I Likes To Watch

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Where do I begin? This movie had everything I wanted. Action. One liners. A really despicable villain. A twist. And lots of Tony Stark- at his best when most vulnerable, which was the majority of the movie. Iron Man 3 was entertaining as hell and I loved it.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

How I made it through this boring triptych about fathers and sons and the sins they commit, I’ll never know. Bradley Cooper could have just as easily been played by cardboard cutout of himself. Ryan Gosling wasn’t in the movie for nearly long enough. Emory Cohen reminds me of nearly every bro I went to undergrad with. Closeups and extreme closeups can only work so many times. The score. The shaky camera motorcycle scenes. I could go on but I will stop.

The main reason I didn’t like this movie is that its theme of “sins of the father” was never fully realized or explained. Ryan Gosling’s bad boy motorcross stuntman Luke mentions being abandoned by his dad, says he won’t do that to his son. OH, wait, what? He does do that to his son. Cooper’s cop Avery can’t connect with his son, has issues with his own father, chooses to be a cop rather than follow in his fathers footsteps to elected office. Oh wait what? He does leave the force and follow in his dad’s footsteps.

Ok, but that’s not it. Luke is never a father to his son. Instead he thinks of himself as a father figure. Son Jason grows up with a loving father who has been there since his birth, and raised him in a loving home. This, of course, is only hinted at in one very powerful scene and never explored. Yet, as soon as Jason learns a little about his real father, all life lessons are out the window and he is the embodiment of his birth father shines through, even his motorcycle skills. Sigh.

And that is the story of why I didn’t care for this film. The end.