Something to watch tonight: Thursday 2 May

Iron Man (Favreau, 2008)

Looking back on what I was writ­ing in early May dur­ing years past, I was struck by this brief cap­sule review of Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man.

There’s no hint at this point of the jug­ger­naut that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was to become, and it all feels like a much more inno­cent time.

Robert Downey Jr. is one of those movie brats who seems to have been born in front of a cam­era (check out his almost per­fect per­form­ance as Chaplin for Richard Attenborough in 1992). He hasn’t been get­ting the lead roles he deserves (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was the last one) but Iron Man is surely going to change that. Downey Jr.‘s effort­less screen cha­risma is the found­a­tion of a highly enter­tain­ing action movie that is only let down by a not-quite-big-enough set-piece at the end. Billionaire and play­boy arms man­u­fac­turer Tony Stark has his eyes opened to the evils his products enable when he is kid­napped in Afghanistan. After escap­ing, he decides to use his tech­no­logy for good (while still hav­ing as much fun as pos­sible). A good sup­port­ing cast (includ­ing Jeff Bridges look­ing like Daddy Warbucks) keeps things moving.

This column also fea­tures Todd Haynes’ I’m not There., Patrick Dempsey rom-com Made of Honour, Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche in Dan in Real Life, retire­ment home com­edy How About You, and the 2008 Human Rights Film Festival. Some of those mer­it a future appear­ance in this news­let­ter, I won­der if you can guess which. 

Where to watch Iron Man

Worldwide: Streaming on Disney+

Editor’s note

I just wanted to put the word out to every­one that I am avail­able for freel­ance, part-time, cas­u­al or full-time gigs at the moment. I have a few reg­u­lar cli­ents (e.g. RNZ, NZ On Screen) but there’s always room for more. Check out my LinkedIn for a sum­mary of what I have done in the past and what I am cap­able of in the future. If you have any­thing (or know of any­thing) please feel free to let me know.