tideland (2005)

terry gilliam's most recent film, the financially underwhelming (now theres a surprise...) "tideland" proved to be an enriching experience. the overtly joyful story set amongst incredibly bleak surroundings draws obvious comparisons with guellermo del toro's "pan's labyrinth" and "the devils backbone".

jodelle ferland stars as the young girl jeliza-rose, in a performance that is best described as outstanding, especially when you consider the nature of the story and the fact that shes playing several roles (the dolls etc), and the fact that for the most part she is the sole actor on screen. brendan fletcher plays dickens, a heavily mentally handicapped boy in a role that saw my thoughts turn those i had upon initially seeing rinko kikuchi playing a deaf in babel; i presumed that it must be a genuinely disabled person playing the role. alas i was wrong, which only serves to show how impressive the performance was. there are cameo appearances from jeff bridges and jennifer tilly as jeliza-rose's ill-fated parents.

while the film took its time to get going, once it did i was obsessed with what was going on, which surprised me a great deal. the film is about being a child, as explained by gilliam's introduction to the work, and more importantly, it feels like you are watching the film as a child. gilliam clearly has a lot of passion for "tideland", and that projects clearly on to the project.

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.