| Flicks

FLICKS: In the House & Iron Man 3

Posted on 09 May 2013 by LeslieM

By Dave Montalbano

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

Opening tomorrow, In the House is a French movie with English subtitles. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is the Language Arts teacher and Claude (Ernst Umhauer) is the gifted student. Claude is given an assignment … write about your best friend. Claude writes about a classmate that he is tutoring in math.

While, bored with most students’ essays, Germain is intrigued with Claude’s story, who concludes each page with “to be continued.” Each night, Germain reads Claude’s essay to his hot wife, Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas), who treats the tale as a Harlequin Romance.

This film is a story within a story. Character perception shifts every five minutes. One is not certain if Claude’s experiences In the House are teen fantasy or potential criminal activity, which raises boundary issues between a teacher and his apt pupil. This is a film that will keep you guessing.

After the triumph of Marvel’s The Avengers, it would be hard to bring Marvel characters down to earth. However, the core of each Marvel superhero is their human vulnerability. After saving the world and looking into the dark abyss, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is suffering from PTSS – Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Iron Man 3 opens on New Year’s Eve 1999, nine years before the events of the original Iron Man. Callow Tony Stark was wooing Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) and snubbing young scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who wants Stark’s funding for a chemistry project.

Fourteen years later, Killian and Stark cross paths. Killian reveals his history with Stark’s current girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Before a love triangle can solidify, the evil Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) issues terrorists attacks upon the United States of America and Tony Stark’s personal property. The fate of Planet Earth is not in question in Iron Man 3, but the fate of Tony Stark’s world and soul is.

Both In the House and Iron Man 3 are successful movies for their respective audiences and will provoke discussion. Only Iron Man 3 will be on the IMAX screen for five more days before it is bumped by Star Trek Into Darkness.

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