Let
me set this up. I’m a comic book fanboy. I tried to get my dad to invest in
Marvel Comics in 1988. Of course, it was in the toilet until that little movie
called Spiderman. Well, one of my favorite Marvel characters has been brought
to the screen by no less than two separate writings teams. But, of all the
comic book adaptation (not graphic novel) movies (Spawn, Blade, Ghost Rider,
X-Men, Hell Boy, Fantastic Four, Hulk, etc.), Iron Man is probably one of the
best. Instead of the critical fanboy/screenwriter mind taking over (like when
I watched X-Men–why the hell is Rogue in Canada?), I enjoyed the ride–savoring
nearly every moment of it. The key to why I liked it–they stayed true to the
spirit of the original Iron Man, modernized it for present time, but kept many
of the details from the original series (inclusion of the original song, the
original look of Iron Man from 1963, and even kept the Yinsen name for the
physicist who saves Tony’s life). The action sequences were downright breathtaking,
and the writers/director found a way to humanize and give character arcs to
the freakin’ helper robots.
Of course, Gwyneth was underutilized and very thin, physically, but Jon Favreau
did an excellent job of getting great performances from his actors (OK, they
don’t need a whole lot of help), but he out-transformd Michael Bay’s Transformers,
and made Bryan Singer’s Wolverine look like well-adjusted compared to Tony
Stark/Iron Man. Kudos to Jon, Marvel, Paramount, Avi Arad, and of course the
writers – Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway. Jeff
"The Dude" Daniels was absolutely convincing as a bad guy, from minute one.
That shaved head/goatee and power suits thing really worked for him.
Although, every once in a while I kept thinking he would mix himself a white
russian instead of all that single malt throughout the movie. Finally, I have
to make particular mention of Robert Downey Jr. He
was absolutely charming and believable as Tony Stark. I can’t wait for the
next one.
On a related note, Stan Lee is creating 10 characters for Virgin Comics. Cwazy.
Virgin is already working with Guy Ritchie, John Woo, Nick Cage, Jenna Jameson
(no kidding), and Hugh Jackman.
Subtext
is such a hard concept to grasp. I consider it an advanced writing
technique. Yet, there are hardly any resources that describe how subtext
is used and how to develop your craft using it. My new favorite book on
the subject is Charles Baxter’s The Art of Subtext. I’ve read it twice already
and I think it’s the best $10 I’ve spent in some time. Not only is this
an extremely intellectual, literary, and erudite read, but it is entertaining,
inspiring, and wholly applicable in a pragmatic way to screenwriting. Baxter
has broken out the use of subtext across dialogue, description, and talks
about blocking and setting the scene. Very cool. Finally, he provides an
in-depth discussion of the description of characters when we first see them
in a piece of fiction–food for thought for screenwriters. Do we describe
facial features, clothes, delve into the psychology (wait, that’s for novelists,
right?) of the character, or how ridiculously good looking they are? I don’t
know, read the book and find out.
