Iron Man 3: Good But Not Great

I went to see Iron Man 3 over the weekend. Twice. With Iron Man 3 opening on May 3rd, Star Wars day on May 4th, and Cinco de Mayo on, well, May 5th, I decided to make a four-day weekend out of it and took vacation days on May 3rd and May 6th. Monday was for, you know, recovering. And who likes Mondays anyway.

My old comic book movie posse reunited for a Friday evening showing of Iron Man 3 and we were not disappointed. Well, I was initially bummed about Ben Kingsley's Mandarin, but then I remembered my previous rant and decided that the twist was worth it. Hell, I was about as surprised as Rhodey was in the movie.

It's pretty rare that movies surprise me anymore. So the surprise sort of endeared me to the movie and the character. Of course, I'm tip-toeing around a spoiler here. And I had no idea it was coming; which is also a rarity given that what I read on the Internet has the potential to spoil just about any surprise. So I have to hand it to the Iron Man 3 secret service, because they kept this twist well under wraps.

So Iron Man 3 was good. I'm not sure how many thumbs or stars or tomatoes I would give it. But it's good. It's not as good as the first Iron Man movie, but it's better than the second one. It won't break into the ranks of my top three Marvel movies. The Avengers, Iron Man, and X2: X-Men United (although, I still hate that title) are all safe in their respective spots.

I also took my nephew to go see it (after I saw it with my friends) and he enjoyed it. With a PG-13 rating, it's probably not a great movie to show a seven-year-old. I'm the crazy uncle. I can get away with stuff like that.

The cause and effect or choice and consequence story-line was brilliant. Tony Stark was/is a little prick and he did things to make many enemies. The things we do can come back to bite us in the ass. Tony is stuck dealing with these things from his past as well as the revelation that occurred to him in The Avengers: he's just a guy in a suit.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to delight: I'm looking forward to what's coming next. Especially the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Xeno-swag: Anticipating Aliens

Certain franchises just stick with me. Perhaps the one that I chatter on about the most is Resident Evil. The RE universe has stuck with me because it used to frighten me; the games don't do that anymore, but I still play. Before Resident Evil came along, Aliens satisfied that fun and frightful itch. Yes, I was way too young to be watching rated-R movies, but I did anyway. And man, I loved the Alien franchise back then.

Actually, I still love the Alien universe. Whether it's Ridley Scott's Alien or Joss Whedon's Alien: Resurrection (he wrote the screenplay) or the retarded little brothers Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, I have thoroughly enjoyed all the films. I can't say that I've spent too much time with the games: I completely missed out on the early Nintendo and Sega cartridge games and the AVP PC games were quick romps (if that) because I wasn't interested in their stories.

February marks the return to the Alien universe with Aliens: Colonial Marines, a first-person-shooter and spiritual sequel to James Cameron's Aliens; it's the one of the few video games without all the muddled predator pollution. I am one to ignore the FPS genre, but I will make an exception for Aliens: Colonial Marines because I really want to know what happened after the terraforming reactor and colony on LV-426 were supposedly destroyed.

Picking between the Xbox and the PS3 will be a tough choice, but the pre-order deals look pretty amazing. I'm a total sucker for gamer swag (especially games/franchises that I love) and ACM has a $99.99 treasure trove. The Aliens: Colonial Marines Collector's Edition comes with a statue of a power-loader fending off an alien. Patches and in-game items and characters, including Sgt. Apone and Pvt. Hudson. Man, I hope that includes their voices.

After hunting around online, I had to go with Amazon's pre-order because both Best Buy and Gamestop's pre-order allocations were all used up. Dry. This might be the hardest collector's edition to get your hands on right now. Here's to hoping that the aliens thrill and terrify just as they did when I first saw Alien.

For once, I am looking forward to February.

Marvel Movies: No Angry Comic Nerd Here

Recently, a friend asked me this amazing question: "When it comes to Marvel comics converted to movies, are you usually satisfied with it, unhappy with it, or both?"

Sit back and let me show you a whole new world (and why I'm totally fine with Marvel movies not being true to their comic book counter parts).

The Short version: Marvel's characters are always being re-created and re-imagined; their stories are constantly being retold.

The Long version:

Every single character and story created within Marvel Comics exists in the Marvel Universe (think Multiverse).

The Marvel Universe consists of parallel dimensions (I'm using 'dimensions' in place of universes because it makes more sense to me). In each dimension there is a Spider-Man, an Ironman, a Deadpool, and a DoNothingMan. Each dimension has it's own little twists. This allows for the Marvel writers and artists to infinitely create (or kill) and re-imagine characters.

