The Filmcake

January 5th – January 11th

The Dark Knight- I watched this one again from the Digital Copy that was included with the Blu-ray disc. It’s the first movie I’ve bought that included this separate feature that makes transferring to your iPod a painless procedure. It is certainly quite a transition to watch scenes meant for IMAX on a 2″ screen. I certainly don’t envision watching many movies this way. It’s serviceable enough for a movie you’ve seen a half-dozen times and can afford to miss a great deal of scale. And it might be a worthwhile time-killer for a dialogue-heavy throwaway comedy or something. But an iPod screen is anything but cinematic. There’s nothing big about it whatsoever. I certainly will not be watching any movies for the first time in this format (in the foreseeable future anyhow).

Ballast – See previous post.

Iron Man- I really liked the first two-thirds of this one. The evolution of Tony Stark/Iron Man was a joy to watch. Robert Downey Jr of late has continued to amaze. Prison escapes are ready-made for thrilling cinema. And the spoils of the crazy rich and the gadgets they can create (or ordered created) are like visual candy. Whether it be Batman or Iron Man, I could watch the money spending and gadgetry all day. But the last third of this initial installment of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man seemed like just that. It seemed to be more concerned with setting up a sequel than maintaining a story. The secondary characters (Stane, Potts, Rhodes) got short shrift. Not knowing any back story nor which of these secondary characters might play larger roles in the future, the last third seemed a bit empty to me. Maybe this is the best Favreau can do with the material. After all, what pleases the initiated and what pleases the uninitiated are not going to be the same. I can accept that. With that, I’m willing to wait for the next installment and give it a go. This one was likeable enough.

Flight of the Red Balloon- It seems entirely pointless for me to say much about this film after only one viewing. I feel like there was so much to absorb in this film…if not for my own mental saturation. I need my own personal David Bordwell to walk me through the film. At the very least, I need to familiarize myself with Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (which I’ve never seen but is now at the top of my Netflix queue) before I say a word.