May 5, 2013
Iron Man 3
Of course I was going to like this movie.
You already know if you'll like it too.
You don't need any extra information.
The Twisted Career of Hollywood Bad Boy Shane Black
by Alex Pappademas
I kept waiting for Shane Black to say something arrogant, given how much he has to be arrogant about these days. I should have known better. A filmmaker with a giant superhero movie about to open is like an expectant parent who's just finished spending $200 million of someone else's money on a crib that might still collapse and kill the baby. It's not a moment to talk about what a great job you did, lest those remarks come back to haunt you.
For instance: When I suggest that Iron Man 3, which Black directed and cowrote with Drew Pearce, is not only a really good Iron Man movie but also very much a Shane Black movie, since it features zingy dialogue and the destruction of expensive California real estate and is set at Christmas for no particular reason, Black politely demurs. "The touches you're noticing are inevitable," he says, "but, y'know, I just really liked Iron Man 1. I think it's a great movie and I hope to live up to it."
He says all the right things. He talks about how he wanted to keep Tony Stark on his back foot a little bit in this film. About how the first one was about a beleaguered, tormented guy coming to a realization and getting himself inside of an iron suit, so this one needed to be about that same guy coming to another realization and getting out of the suit. He talks about the importance of "letting [Robert] Downey [Jr., duh] be Downey."
I'm writing this two days before Iron Man 3 opens in America; it's already made $242 million everywhere else. All signs point to Black having delivered a hit. If he's humble almost to a fault, maybe it's because he knows that at least statistically he shouldn't be here. During the '80s and '90s, Black wrote a few screenplays that studios were willing to pay handsomely or even obscenely for, beginning with 1987's Lethal Weapon. Before long, he was rich, and also famous, in the sense that he became somewhat unfairly the poster child for the practice of lavishly overpaying young hot-shit screenwriters. Then, in the late '90s, in the wake of the commercial failure of The Long Kiss Goodnight — based on a much-derided Black script for which he was paid $4 million — he dropped out of sight. His name didn't appear on another movie until 2005, when Black's directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, slipped in and out of theaters.
The Twisted Career of Hollywood Bad Boy Shane Black
by Alex Pappademas
I kept waiting for Shane Black to say something arrogant, given how much he has to be arrogant about these days. I should have known better. A filmmaker with a giant superhero movie about to open is like an expectant parent who's just finished spending $200 million of someone else's money on a crib that might still collapse and kill the baby. It's not a moment to talk about what a great job you did, lest those remarks come back to haunt you.
For instance: When I suggest that Iron Man 3, which Black directed and cowrote with Drew Pearce, is not only a really good Iron Man movie but also very much a Shane Black movie, since it features zingy dialogue and the destruction of expensive California real estate and is set at Christmas for no particular reason, Black politely demurs. "The touches you're noticing are inevitable," he says, "but, y'know, I just really liked Iron Man 1. I think it's a great movie and I hope to live up to it."
He says all the right things. He talks about how he wanted to keep Tony Stark on his back foot a little bit in this film. About how the first one was about a beleaguered, tormented guy coming to a realization and getting himself inside of an iron suit, so this one needed to be about that same guy coming to another realization and getting out of the suit. He talks about the importance of "letting [Robert] Downey [Jr., duh] be Downey."
I'm writing this two days before Iron Man 3 opens in America; it's already made $242 million everywhere else. All signs point to Black having delivered a hit. If he's humble almost to a fault, maybe it's because he knows that at least statistically he shouldn't be here. During the '80s and '90s, Black wrote a few screenplays that studios were willing to pay handsomely or even obscenely for, beginning with 1987's Lethal Weapon. Before long, he was rich, and also famous, in the sense that he became somewhat unfairly the poster child for the practice of lavishly overpaying young hot-shit screenwriters. Then, in the late '90s, in the wake of the commercial failure of The Long Kiss Goodnight — based on a much-derided Black script for which he was paid $4 million — he dropped out of sight. His name didn't appear on another movie until 2005, when Black's directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, slipped in and out of theaters.
Today's Photos:
They had a solid selection of arcade games (Galage, Ms. Pac-Man, TMNT, Simpsons Pinball), but Marvel vs Capcom 2 was broken.
Marvel vs Capcom 3
The art in this ad is amazing.
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