Iron Man 3

Iron Man is dead. Again. Officially. Because of that bloke from Neighbours who was in Memento. And that woman who played Lynne Frederick in Frost/Nixon. Her botanical shenanigans and his evil nemesis master skills combine to create a loopy, loopy scenario in which the disabled can grow back amputated limbs. It's not all fun, they also sort of become human bombs.

To cover for the early mistakes in research and the explodey consequences that bloke from Neighbours creates a phantom terrorist overlord, using that British guy who played Gandhi who in this film isn't playing Gandhi, he's a slobby actor.

Tony Stark isn't dead. Obviously. Because of his brilliant Iron Man suit. Suits. Plural. Oh, he was already doing that in Two. Anyway. He is miles from his now blown up home and his brilliant Iron Man suit needs serious repair work. He sneaks into a kid's barn, grooms the kid and is arrested by the authorities. No, hang on, that's Jim'll Man 3. He sneaks into the barn, befriends the kid and together they learn stuff. Like the stuff I've already told you about the blowy uppy tendencies of the new limb gang.

Oops, that bloke from Neighbours has kidnapped Pepper Potts. Ha ha. It's a joke name. Get it? Well if you haven't got it after forty odd years of graphic novels and three movies then you're not much of a giggler, are you? He also kills the Lynne Frederick woman and wants to do another murdery thing to the chap playing the President (character names aren't all jokes so I'm not bothered about them that much). To prove his evilness. Again. As if we didn't know. We knew, didn't we? We bloody knew.

And it all kicks off at the end with many Iron Man suits plus War Machine (or the neutering rename, Iron Patriot), plus Tony, and eventually plus an almost explodey Pepper combining to beat the living fuckery out of Neighbours bloke. Couldn't happen to a more horrid bloke from Neighbours. Although he was actually quite nice in Neighbours. Remember? And he didn't release a cash-in pop single which is another reason to love him. Except when he's in Iron Man 3. Loathe him and be glad he's dead.

As ever the Stark character is tailor-made for Robert Downey Jr. Sardonic, laconic, a lush, a little louche, and yet someone who always wins through in the end. I get confused with the Marvel universe chronology; was Captain America: Civil War after this film? This one seems like a swan song for Downey but if he's donned the suit again for purposes of Avengering then he could continue clanking across our screens for some time to come. No argument from me. Even though this movie is more percussive than substantial.

Red Dawn

"I think at some point every bloke in this office has been up at the crack of Red Dawn," says David Brent early on.

Of course he doesn't. He's not even in the 2013 remake, let alone the original from 1984. Ricky Gervais was too busy looking like an Islington rent boy at the time so they cast Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen as two young brothers who lead a troupe of resistance fighters against an occupying communist force (Russians, Cubans, Nicaraguans).

Yes, I'm ploughing through guerrilla survivalist movies at the moment. They may provide handy tips for when capitalism dies somewhere during the Trump presidency.

Isn't it funny how if the guerrillas are Americans then they are heroes? The non-heroic guerrillas these days are the likes of IS but Red Dawn took its inspiration from the Afghan rebels battling against Soviet invaders. Ironic, given that those rebels would have been Mujahideen, literally jihadists.

Swayze's gang do not yell that God is great when they gun down enemy soldiers but they do shout "Wolverines!" the name of the high school football team now re-appropriated as a name for their fighting unit. It's not all boys, though. Jennifer Grey, like Swayze and Sheen, would use this movie as a springboard to even bigger starring roles in iconic 80s films.

We get some insight into the human side of one of the invading commanders, a Nicaraguan I believe,  whose past experiences as a freedom fighter in his own country allow him a more sympathetic opinion of the troublesome Wolverines than his Russian overseers.

A small band of kids against the might of combined communist forces isn't likely to get you great odds in a betting office and slowly their numbers dwindle as raids, the occasional betrayal and sometimes just youthful inexperience begin to pick them off. It's left to the two brothers to make one final assault into their occupied home town to exact as much vengeance as they can while the two other survivors head for 'Free America' to spread the news that guerrilla warfare is having some effect down south.

When it was released smack bang in the middle of the paranoid Reagan era, Red Dawn stirred and shocked audiences. It doesn't stand up quite so well in the early twenty-first century when small cells of attackers gun down civilians in city centres across Europe in the name of a distorted vision of religion. And America itself probably has more issues with white supremacists and crazed loners than coordinated terrorists, something successive governments since Reagan's time have been reluctant to acknowledge.

As a testament to the early promise of Patrick Swayze and as proof that Sheen never developed deeper aspects to his acting skills, Red Dawn is an interesting document of a more politically naive if just as polarised time.