The Bridge, Iron Man, Funeral in Berlin, & Billion Dollar Brain

The Bridge is a documentary about a year in the life of the Golden Gate Bridge. Focusing mainly on the 24 suicides that occurred during that year. The director actually filmed 23 of them. It's insane to watch people jump to their deaths. There were also stories of two attempted suicides, one woman was stopped by a photographer who started to take pictures of her as she climbed over and eventually dragged her back over the railing, and one guy who jumped and broke a lot of bones in the fall but survived. There are interviews with many family members, and it's kinda rough to watch all the people try to make sense of people killing themselves. It's painful.

Iron Man is crazy fun. Considerably better than say, almost every other superhero film. It's much lighter than The Dark Knight, and Robert Downey, Jr. basically pulled a Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribbean. He's been awesome for a long time, but it finally gets him huge, huge, huge movie star buzz. I feel like I am a poser, because I geeked out when Agent Coulson showed up and introduced himself as an agent of "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Engagement and Logistics Division", due to its obvious abbreviation as SHIELD. And of course, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Definitely enjoyable, and recommended to anyone who has no problem believing a man could fly. Especially one that isn't as stupid as Superman.

Funeral in Berlin is the second in the Harry Palmer series of British spy films based on Len Deighton's novels after The Ipcress File, which I saw some years ago. For a long time, Funeral in Berlin wasn't available on Netflix, which contributed to my inability to watch it. This is actually slightly better, a real spy story, and Michael Caine is very comfortable in the role. It's basically a more realistic James Bond, about trying to secure a defection of a Soviet colonel. I really wasn't expecting it to also include bits including the Mossad and Nazi war criminals. The bureaucratic references were expected.

Billion Dollar Brain is the last Harry Palmer movie with Michael Caine made in the 60s, and therefore the last one I plan on watching. He made one in the mid-90s but it wasn't based on a Len Deighton novel. This one is about a clearly fascist (his logo is extremely similar to a swastika) Texas oilman who has a messiah complex and a huge computer that is going to tell him how to foment revolt in Latvia and take down the Soviet Union. It's not nearly as strong, as it is kinda ridiculous. Too James Bond-y, but not Connery, it's more Moore. Definitely a disappointment after the first two strong ones in the series.