Gee whiz! Iron Man is great! I’ve read more than my share of comics, but I never read Iron Man. I pretty much missed the boat on Marvel altogether. I think Spiderman was the only Marvel book I picked up as a kid. We didn’t have much money so all I had to read were my dad’s old comics, which were pretty much all Batman and Groo, with some smatterings of a few titles that never got popular but were drawn by his favorite artists. My mom was just glad I was reading until she noticed all his old Frank Frazetta calendars were in the same box under the Mad Magazines. Anyways I had no clue why they were even making an Iron Man movie, but when I read that Jon Favreau was directing I knew it would be well worth my time.

Iron Man is Tony Stark(played perfectly by Robert Downey Jr.), gazillionaire and boss at Stark Industries, a corporation that invents awesome stuff- including weapons for war. His best friend is Jim Rhodes (played perfectly by Terrence Howard), a powerful military man. Pepper Potts (played perfectly by Gwyneth Paltrow) is Stark’s personal assistant. Obadiah Stane is 2nd in command or something at Stark Industries, he was best friends with Stark’s dad. I’m terrible with faces so I didn’t realize Obadiah was played by The Dude AKA Jeff Bridges (who was perfect by the way) until I heard him talk. Everyone is so good here.

This is an origin story, but don’t think it’s going to be like every other origin story. It’s definitely got its act together. Stark is a regular guy, he doesn’t get covered in radioactive ooze or get struck by lightening. He’s a super smart scientist inventor who’s also super slick with the ladies. He’s put into a position that forces him to grow a conscience. I’m not saying Stark is a perfectly moral dude, he’s not. He kills terrorists when Batman would’ve delivered them to jail (I know Batman has killed in the past, but it’s been a rare occurrence). He’s also an alcoholic, which I hear is a big deal, but not in this movie. I believe they’re saving that storyline for the sequel. And yes, they hinted at a sequel a few times in the film. With every origin story you get the obligatory new-invention-test-run-that-doesn’t-go-so-well montages. These are pretty fun, but the action scenes are spectacular. Holy cow was I excited. I was alone in the theater and after each awesome moment I couldn’t keep from saying out loud how cool that was.

Jon Favreau really hits it out of the park this time. I’ve always admired him for focusing on story and character rather than special effects (I’m looking at you Transformers). He even prefers using practical effects instead of CGI whenever possible. The last movie he directed was Zathura. It wasn’t just a quasi sequel to Jumanji, it was a great movie for all ages. It was full of practical effects and the movie was better for it, it didn’t hurt that he had a fully fleshed out script either though.

I predict that Iron Man will be huge. It’s going to have great word of mouth. If Indy 4 doesn’t deliver, and early reports say it won’t, then everyone should go watch Iron Man a second or third time. Iron Man isn’t perfect, I think it has maybe 2 extremely minor flaws; I couldn’t find either one. Don’t hesitate throwing down that $10 for a ticket. You’ll get your money’s worth.

2007 dir. Frank Darabont

The Mist was on my top 10 movie list for 2007. Unfortunately, not many people gave it a chance- due in part to the misleading trailer (which led everyone to think it was The Fog remake part II) and the reviews that dwelt on the downer ending. Speaking of which, I want to get this out of the way right now, the ending will wreck you. It will not make you feel good about things afterwards; it will haunt you. It goes to a surprisingly dark place for a studio film. The ending is great; the journey is just as brilliant.

The Mist takes place in Bridgton, Maine. After a big storm that tears up the town, an ominous mist starts rolling across the lake. Our hero, David Drayton (played by the underrated Thomas Jane), his son (Nathan Gamble), and his estranged neighbor (played by Andre Braugher who does a superb job) go to the grocery store for supplies. The electricity is out so the lines are long. Out of nowhere an old man with a bloody nose comes running into the store screaming about something in the mist. The mist has already reached the parking lot and is quickly engulfing everything in sight. One dude runs out to his sweet El Camino just as the mist envelopes him. They quickly close the doors to the store, but no one knows what’s going on. It’s just a thick eerie mist, what could be so dangerous about that?

So everyone is trapped in a grocery store for an undetermined amount of time. It could be worse, at least there’s plenty of non perishable food and warm beer. The great thing about this movie is that all the characters are so well fleshed out. Obviously we’re going to side with the protagonist, but we can relate to most everyone else’s choices- no matter how foolhardy. We have the religious zealot you love to hate played perfectly by Marcia Gay Harden, the seemingly meek store clerk played by Toby Jones (you might have seen him as Truman Capote in “Infamous”- the other awesome Capote movie that no one saw), a big city lawyer and typical “out of towner,” a Christian biker, three young soldiers about to go to war, a sharp-as-a-tack old lady, two mechanic rednecks, and about a dozen other minor characters that are all equally integral to the film.

I hate hate hate it when they put religious zealots in a movie just so everyone can hate on them. I think it’s cheap and lazy to put a character like that in for no real purpose other than to let the audience laugh at them. I will let it pass this one time because Marcia Gay Harden totally pulls it off. She’s very commanding in this performance.

The movie is a great character piece that focuses on group mentality- but even better than that, it has monsters! And not just any monsters, Lovecraftian¹ monsters! Tentacles with claws that will rip the skin off your bones, bat like beasts with stingers full of poison, spiders from hell that can shoot webbing that acts like acid, and something that’s so crazy I won’t mention it. I don’t want to risk ruining it for you.

The movie deviates from the novella² considerably, thank goodness. I had a lot of problems with the original story and apparently Frank Darabont felt similarly. All the problems with the original text are gone for the movie. He’s really the only person, except for Stanley Kubrick, that’s been able to properly adapt Stephen King’s work to the big screen. Shawshank Redemption is already a timeless classic. I didn’t think that King’s monster stories could be adapted, but Darabont has proven me wrong.

The 2 disc DVD includes a black and white version of the film. The Mist was actually originally meant to be shot in black and white. Frank Darabont cites the Coen Brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” They shot in color because all the studio contracts stated that the film must be shot in color, but they didn’t state that it had to be released in color. They timed it for black and white and it looked great. Nowadays the big studio contracts say you must release the film in color, but thankfully DVD is here and we get to see the original vision of the film. I know what you’re thinking. “Why don’t I just turn the color off on my TV?” You could do that, but it will look bland and Frank Darabont will think you’re an idiot. This looks just as good as the new Blade Runner release. The blacks are blacker than sin. The contrast is beautiful. It really does make a huge difference in the viewing experience. The blood is jet black too so maybe it will make the more squeamish viewers able to sit through that easier. It actually comes across as more impactful to me. I haven’t figured out why that is though. I’ll be introducing this film to as many people as I can, but I don’t believe I’ll ever let them see the color version with me.

Jesse Wayne

1. H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer, is best known for his gruesome monsters and weird fiction
2. The Mist is a horror novella by Stephen King