It's All In How You Couch It

**Spoiler Alert**

I have been eating up Nashville’s melodramatic goodness since the show began. It’s the kind of drama ABC seems to excel at. No grit, just pretty ladies, rugged men, big relationships and bigger problems. The first season of this soap opry (see what I did there?) wrapped up tonight, and boy howdy, was it exciting!

The penultimate episode really did go full soap opera. Juliette’s drugged out mother murders the infamous Dante, a truly devious character who used the ruse of sobriety sponsorship to worm his way into the business, and bed, of a wealthy music superstar (and he even has a soap opera villain name!). After shooting him, she kills herself with a drug overdose. Heavy stuff. So this week, Juliette is all over the place. I really like when Hayden Panettiere is in bitch mode, but I thought she handled all the emotional heavy lifting pretty well. I got teary-eyed a few times.

Gunnar is working hard to win back Scarlett. He comes clean to the skeevy producer he was working with about his brother’s lyrics and brings his gal flowers, promising to fly right. Then he finds out that she’s been having lunch with Avery, which, by the way…when did Avery turn into a good dude? He’s the character that’s changed the most. I didn’t like him at all at the beginning of the season, but I guess we’re meant to think that his fall from grace and epic fail at trying to be a solo artist has humbled him and taught him many lessons. Regardless, it’s kind of refreshing. In any event, Gunnar’s gotta bring his A game, which he does, by way of helping out and being there for Scarlett when Deacon goes off the rails.

And that was the really big story of the finale. There were some other minor events…a shake up between Lamar and Tandy over the family business, and some drama nobody cares about between Peggy and Teddy (the infamous Cumberland deal is back! Peggy is preggers!), but that was nothing compared to watching Deacon implode.

How it goes down is this: for whatever reason, young Maddie is snooping around, perhaps spurred on by her parents’ divorce, and finds evidence that she is not Teddy’s biological daughter. (Why this evidence is laying around in a box in Rayna’s walk-in closet is another conversation.) So she finds out THE TRUTH. Rather than ask her parents about it, she does the worst thing she could possibly do, which is to go straight to Deacon. But she’s like 12 and she just found out something crazy, so I guess we can cut her some slack.

Deacon confronts Rayna about it backstage at the CMAs (as you would do, if you’re a famous country music musician) and Rayna can’t lie when asked the question directly, so Deacon takes off and she’s left standing in her dressing room in her red carpet gown, crying. I mean, it’s just fucking delicious, really.

The moment Deacon falls off the wagon is so over-the-top it’s almost funny, except he’s become such a solid and likeable character that you can’t help but feel bad. He’s sitting at this bar, staring at a glass of whiskey, and he raises the glass…then puts it down…then raises it again, and then…GULP. Down the hatch. “I think I’d like another,” he says, immediately sounding boozy. Rayna is trying to track him down and freaking out about what might have happened to him, so she calls Coleman, his trusted sponsor.

Deacon stays out all night drinking and wakes up in a booth in the bar. Then he goes out and attacks Teddy while he’s walking to the courthouse. They scuffle a little but then security is on him, and the mayor walks away, yelling at Deacon to stay away from his family. Then Deacon goes home, where Gunnar discovers him puking over the side of the porch and has to help him get inside his own house. Gunnar calls Scarlett and Coleman, and then shit really goes down. They have to break down the door to get into Deacon’s house and he physically attacks Coleman once they do get inside. Gunnar is scared and Scarlett is crying and Deacon is yelling and once again…it is fucking delicious.

In the end, Deacon tells Coleman he’s going to a meeting, but instead brushes his teeth with more whiskey and heads to the Bluebird where Juliette is having a memorial concert for her mother. But when Rayna sees him there, they get into it, and he wants to take off, but she decides to drive him because he’s still basically hammered. Naturally, while Juliette is singing her sad song, we see Gunnar popping the question to Scarlett (we’ll find out her answer next season) and Deacon and Rayna continuing to argue as they drive. Now, any emotional scene that happens in a car usually leads to one thing, and while the car crash that ended the finale was predictable, even cliche, I kind of don’t expect anything else with Nashville. You know what else is cliche in primetime soaps? Pregnancies and baby daddy reveals and proposals and murders and scandals and all the rest of it, and this show rolls around in all that shit and makes it work.

