Spring cleaning

Hey guys. It's been awhile. It's not that I haven't been writing, I have. I've just changed jobs, and one of my current jobs involve writing, it's just that I'm not writing about movies. It's not that I haven't been watching any movies, it's just that they're not movies that I want to write about here. So as a sort of refresher, today I think I just want to write briefly on the movies I've been watching these past few months. Something like a summary of reviews, something I've never tried before.

1) Iron Man 3

It's okay, better than the second one, but not as good as the first one. Jon Favreau decided that he didn't want to direct this one, so they got Shane Black; the god of buddy movies to direct this one. I've only watched Last Action Movie as a kid so I don't remember much, I didn't enjoy Lethal Weapon for some reason, but I immensely enjoyed watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was Robert Downey Jr's comeback movie after he had cleaned his act. 

Iron Man 3 was kind of tight and had Shane Black's trademark banter between Rhodes and Tony Stark.  The dialogue is very funny, so now I am confused whether Joss Whedon's copying Black or it's the other way around. The storyline is solid except for the quick cop out with the ending, nothing too major to ruin the whole movie. But the antagonist; Mandarin, man, I've never been as equally disappointed and thrilled by the same character, in the same movie, at the same time. It kinda depends on how much you already know about the comic book Mandarin, but I've never read the comics, and I still know a little to be affected by how it's done in the movie. Overall this one gets a 7/10 from me.

2) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This one is a bit too fast for me. I know the original novel is in Swedish, but I found it a bit hard to place the characters' names to their faces, so I was a bit slow on the uptake for awhile with the plot. But I had problem with the resolution of the mystery, in the sense that when it is resolved, it is as if the mystery does not matter at all, because the plot then wanders off to another subplot. I just want to pick on the accent a bit, too. I wonder why in Hollywood/British movies that are taken from foreign sources, they have to get the characters speak in English, but in the accent of the place. It's not like they are gonna fool us. Just speak in normal English, man. Or if they really want to go for authenticity, they can try making the film in the original language, like in The Passion of the Christ. It's not like I can tell. I'm giving this one a 6.5/10.

3) Young Adult and Lars and The Real Girl

The reason I'm putting these two movies in the same section is that they loosely deal with the same subject matter; stunted adults; a topic that I can relate to.

Lars have Ryan Gosling play a reclusive man who starts having a relationship with one of those sex dolls, much to the consternation of his brother and sister-in-law. They could have included cheap carnal jokes in this one (without Ryan Gosling of course), but they did not and there's a story revealed on Gosling's character's shunning of society. 7/10.

Young Adult is a Jason Reitman-directed, Diablo Cody-written movie about a woman who visits her hometown to try rekindling her romance with her happily-married old-flame. This one could also have been played for cheap jokes, but didn't too, although the outcome is not as enjoyable as Lars'. The main character is narcissistic, mean, and kinda dense. It's no fault of Charlize Theron's, she gave a convincing performance, but some of the decisions with the plot raised serious questions as to her motive. No one can be that stupid, right? 6/10.

4) 21 Jump Street

I'd just finished watching this one. This one could have been a lot dumber than it is, but it didn't. I love the interaction between Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum and how they inverted the school stereotypes that they should have embodied. The makers took risks with some of the choices, practically ran naked down the school hall with them and succeeded. Oh, there are juicy cameos, too. 6.5/10