Rated PG -13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content

Directed by Jon Favreau

Written by Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum, and John Sayles

Created by Stan lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, and Larry Lieber

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, Shaun Toub, and the best Stan Lee Cameo yet.

Wow…

Holy shit…

The first movie Marvel puts out & they totally fail to pussy it up.

/cries

I’m so proud of them. After the tsunami of mediocrity that SONY shoved down our throats last year, Spider-man 3, I was scared this one would be equally as forgettable.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me compose myself & start writing this one right. It deserves a well written review.

First of all, hi, I’m back, I’ve had to take a leave of absence from the movies to deal with some family emergencies, hopefully I’ll be able to watch more movies now & review them. Okay, onto Shell head’s cinematic debut.

This officially movie kicked ass. As did the soundtrack. In fact, I think the movie was enhanced by not having an orchestral theme for the main character. Unlike every other Superhero in a movie, Iron man has no theme, well not exactly. Better said he has no theme song, he does have a musical theme running throughout the movie. They chose Heavy metal for Iron Man. Yes, there was some original music by Ramin Djawadi, but for Iron man’s appearances they chose some classic metal songs (Classic to me anyway.) So all y’all that know me as metal head must’ve figured out that this made me happy. Not just because I’m a head banger, but because it fit. Iron man & an orchestral theme would just not have fit together. Iron man is cutting edge, state of the art top of the line. I don’t care if you would’ve had John Williams write the theme, it would have felt wrong. The character requires something newer than the tried & true theme music everyone else has. I’m not just saying that because it’s metal, electronica would have worked with the character too.

Those were my thoughts within the first ten minutes of the movie. It’s one hell of a ride. I hope y’all can put down GTA 4 & go see it this weekend, trust me, it’s worth it & your console could use the break, you been playing since Tuesday dammit!!

Seriously though Director Jon Favreau did a great job, he makes the origin exciting & presents it in such a way that he doesn’t bore us with backstory (Ang Lee, take notes, yeah there are a few other names on the list, but he’s the one I’m most pissed at. You know what you did!!) The origin did change a bit, for example the bad guys were no longer working for a Vietnamese warlord, they were now working for a middle eastern warlord. It makes some sense, the original story was written during the Viet Nam war, this is a different age with a different war. To the middle easterners that are tired of seeing your people portrayed as villains on the screen all I can say is at least they aren’t terrorists, and they aren’t the Big Bads of the story, they are just the guys that are there for the origin. The real bad guy is Obediah Stane (think Lex Luthor with a beard) more on him later.

Robert Downey Jr. hit this one out of the park. Masterful performance, his Tony Stark is like Bruce Wayne WITHOUT the stick up his ass. Now, understand that I am not a big Robert Downey fan (That doesn’t mean I think he sucks, it just means that putting him in a movie won’t guarantee that I will go see it) But I am glad they cast him as Tony Stark, he managed to bring a level warmth & humanity to the character that the guys at Marvel have been unable to hit since the Layton/Michelinie era (that’s the 1980’s for the geek-lore impaired) Seriously though, it’s been a long time since a superhero has been portrayed with this much humanity. Maybe it’s because he is still human, it’s the suit that has all the powers ( I’ll admit that being a multi-trillionaire counts as a super power, I mean super powers as in a cosmic accident gave him the powers to spit out burning puppies at his enemies or some such silliness) I’m so happy that Tom Cruise walked off the film, he would have made it suck. Tom Cruise can’t even make Tom Cruise seem human these days. Not saying that because he’s a scientologist, I know a few scientologists & they seem pretty normal. (BTW, is it true that he stormed off because he insisted on putting a nose on the armor? Can anyone verify this?) And as to the Alcoholism question, although they didn’t bring it into the forefront of the story, they didn’t have to, given Mr Downey’s past, just seeing him with a drink in his hand makes you want to take it away, or at the very least question the judgment of whoever the fuck gave it to him. So yeah he was perfectly cast as Tony Stark. Kudos to you dude, you brought the role to life. I seriously hope this gets you an Oscar nomination, I doubt it, but I sincerely hope you do.

