herbiehancock

No 406 - Iron Man Director - John Favreau Let us begin with the clear cold facts. Robert Downey Jr is perfect as Tony Stark. He is a great character, with superb dialogue and he manages to get cracking performances from the cast around him. The film zips along and the dialogue crackles and the whole thing leaves me with a massive smile on my face. This is Downey Jr at his most wise ass and his most ego - inflated. Look at him, he's one second away from declaring himself the Messiah. And that's why he's so fun to watch. He is a hard drinking, hard partying, beast of a man. Who has come from a world where he isn't held responsible for anything he does. If I could do anything, as a job, I would opt to be a billionaire playboy. So Stark makes excellent viewing. Which brings us to the first major problem with this Iron Man film. Large chunks of the film (though not as large as the sequel) have Robert Downey Jr replaced with a clinking clunking piece of CGI . This is the ...

No 43 – The Big Lebowski Directors – Joel (and Ethan) Coen When I was a lad, Nu-Metal was all the rage; and though it tickles me to think of it now (as my musical tastes fall much more in to the twee and lo-fi bracket), at the time I would take great pleasure listening to the big, loud, discordant, screamy people. Besides the bands one might have listened to on Kerrang ! there were also the local bands of Oxfordshire . Namely, Centre Negative (too weird, even for me) and Coma Kai (who I quite liked). ‘But how does this fit into a whimsical sweary comedy about identity?’ I hear you ask… Well, when I bought the Coma Kai EP , the first track opened (after a prolonged Peter and the Wolf remix) with Walter’s insane shouting. “Do you see what happens Larry? Do you SEE what happens Larry? Do. You. SEE what happens when you FUCK a STRANGER in the ASS?” So those tenuous elements of my fifteen year-old life lead to my first aural dabble with The Big Lebowski . It ...