Se7en

In the end of the second millenium, especially from 1995 and on, there was a pre apocalyptic feel in the air, the internet was new, and people did not know what to expect from it, the united states were ruling the world without being accountable to anybody, and the popular culture was no diffrent to that feeling, one of the most prominent exemples is "Seven" by David Fincher, the shock film of that year that put Fincher and Pitt on the map.

Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is a police officer who is a week away from retirment, his young replacement is detective Mills (Brad Pitt), and Somerset has to brief him on the cases, Somerset is tired and disgusted of what the city became, and he sees his retirment as a failure to make the world a place worth fighting for.

Things take a dire twist when some strange murders start to happen, very calculated and following a certain ritual, first an obese man is killed in a very disgusting way , and then a successful laywer with , and then a pedofile, a pattern starts to form, and it seems that the killer is graphically illustrating the seven deadly sins, because the murderer manages to leave clues leading from murder scene to murder scene, with some macabre references to ancient books.

Things go from bad to worse, Somerset who is the older of the two uses his considerable knowledge to link the murders, while hard boiled Mills is losing his tempter, his recent moving to the city has causes his wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow) some adaptation troubles, the killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) seems to be playing the police department like puppets, and the graphical nature as well as the atrocity of the murders escalates, untill reaching the climatic superb ending where again, nobody gets away clean.

The movie is well known for it's desperate tone as well as it's brilliant cinematography, Somerset is desillusioned, he knows that the world sucks, but he can't understand John Doe who claims to have pure motives, I remember watching this movie at a young age, and it turnted me off everything for a while.

David Fincher has made great movies especially in that category, but he is more a technical director then an intuitive one, his collaboration with Brad Pitt, who plays here one of his most memorable roles, is undenaiably brilliant, and Morgan Freeman great performance counter balances all the others, he was discovered late, but he is a great actor.

The world has changed since 95 but arguably to worse, consider that this movie was made before 9/11, and gitmo, and the balloney invasion of Iraq, the morals decay had lead to a new race of criminals, and compared to those John Doe is a small time crook, but this movie is terryfying, not in the Exorcist sense, but in a more intellectual one, it raises questions and never answers a single one of them, it's like a downhill rollercostar ride that ends up in a tar pit, but it has a great rythm image and performances and can be considered a prequel to "Fight Club" by the same Fincher/Pitt, and we will soon have the occasion to speak about that one in greater detail.

Iron Man

When "Cartoon" is not synonymous of "Cheesy"


Lately superhero movies got better and better, the Spiderman series revived the genre, the Hulk series were disappointing, Dardevil don't even deserves being mentioned, but The new Batman series and the new Superman movie were great as well as the X-men, the second installation in the Batman series turned out to be industry saving with earnings that threatned the most supreme "Titanic" on the top of all time box office, beating all the star wars and the lord of the rings and the pirates of carribeans in the way.

Iron Man is one of these movies, the story is really simple, Tony Starks was a genius boy, son of a multimillionaire scientist who was a science legend himself, now he is the CEO of his father's company all the parties, girls and the ferraris a super playboy needs, and with achievments that would take a hundred lifetimes for any other, the only problem is that his company makes weapons, some of them he personaly invented.

A weapon's showcase goes wrong and Tony Starks is a prisoner and he has to face the fact that his weapons are not only in the hands of people who pretend to use them to protect America but in the hands of crazy extremists, who threaten him to build them the ultimate weapon, and instead Tony becomes the Iron Man, and has to make difficult choices about his allies, his life's work, and about the way he was raised to think.

The original story of Iron Man is as dark as the one of batman, his parents died both in a car accident, he has alchoholism problems, and he is somehow disgusted about his playboy life, but this movie choses to eclipse this part in the favor of a more cartoon like approach, you don't really see him very depressed save for one scene (and let's face it, we have batman to be depressed and gloomy), his worldview is incredibly simple for somebody that smart and that powerful, but he is always convinced he is doing the right thing, and the performance of Robert Downey Jr, is really good in the sense of that he is exactly the best choice for a guy who hit botom several times, and came back to top once again.

Jeff Bridges is almost a miscast, because he is a victim of his superperformance in "the big lebowsky", Gwyneth Paltrow is really surprising in the role of Starks personal assistant, and then again we shall remember that this is the first movie of a trilogy, so comparing it to "the dark knight" would be unfair, because it has to carry the weight of character introduction, and it is just a good example that even the cartoon approach can be successful if handled with creativity, and frankly we don't need Iron man to be as gloomy as batman, one Gotham City is enough !