Moving right along to Gwyneth Paltrow. Holy shit, I haven’t seen her on the big screen since Sky Captain (2004) I had forgotten how much screen presence she has. They had her turned up to a nine or a ten when they really only needed her at about a seven. I felt bad for Leslie Bibb, in their scene together Paltrow swoops in & takes total command of the scene, so much so that afterwards you don’t even remember if there was anyone in the scene with her. It was like watching a game of Mortal Combat and the winner getting a flawless victory. I can see why they hired her for the job, not many actresses could pull off the role. Virginia “Pepper” Potts is a triple threat role in the superhero genre. The character is Tony Stark’s “Alfred” (That’s a Batman reference, if you didn’t get it, WTF are you doing on this page?) She’s also Stark’s best friend, & finally she’s the romantic interest of the film. Those are some big shoes to cast for. A hard role to pull off, but she did it. Interesting side note, in the comic book there was a love triangle between Pepper, Tony & “Happy” Hogan (Happy played by director John Favreau, Can’t say I blame him for taking that role) They played that storyline WAY down, into non existence even. Shame, I would’ve liked to have seen it play out. Oh well, maybe in the sequel. (Hint, hint.)

Another hard role to pull off was that of Obediah Stane. See, up until now in just about every Super Hero movie, the villain has a burning personal hatred of the hero. Not so in Iron Man, here it’s just business. This gave Jeff Bridges plenty of room to actually play the character without having to resort to any of the stereotypical comic book villain cliches. I was worried about how this would play to the audience, would they still see him in the same light as the Green Goblin, Doc Ock, the Joker, or even Lex Luthor? (Well, maybe in the same light as Lex, they are both bald after all.) Of all of the Iron man villains in the comic book, none has ever put as big a hurt on Tony than Obediah Stane, For a while he was the most hated character in the marvel universe, but that story took years to develop, time they didn’t have in this movie. Not that Bridges didn’t make him odious, I just didn’t hate him as much as I did in the comic books, I’m sure with some extra screen time, they could have hit that mark.

But in the long run, the movie wasn’t about the bad guy, it was about Tony Stark, a character that we are introduced to who was on his way to becoming the bad guy, until he’s forced to make a reassessment of his lifestyle & values courtesy of his conscience/Dr. Yinsen (Shaun Toub), has a change of heart & decides to emerge as a good guy. In this day & age it’s a good story, because who is sure that they are doing the right thing. Which one of us doesn’t want to be a better person? I know I sure as shit I do, thus the appeal of Iron man, this isn’t a story about revenge (Batman), Good Vs. Evil (Superman), Great power = Great Responsibility (Spider-man), or even controlling the monster within us all (the Hulk. Okay, that’s what Ang Lee’s Hulk movie was supposed to be about, I have no Idea WTF he decided to turn it into, all I know is that Marvel is offering up another Hulk movie to try to make up for that cinematic bowel movement.) Iron Man is about Redemption. Pure & simple.

All in all the movie was a lot of fun, definitely worth seeing. I’m an old school Iron man fan (duh!) & I’m not bitching, so go see it

Is it kid friendly? If you have a problem seeing people drinking & carousing, then maybe, but those parts aren’t central to the plot, it’s a superhero movie, so there is violence of course, this review is much more offensive than anything in the movie, so you decide.

I give this movie a box of donuts & an iced triple ripple vanilla road monkey frappuccino served in an Iron Man glow in the dark collector’s mug.

Check out the trailer from Hellboy 2.  I got this one from a site called traileraddict.com. A big kudos to them for having all trailers on their site no matter where they came from. Incidentally this from the Yahoo movies exclusive premiere.

Paramount Pictures has announced it will be making a new animated film based on the ’70s sci-fi fantasy magazine Heavy Metal, with director David Fincher spearheading the project.

The new “Heavy Metal” film will consist of eight or nine individual animated segments, each of which will be directed by a different person.

Fincher will direct one of the segments; Kevin Eastman, the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” co-creator who is now owner and publisher of Heavy Metal, will direct another. So will Tim Miller, whose Blur Studios will handle the animation for what is being conceived as an R-rated, adult-themed feature.

Fincher, Eastman and Miller will produce the film. The studio will lock in the other directors shortly. The mag previously spawned a 1981 animated feature and 2000 sequel.

Source: Variety

This the trailer to the sequel of Lost Boys and yes after some back and forth looks like both COREYs will be in the movie!

Synopsis according to IMDB:
The sequel to the 1987 cult hit The Lost Boys takes us to the shady surf city of Luna Bay, California, where vampires quickly dispatch anyone who crosses their path. Into this dark world arrive Chris Emerson (Hilgenbrink) and his younger sister, Nicole (Reeser). Having just lost their parents in a car accident, the siblings move in with their eccentric Aunt Jillian and become new prey for the locals way of life. When Nicole unwittingly falls for a local vampire, Chris must locate and destroy the gangs lifeline before his sisters transformation is complete; to do this Chris finds himself relying on the expertise of none other than Edgar Frog (Feldman). Subtle references to characters from the original film, and cameos from returning actors offer homage to the Lost Boys legend and set a sinister tone of impending doom.

