Iron Time

I found myself watching Iron Man 2 recently. I guess I'm slowly working my way back through the MCU's heyday now that Disney micromanagement daily seems to drive nails into its coffin. Iron Man 2 was once considered one of the weaker MCU films but it sure looks good now.

The villain-of-the-week quality to Mickey Rourke's character feels a bit like a standard pre-MCU superhero film but I still dig Rourke's understated performance. In a genre in which villains typically deliver histrionics (sometimes entertainingly) it was cool watching him just let silence settle to have a menacing effect.

Scarlett Johansson's pretty great in her first appearance as Black Widow, too. She's at her best in this movie and in Winter Soldier, in those days when she was still allowed to be sexy and playful. Even so, she always felt like a different person in every movie.

I love the lingering shot on Robert Downey Jr. when he's looking at her and drinking from his water bottle. The energy between the two challenges the viewer to wonder what they're seeing; "Is it funny? Is it sexy? Is he ridiculous or attractive to her? Is he put off balance by her beauty or is this a pose?" Stark's cockiness always had this nice ambiguity. You were never really sure how irresponsible he was or how irresponsible he was pretending to be. Downey Jr.'s performance kept that ambiguity anchored and natural instead of confusing and sloppy.

Iron Man 2 is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1690

To mind the hare a watch was broken first.
A pirate plan was bootless placed abroad.
The foiled throat was choked by sand to thirst.
A wagging tongue was dragged beneath the sod.
Resurfaced saucer sacks the absinthe cube.
A single set asserts the ancient ship.
A bulb was broken down a Jefferies tube.
The wire necklace took a lightning dip.
But here's a fire like to wire sparks.
Above the balding heads it runs for life.
It burns the tender feet of careless larks.
It swaps the hornet's sting with Bowie knife.
Belief in ghosts resides within a watch.
Informed, the gears absorb a glass of Scotch.

Everything is Safe in Star Wars!

Another week, another poorly written episode of The Mandalorian. But this time, director Carl Weathers actually made a mediocre script by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni into something at times genuinely exciting.

The recap reminds us of the kid whose head's been newly imprisoned by the the Mandalorian helmet for no reason. Really, doesn't anyone ever ask, "Why?" This week, the kid's nabbed by a cool alien pterodactyl.

Bo Katan managed to follow it to its nest. She does nothing else, returning to base so everyone can convene, draw up plans, and mount a coordinated effort to rescue the kid, and for some reason no-one seems to think the kid's been killed already. They decide not to use their jetpacks at first for fear of making too much noise and upsetting the monster. "It would kill the child," the Armourer explains as though the kid's being held for ransom.

They make camp upon reaching the nest at nightfall, apparently deciding the nightvision capabilities on their helmets grant them no advantage against the apparently diurnal monster.

And they needn't have rushed because the monster coughs up the kid for his own babies and the kid's just fine.

I know, I know. Beskar armour. But no broken limbs? No saliva? For whatever reason, the monster decided not to feed its babies right away, so the kid was just sleeping in its gullet all night? Was he even in any danger from the babies? Is anyone really in any danger from anything?

The episode ends with the three monster babies being adopted by the tribe. A sure sign this section of the story was written by Dave Filoni whose depictions of animals in Rebels and Tales of the Jedi make me think he was the kind of kid who'd have climbed into the tiger enclosure at the zoo expecting to be able to pet the animals after a perfunctory round of harmless rough and tumble.

Weathers deserves a lot of credit for making the sky battle truly exciting.

Meanwhile, Grogu has a flashback of his rescue and flight from the Jedi Temple with the assistance of none other than Ahmed Best.

Best isn't bad as a badass Jedi and Weathers makes him look good. Certainly better than he looks on the show where Best originated the role of Jedi Master Kelleran Beq two years ago:

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+ and Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge is available on YouTube.

Back by Popular Demandalorian

The Mandalorian returned last night for the start of a third season. It brought some great action sequences, intriguing new characters, cute moments, and weak writing.

We catch up with Din's (Pedro Pascal) cult baptising a new member when a giant reptile attacks. He seems to be invulnerable to handcannons so it's lucky Din shows up in his refitted Naboo starfighter to blast the thing. And what thanks does he get?

None at all. Not even a mention. It felt strange, like the big, impressive action sequence was added in post. At the very least, someone could've said, "Your deed will not earn you a place back among us." There is not even the tiniest part of me that wants Din to get back in with these people. I'm going to be frustrated if this season doesn't have an arc in which Din learns he doesn't need them.

This has been a consistent problem with Favreau's writing on both Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett. He can't seem to establish believable motives for philosophically driven people. You might not agree with the Jedi philosophy about not forming personal attachments, but you can see the logic in it as it's explained. With the Mandalorians, the only explanation really is, "Because they're aliens!" The same goes for the people who abandoned Bo Katan (Katee Sackoff) because she doesn't have the Darksabre. It's really odd, especially since many of them knew perfectly well why she doesn't have it. The beliefs and practices of other cultures can seem strange and illogical, but they do have underlying reasons, and if you write a fictional cultural without such reasons, it feels insubstantial.

