Movies for everyone.

Watch the trailer for this week’s must-see film and read our review.Iron Man
Robert Downey, Jr. shines and soars as Tony Stark in Iron Man, a contraption of an action film that is part genius invention, part heavy Hollywood machinery.
The latest Marvel Comics big screen adaptation and first major blockbuster of the summer movie season, Iron Man definitely delivers on the entertainment front.
Director John Favreau does a decent job breaking the film loose from the Hollywood action cookie-cutter mold, but it’s Downey’s onscreen charisma and charm that takes the film to another level.

Iron Man
A brilliant leading actor mixes with the right amount of action-movie flash to make a solid blockbuster.
Marvel Comic’s latest big-screen adaptation (and soon to be franchise) is a big-budget extravaganza that manages to elevate itself a notch above its predecessors.
The production team behind the film made some adventurous decisions that mostly work in the film’s favor, including choosing director John Favreau (writer of Swingers and director of Elf and Zathura) and casting acting heavyweights Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges. But it’s the brilliant performance of lead actor and unlikely hero Robert Downey, Jr. that gives Iron Man its surprising depth and engaging spark.
Downey’s tireless charisma and energetic screen presence rescues the film from becoming a junk pile of sound effects and CGI showmanship (a trap that last summer’s robot movie, Transformers, did not escape). Over the years, the actor has continued to garner interesting roles and charm audiences, despite a clear pattern of self-destructive behavior that has played out in the public eye. In Iron Man, the first Hollywood blockbuster of the summer season, this phoenix rises to particularly remarkable heights.
Downey plays eccentric billionaire and weapons-engineering prodigy Tony Stark, a sharp-witted party boy with a Vandyke goatee and a stellar IQ. Residing in a gigantic ivory mansion on the coast of Malibu, Stark has it all and is unaffected by the moral implications of his life’s work. That is, until he is faced with death at the hands of an Afghani terrorist organization with a hefty supply of Stark’s own weapons.
The film puts the “iron” in irony when, after he justifiably turns against his company’s corrupt weapons program, Stark chooses to transform himself into a flying, high-tech tank. He becomes a one-man fighting machine that wreaks havoc for the sake of destroying that which he has built.
The actor is a pure pleasure to watch, both before and after his figurative (and literal) change of heart. His sparkling eyes and fast, fluid banter are almost manic, yet grounded in such a humanistic sensitivity. Spitting James Bond-like lines such as “give me a scotch, I’m hungry” with a self-reflexive twinkle, Downey manages to fatten up the typically vapid action movie one-liners.
Having worked himself into incredible shape for the role, Downey also gets to employ some of his physical comedic skills that won him awards in Chaplin. As Stark tests the abilities of the metal suit and takes cracks at his lab assistants, he almost resembles Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor.
Unfortunately, despite an incredibly strong first half, Iron Man eventually succumbs to the clamor and clunk of an over-worked script and flashy, drawn out fight sequences. The sour turn of the film is so severe that it seems like two different movies butted up against one another. It is undoubtedly due to the decision to employ two different writing teams working independently from one another.
All things considered, Iron Man exceeds mere spectacle and has a decent enough supply of intelligence and genuine humor to maintain the audience’s interest through the finale.
With a date for the sequel already set, hopefully Iron Man 2 will yield yet another stellar performance from Downey, but perhaps with a bit more cohesion to back him up.
Get in the know with unique pairings of new DVD releases and influential predecessors to which they owe their roots.La Chinoise & The Weather Underground
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the May ’68 student protests in France and the general strike, which caused the collapse of the de Gaulle government. Originally released just prior to this tide-turning moment, Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise from 1967 is finally being released on DVD in the U.S. The provocative, stylish leftist satire marks a turning point in Godard’s career toward more radical cinema.
Pairing the film with The Weather Underground—the acclaimed documentary from 2002 about the most violent protest group in modern American history—provides a fascinating look into the revolutionary spirit of our times.

I’m Not There & Don’t Look Back
Todd Haynes’s innovative biopic I’m Not There utilized a myriad of actors to embody the essence of Bob Dylan, garnering particular acclaim for the performance of Cate Blanchett as the post-folk, rebellious rock star incarnation of the singer.
Her skilled performance and the black-and-white sequences in Haynes’s film were direct references to D.A. Pennebaker’s classic documentary Don’t Look Back, which followed Dylan during his 1965 U.K. tour.
The DVD of Pennebaker’s gorgeous film was remastered and re-released last year and features a remarkably candid exchange between Dylan and British sensation Donovan as well as the famous music video for “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”