All I got to say is it is about damn time!

On Wednesday, March 12th at 9:56pm EST, The first teaser trailer for “The Incredible Hulk” starring Ed Norton and Liv Tyler will air on MTV, MTVU, MTV2, VH1, Spike TV, Nick at Nite and CMT. Following the on-air premiere, the trailer will be immediately posted exclusively on MTV.com in high-definition for a short period of time.

Don’t worry if you miss it on either TV or the Web because, the trailer will begin showing in theaters across the country on March 14, attached to Rogue Pictures’ Doomsday.

The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, hits theaters worldwide on June 13, 2008.

This is the first official image of The Lizard, the primary villain on this Saturday’s episode of “The Spectacular Spider-Man.” The episode, entitled “Natural Selection,” premieres March 15, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. ET/PT on Kids’ WB! on The CW.

Popular animation and video game voiceover actor Dee Bradley Baker provides the voice of Curt Connors/The Lizard. Baker’s credits include work on the hit shows “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Ben 10,” “The Fairly Oddparents” and hundreds of episodes within other animated series. Of note: For the Activision “Spider-Man” (2000) and “Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro” video games, Baker provided the voice for The Lizard, as well as several other villains.

In “Natural Selection,” Peter Parker and Spider-Man both must learn to own their choices when decisions made by Dr. Curt Connors transform Pete’s mentor into The Lizard.

I watched the premire episodes last week with my son. I was really suprised actually pretty impressed at how well the characters were being developed. It’s not your run of the mill/villian of the week cartoon show. My son had a great time watching too; which means it has enough story and plot for us older kids and keeps the little ones entertained as well. Winning formula guys! A++.

Gary Gygax, one of the creators of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, he was 69.

Gygax co-wrote the original D&D game in 1974, and went on to create the Dangerous Journeys as well as a number of board games. He went well beyond the role of game developer and became an icon to gamers, appearing as himself in episodes of Futurama and participating in discussions on role-playing-related message boards as well as appearing at gaming conventions everywhere.

In a 2005 interview with Game Spy interview Gygax was quoted as saying:

“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.”

Rest In Peace.

Photo via: Wikipedia

For Immdeiate Release

PRODUCERS OF BATMAN BEGINS AND THE DARK KNIGHT BRING YOU THE DC UNIVERSE ANIMATED ORIGINAL MOVIE BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT
ON DVD FROM WARNER HOME VIDEO
ON JULY 8, 2008!

The Title is the Third DC Universe Animated Original PG-13 Movie and will be timed for release with the much anticipated theatrical release of The Dark Knight.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, (February 25, 2008) –DC Comics, Warner Premiere, Warner Home Video and Warner Bros. Animation have collaborated to create a unique Batman experience in Batman: Gotham Knight. The all-new, original movie will arrive July 8, 2008 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The original movie will also be available OnDemand and Pay-per-View as well as available for download on the same day as release date, July 8, 2008.

Batman: Gotham Knight is a fresh and exciting new entry into the Batman mythos, spinning out of a 40-year history in animation including the Emmy®-winning Batman: The Animated Series, widely considered a pivotal moment in American animation. A cross section of distinguished creators, award winning producers, and acclaimed writers weave six interlocking stories that reveal Bruce Wayne’s journey to Dark Knight, each with stylish art from some of the world’s most revered animation visionaries.

Batman: Gotham Knight was headed by an impressive list of directors who have brought their distinctly different anime styles to the classic Batman character. The production was divided among three renowned studios – Studio 4ºC, Production I.G and Madhouse – and included the truly inimitable visions of directors Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki and Toshiyuki Kubooka. With stories written by several of the most talented writers of film, comic books, and animation, including Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (A History of Violence), David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), Emmy®-winner Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series), Jordan Goldberg (Associate Producer, The Dark Knight), and award-winning comics writers Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarello, Batman: Gotham Knight presents thrilling new adventures of Batman that spotlight several of Gotham City’s most dangerous villains, including the fearsome Scarecrow, the freakish Killer Croc and the unnerving marksman known as Deadshot. Batman: Gotham Knight is produced by Emma Thomas (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), Michael Uslan & Benjamin Melniker (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), Toshi Hiruma and Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series).