I will miss it over the summer, but I’m glad it’s coming back in the fall, and I can’t wait to see how they throw us back in after this hot mess of a finale.

**Spoilers Ahead**

I was able to use my rainy Sunday afternoon to check out Star Trek Into Darkness. I thought it was a lot of fun—a really great summer movie. As an action flick it was perfect. Beautiful set pieces followed one after the other, with my particular favorite being the space dive Kirk and Khan must make from the Enterprise to Admiral Marcus’ ship.

There were a few nice moments of levity, provided mostly by Simon Pegg as Scotty and Karl Urban as McCoy, and the story built on the friendship that Kirk and Spock had developed in the first movie. There were high emotional stakes as well. The event that kickstarts the movie’s main plot is an attack by Khan that leaves Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) dead, and Kirk struggling with the loss of the only father figure he’s ever really had.

But my post isn’t going to focus on any of that.

My post is going to be about Benedict Cumberbatch, because he was an unsettling villain. And I mean that in a good way. Cumberbatch has a knack for taking characters that should not be likeable, and imbuing them with a certain humanity that can’t help but touch an audience. And you can’t get a character much more unlikeable than Khan. A superior specimen, both in brains and brawn, Khan has his own agenda from the start—an agenda that both the audience and the other characters are only privy to in bits and pieces. Cumberbatch’s Khan is a cold, pale madman, looking out at his adversaries with piercing eyes and manipulating them with half-truths and unpredictable behavior.

The movie does an interesting thing, circling around it’s villain so that at one point in the pendulum swing, you actually feel sorry for him and begin to wonder if he was justified in some of the actions he’s taken. This would be a tricky thing for any actor to play, but Cumberbatch manages it with a few well-placed tears and a quiver in that majestic voice. (Seriously…I can’t say enough about that guy’s voice. The first time we hear it in the movie I literally got a chill down my spine.)

In the end, however, Khan is revealed to be truly an evil genius. The movie doesn’t take any pains to redeem the human characters that Khan has led astray (other than Kirk, that is), but still…what the human characters have done does not in any way justify the lengths Khan is willing to go to in order to wreak havoc on the Enterprise and her crew.

Cumberbatch’s Khan is a carefully modulated being. There is a disturbing scene when Kirk first meets Khan face to face. Khan has actually saved him from an attacking band of Klingons, but Kirk also knows that this is the man who killed Pike. He beats Khan savagely, but the blows are all absorbed. Khan is so strong, he feels very little of it, and the look he gives Kirk is almost one of pity. Yet the driving force of the character is rage, revenge and loneliness. When set to a task, he moves with with a precision and efficiency that come from his superior physical prowess and his determination to carry out his plans. But there are moments when his anger surfaces, and they are frightening.

For the other characters, most notably Kirk, it is like navigating a time bomb. They know they are dealing with a powerful, explosive force, but they don’t know if that force is going to be used to help them or hurt them (through the course of the movie Khan does both), and when it might go off.

Khan is immobilized in the end, but not destroyed, and I can only hope that means he may return again in another Trek movie, if the franchise continues.

I had a chance this evening to see The Kings of Summer, an independent comedy from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Without tickets to a free screening courtesy of a friend, I honestly don’t think this movie would have been on my radar. I am very glad it was, because it was kind of an amazing little gem.

The story centers on best friends and highschool students Joe and Patrick (Nick Robinson and Gabriel Basso), who are both feeling chafed and claustrophobic thanks to their difficult relationships with their parents. Joe’s father Frank (played by well-spoken grizzly bear Nick Offerman) is a gruff and sarcastic man who has great difficulty communicating with his son after the loss of his wife. Patrick’s parents (Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson) are overbearing and fussy…the kind of helicopter parents that mean well, but on a day-to-day basis become kind of a nightmare to live with when you’re 15.

Once school is out and the summer hits, Joe and Patrick devise a plan. Joe discovers a clearing in the middle of the woods outside his town…a place where nobody will think to come look for them. He and Patrick, along with wiry oddball Biaggio (played with elastic abandon by Moises Arias) decide to construct their own house in the clearing, using found materials and stolen or borrowed tools. The finished product looks like a cross between a house and a trailer, with a port-a-potty door. But while it won’t be winning any House Beautiful contests, the process of working together to construct it transforms it into a home…a home not without its charms. (It has its own mailbox, despite the fact that they obviously don’t receive any mail, and a pool slide is used in place of stairs.)

