Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
short appreciations of poetry and pop culture
About Me
Email Me
Twitter Updates
Regular Guest Bloggers
Jason Powell has taken on the yeoman's job of doing an issue by issue analysis of Chris Claremont's 17 year Uncanny X-Men run in an effort to make me feel bad for saying Morrison invented all kinds of things he did not in his New X-Men run, and for spelling Claremont "Clairmont" in my superhero book.
Scott McDarmont (Scott91777) is an Instructor Of English at Radford University, Radford VA, an avid reader of books by guys named Chuck, he usually “waits for the trade” on comics unless Frank Miller is somehow involved. He owns more Def Leppard CDs than Bob Dylan CDs and he is ‘Ok’ with this and, while he may answer different publicly, he secretly feels that The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie ever made. He also feels that there are two kinds of people in the world: Indiana Jones people and John McClane people. He considers himself an Indiana Jones person
Jill Duffy, girl reporter, is a professional writer and editor in New York. She spent five years covering video game development in both San Francisco and London, examining the art, science, and business of the industry, and in 2006 was named one of the top 100 most influential women in the game industry. Her work has appeared in The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, where she was the food section editor, as well as Game Developer, Gamasutra.com, Intelligent Enterprise, DigitalTrends.com, and several other publications. She holds a BA in English from the University at Buffalo. Indeed, she is on the Twitter and also keeps a blog about food.
Andy Bentley is a graphic designer in upstate New York. The first series of Batman movies got him in a comic book store and the DC animated series made him a life long fan. His senior thesis was a short film on the culture of comic books. Animal Man, Starman, and Preacher are among his favorite comic runs. He is an avid toy collector and enjoys playing basketball, mash-ups, karaoke and dark beers. He will be sequestered most of September with The Beatles: Rock Band.
Would you like to write for this blog?
Scott McDarmont (Scott91777) is an Instructor Of English at Radford University, Radford VA, an avid reader of books by guys named Chuck, he usually “waits for the trade” on comics unless Frank Miller is somehow involved. He owns more Def Leppard CDs than Bob Dylan CDs and he is ‘Ok’ with this and, while he may answer different publicly, he secretly feels that The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie ever made. He also feels that there are two kinds of people in the world: Indiana Jones people and John McClane people. He considers himself an Indiana Jones person
Jill Duffy, girl reporter, is a professional writer and editor in New York. She spent five years covering video game development in both San Francisco and London, examining the art, science, and business of the industry, and in 2006 was named one of the top 100 most influential women in the game industry. Her work has appeared in The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, where she was the food section editor, as well as Game Developer, Gamasutra.com, Intelligent Enterprise, DigitalTrends.com, and several other publications. She holds a BA in English from the University at Buffalo. Indeed, she is on the Twitter and also keeps a blog about food.
Andy Bentley is a graphic designer in upstate New York. The first series of Batman movies got him in a comic book store and the DC animated series made him a life long fan. His senior thesis was a short film on the culture of comic books. Animal Man, Starman, and Preacher are among his favorite comic runs. He is an avid toy collector and enjoys playing basketball, mash-ups, karaoke and dark beers. He will be sequestered most of September with The Beatles: Rock Band.
Would you like to write for this blog?
The Best of the Blog
- HAMLET MASH UP
- KILL BILL AND MILTONIC ALLUSION
- Favorite Comics
- Open Letter to Anthony Lane
- Star Trek Review
- 3D Glasses: Beowulf, Coraline, Up, Superman
- MORRISON'S NEW X-MEN: THE ISSUE BY ISSUE ANALYSIS
- Whedon's Astonishing X-Men: The Issue By Issue Analysis
- The Maxx
- Russell Edson's "The Fall"
- John Ashbery's "This Room"
- The Heresy of Paraphrase
- Edward Gorey's The Curious Sofa
- Harold and the Purple Crayon
- The Mountain Goats's "Fault Lines"
- Superman Returns
- Spiderman 3
- Pan's Labrynth and Children of Men
- Buffy, Angel and Evil
- Beowulf, David Lynch and Evil
- In Defense of Ally McBeal
- The Surprising Will and GraceSeries Finale
- A History of Violence
- All Star Superman and Jamie Grant
- Lex Luthor's Desk in JLA: Earth 2
- Frank Quitely and a Detail from WE3
- Casanova and Pathos (Guest: Matt Fraction)
- Hellboy
- Brad Winderbaum Interview
Best of the Blog: Comment Threads
- Alan Moore and Blackest Night
- Abrams v Whedon
- Lost Projects
- No Country for Liberal Men
- Dark Knight
- Miller and the homosocial
- Style v. Substance
- Growing Up and Art
- Favorite Comics
- Comics Events
- Planetary 26
- Heroes Pilot Debate
- Rhymes
- Cover Songs
- Live vs Recorded Hip Hop
- Batman (and others) on Film
- Ratatouille
- Pirates 3
- Little Kid Jokes
- Fictional Crushes
Guest Blogging
- Andy Bentley (New Gods)
- Brent Saltzman
- C Lue Disharoon
- Chad Nevett
- Chandler Bennett (Miracleman)
- Charlie
- Cove West (Lovecraft)
- Erin (Captain Fugmerica)
- Gordon Harries
- Graham Tedesco-Blair
- HCDuvall
- James Wheeler
- Jason and Ximena
- Jason Powell (Non-X-Men)
- JASON POWELL'S ISSUE BY ISSUE ANALYSIS OF CLAREMONT'S X-MEN
- Jill Duffy, Girl Reporter
- Lucas
- Mitch Montgomery (Reviewery)
- Ping33
- Plok
- Sara
- Scott91777 (Miller, Music and Miscellany)
- Stefan Delatovic
- Streebo (Black Summer Review)
- Tim Callahan (Reviewery)
- Ultimate Matt
Blog List
Bio Stuff: Published Work
Is your copy of How to Read Superhero Comics and Why missing pages?
