{"id":12322,"date":"2008-05-30T09:10:12","date_gmt":"2008-05-30T16:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/05\/30\/ebert-on-iron-man.html"},"modified":"2014-01-08T11:42:51","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T18:42:51","slug":"ebert_on_iron_man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/30\/ebert_on_iron_man.html","title":{"rendered":"Ebert on Iron Man<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Roger Ebert nails it<\/a> on why Iron Man<\/em> is such a good movie (and a better super-hero movie than, say, most of the X-franchise and so many others):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The grounded feeling of long-term reality around the Stark corporation and the relationships between Stark, Potts, and Stane.<\/li>\n
  2. Letting the Tony Stark character be who he is — avoiding taking himself (and the genre) too seriously. At the same time, letting the other characters be serious, not competitively witty. The tension there keeps the movie from either being camp and self-mocking, or being too self-importantly grave (no preaching about mutant equality, no overdoing the “great power \/ great responsibility” or Messianic Son of Krypton, no sense of the hero as being a real nutcase who ought to be locked up in Arkham Asylum, too).<\/li>\n
  3. Conveying the personalities of the guys inside the battle armor even as they’re fighting, rather than having them appear to be a video game break in a rock’em-sock’em-robot battle. Making the movie be about people<\/em>, not the technology (or the SFX).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    At the end of the day it ‘s Robert Downey Jr. who powers the lift-off separating this from most other superhero movies. You hire an actor for his strengths, and Downey would not be strong as a one-dimensional mighty-man. He is strong because he is smart, quick and funny, and because we sense his public persona masks deep private wounds. By building on that, Favreau found his movie, and it’s a good one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Of course, the fact that the SFX are kick-ass fun doesn’t hurt.<\/p>\n

    Good times. Almost makes me want to go back and see it in the theaters again.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    (via BD<\/a>, et al.)<\/p>\n

    <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Roger Ebert nails it on why Iron Man is such a good movie (and a better super-hero movie than, say, most of the X-franchise and so many others): The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[525,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marvel-cinematic-universe","category-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33078,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/04\/rip-roger-ebert.html","url_meta":{"origin":12322,"position":0},"title":"RIP, Roger Ebert","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 4-Apr-13 3:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I didn't always agree with him -- but, then, I suspect he wouldn't expect everyone to. He had his reasons for the movies he liked, but he knew they were his, informed but still personal, reasons, not aesthetic diktats from the Critic's Mount. \u00a0And even when I disagreed with him,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33697,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/10\/movie-review-iron-man-3-2013.html","url_meta":{"origin":12322,"position":1},"title":"Movie Review: "Iron Man 3" (2013)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 10-May-13 10:19pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Tony takes a licking and keeps on ticking. \u00a0But will a somewhat more sophisticated Iron Man movie be, paradoxically, less interesting and entertaining? Dave Hill\u2019s \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 review of Iron Man 3 (2013) on Letterboxd.com I dearly love the first IM film, and despite some shallowness and obsession with explosions enjoyed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33155,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/12\/a-funny-roger-ebert-story.html","url_meta":{"origin":12322,"position":2},"title":"A funny Roger Ebert story","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Apr-13 11:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"No, actually, it is pretty funny. A story that could make Roger Ebert look bad. Too soon? When can I talk about Roger and Me? This post has been reshared 2 times on Google+ View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33091,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/05\/roger-ebert-and-the-mean-reviews.html","url_meta":{"origin":12322,"position":3},"title":"Roger Ebert and the Mean Reviews","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 5-Apr-13 8:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"Ebert was famous (infamous in some circles) for being more forgiving of some mass entertainment films if he thought they were fun (as he put it in his review of The Mummy, \"There is a little immaturity stuck away in the crannies of even the most judicious of us, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8601,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/09\/30\/brawny_energy.html","url_meta":{"origin":12322,"position":4},"title":"Brawny energy","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 30-Sep-05 6:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"Roger Ebert on Serenity: I'm not sure the movie would have much appeal for non-sci-fi fans, but it has the rough edges and brawny energy of a good yarn, and...","rel":"","context":"In "Firefly \/ Serenity"","block_context":{"text":"Firefly \/ Serenity","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-fireflyserenity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33080,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/04\/and-another-review-from-roger-ebert.html","url_meta":{"origin":12322,"position":5},"title":"And another review from Roger Ebert","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 4-Apr-13 7:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This one from +The Onion. \u00a0Cool.Reshared post from +Shannon TurlingtonThis made me tear up a little, and it's from +The Onion . Roger Ebert Hails Human Existence As 'A Triumph' CHICAGO\u2014Calling the overall human experience \u201cpoignant,\u201d \u201cthought-provoking,\u201d and a \u201ccomplete tour de force,\u201d film critic Roger Ebert praised existence Thursday\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40554,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12322\/revisions\/40554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}