iron Man” again, figuring that I’d come up with reasons to justify my decision later. Here they are:
— “Get Smart,” “The Happening” and “The Love Guru” occupy three of the top five spots at the box office and a significant percentage of local movie screens. The Associated Press awarded them five stars total (out of a possible 12), and other critics were even stingier: The Lake Tahoe Action wannabes over at Rolling Stone gave ’em four collectively. (They liked “Get Smart” a lot better but savaged the other two.)
— It provides an opportunity for all us recovering copy editors to find the spelling error in the Tony Stark magazine montage (hint: it’s a homophone). According to the Internet Movie Database, editor Kyle Cooper created the montage using real-life photos of a young Robert Downey Jr. and his father.
— So, I guess that’s another one: a chance to see independent filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. (who’s still alive) in a movie.
— You have to look really hard to find Tony Starks: While Ghostface Killah did film a cameo as a Kuwaiti emir, according to the IMDB, it (figuratively) ended up on the editing room floor. But the rapper’s “We Celebrate” video does appear in “Iron Man.”
— Another chance to marvel over Gwyneth Paltrow with red hair and freckles. I do know she’s a married woman and that Coldplay sucks, and I don’t know what it is about Marvel Comics-based movies casting blondes as redheads and vice versa (Kirsten Dunst and Bryce Dallas Howard in the “Spider-Man” trilogy, along with Paltrow), but it’s strangely effective.
— At 126 minutes, “Iron Man” isn’t a beast as far as movies go these days, but it is a little too big to devour in one sitting. The original “Spider-Man” felt fleet at 126 minutes, but, no pun intended, “Iron Man” feels like a weightier movie, with more going on.
— With the previous point — the previous weekend’s viewing of “The Incredible Hulk” in Berkeley — in mind, revisiting “Iron Man” provides a longer glimpse into the teeming fantasy world that it appears Marvel is unleashing. Not only does Tony Stark show up in “Hulk,” setting the stage for a likely Avengers franchise or at least the sequels Downey presaged, but it’s easy to see the connections to the other Marvel movies the comics giant didn’t produce.
One example that stands out comes from the IMDB: An early draft of the script was going to make Stark the designer of Doc Ock’s (“Spider-Man II”) tentacles — which makes total sense watching Downey interact with the robot arms in his lab.
— Finally, this time at least I knew about the scene at the (very) end of the credits this time, which was a worth the wait, unlike the one at the end of “Harold & Kumar.”
As I arrived 10 minutes past the start time for “The Love Guru” — leaving me no time to ingest the amount of alcohol necessary to make it through the movie — and was holding a guest pass from the Tribune (no good at the Horizon for new movies), I opted to see “Iron Man” again, figuring that I’d come up with reasons to justify my decision later. Here they are:
— “Get Smart,” “The Happening” and “The Love Guru” occupy three of the top five spots at the box office and a significant percentage of local movie screens. The Associated Press awarded them five stars total (out of a possible 12), and other critics were even stingier: The Lake Tahoe Action wannabes over at Rolling Stone gave ’em four collectively. (They liked “Get Smart” a lot better but savaged the other two.)
— It provides an opportunity for all us recovering copy editors to find the spelling error in the Tony Stark magazine montage (hint: it’s a homophone). According to the Internet Movie Database, editor Kyle Cooper created the montage using real-life photos of a young Robert Downey Jr. and his father.
— So, I guess that’s another one: a chance to see independent filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. (who’s still alive) in a movie.
— You have to look really hard to find Tony Starks: While Ghostface Killah did film a cameo as a Kuwaiti emir, according to the IMDB, it (figuratively) ended up on the editing room floor. But the rapper’s “We Celebrate” video does appear in “Iron Man.”
— Another chance to marvel over Gwyneth Paltrow with red hair and freckles. I do know she’s a married woman and that Coldplay sucks, and I don’t know what it is about Marvel Comics-based movies casting blondes as redheads and vice versa (Kirsten Dunst and Bryce Dallas Howard in the “Spider-Man” trilogy, along with Paltrow), but it’s strangely effective.
— At 126 minutes, “Iron Man” isn’t a beast as far as movies go these days, but it is a little too big to devour in one sitting. The original “Spider-Man” felt fleet at 126 minutes, but, no pun intended, “Iron Man” feels like a weightier movie, with more going on.
— With the previous point — the previous weekend’s viewing of “The Incredible Hulk” in Berkeley — in mind, revisiting “Iron Man” provides a longer glimpse into the teeming fantasy world that it appears Marvel is unleashing. Not only does Tony Stark show up in “Hulk,” setting the stage for a likely Avengers franchise or at least the sequels Downey presaged, but it’s easy to see the connections to the other Marvel movies the comics giant didn’t produce.
One example that stands out comes from the IMDB: An early draft of the script was going to make Stark the designer of Doc Ock’s (“Spider-Man II”) tentacles — which makes total sense watching Downey interact with the robot arms in his lab.
— Finally, this time at least I knew about the scene at the (very) end of the credits this time, which was a worth the wait, unlike the one at the end of “Harold & Kumar.”
