Paramount Pictures

Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr.

Editor’s Note: Due to our growing concern that movies and blogs are two of the few places left in American culture where the truth can be told, we are going to be watching and reviewing more movies in the months ahead. Our reviewer is former newspaper man and expert movie buff Henry Rosenbush of Tuscaloosa, who blogs himself on one of our sister Websites, RosenbushCafe.com. Below is his first draft review written on the day the movie opened, today.

We saw the movie Thursday night in the local debut, however, and my impression is this: What I liked about Iron Man is that it was not just some jingoistic all American superhero special effects orgy.

The billionaire arms dealer anti-hero who you meet in an American humvee in Afghanistan in the opening scene is transformed into someone who wants to do good in the world, after his capture and escape, when he sees his company’s weapons in the hands of evil men. So he not only kills a few Middle Eastern extremists. He saves a few Afghan families too.

Review by Henry B. Rosenbush

Finally, Hollywood delivers a superhero who is middle-aged, rather than a nerdy kid, not from another planet, and devoid of superpowers without external reinforcement.

The Marvel Comics hero, creation of Stan Lee, provides exactly what is usually missing in the comic-to-movie-transliteration; witty, funny, profound and grounded in the reality of today’s turbulent Middle East. The bar was set Thursday, as Paramount Picture’s Iron Man opened in 4,105 theaters; it warrants the advanced hype as the summer blockbuster to overcome.

Downy is a perfect choice as the human champion turned metal man and in a delightfully wicked turn, Jeff Bridges, is top-notch as Obadiah Stane, surrogate father turned ruthless enemy.

Gwyneth Paltrow imbues secretary-cum-girl-of-all-trades Pepper Potts with surprising nuance and is pulchritudinous while the most profoundly affecting perf is delivered by Shaun Toub, as fellow prisoner, Yinsen. While other acting is essentially one-dimensional, including Rhodey (Terrance Howard), the major focus is on how one man transforms from callous arms supplier to defender of the oppressed and in that respect Downey provides plenty of shadings and subtext to his conflicted superman.

Aside from a climax that too closely resembles last summer’s Transformers, it nonetheless delivers the goods in every department from the dozens of special effects companies, production designer J. Michael Riva, cinematographer Matthew Libatique and especially Jon Favreau’s nifty direction that judiciously does not rush the story towards its climatic battle between Iron Men Stark and Stane.

Getting a leap on Warner Brothers’ Speed Racer next weekend, followed by Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Par’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man provides entertainment on several levels usually devoid in summer action films.

Tony Stark, disarmingly portrayed by Downy, is a supercilious skirt chaser, but brilliant scientist, as well as, supplier of advanced weaponry to the world.

The film wastes no time beginning with an assault on Stark’s military envoy in Afghanistan where everyone is killed. Before settling in on Stark’s transformation in a cave prison, the film jumps back 36 hours to show us the lifestyle of the ubiquitous and fantastically wealthy playboy. Stark has similarities to Bruce Wayne; ultra-rich, parentless and haunted by demons that will shape his character’s conversion. Both characters are not Superman; they are earth-bound and require technology and body armor to succeed as superheroes.

Marvel Comics purist may quibble with minor changes. Updated from the 1963 original, Jarvis is no longer Stark’s butler, having been upgraded to a computer that offers plenty of advice that is resoundingly ignored. The original enemies were Viet Cong, but the screenwriters have wisely changed them to a disparate group of terrorists under the leadership of bald-headed Raza (Faran Tahir), who professes to be a modern incarnation of Genghis Kahn.

After bedding a comely reporter, Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb), Starks heads to Afghanistan for a successful demonstration of the Jericho rocket to the military and the assault on the convoy and Stark’s capture.

In a scene that echoes the recent realization that General Electric is helping Iran with technologies that are being directly used against our soldiers in Iraq, Stark sees numerous weapons emblazoned with the Stark logo that Raza is using to wreck havoc in the region with his group of grungy and dangerous terrorist minions. The dual screenwriting team of Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum and Matt Holloway cleverly eliminate any indication of Islamic fundamentalist ideologies and instead focuses on how weapons are sold clandestinely to fanatics and the expected carnage that ensues.

Stark finds himself a prisoner of Raza, who wants his own Jericho missile. With shrapnel embedded in his heart, Stark later surreptitiously removes the power source from one of his weapons and like a nuclear pacemaker discovers what will later power his Iron Man suit. Forced to build the weapon, Stark and Yinsen ingeniously design the prototype suit even while the terrorist watch them on closed circuit screens. After Yinsen sacrifices himself to give Stark time to complete a download to the metal outfit, the film’s first glimpse of its application in battle is seen as the terrorist’s camp is decimated.

