Why ed will be giving Iron Man 3 a miss today

I think i'll give Iron Man 3 a miss for today.  Feel kind of foolish making the effort for a movie that is sure to be worse than the comic.  The comic is the bare minimum. 

A movie that is a watered down version of even a comic is certainly quite the insult to the intelligence....unless one's intelligence is on par with a 10 year old that is.  Oops. This is not meant as an insult if you're one of those waiting with bated breath for the movie.  It just describes you that's all.  Take heart, you're not alone in your idiocy.  So you can self-servingly confuse it for normal since most these days are like that ;)

I was brought up on 70s movies, where effects don't often take the place of a good storyline, atmosphere, etc.  To be honest, 40s-50s movies are even better.  That applies to both American and Tamil films as well -  with the latter having quite a bit of philosophical stuff which americans would probably not be able to appreciate without suffering a possible cerebral event.  A great movie would be a fusion of Tamil (philosophical, critical dialogue, vibrance), Japanese (philosophical, atmosphere, avant garde storyline), American(effects), and British(logical, dialogue, storyline) approaches toward movie-making.  To confuse the bulk of American movies for a 'movie' is to confuse the icing for the cake.

...frequently, after watching an american movie, i feel like one of the blokes in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle who pays for a mail-order bride, and gets a blow-up doll instead.

If you don't 'move with the times' like unthinking idiots do, you'll be pretty much appalled by the quality of movies these days.  If it can immediately appeal to a child, then it doesn't say much about the intelligence of adults who flock to see it. (though i have to admit that i was very much appealed to Jesus Christ Superstar when i watched it as a child....I wouldn't say it was a child's movie.....perhaps i was pretty mature for my age....which might explain why i wasn't disinclined to reading Orwell, Hemmingway, amongst others, between the age of 10-12)  I need more than effects.  I need substance - depth, language, twists, complexity.  If i want something simple or shallow, i'll just stick to porn, or the company of most of my friends in singapore ;)



But the thing is, people have gradually become accustomed, and underdeveloped as a consequence, to movies that present effects, camera shakes, flashing lights, gore, sex, etc, as evidence of a good storyline.  A good story is being redefined in tandem with the reduction of the cranial mass of the masses (which might explain why a doctor who looked at my brain scan a year or so ago in singapore, after a fall which required such a scan, remarked, with raised brows even, that my brain was 'very developed'....i thought it was a strange thing to say.  Perhaps i'm just normal, but its others whom are a bit, for want of a better word, retarded....;) ) 

Movies these days basically stimulate your reflexes and your primitive proclivities, and makes you 'feel'.  Thereafter, you leave feeling all hyped up, or tired for the experience, and think you've gotten your money's worth.  But those who operate from the brain when it comes to movies will feel kind of pissed off.  That might explain why those cheap scare tactics in horror movies, or effects, hot chicks, etc, etc, leave me yawning or drifting off into sleep.  It's not that i don't like hot chicks for instance, but i expect more than that from a movie.  But frequently, after watching an american movie, i feel like one of the blokes in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle who pays for a mail-order bride, and gets a blow-up doll instead.

...it also doesn't help that Iron Man is basically an effort to whitewash the capitalist elite (as a filthy rich bourgeois like Stark is still presented as a hero despite his class causing millions of deaths globally), and promote America as the hero-supremo via his character, amongst others.

Some might say, 'Hey, who gives a f*ck about what you think is a good movie, i'm still enjoying it, that's all that matters!'  No mate, the more you are inclined toward the juvenile, the more you'll miss out on the greater pleasures of life, or getting even more from the little things in life, including Iron Man 3.  And besides that, you're going to lose the intelligence required to have enough foresight to recognise and resist those evils of today whose consequences you are going to moan about tomorrow. 

And besides that, it doesn't help that Iron Man is basically an effort to whitewash the capitalist elite (as a filthy rich bourgeois like Stark is still presented as a hero despite his class causing millions of deaths globally), and promote America as the hero-supremo via his character, amongst others, so that the world will have yet another reason to overvalue them relative to others.

I'll still check out Iron Man 3 if i'm passing by next week or thereafter, just to confirm my suspicions that it is a Made-By-America and therefore, Made-For-Kids movie, and also to eke out whatever little pleasure it might give me.  Like i said to someone recently, most people go into such movies and feel thoroughly entertained by it.  For me, i can at best get only half entertained because my intellectual half is left unsatisfied.  But, i know how to use that to feed the primitive and child-like half of my persona so that it can translate to greater insight or achievement in my adult half.  In fact, I take the 'hero' character and spirit and channel it to feed my reservoir of vigour which i then cross-apply in other arenas.  But for most, these superheroes just feed and reinforce their primitive and child-like half and waters down the latter.   It just serves as a holy relic which they worship outside of themselves whilst they go about even more accepting of their mundane lives as a consequence.   These heroes don't serve as a stimulus to be heroic themselves.  In all of these, lies the problem.

Alright, that's all for now.  The ed-venger signs out. ;)  Woosh!


ed