The movie captures perfectly the halcyon summer days that you spend when you’re young, and summer still means freedom. The boys romp, splash and tumble through the wilderness. And what a wilderness it is… Shot on location in the woods of the midwest (Ohio, to be precise) the movie is lushly photographed, with beautiful close-ups of the trees, the flowers and the animals. Wider panoramic shots give context to just how far the boys feel from civilization, even if it turns out to be not that long a walk to the closest Boston Market. (It is an ongoing joke that although the boys make valiant efforts to hunt and forage, they wind up eating a lot of rotisserie chicken during their summer idyll.)

As usually happens, though, the lives they are trying to run away from manage to intrude. The unwitting intruder is Kelly, a pretty blonde who is Joe’s long-time crush. He invites her to the house, but once there, she falls for Patrick. Joe is destroyed the way you can only be when you’re 15, and lashes out at them both, driving Patrick away, and even forcing loyal Biaggio to leave him to himself in the woods.

In all this time, of course, Joe and Patrick’s parents have been working with the police to try to find them. When Patrick and Biaggio return home safely but Joe is still missing, the stoic Frank begins to slide into serious depression, allowing it to fully sink in that something may have happened to his son. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s exciting, funny and emotional, in keeping with the rest of the film.

The performances are all top-notch. The young actors are funny, touching and quick, and their dynamics with each other are some of the most realistic portrayals of the mercurial nature of teenage friendship that I’ve ever seen. Biaggio got a lot of laughs in the theater I was in, and Arias is clearly a very gifted physical comedian. The supporting cast is stellar, with Offerman and Mullally both turning in hilarious performances. (Honestly, one of the funniest moments for me was listening to Mullally and Jackson try to describe to their son a movie they saw on “the cable.” It was Hancock with Will Smith but they kept calling it Heimlich. It was like basically every conversation you’ve ever had with your parents about movies.) Alison Brie appeared in a smaller role as Joe’s older sister, who tries to smooth things out between her father and her brother. Comic actors like Tony Hale, Mary-Lynn Rajskub and Kumail Nanjiani also make very funny cameo appearances.

The best thing about the movie was that it was clearly a labor of love and effort was obviously poured into every aspect of it. Casting was spot-on. The script was great…genuinely funny, sweet, nostalgic and just a little bit sad. The photography, as I’ve mentioned, was beautiful, with techniques like time-lapse and slow-motion used sparingly to great effect. The soundtrack was great. I didn’t really know almost any of the songs, but each time a new one started, it fit the scene perfectly, and I would find myself thinking, “I don’t recognize this…but I like it.”

This is not the kind of movie that will ever compete with an Iron-Man or a Star Trek or a Thor. But if you have a theater near you that shows movies like this, I highly encourage you to check it out. It’s a really lovely summertime movie…both literally and figuratively.

**Spoiler Alert**

Tonight Fox aired the season finales of its Tuesday comedies, New Girl and The Mindy Project. The Mindy Project finale was much in keeping with the whole of its season. Some very funny moments, a few rom-com stock scenes (like the patented “almost-kiss”), but taken as a whole, still somewhat inconsistent.

New Girl, on the other hand, took us where I would imagine a majority of its fans have been wanting to go. After a romantic ramp-up between  Jess and Nick that has been the theme of the entire back-half of the season, Liz Meriwether and her cohorts finally pulled the trigger…the real trigger. Not the kiss trigger, or the sex trigger (“Sex Trigger” sounds like the name of a Spinal Tap album), but the relationship trigger. The point of no return.

This moment happened against the backdrop of the other story we’d been leading up to for many episodes, which is Cece’s wedding to Shivrang. Schmidt, convinced by a look he sees in Cece’s eyes, is determined that the wedding must be sabotaged because she secretly doesn’t want it. Said sabotage involved, amongst other things, a loud rendition of “Cotton Eyed Joe” and a badger who is not feral, according to Jess, but “just kind of a dick.” It is Jess who most vociferously objects to these pranks. She is taking her maid-of-honor duties very seriously, and she doesn’t want her roommates’ juvenile insanity to get in the way of Cece’s special day.