You want a black Spider-Man? Then you want Miles Morales of Earth-1610 (Ultimate Marvel) a dimension where Peter Parker was killed. But don't worry, Peter Parker is still alive and well in Earth-616 (and many others).

A beautiful example of these dimensions is Deadpool Corps.

The Earth-616 Deadpool travels across the parallel dimensions to recruit a team of alternate versions of himself. He selects Lady Deadpool (Earth-3010), Kidpool (Earth-10330), Dogpool (Earth-103173), and Headpool (Earth-2149). After the team is put together, hilarity ensues.

At the bottom of the list are the movies.

Earth-199999 appears to contain Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers. Notice that The Hulk (movie) is not listed. That movie was so bad that Marvel kicked it out of the entire Marvel Universe. LOLz. Also notice the Guardians of the Galaxy in the announced section. This is the craziest team of super heroes ever. Even crazier than the Deadpool Corps.

So basically, Marvel created a storytelling ecosystem with infinite possibilities. It's how writers/directors/artists twist the characters and place them in new and different situations that makes the changes so interesting.

Taken 2

So, during my half-hour lunch break, I discovered that "they"
(the infamous they of Hollywood, money-hungry retards) are making a sequel to Taken.

I found this tweet about it. Needless to say, I re-tweeted right away.



Sometimes, micro-blogging is the answer. Thank you, SoVeryAwkward.

WTF? Really Spider-man? Really?

So I get weird emails from Sony Pictures in my spammy yahoo account. This was in that mailbox this morning. I was excited, then horrified, then repulsed, then just sad.

Let's Make A Move

April is more than halfway gone and it still feels like it's crawling. May 1st marks a monumental day in the long, sorted history of the DoNothingMan; I'm finally moving out of the campus area to a more adult residency. Gah, that already sounds boring as hell. Part of the challenge in moving, at least for me, is eliminating all the excess crap that I have accumulated over the years; trimming the fat, so to speak. Under the most scrutiny right now is my collection of DVD movies. A couple discs will be kept; there's no questions about the South Park seasons. But most can be sold; probably only for a buck or two. So, I'm dividing the my list of DVDs. The first section contains the DVDs that I am definitely selling:

1. Appleseed
2. Batman Begins
3. The Covenant
4. Escape from New York
5. Harry Potter 1
6. Harry Potter 2
7. Harry Potter 3
8. Leverage Season 1
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
11. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
12. One Hour Photo
13. Pan's Labyrinth
14. Pathfinder Unrated
15. Spider-Man
16. Spider-Man 2
17. Wanted

Previously, this list included Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World which I picked up in a box set. When I showed by stack to-sell DVDs to my roommate he immediately asked if he could buy the Jurassic Park pack. Knowing that he would give the movies a good home, I just let him keep them. I'm just that nice.

Now for the tough part, the next list consists of all the DVDs I intend to keep. It's still a long list and I would like to weed some more out, but I don't think I can. Maybe sharing will spark my desire to downsize.

1. 28 Days Later
2. 28 Weeks Later
3. Akira
4. Alien
5. Aliens
6. Alien 3
7. The Animatrix
8. Batman: Gotham Night
9. Benny and Joon
10. Black Hawk Down
11. Brother Bear
12. The Cell
13. Donnie Darko
14. Firefly - The Complete Series
15. Friday Night Lights
16. Fullmetal Alchemist Season 1 Box
17. Fullmetal Alchemist Season 2 Box
18. The Ghost and the Darkness
19. Gremlins
20. Gremlins 2
21. Hard Rain
22. Independence Day
23. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
24. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
25. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
26. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
27. Jeepers Creepers
28. Jeepers Creepers 2
29. The Matrix
30. The Nightmare Before Christmas
31. Predator 2
32. The Simpsons Movie
33. Sleepy Hollow
34. South Park Season 1 - 15
35. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
36. Spawn
37. Stargate
38. Starship Troopers
39. They
40. John Carpenter's The Thing
41. TMNT Season 1
42. TMNT Season 2
43. TMNT Season 3
44. The Venture Bros. Season 1
45. X-Men
46. X-Men 2: X-Men United

Holy crap, that's a long list. There are, of course, some funny stories associated with many items on this list. I picked up the Indiana Jones Quadrilogy reluctantly, asking the clerk in the movie section of Hastings if I could get it without the fourth film-astrophe. She laughed, but she wouldn't let me open it up and leave the fourth movie in the store. I guess I would have done the same, had I been in her shoes. To this day, I have not watched the fourth movie (and I know that some on this list are probably worse films) but curiosity will eventually get the best of me and I'll watch it, my eyes will bleed, and I'll melt into a puddle of special effects goo.