An anticlimactic election, and other, better things

[alexsarll]

Well, it's not great, especially given prior projections of the Lib Dems smashing through and ending two party politics for good, but it's not as bad as it could have been either. Cameron doesn't have the majority to rip off his cuddly mask and reveal Zombie Thatcher underneath; the Greens got an MP and Galloway, the Nazis and the Christians didn't; Brown is giving the distinct impression of an unwanted party guest who has finally realised that he should maybe leave...there are seats still to declare even before the coalitions are hacked out of the rough stone, but I suspect this is liveable. Though it would help if Labour diehards would stop these panicked claims that Clegg has 'endorsed' Cameron. No, he's said he will talk to them first but they "must prove they can govern in the national interest". Could the code be much clearer? Talk of an endorsement just plays into Tory hands, that's the narrative they want to spin.

I'd been given to understand that Iron Man 2 was a bit of a disappointment. Huh? OK, so it wasn't perfect. Stark should have slagged around a bit more. His dad (Roger Sterling!) chose an unnecessarily Dan Brown way of telling his son the structure of the new element. And - though this is a fairly standard complaint when it comes to superheroes - Tony could have ended the whole problem in in Monaco with one Iron Man-suited punch to Vanko's non-suited head, which would also have been a nice precursor to the drunk repulsor/melon scene later. And the new Rhodie isn't a patch on the first film's: there he was the friend who tries to be a conscience but then gets dragged into the misbehaviour, here there was no chemistry so he just came across as a wet blanket.
But! In general, they just did what worked so well before, and threw awesome things at the screen while keeping just enough of a plot that it didn't feel stupid. Mjolnir! Cap's shield propping up a basement particle accelerator! Black fucking Widow, mmmm. Justin Hammer being exactly the sort of wannabe-hip prick we all love to see fail. Senator Stern, essentially the Dean from a frathouse comedy. Mickey Rourke being crazy and aggro but also a genuine threat. I loved it.

Justified, like Luther, sees a former HBO star back and playing a cop whose relationship to his ex-wife is not calculated to see him keep his badge. It is also, however, rather good. The lawman this time is Timothy Olyphant of Deadwood (also the villain in Live Free or Die Hard), essentially playing the same character (right down - or up - to the cowboy hat), except with slightly less of a stick up his ass. He never draws his sidearm except to shoot to kill. Fortunately, he's very quick on the draw. He's back in the Kentucky mining town where he grew up and chasing a former acquaintance who's now a white supremacist asshole (not exactly a challenging departure in terms of roles for Walton Goggins, either - he was formerly dickhead Shane on The Shield). So far it's nothing radical or new, but it is very well-constructed and thoroughly gripping.

Comments

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

The last of Justin Hammer's failed Iron Man suit tests freaked me out too much to concentrate. I couldn't stop my brain filling in back story for the unfortunate volunteer and the dashing of hopes and dreams and the sheer pain of that WRENCH threw my brain a bit.

Th-this kind of thinking is probably one of the reasons I'm in therapy! :s

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Whereas I was just cracking up throughout the failed tests. I may well be a psychopath, but at least I'm happy!

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, lovely RDj, that might cheer me up.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yep - he's a stupendously drunk rich, genius, superhero, AND cute. There's a whole 'hey, maybe he shouldn't be so drunk and arrogant' subplot going on but I just thought no, really, he should.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

*least surprised face ever*

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

I love Walton Goggins because he looks like the undead Tom Cruise. Despite having never seen him act in anything.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Then how come you're even aware of him? He doesn't exactly have the celeb profile whereby I knew about eg Zac Efron long before I'd seen him in anything.

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

I stumbled across him when I was looking around on Imdb for a 'cast Pattern Recognition' thread on the William Gibson forum.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Not having read anything he's produced this century, I cannot comment.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Cameron doesn't have the majority to rip off his cuddly mask and reveal Zombie Thatcher underneath

I think it is in the interests of the nation, however, that he is allowed to do this for a short period of time.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Presumably he will try, and then be defeated, and I will larf and larf and larf. Meanwhile, I am too busy shaking my head at the naivete of all the posts failing to understand how coalition- and mandate-building works in the event of anything but a clear majority. I suppose partly it can be blamed on the system with which people were raised, but really, some of it should just be obvious.

[superba]

I thought the detail of Hammer having blatantly fake tan stained hands was a stroke of genius.

[superba]

Did you see the post credit sequence btw...?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah - hence 'Mjolnir!' above. Unlike the first film's, I'm not sure how much it would mean to anybody not up on the comics - whereas you don't need to know about Ultimate Nick Fury to be impressed that Samuel L Jackson just turned up in an eyepatch, a hammer isn't intrinsically impressive. But to those of us who do know...wow.

I didn't register the fake tan, but that is a brilliant detail, and exactly the sort of thoroughness which makes the films.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

But then I'm hard-pressed to think of a time when he hasn't been.

I met an opera singer yesterday who had seen the film and not stayed past the credits, but got *very* excited when he heard what he'd missed.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, no.
We asked him, how many opera singers are there? Like, would it be stupid if we said, hey, I know another opera singer, do you know her?
He said, that'd be a bit like if you said, hey, you're gay, I know this other gay person, do you know them?
I wasn't having this. First of all, there must be more gays than opera singers, or people would court the Opera Vote and the Soprano Pound. Second, I've never known anyone get drunk and turn opera singer for a night.