Nick, for once, is adamantly opposed to the idea of messing with someone, blustering “Good night, nurse!” in typical Nick fashion. But once the pranks begin, Jess assumes that Nick is involved, because this childish behavior is exactly the kind of thing he WOULD do. Nick is so hurt by her accusations that he promptly goes out and gets involved in the third and final “sabo” (short for sabotage, don’t you know?). This final prank, involving the dickish badger, escalates quickly, leading to a Jess and Nick relationship conversation being carried out in panicked whispers while they lay on their stomachs in an air conditioning duct.

Of course, before anything can be decided, they both crash through a ceiling vent and land on top of Cece’s wedding arch before she can complete the ceremony. Chaos ensues, she calls of the wedding, Schmidt is asked to choose between Cece and Elizabeth, and the badger brushes up against Rob Reiner’s leg. Oh, and Taylor Swift is there for some reason. (Turns out she loves Shivrang!)

Then there’s Jess and Nick. In a heartbreaking moment, Nick acknowledges that he is a screw-up, that if Jess does have doubts, she has very good reasons. And maybe that means it’s better to let their thing, whatever it might be, go. “I’m calling it,” he says glumly. Jess agrees, but the look on her face is heartbreaking. Later, nursing a beer at the bar, Nick is counseled by Winston, who has just emerged from the air-conditioning ducts sweaty and with a vicious badger bite. (“I’m pretty dizzy.”) He reminds Nick that the running-away move was one his father always pulled…and that there ARE other moves.

Which leads to the scene almost every fan was probably waiting for. Nick runs into Jess outside, as she’s about to leave. Before he can say a word, she asks for another chance. “I wanna uncall it,” she says tearfully. “And before you say no…don’t say no.” And Nick doesn’t say no. In fact, he doesn’t say anything. He just comes at her with one of those now-famous Nick Miller kisses, the kind of kiss that is making fans everywhere swoon about a character who still uses a flip phone and fries bacon in butter and hides his car under giant cardboard boxes so he won’t have to pay for parking. That’s right…his mouth may gargle beer and say things like “Good night, nurse!”…but it also kisses like a dream. And now he and Jess are off on their big adventure.

The writers have a tough task ahead of them for season three. Keeping a couple together is often not as interesting as getting them together. But if season two has been any indication, they will handle it with finesse and charm and we’ll get more of the delightful character-based comedy, romance and chut-a-ney that has made New Girl such a success story.

A week or so ago I posted a blog entry about my anticipation of the new Gatsby film. You can read it here. Well, now the movie’s out…and the reviews are in.

“…the filmmakers seem less interested in subtext, class issues, or much beyond the opportunities the novel provides for spectacle.” - Ben Kenigsberg, The A.V. Club

“It’s glib to suggest that Luhrmann has made a “Great Gatsby” for idiots; it’s more like he’s made it for infants, who prefer their nourishment pre-masticated and their stories pictorialized by way of bright, arresting images…” - Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

“At a crucial, climactic moment — a scene in a suite at the Plaza Hotel — the director mutes his irrepressible, circus ringmaster showmanship and plunges into undiluted melodrama… That scene stands out in a movie that is otherwise gaudily and grossly inauthentic.” - A. O. Scott, New York Times

“There’s a reason The Great Gatsby continues to be taught in classrooms nearly 90 years after it was written… Too bad Luhrmann, the caffeinated conductor, doesn’t trust that story enough. He’d rather blast your retinas into sugar-shock submission.” - Christ Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly

You get the general idea. I’ve actually seen the movie not once, but twice already. Thanks to a friend landing tickets to a free pre-screening last week, we saw it in 3D a day or two prior to its opening. I’m not a big fan of 3D movies in general. They usually give me a headache, and I rarely find the technology adds much to the experience or the story. The 3D screening was overwhelming, and I wasn’t too impressed, but I wanted to see it on the regular screen, so I went again this weekend. So I really did give this movie a chance to win me over.

My opinion is pretty on par with the reviews above. It’s just too much. In the past, Luhrmann’s frenetic camera work and brightly colored choreography provided an interesting energy boost to the doomed love stories of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge. Here, it overshadows the deeper emotions that are at the core of the novel. As impressive as the party scenes are, with their hip-hop/jazz mash-ups, dancing girls, tuxedo-wearing gents and confetti showers, they were ultimately so bacchanalian they became ridiculous.