After crashing in the desert, Stark is rescued by the American military, but naturally leaves the crashed suit that will be later reassembled by Raza behind.

Stark’s return is met with skepticism as he announces, at a press conference, much to the dismay of Stane and stockholders, that he is discontinuing constructing weapons. With stocks plummeting Stane secretly begins making his move against his partner and later aligns himself with Raza, but not before Stark returns to Afghanistan as a new and improved red Iron Man to finish off many of the terrorists he left behind. After finding the remnants of the original suit in Afghanistan, Stane’s bodyguards execute all the terrorists, although Raza is seen being paralyzed and not killed on screen.

As expected, the special effects are amazing, from a wonderfully rendered first time night flight over Malibu, California to Stan Winston’s superb Iron Man suit being constructed, similarly to the first Robocop, albeit, with a far more intricate assembly. Ramin Djawadi’s score is a plus with an excerpt of the title track, Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, as the credit scrawl begins and remain through the end credits for a hip teaser featuring an uncredited popular African-American thesp who articulates the anticipated sequel‘s possible storyline.

Stark’s sincere conversion is genuine in a humanistic manner which is unique for science fiction-based scenarios while the repartee with Potts and well-timed witticisms add to his charm. Credit Downey for earning audience sympathy as he brings altruism to a character that in lesser hands would have been contrived and incredulous.

Possibilities into romance between Stark and Potts are unrequited with a near kiss interrupted. Their chemistry, however, hints that in future installments a relationship may blossom.

The only challenge to the sequel is revealed with Stark’s final clever quip, which I will not disclose, but suffice to say this may be the first superhero movie ending that wears its literal dénouement proudly as if to wink at the enthusiastic audience.

Testing the improved suit: Paramount Pictures

The trailer…

Paramount’s Iron Man, the first and some critics say the best of the summer movies for 2008, opens in some local theaters tonight. The summer season officially begins Friday. Watch for the review here and over at RosenbushCafe.com.

by Henry B. Rosenbush and Glynn Wilson

TUSCALOOSA, Ala., Feb. 4 - Without the blues and the electric guitar and Fat Tuesday, there would be no Obama, affectionately referred to in these parts as GoBama.

I don’t know who independent filmmaker John Sayles is going to vote for today or where he plans to celebrate Mardi Gras Day.

Stephen Hundley of Birmingham debuts in Honeydripper

But it may not be coincidence that he released his engaging musical comedy drama Honeydripper on the eve of Fat Tuesday AND Super Tuesday, just as Barack Obama is surging in the polls as the first black man in American history who may have a real shot at ascending to the presidency.

The scene at the historic Bama Theater, the last local palatial Depression era movie palace along with The Alabama in Birmingham, was buzzing with a record diverse crowd of 900, coming as close to filling the 1300-seat room with excitement as anyone can remember.

Filmed on location in several Alabama towns, including Greenville and Midland subbing for the fictitious town of Harmony, the first inkling you get of the place comes when itinerant guitarist Sonny Blake (the superb Gary Clark Jr.) steps off the train and says it looks like a nice town to find a place to play his guitar and sing.

But a railway station porter hints that all may not be so harmonious in Harmony.

“I’ve only been arrested once,” he says. “And the town was called Liberty.”

The subtext of simmering corruption revealed, the story drifts lazily in inoffensive fashion to the more creative side and uplifting world of rhythm and blues, although the racial component is always there, just underneath the surface. It’s 1950 Alabama, after all, well before Selma.

But aside from white Sheriff Pugh (Stacy Keach), a single scene with Mary Steenburgen and a cameo by Sayles as a whiskey delivery man, the film is inhabited primarily by rich Southern African-American characters who laid the ground work in many ways for Obama.

The film is book ended with two young black boys pretending to be musicians on the porch of a Southern shutgun house, reminiscent of most every child’s dream of one day becoming good enough at something to break the fame barrier - even if you are poor and black in America.

The story introduces a secession of colorful characters starting with Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover) who is about to lose his roadhouse lounge, the Honeydripper, over debt to the town’s big businessmen, black and white.

In fact, our first clue that all is not well financially is a thoroughly heartrending scene as house singer Bertha Mae (Dr. Mable John) performs to an empty house, while her consort Slick (Vondie Curtis Hall) urges her on anyway. She dies a few days later, however, symbolic of the passing of the old blues style that was drawing no audience after World War II to the new music with a more powerful sound you could dance to. The scene of her funeral down an Alabama dirt road brings back memories of another time before Interstate highways, Rock ‘n’ Roll and black men running for president.

On hand for much of the comic relief is Maceo (Charles S. Dutton) as Tyrone’s friend. We meet Tyrone’s wife Delilah (Lisa Gay Hamilton) in the midst of religious uncertainty, a black preacher and gospel choir beckoning the women especially away from the darkness of the bar. His stepdaughter, newcomer Yaya DaCosta as the lovely China Doll, falls for the tall and shiny Sonny right away - over eggs and bacon, biscuits and grits.

