EPISODE 33 - TWILIGHT: NEW MOON

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TRAILER - IRON MAN 3

The trailer for Iron Man 3 has arrived and at least half of us at Bearded Scrutiny are excited for it. We're so excited that our pants are wet with girlish gush.

If you haven't already check out our massive two-part review of THE MARVEL UNIVERSE PHASE ONE.

 As far as this trailer goes, it seems to hit all the right notes. Kingsley's voice-over is a little odd, but then, remember Bane? Have a look and let us know what you think.

 The movie stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale with Jon Favreau and Ben Kingsley. It opens July 3rd 2013. 

Here's a quick synopsis: Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

REVIEW - BEL-AMI

Guy de Maupassant’s novel Bel Ami is a taut, economic commentary on the seduction of the social ladder and what we’ll do to climb it. Specifically, it captures the debauchery and inhibition of 19th century Paris and the laissez faire nature of its citizens. I suppose that gives good reason to why it has been adapted to the stage and screen no less than eight times. The 2012 film adaptation, starring Robert Pattinson, doesn’t quite capture all of that… or almost any of it…

Robert Pattinson plays Georges Duroy, a journalist looking to make it big and pull himself up from the lower class; he doesn’t care what he has to do to accomplish this. He seduces women and… well, he mainly seduces women, and that‘s basically the movie. Pattinson is an interesting dilemma. On one hand, he seems to be a decent actor, sometimes. On the other hand, Twilight exists. Throughout the bulk of Bel Ami, he’s kind of just there, and this isn’t The Libertine where Johnny Depp can just be “there” and have the movie be interesting. Robert Pattinson isn’t Johnny Depp--Hell, he isn’t even Heath Ledger in Casanova. Really, the most comparable person is Eric Bana in The Other Boleyn Girl; the problem is, The Other Boleyn Girl wasn’t really about Henry VIII, so the film could afford to have Bana’s performance be one of mere presence. Bel Ami is 100% about Georges Duroy, so when Pattinson delivers a line flatly, reacts dully, or even just looks bored, the film suffers greatly. With that said, there are a handful of moments where he does breathe some life into the character, and frankly, that is the only life the movie has.

Yes, the film also features Christina Ricci, Uma Thurman, and Kristin Scott Thomas, and I very much enjoyed seeing Christina Ricci naked, again; but that’s ostensibly all they are: sex objects. Hey, I’m fine with the idea of Christina Ricci being a sex object, but that’s not what you want from a movie--unless it’s porn; in that case, stay out of Fred Willard’s splatter zone.

Beneath the dullness and banality, there is an intriguing subtext, and it does feel like they at least tried to honor Maupassant’s novel. Every single person in this film is simultaneously married, cheating, and angry about it all, which does highlight the hypocrisy of jealousy within infidelity. It’s just laid on about eight inches too thick. I would estimate at least a dozen times in this movie where Christina Ricci gets upset with Robert Pattinson about seeing other women… yet she’s married. That was an interesting commentary on the absurdity of seduction, lust, and amour, but the movie is a one-trick pony; that’s all it has, and instead of doing its one trick really well once, it does it badly several times. If you want to see that plot device as a reflection of Duroy’s attempts to climb the social ladder, you can, but the movie doesn’t do enough to present that. You’re basically just given a story of him fucking a series of women and symbolically fucking himself into amorality, which is difficult, given the social mores of 19th century Paris.

It’s really a shallow movie that could have easily been deeper, if they had only focused more on the fact that Duroy was climbing the ladder and less on how nobody could keep it in their pants, yet everyone was really upset about it. Instead, it’s basically just the whole Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson shit--on film. If you want to see that, or if you would like to see Robert Pattinson’s disinterested, bare ass unceremoniously thrusting in the general direction of women, then I guess you should check this out. Otherwise, there’s really no reason. Watch The Libertine, or Casanova, or Marie Antoinette, or find one of the other adaptation’s of this novel and watch that; it’ll probably be better. If you’re just interested in seeing Christina Ricci naked, watch Black Snake Moan, which also happens to actually be a great movie.

-John

EPISODE 11 - GOODFELLAS

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EPISODE 6 - TWILIGHT

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