The best example of this is when our narrator, Nick Carraway (played by the perpetually confused Tobey Maguire), first meets Gatsby at one of these epic parties. Up until this point, we the audience have only seen Gatsby as a shadowy figure or a hand behind a curtain. When Gatsby (Leonardo Dicaprio) turns and introduces himself, it is to the climactic swell of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, while fireworks erupt behind him and he lifts a glass of champagne. (This image has already been gif-ed, and if you’re a regular resident of the internet, you’ve probably seen it.) It brought on chuckles in the audience I was with…that’s how silly it looks. And yet Gatsby is a tragic figure. The only scene that really taps into this is the one that A. O. Scott refers to above in the quote from his review. The real pain that lies underneath the golden boy persona comes out, and it’s riveting.

All of which means there was probably a better movie lurking beneath the artifice here. DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, who played Daisy, are both extremely talented, and probably could have carried a dynamic more complex than the one they were given. The best performances in the movie, in my humble opinion, were supporting characters Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), and Jordan Baker (newcomer Elizabeth Debicki). Debicki’s Jordan was actually very much as I imagined her to be from the book, and Edgerton’s swaggering alpha male menace was a lot more engaging to watch than our lead characters.

The story’s fatalistic ending was not as moving as it might have been if you cared more about these people and the battles they were fighting with each other and themselves. As it is, the closing chapter is merely a relief…the champagne-fueled roller coaster is done, and with it the exhausting pretense of caring.

The costumes are amazing, the music varies between great and “that’s an interesting choice,” and there are few moments of real genuine entertainment. But most of that is lost under so many swinging chandeliers and swimming pool orgies, leaving me mostly wondering when there would be any room to feel the palpable loneliness that is the hallmark of the title character.

It’s network upfront season, so in entertainment news, that means finding out about new programming, along with which shows have been renewed and which shows have been cancelled. Sometimes the reasoning seems obvious for keeping a show around. Sometimes less so. Here’s an approximate list so far.

This list may not be totally complete (or accurate), but we’ll go with it for now.

CBS:

The only thing on the chopping block for now are two shows I’ve barely even heard of, much less seen, and as much TV as I watch, and as much entertainment news as I read, that’s gotta be a bad sign. Shows that are still waiting to learn their fate include Golden Boy and Vegas, both of which I’ve heard good things about, so good luck, fellas.

Fox:

Fox has the only cancelled show that I’m really down about, and that’s Ben & Kate. I thought that show was really sweet and funny, with a very talented cast. I don’t know that it ever got a very large audience, but in terms of quality I thought it was every bit as good as The Mindy Project (and at times actually a little bit funnier), and The Mindy Project got picked up. It was probably just about the numbers, but I’m sorry to see it go. I hope Nat Faxon gets cast in a new television project soon.

NBC:

NBC has questions marks about two shows I actually watch. I’m pulling for Community to come back (feeling optimistic) and for Go On (not so sure about that one). Community is quite close to its syndication mark, so it’s likely it’ll get picked up and plugged in somewhere. They haven’t even technically renewed The Voice yet, according to this, so who knows where their head’s at. A lot of comedies got chopped, but none that I’m complaining about. Another show I’m curious about is Smash. I don’t watch that hot mess any more, but as a show it has been kind of a lightning rod. Will they keep it around for another season?

ABC:

At this point, they haven’t released info about most of their shows, except for a few that were definitely not picked up. The only comedy being yanked is “Don’t Trust The B—— in Apartment 23,” which I actually watched a few episodes of. I like Krysten Ritter and James Van Der Beek was pretty funny in it, so it’s too bad it didn’t get a shot to earn an audience.

The CW:

The CW, on the other hand, has already ruled on all their shows. The only shows I’m at all concerned about, The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural, are of course both returning. (And actually, Supernatural should be nearing it’s death soon. I hope they’ll let the series pass on with dignity.) I only ever saw creepy commercials for Cult, and I never saw ANY commercials for Emily Owens, M.D., which seems to indicate they weren’t really behind it in the first place.

So the scorecard’s not complete yet, and of course we don’t know much about the new players in the game yet. I hope NBC finds some more GOOD comedies, that cusp shows with potential, like Go On, get another chance to develop, and that maybe, just maybe, network TV can develop a drama that will rival cable networks in quality. (Don’t see that happening, but it would go a long way in restoring TV viewers’ faith in the major networks.) Of course, what we’ll probably get is a whole new batch of cop, lawyer and doctor shows, and new crappy comedies to replace the cancelled crappy comedies.

