se7en (1995)

david fincher's creative debut (some of us dont like to talk about alien3!) represents, for this viewer at least, one of the highlights of the cinema of the 1990's. the pacing, the style, the performances all represent what i would consider to be the ultimate in cinematic expectation. stylistically the film shows the streets and locations of the unknown city to be a hellhole lit starkly by rain (rain features in every external scene with the sole exception being the desert-set finale), with the editing matching the pitch and tone of the onscreen interaction subtly but aptly.

in terms of performances ''se7en'' hinges on the transitionary period between morgan freeman's 'william somerset' and brad pitt's 'david mills'. the concept of the transitionary nature of their relationship hints at far more than what is on screen, with the subtext being reminiscent of this relationship in a way. morgan freeman as the grizzled detective who's seen too much and had enough performs in his own unique manner before it became cliche, while pitt as the rookie of sorts follows his work in twelve monkeys with another assured performance. gwyneth paltrow underperforms as pitt's wife, an act which is only a positive thing, as its easily the performance of her career. kevin spacey, unbilled as john doe practically reinvents the psychopath in one foul swoop. the role is reminiscent of a witless hannibal lector, minus the unintentional self deprecation-providing sequels and overt performance, and unbelievably the character still manages to completely shock and disturb almost 15 years on.

brad pitt would later go on to work with fincher on ''fight club'' five years later, and again in this years "the curious case of benjamin button'', with the partnership proving incredibly fruitful. i see their relationship as akin to one of the classic director/actor pairings, along the lines of scorsese/de niro or huston/bogart, and feel that both compliment each other hugely.

iron man (2008)

jon favreau's iron man marked a watershed in comic book movies. for the first time marvel, as a company, had the means by which to produce its own films. while it may not sound like a huge deal to the unaware, the concept of marvel owning the cinematic rights to its own characters is something of a golden age (pun intended for those who'd get it) for the fans. basically it means that the characters are free to cross over within each others film, a conceit popular within the world of comic book films but so far unexplored in the film universes due to the fact that while sony may own spider-man, fox own the x-men, and neither are too fond of the other using "their" property for financial gain. anyway, now that marvel exist as a bona-fide film studio the hypothetical capabilities for a character like iron man to appear in an incredible hulk film does now exist. and it did in fact happen in the summer of 2008. all of this is leading to a grande meeting of the marvel universe in the summer of 2011 when all of the flagship marvel characters will appear in "the avengers".

aside from a hopeful future, iron man provides more. more in the shape of an entertaining two hours of blockbuster cinema. robert downey jr shines as tony stark, the alcoholic billionaire who becomes iron man after escaping capture by a topicla bunch of thugs. downey jr is so perfect in the role, that if it werent for the fact that the character of stark is actually 2 years older than downey jr himself i would expect that the character was written with him in mind.

where the film lacks the most, although admittedly on second viewing it wasnt as shortcoming as initially felt, is in a suitable villain to pit against stark. while jeff bridges is adequete enough, his obadiah stane sadly feels lacking, especially in light of there being such an iconic villain in this summers other superhero yarn.