Bio Stuff: Other Online Work
- Teachers vs Cell Phones
- Using Media to Pace your Classroom
- Superheroes and Fashion Panel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Casanova Review
- Reconstruction: Posthumanism (an issue I co-edited)
- X-Men, Emerson, Gnosticism
- Harold Bloom's Pal, Donnie Darko
- Superheroes (Oxford Student Paper)
- X3 (Oxford Student Paper)
Bio Stuff: Interviews
Read, free and legally, the comic book in which a villain's name is inspired by my own (Doctor Klock)
Followers
Posts
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(509)
-
▼
May
(50)
- Comics Out May 29, 2008 (Final Crisis and Astonish...
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #131
- Me at the Fashion and Fantasy Conference at the Met
- LOST Season Four: The Finale (spoilers)
- Better Late than Never: Iron Man
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #130
- Scott on the JLI, Part 7
- Free Form Comments
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #129
- MUTO: animation on public walls (Commonplace Book)
- What's best about Thursday, May 29th 2008?
- The Beat that my Heart Skipped (Casanova Soundtrack)
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #128
- Scott Reviews Indy 4 (spoiler free)
- Comics Out May 21, 2008
- If you saw the post that was just deleted...
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #127
- Brad Winderbaum: the Satacracy Interview part 3 (o...
- Free Form Comments
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #126
- Brad Winderbaum: the Satacracy Interview, part 2 (...
- Scott on the JLI, Part 6
- Prof Fury: Comment Pull Quote (Casanova Spoilers)
- Scott on the Office Season Four Finale
- Comics Out May 14, 2008
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #125
- Brad Winderbaum: the Satacracy Interview, pt 1
- LOST Season 4, the first hour of the finale
- Casanova 14 (spoilers)
- Jason Powell on Classic X-Men #29, part b
- Free Form Comments
- Jason Powell on X-Men Annual #3
- Polanski's MacBeth -- the back cover copy
- Scott on the JLI part 5
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #124 (by way of Clas...
- LOST Season 4 Episode 11
- Comics Out May 7, 2008
- Reddy, Cap, Xander, Avatar
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #123
- Casanova 14 (no spoilers)
- Free Form Comments
- Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #122
- Did The New Yorker Steal from the AV Club?
- Scott on JLI part 4
- Iron Man Reviews
- Jason Powell on Classic X-Men #27, part a (UXM #121)
- Comics Out April 29, 2008
- LOST Season Four, episode 10
- Jason Powell on Classic X-Men #26, part a (UXM #120)
- Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 -- the penultimate ...
-
▼
May
(50)
16 comments:
I just got back from it! It was pretty flipping excellent. Stay after the credits, but you know that already.
The opening ten minutes of Iron Man are easily the most intense introduction to a superhero movie that has ever been made. The movie itself seems to do a good job following the action/adventure pattern laid out by Raimi with the Spiderman movies. I might be full of you-know-what on that one - but watching Iron Man made me feel like I was not just watching a movie - but I was watching a "Marvel" movie. It has a certain house style feel to it - yet that it not necessarily a bad thing. By House style, I mean there is a certain unilateral tone that seems to fall across most Marvel movies of late. Add liberal amounts of action and adventure, mix with a little humor, add the romantic subplot on the side and stir well. I went into Iron Man with perhaps the lowest of expectations and am happy to say they were well surpassed - and I mean that with all sincerity. Iron Man is a well made, well scripted and well directed film. I love how the Iron Man origin so easily adapted to our contemporary times. In many ways - the movie made me realize how ahead of their time that Stan and Jack were with this character. I am very eager to hear what everyone here thinks about the film. Before I rank the film, I would very much like to see how it stands up on repeated viewings. If the audience's technology fetish wears out early, a long stretch of the film could suddenly become very bland. My first impression is that Iron Man is a very good superhero movie - perhaps possibly worthy of inclusion in the Top Ten Great Superhero Films of All Time.