In the meantime, I’ll be watching Arrested Development on Netflix.

**Spoiler Alert, GoT Fans**

The most recent episode of Game of Thrones, “The Climb,” was a little bit lower key compared to some of the tour de force stabbing, amputating, cave-fucking and dragon barbecuing of the past few episodes. The only action was the periodic scenes at the Wall, where Jon and his wildling pals were picking their way slowly upwards. I will say that I appreciated the suspense and danger of those scenes, since Jon’s actual climb in the book is covered in about two sentences. (Some other folks in the book don’t fare so well climbing the wall, but at that point Jon Snow is still safely on terra firma.)

Personally, I love the scheming episodes. I love watching scenes where characters like Lady Olenna and Tywin Lannister match wits. And that is a true battle of wits. If there is anybody in King’s Landing that can go toe-to-toe with Tywin and not be intimidated, it’s the motherfucking Queen of Thorns. They don’t even need to fake the niceties with each other. Loras is a big ol’ “sword-swallower,” and while Cersei may be rich and beautiful, she’s also not a nubile spring chicken, and, oh yeah, may have been fucking her twin brother with some regularity.

Then we had two amusingly awkward scenes. First, Loras and Sansa discuss their impending marriage…because neither of them know what the Lions have been cooking up. Loras is, not surprisingly, way more excited about planning the wedding, and what kind of dress the bride might wear, than who the bride actually is. It’s a shame it’s not going to happen. Gay weddings are always fabulous. Sansa, of course, still not really picking up on the signals, god bless her. This awkwardness segues into Tyrion having to reveal to her who she’s REALLY going to marry. And, because life is just that kind, Shae insists on staying when he speaks to her. It takes quite a bit to discomfit Tyrion, but having to tell a hostage she has to marry him while his prostitute lover stands by and listens definitely does the trick.

We have another face-off in this episode that doesn’t happen in the books. That would be Arya and Melisandre…and it’s pretty interesting. Arya will stand up to anyone, even a crazy fire witch. And to her credit, Melisandre respects what she sees in Arya’s face. It’s almost like she recognizes a worthy opponent…someone with as yet undiscovered power of her own. She even predicts that their encounter will not be the last, and they will meet again. Arya looks startled, but not exactly scared. I think she’s starting to realize that her destiny may be very different from what it might have been before her father died.

Finally there are my two favorite puppeteers: Varys and Littlefinger. These two don’t have the same status as many of the highborn characters, but they have the influence, and that makes all the difference. Both of them are constantly pulling strings, leading others, knowingly or unknowingly, to serve their own ends. And Littlefinger…when he said, “Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder”…chills, man. Chills. The guy’s raw ambition and thirst for power is more frightening than a lot of the supernatural elements on this show. You can see it in his face as he gazes at the Iron Throne. Only Varys seems to recognize the danger Littlefinger could pose, and Varys himself is not exactly “easy to read.” What master he ultimately serves is yet to be revealed, but I certainly enjoy watching him operate.

So yes, dragons are the shit. And swordfights are cool. And sexy times and bandits and snow zombies…all excellent. But what makes Game of Thrones truly epic are the personalities—the constant machinations as alliances are made and broken and nearly everyone is working an angle. It’s a game very few will win, and the while the winners will triumph in a blaze of glory, the losers often flame out in equally spectacular fashion. And that is a whole hell of a lot of fun to watch.

Just got back from seeing Iron Man 3, so I want to get down some thoughts while it’s fresh in my mind. I will try not to reveal major spoilers ahead, but read at your own caution.

First things first…I didn’t hate it. I really liked the first Iron Man movie a lot. I didn’t enjoy the second quite so much, but it was still a pretty fun ride. The truth is, it’s hard not to enjoy a movie starring Robert Downey Jr. His Tony Stark in particular is such a charismatic presence, he stole The Avengers out from under the younger, hunkier heroes. (Not that I’m saying RDJ isn’t hot…but he’s pushing 50, so it’s not the God-of-Thunder beefcake kind of handsome that he’s rocking.)

