The Happy Medium, or, Finger from the Dam

Ice Station Zebra (1968)
directed by John Sturges
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults

Jaws (1975)
directed by Steven Spielberg
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults

Walker (1987)
directed by Alex Cox
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Sorry, We're Open (2008)
directed by Joe York
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Jillien

Iron Man (2008)
directed by Jon Favreau
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at Oxford Studio Cinema

Ah, the inevitable flood post of a weekend watching movies with an out-of-town friend! Proof that no good summer blockbuster like Jaws goes unpunished, Iron Man needs only itself to exhibit how much further the peripheral women (mothers, wives, and bystanders) of Spielberg's warmest film can be edged towards the two horizons of matron and whore. Ice Station Zebra does away with them completely, and if that's not the reason why Sturges' film followed Howard Hughes into death, the deep patriotism in finally outing Ernest Borgnine as Public Enemy No. один (my own American wish since Airwolf) is at least a feat of engineering on par with special effects that hold up better than the actors have.

Walker is too much, and finally very funny. Ed Harris is so serious an actor that his self-seriousness here is a light stitch sewn deftly through burlap, while everyone wonders how the sack stays tied. That Cox's movie might have been made last year makes it obvious more than prescient, but the presumptive question of how many times I need to be reminded of mankind's failures can make even the small graces of Ron Shapiro's far memories honestly worthwhile. I have an easier time imagining a link between Ron Shapiro and the three men aboard the Orca than the director's credit that unites Alex Cox, Joe York, and Steven Spielberg, so here's to characters.