It's the best superhero movie. Period.
Although that doesn't make it a great movie. But I think it kinda is anyway.
I loved the hell out of this movie. It's fun, the emotion is there when it needs to be without being overwhelming, the acting (ESPECIALLY Downey Jr) and writing were spot-on, and, most importantly, I think this was the most well-paced superhero movie yet. The action and pathos were all well balanced, without the viewer feeling short shrifted.
Also, the coda made me cheer out loud. That happens very rarely anymore.
Oh, and as to multiple vuewings, tonight was my second time seeing it, and it was just as entertaining and fun as the first time. Maybe moreso, as I got to really enjoy how subtly sinister The Dud- um, Jeff Bridges was.
Robert Downey Jr as Stark. Favs as Happy. Good times.
I really enjoyed it and think that it clearly is one of the top five superhero flicks of all time.
I thought it was great.
I certainly liked it more than any of the Spider-man movies.
Great Casting FTW!!!
I went in thinking that Papper was a crap character, and that that part was going to be the weak link of the movie. The weak link somehow turned out to be Rhodey, who seemed way to subdued. I didn't expect Terrence Howard to be the casting error. Still, a pretty darn good moviw with the typical superhero-first-movie 3rd act issues (origin chews up time necessary to capitalize on the "main" plot, so ending winds up being more spectacle, less resonant). Downey is now easily the best cast actor or actress in a superhero movie. No contest. I don't even know who number two would be.
The after the credits sequesnce was an exciting idea (for me at least) but was badly written, and badly acted by you know who (I'm trying to avoid spoilers). Did they throw it in and not have enought time to get it right?
A friend and I saw it last night, knowing of and somewhat about the bit after the credits. As people were filing out, we were telling them, "You might want to wait a bit", mostly to no avail. None but the faithful stayed - all were VERY impressed.
I don't think that Howard was a casting mistake. I think he played it very restrained and only as the movie was ramping up at the end, did he allow his character to get sucked into the excitement, with the "Next time" line.
End to end, this goes right to the top, along with Superman (1977) and X-Men 2. I had some SLIGHT problems - Stark spends all that time getting the armor to work just right, but Stane jumps right in? Also, unless we're talking about tents, a repulsor ray is not going to send a man through a concrete wall - just splatter him onto it. But, that's picking nits. This one's a keeper.
i thought it was really great. I think the concept worked better as a movie than it ever did as a comic. (though this movie could never have made with such CG aplomb 10 years ago)
The moment cathartic moment of the whole film was when he was able to shoot the terrorists even with their human shields (of course even within the movie logic who knows if it would work a second time without the element of surprise). I loved the the through line of the film, that was added from the original comic idea. Stark is focused specifically on getting rid of the weapons that have been sold to terrorists. correct me if I'm wrong, but I never got the sense that the comics character had such a focused agenda.
I didn't think it was THAT great, granted, it's the best Marvel movie after the Spider-man and X-Men Franchises... just ahead of FF with Ghost Riderand Daredevil/Elektra/Punisher wallowing at the bottom... Then again, maybe It's just because I'm not a huge Iron Man fan. The bit after the credits though? Totally worth my 8.50 just for that.
Blast you all, now I actually need to go see the thing. :)
Really, sounds great...
It was really great, wasn't it? I actually cheered Downey Jnr's last line, as well as the coda. Very neat - we're not in standard super-hero movie land after all - that last line and plot movement could never have been delivered in Spider-Man, as the source material, and the symbols that make up 'super-hero movie', have to be adhered to. Why does your super-hero have to have a secret identity?
I thought the pacing was actually very odd, when you think about it, but welcome in that regard. Probably for me the definitive Iron Man, only possible because, when you think of the comics, there hasn't really ever been a definitive (or even a particularly interesting) version of Iron Man before.
It reminded me of the first X-Men movie. That was a pilot to see if super-hero movies could be made, and as such an imperfect but strong enough film. Turns out they could and a few good movies followed. Iron Man felt like a pilot to see if, with Marvel having exhausted the big icons, movies of the second tier characters can be made. And they can, if they keep the quality shown here.
Ok, I saw it: lots of fun, very well done. Up there with the first two Spidermans and X-Mens. The humor was key.
The comment above about it feeling like there was a "house style" is very much correct, I think.
And yes, the post-credits thing was fantastic.
So a good recommendation. Thanks, all!
Post a Comment