In this newest installment, Stark is dealing with the aftermath of the events in the Avengers film, by way of panic attacks, insomnia and obsession with building newer and better Iron Man suits. He is shacked up with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, more likeable here than she’ll ever be in real life) in his Malibu mansion and a bit at loose ends. His best friend Rhodey is acting as the “Iron Patriot,” strapping on his own red, white and blue suit to support and protect the President.

As always though, there is a fly in the ointment. We get some backstory on Stark at the top of the film…a glimpse at his previous self, pre-Iron Man, pre-Pepper. He is wooing a scientist (Rebecca Hall) who works in genetics, and dodging an awkward but ambitious researcher (Guy Pierce) who wants Stark to support his think tank.

Both of these people will intersect with Stark again as a new threat is on the rise—the Mandarin, a terrorist with a flair for the dramatic. The Mandarin is played with some great villainous scenery-chewing by Sir Ben Kingsley, who seems to be relishing his chance to mix it up in the Marvel world.

There’s also plenty of explosions, super-soldiers, damsels in distress, flying suits, last minute rescues and everything else you’d expect from this franchise.

As a superhero movie it was fun but nothing mind-altering. I will say, however, that the one place Iron Man manages to really excel is humor. A lot of credit for that goes to RDJ, who takes lines that would simply seem mean or snarky or flat and imbue them with a warmth that is part of his charm. The parts of this movie I liked the best were the parts where I was laughing. A favorite set of scenes in particular involved Stark bonding with a lonely young boy in rural Tennessee (don’t ask why Iron Man was in rural Tennessee). The boy, played by a child actor named Ty Simpkins (who already has a long list of credits to his name), played incredibly well off of our hero. He was not overly precocious or cutesy, or too bratty, but struck the right balance of vulnerable, smart and just a bit annoying, the way kids that age can be. In my personal opinion, their scenes together were the highlight of the movie.

There is one other very humorous performance, but I can’t say anything else about that without revealing one of the movie’s few twists. (At least, I didn’t see this particular reveal coming…I’ll be interested to read the reviews and see if more experienced film critics and bloggers felt that it was telegraphed.)

Iron Man 3 wound up being more of the same, but when that means more Robert Downey Jr., wisecracking dialogue and fantastic gadgets … that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

An article was posted on Buzzfeed today about the relative success of ABC’s Castle. You can check it out here. I say “relative” success because the point of the article is that Castle is a high performing show in the network landscape mainly because it’s consistent. Its ratings are about the same as they were in the first season (spring of 2009), maybe only slightly higher. The rest of the schedule, however, has not followed suit. Therefore Castle is now at the higher end of the pack as it finishes out its fifth season.

I’m a big fan of Castle. It’s a really fun, easy-to-enjoy show, thanks largely to the charisma of Nathan Fillion in the title role as crime novelist Richard Castle, and the sparky chemistry between he and Stana Katic, the actress who plays Detective Kate Beckett. I also came very late to the party. I don’t remember exactly what prompted it, but I ended up watching the pilot last year for some reason. I found it so engaging, and the character of Castle so charming, that I promptly bought the first season on iTunes. By that point it was relatively cheap, and then I knew I wouldn’t have to dig around online looking for missing episodes.

Long story short, I ended up eventually buying all four seasons. This is something I very rarely do. But that’s how much I liked the show. As the Buzzfeed article states, Castle features “a sweet (as opposed to frustrating) will-they-or-won’t-they love story between Castle and Beckett.” The Sam-and-Diane dynamic is one used in SO many shows now, and when it’s done really well (New Girl) it can be an amazing way to pull in viewers and keep them locked in. Clearly Andrew Marlowe, the creator of Castle, has mastered it, since according to the ratings, Castle viewers are nothing if not locked in.

I got caught up with all the previous seasons and was able to watch the fifth season in real time. Spoiler alert if you’re not current with the series to this point. This fifth season has been a tricky one, because Marlowe finally pulled the trigger at the end of season four, and brought his two leads together in an emotional, action-packed finale that ended with a tearful confession and one of the best TV kisses I’ve seen in a long time. (Seriously, it’s like the hour-long drama version of Jess and Nick on New Girl—characters that make sense as a couple and are brought together in just the right way.) So the fifth season had the difficult task of making the chemistry continue to work now that the tension has broken. We have to be invested in watching Castle and Beckett as a couple.