Teeth & Liquid Sky
Turning sexual assault into comedy is not an easy feat. However, both Mitchell Lichtenstein (son of famous pop artist Roy) and Slava Tsukerman use comedy and satire in their films Teeth and Liquid Sky, respectively, to successfully subvert violence towards women.
On paper, Teeth sounds like a bad and possibly offensive horror flick, while Liquid Sky’s ‘80s New York underground aesthetic, low budget and amateurish acting cause some to wince upon first viewing.
On closer inspection, Teeth is a witty, self-aware tongue-in-cheek morality tale, told with incredible precision. Similarly, Liquid Sky is an undeniable cultural force—a cult classic that continues to influence music, fashion and independent film.
Watch the trailer for this week’s guilty pleasure, and an interview with the filmmaker, Lloyd Kaufman.
Poultrygeist
For the past 35 years, director and producer Lloyd Kaufman has been churning out cult classics, like Toxic Avenger and Surf Nazis Must Die. In the process, his production company, Troma Entertainment, has become iconic in the independent filmmaking world, known for its unique brand of genre-bending B-movies.
It would be hard to imagine any other studio backing Kaufman’s latest opus, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, which tells the story of a fast food restaurant built on an Indian burial ground in which the entrees become possessed and begin attacking the customers. It’s also a musical.
Watch the trailer for this week’s film that is under the radar, and see an interview with the filmmaker, Harmony Korine.Mister Lonely
Cinema’s former enfant terrible, Harmony Korine, reemerges into the public eye with his first feature in nine years, Mister Lonely.
The film follows a Mexican Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) living in Paris who eventually ends up living on a commune in Scotland with a group of other impersonators. The story is laced with poetic scenes of an alcoholic priest (Werner Herzog) and skydiving nuns in the Panamanian jungle.
It is a bizarre cinematic universe punctuated with elegant moments.

Mister Lonely
Harmony Korine emerges from hibernation with a quirky, sincere film.
After nine years of self-imposed exile from the film community, the provocative Harmony Korine returns to the scene with Mister Lonely, a strange and beautiful movie about celebrity impersonators and flying nuns.
Thrust into the public light in his early twenties after the success of his screenplay for Larry Clark’s iconic and disturbing Kids, Korine fascinated both the media and aspiring artists and filmmakers.
His early success and boisterous, idiosyncratic personality was infectious, and his films—Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy—were controversial and unique. “I’ve never been interested in making sense,” said the filmmaker. “I’ve always been more interested in making the perfect nonsense and focusing on experiences rather than plot.”
Harmony’s oddball sense of humor and gravitation towards subjects such as albinos, the mentally disabled and young social deviates continually rides the line between fine art and practical joke. But while Mister Lonely definitely explores similar territory—diving without question into the absurd and fantastic—the film is grounded in a real sincerity.

The title is taken from the Bobby Vinton song, a haunting and simple melody that plays behind the opening shot in which a yellow clad Michael Jackson (Diego Luna) rounds a dusty racetrack on a tiny motor bike with a stuffed chimp with wings hanging out the side. We soon learn that “Michael” is really an impersonator from Mexico living and working in Paris with very little knowledge of French.
His apparent loneliness, effectively conveyed by Luna’s sensitive voice and soft features, is temporarily quelled when he meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton). She invites him to join her and a group of other impersonators living on a remote commune in Scotland.
Meanwhile, a second, poetically relevant story is developing that centers on an alcoholic priest (played by the filmmaker-genius Werner Herzog) and a group of nuns living in the Panamanian jungle.
When attempting to drop crates of food from a small airplane, one of the nuns accidentally falls from the craft and plummets towards the ground without a parachute. The sister prays intensely during the fall and miraculously lands on her two feet, unharmed.
Many of the elements of Mister Lonely reflect the Korine’s own experience in recent years. His mind clouded by an intense haze of drugs and alcohol, Korine somehow managed to survive the burning down of two houses. Attempting to escape his demons, he relocated to Paris where his reckless behavior continued until he finally succumbed to exhaustion and made a new life for himself in Nashville, Tenn.
Mister Lonely is not without its significant flaws, but is a fascinating work nonetheless from an immensely creative mind.
The film is a somewhat cautionary, yet unapologetic tale that explores what it means to lose and find oneself in an unforgiving world, and the true beauty of allowing oneself to fall from grace.
Watch our choice of the best of online short films.Tripping with Caveh

Tripping with Caveh is a 31-minute documentary that follows eccentric San Francisco-based filmmaker Caveh Zahedi after he eats psychedelic mushrooms with the indie-folk king Will Oldham. The film, originally slated to be the first in a series that never came to fruition, is now available for download from online distributor Caachi.
Zahedi is known for his incredibly personal and self-deprecating work, exemplified by 2005’s I am a Sex Addict. His latest is a hilarious and cathartic experience that both pokes fun at and takes note of the deep reflection that often comes with psychedelic experimentation.