It was nice seeing Carl Weathers again. I don't agree with the circumstances of Gina Carano's firing but I was never particularly invested in her character so I don't miss her. And frankly, it makes the galaxy feel bigger when it's not the same characters constantly turning up over and over.

Grogu with the mechanic rodents was cute and Carl Weathers' constantly trying to interpret them was funny. I also liked the pirates, especially the captain who looks like Swamp Thing.

And kudos to Favreau for actually having one of them say, "Avast!"

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

Less Machine Now than Man

Watching so many MCU shows lately, it occurred to me I hadn't seen Iron Man since it came out in 2008. So I watched it again on Friday and marvelled at what a remarkable movie it is. The film's Wikipedia entry has lots of quotes from cast and crew about the independent film vibe of the production. Which, as a start for a massive franchise, would make it reminiscent of Star Wars. The '70s had a lot of strange, interesting films until one strange, interesting film, Star Wars, made a blueprint. And that's what Iron Man did. Having this in mind, one looks at those first films and wonders why they couldn't just do that again. Do we really need to hear so many stories about directors leaving MCU and Star Wars productions over creative differences? Didn't they learn anything?

Anyway, Favreau had to push to get Robert Downey Jr. cast in the role and everyone was terrified of the fact that actors improvised their dialogue on set during principal photography! That is remarkable. Especially given how golden the chemistry is between Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Two performers who'd already had whole careers behind them, suddenly they created a new starting point for themselves. Just by goofing off in front of a camera for a few months.

A lot of superheroes movies fail because they have enough material to be a good film but make the mistake of trying to be a great film. Iron Man became a great film by just trying to be a good film. There's no massive, overwrought fight scene, just a couple guys duking it out in metal suits in the end. Tony and Pepper don't roll around on the beach. Even the wonderfully underplayed heart-surgery scene zips by while still feeling critical. A lot of it works because Downey Jr. is extraordinarily believable as simultaneously a reclusive engineering genius and a notorious playboy.

Another lesson this movie taught that many subsequent superhero movies forgot is that it puts the protagonist's motives onscreen and believable portrays the steps he takes to his goal. There's real sanctification in watching Tony build his armour through his messy trial and error process. The way he talks to his robots emphasises that he's not he extrovert he seems so we get some extra filling out of this character along the way.

It's such a tightly made film. I want to say little film. And it's a compliment. It's as perfect as freshly cut norimaki.

Iron Man is available on Disney+.

A Hard Mask

The premise of and creative team behind The Mandalorian, the new live action Star Wars series, seem both very safe and very risky; a story set after Return of the Jedi with familiar original trilogy aliens and atmosphere showrun by the man who effectively launched the MCU, Jon Favreau. On the other hand, it centres on an aloof character who never shows his face or gives his name and who, in the first episode, has few interactions with other characters that aren't business transactions. Mainly, the first episode works and works well but with the absence of vulnerable character moments it may not feel as though it gains quite the traction one expects from prestige television nowadays.

The show's been likened to a Spaghetti Western by critics and by members of the creative team. The Mandalorian armour was first made famous by Boba Fett in the original trilogy, a character George Lucas based on Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name in a trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns by Sergio Leone. Boba's father, Jango Fett, was named after Django, a popular character in a long series of Spaghetti Westerns before he manifested as Jamie Foxx for Quentin Tarantino. Any movie or series based on the mysterious bounty hunter would inevitably have shades of Spaghetti Western. The Mandalorian lacks the heights of weirdness and brutality that made Spaghetti Westerns so remarkable, though. There's no Franco Nero dragging a coffin through the desert or Giuliano Gemma tauntingly aiding a garrulous gang of Mexican bandits accompanied by a strange Ennio Morricone theme. Pedro Pascal successfully conveys some warmth through that helmet but he's not as eerie as Boba Fett, as amusing as Ringo, or mysterious as the Man with No Name. He may be closest to Charles Bronson's character in Once Upon a Time in the West. Unlike Boba Fett, Pascal's character, Dyn Jarren, has a clear reverence for Mandalorian culture which we can see when he has a new piece of his armour ritually forged from a lump of precious metal he collects from a client. It would be nice if this comes along with a personal code like that exhibited by western heroes.

The supporting cast is great. Werner Herzog improbably plays a man who seems like he might be a former Imperial. Nick Nolte plays a character who seems loosely based on the tavern owner from Yojimbo (a film that served as inspiration for A Fistful of Dollars). It's great casting. The presence of Carl Weathers is also a nice touch.

The first episode is directed by Dave Filoni, best known as the supervising director of Clone Wars, a show on which, coincidentally, Jon Favreau voiced a traitorous Mandalorian. Rebels, a follow-up cgi series created by Dave Filoni after Disney acquired Star Wars, demonstrated pretty decisively that whatever element made Clone Wars so great, it wasn't Dave Filoni (I suspect it was George Lucas). Filoni does an adequate job directing the first episode of The Mandalorian but he's vastly indebted to cinematographer Greig Fraser, the same cinematographer that gave Rogue One such a memorable look.

So Favreau has, in some ways, a self contradictory mission; he's made a character who can be the mystery that Boba Fett can no longer be but he needs this character to be the emotional anchor of a series. I'll certainly be watching to find out how he well he succeeds.

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.