They seem to be handling it well. Fillion and Katic have kept things interesting with their performances, continuing to illuminate the personality differences that make Castle and Beckett such a great yin and yang pairing. Only now Castle’s child-like enthusiasm and playful attitude sometimes keep Beckett at arm’s length when it comes to the deeper parts of their relationship. And Beckett’s tendency to control is tested even further when her own heart is now openly invested in someone like Castle.

The most recent episode was a nice look back at how their relationship and the show has evolved. (Though I would have enjoyed it more if we hadn’t had a time bomb episode from them already in an earlier season that ALSO involved a last second disarming that was a complete shot in the dark and yet miraculously worked and saved everyone’s life.) Anyway, I’m eager to see where they take things in the next few seasons, because judging by the ratings, Castle will be around a while.

Not that I’m complaining.

Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby will be opening soon, and I’m still trying to decide whether I’m anticipating it or dreading it. Anyone who has stumbled through high school English is familiar with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel (or at least the Cliff’s Notes version). Indeed, some have argued that his tale of class, wealth, passion and destruction is THE great American novel.

I always liked the novel, although I can’t honestly rank it among my all-time favorites. I don’t recall the Redford version of the movie making an overwhelming impression on me. I remember that Redford was very handsome, it was strange seeing Sam Waterston so young, and I also realized that I hated Daisy as much seeing her brought to life as I hated her in the book, Mia Farrow’s charms notwithstanding.

That was the ultimate frustration with Jay Gatsby’s story, and perhaps why it never fully satisfied me as a reader. All that effort, all that reinvention and all that show for the attentions of a woman who was nothing. Narrator Nick Carraway sees it, even if Gatsby does not. Some would argue that was the point. All of Gatsby’s success rings false because he’s chasing something that was never really there.

So now this new incarnation of the classic novel…

First of all, I like Baz Luhrmann’s work a lot. Like most girls my age, I fell in love with Moulin Rouge. Likewise, he managed to make Romeo and Juliet seem cool to me and my highschool friends. His movies were technicolor dreams, but still had emotional heft. When I later watched Strictly Ballroom, of course it looked a little rougher than those two splashy pictures, but there was still great visual panache and an even more obvious beating heart in the story. I had a tougher time with Australia. It was so much epic sweep and endless story that even the moments that worked felt a bit bogged down. Also, I remember that being the first time that someone’s plastic surgery actually distracted me from a movie. (Looking at you, Nicole Kidman.)

There’s no age (other than perhaps the fin de siecle era France where Moulin Rouge was set) better suited to Luhrmann’s sensibilities than the Jazz Age of America in the 1920s. There’s a reason it was called the roaring 20s. Decadence was the name of the game. Prohibition, as we now know, only exacerbated this luxury by giving it an illicit sweetness. This is the world that Fitzgerald plunges us into, as one of the first ways we are introduced to Gatsby is via an extremely excessive party. The trailer for Luhrmann’s adaption certainly indicates that these moments will not be in short supply.

Luhrmann is working with Leonardo DiCaprio again. DiCaprio will be our titular character, and I am interested to see what he’ll do with it. I just recently saw Django Unchained, and I had forgotten just how good DiCaprio can be when he has a role he can really sink his teeth into. I would almost put him in the Brad Pitt category. He appears to be more interesting in NON-leading man roles. But Gatsby is as leading man as it gets, so I hope he can make us see the man behind the mansion.

Carey Mulligan is playing Daisy, the object of Gatsby’s desire and a character I always thoroughly despised. I like Mulligan a lot, and I’m especially curious to see how an actress who has generally become known for playing quieter, deeper female characters will play a female character who is supposed to be shallow as a puddle.

Tobey Maguire rounds out the cast as our guide and narrator, Nick Carraway. Maguire has an everyman quality that made him work well as Spiderman, because Peter Parker was supposed to be as average as you could get. That should serve him well here, as a solid Midwesterner, new to the sordid world of class and money. Because ultimately that’s what this story is about. New money vs. old money. Deception vs. truth. Rich vs. poor. The Great Gatsby is a novel of shifting dichotomies, and beneath all the glitz and glamour of a 1920s art deco paradise, Luhrmann has to capture THAT. I honestly don’t know if he can do it, but I mean to pay my money to watch him try.