With an excellent score of gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz - fused with the unexpected origins of Rock ‘n’ Roll - composer Mason Darling and music supervisor Tim Bernett compile an impressive soundtrack to fit the drama.

The audience was reverent and appreciative, and the racial polemic was not lost on the older patrons, present company included, who lived through the era depicted in Honeydripper in the South. It was the same racial polemic that would have prevented the very audience assembled from mixing in public in the age of acoustic blues in the backwoods - and “Colored Only” signs across the tracks in town.

Glynn Wilson

Producer Maggie Renzi and  writer/director John Sayles answer questions after the show

Much has changed for the better since 1950 on the southern bigotry front, and Sayles the writer keeps the insipidness of prejudice encapsulated in Sheriff Pugh. Keach salvages his character from the usual stereotypical caricature by making him a rotund yokel with a fried chicken sandwich obsession, specifically from the struggling club owner’s wife. But he’s not a man who doesn’t know when it’s time to exit the scene and let people be.

With a concocted idea to save Honeydripper by attracting the regional celebrity Guitar Sam to play a one night stand, Tyrone expects to raise his family out of economic despair. But when Sam fails to show up with his guitar on the Saturday train, hospitalized for a knife fight in Memphis, a young guitar player who ends up in town looking for a chance to play is rescued from the cotton fields by day and the Harmony jail at night - and gets his opportunity to stand in for Sam and show off his homemade electric guitar.

Sonny immediately runs afoul of Pugh and is put on a work detail picking cotton. There is some smoldering potential violence involving two secondary characters whose actions will resolve an awful secret haunting Tyrone from his days as an up-and-coming piano player and his own run in with the ego of man - and a knife.

The bucolic scenery photographed by cinematographer Dick Pope reveals the rural south in pastels and browns while the production designer Toby Corbett reveals a keen eye for the verisimilitude of the period. All tech credits are superb for this low budget film. Once again all good films begin with a compelling scenario and strong acting rather than mind-numbing shootouts and car chases.

The film takes some time to get going with the abundant cast on hand. But kudos to Keb’ Mo’ as blind sage guitarist Possum who is subtly revealed as perhaps an apparition only seen by Sonny and Tyrone, showing up with sage advice at all the right times, himself playing the second guitar ever made. The devil got the first.

The introduction of Sonny’s homemade electric guitar provides a wonderful coda that segues nicely with the young boys from the opening scene, who evolve in the end in portentous ways you will have to see to judge. Some critics say the buildup took too much of the 2 hours and 2 minutes. But when it comes, the power doesn’t go off and the crowd packs in and what a new day it is for Harmony - and the Honeydripper.

The most disappointing weakness, aside from the feeling that the story could have even been stronger with more money and time, was the cheap sound system in the theater. Someone needs to write them a grant and find them a sound engineer. It was all mid-range and no bass, making some of the dialogue a tad hard to follow.

Honeydripper opens locally and in select Southern theaters February 8. It’s not only worth seeing. It should be a must see in these times, just to see how far we’ve traveled to get where we are today.

Glynn Wilson

Stephen Hundley, 16, the nephew of jazz drummer Foxy Fatts of Birmingham, played the drummer Young Henry in John Sayles’ film Honeydripper set in 1950 Alabama. I caught up with him outside the Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa, where the movie premiered Monday night. And there was Foxy, chewing on a toothpick as always, promoting his up-and-coming protégé.

In a celebration of Black History Month, the Bama Theatre in downtown Tuscaloosa will premiere John Sayles’s movie “Honeydripper” on Monday Feb. 4. The movie about the intersection of Civil Rights and Rhythm and Blues, which has been nominated for 2 NAACP Image Awards, will begin at 7:30 p.m.

“Blue Monday at the Bama” is sponsored by the Alabama Blues Project and the Arts and Humanities Council of Tuscaloosa, with support from the University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences.

There will be a reception with Hollywood producer John Sayles and director Maggie Renzi featuring live blues music featuring Henderson Huggins, Stephan Hundley, Willie King and Carroline Shines beginning at 6 p.m., and a question and answer session after the movie with Sayles and Renzi.

Tickets are $6 for students, $8 for Tuscaloosa Arts Council members and Friends of the Alabama Blues Project and $10 for general admission at the door.

For more information call the Alabama Blues Project at: 205-752-6263 or the Arts and Humanities Council of Tuscaloosa: 205-758-5195.

Danny Glover speaks about the importance of the movie Honeydripper in this YouTube video.

Noted movie critic Roger Ebert gave it 3 stars.