Batman: Gotham Knight will be available on DVD for $24.98 SRP. There will also be a 2-disc Special Edition DVD available for $29.98 SRP which contains additional bonus features. All the content from the 2-disc Special Edition DVD will be available on Blu-ray Disc for $34.99 SRP.

Batman: Gotham Knight DVD will feature incredible extras including:

• “A Mirror for the Bat: The Evil Denizens of Gotham City” - A stimulating documentary covering Gotham City’s most nefarious of characters, combined with a look into the symbiotic relationship Batman shares with his enemies.

• “Sneak Peek: Wonder Woman” - DC Universe animated original movie

• Audio Commentary - Featuring the filmmakers of Gotham Knight.

• Widescreen (1.78:1)

• 5.1 Dolby Digital

The 2-disc Special Edition DVD will feature even more incredible extras including:

• “Batman and Me a Devotion of Destiny: The Bob Kane Story” - The comprehensive chronology of the remarkable life of the creator of Batman.

• “Batman: The Animated Series” Bonus Episodes - Bruce Timm selects his favorite episodes from Batman: The Animated Series.

“Batman: Gotham Knight explores an exciting moment between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight,” said Paul Levitz, DC Comics President and Publisher, “and takes our fans on a very different visual trip through Gotham and Batman’s life. We’re extremely proud of this project, and look forward to adding to the momentum our DC Universe Animated Original Movie program has been building.”

“Batman: Gotham Knight is a perfect example of the type of release that Warner Premiere is becoming known for and that audiences are hungry for,” said Matt Bierman, Vice President, Production, Warner Premiere. “With incredible production values, a top-notch creative team and compelling, iconic characters from the DC Universe, Batman: Gotham Knight really raises the bar in the Direct-to-DVD arena and we’re proud to be a part of this production.”

“To date, over 13.5 million units of Batman animated titles have been sold and we are thrilled to release Batman: Gotham Knight, the next installment of the DC Universe animated original movies, which will be a hit with Super Hero and comic book fans alike,” said Amit Desai, WHV Vice President, Kids and Sports Marketing.

About Warner Premiere:
Warner Premiere is Warner Bros. Entertainment’s new direct-to-consumer production company focused on the development, production and marketing of feature-length content, as well as short form digital content for the growing home entertainment market. Warner Premiere is committed to being at the creative forefront in the evolution of quality product in the direct-to-DVD business and the digital space, creating material that exemplifies the commitment to story, production and brand equity for which Warner Bros. is known.

About Warner Home Video:
With operations in 90 international territories Warner Home Video, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, commands the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace. Warner Home Video’s film library is the largest of any studio, offering top quality new and vintage titles from the repertoires of Warner Bros. Pictures, Turner Entertainment, Castle Rock Entertainment, HBO Home Video and New Line Home Entertainment.

About DC Comics:
DC Comics, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, is the largest English-language publisher of comics in the world and home to such iconic characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Sandman. These DC Super Heroes and others have starred in comic books, movies, television series (both animated and live-action) and cyberspace, thrilling audiences of all ages for generations. DC Comics’ Web site is located at www.dccomics.com.

BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics.

About Warner Bros. Animation:
Warner Bros. Animation has been producing award-winning original animation since 1930, when it released its first cartoon, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub.” Since then, Warner Bros. Animation’s characters have set the standard for innovative, quality animation. Producing for network and cable television, online, home entertainment and feature films both domestically and internationally, Warner Bros. Animation is highly respected for its creative and technical excellence, as well as maintaining the studio’s rich cartoon heritage. Warner Bros. Animation also oversees the creative use of, and production of animated programming based on classic animated characters from the Hanna-Barbera and DC Comics libraries. Warner Bros. Animation is one of the most honored animation studios in history, garnering a grand total of six Academy Awards®, 35 Emmy® Awards, the George Foster Peabody Award, an Environmental Media Award, a Parents’ Choice Award, a Humanitas Award, two Prism Awards and 20 Annie Awards (honoring excellence in animation).

Here is another video interview from the FX Show 2008 in Florida. This time we talked to Greg Grunberg who stars as Matt Parkman on NBC’s Heroes. Greg goes into detail about the last episode of Season 2 right before the break and the writers strike.

Here is a quick interview we got with Nichloas Brendon (Xander Harris) star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This was shot at the FX Show 2008 in Florida.