Iron Man

Iceberg on May 5th, 2008 | File Under Movies -

I saw Iron Man last Friday afternoon. It wasn’t bad - and this is coming from someone who is not a fan of the comic book superhero movie genre.

Here were my impressions:

1. Our students had just finished their final mid-term exam, so the theater was crawling with adolescents decked out in their school uniforms. Which was fine except that they ate about half of my popcorn while I was waiting to enter the theater. Little cretins.

Just kidding, our students are (mostly) great.

2. Dug Robert Downey Jr.

3. Appreciated the attempt to build a storyline and decent dialogue.

4. Was that really Jeff Bridges? Didn’t realize it until about 15 minutes in.

5. Cool Iron Man suit.

6. Would have liked to have seen a little more Iron Man action (attempts at storyline notwithstanding).

7. Gwyneth Paltrow. Mmehh.

8. Osama - You payin’ attention?

9. Black Sabbath rocks!

On a scale of 1 to 5 (1: avoid at all costs; 2: see it if you want, but don’t say i recommended it; 3: not bad if you’ve got time to spare; 4: if you’re like me you’re gonna like it; 5: must see), I give Iron Man a solid “3″.

Since I’m on the subject, I decided to put together a list of some superhero comic book movies with The Iceberg’s personal ratings.

Flash Gordon (5) - “Flash….aaaahhhh!”…’Nuff said.

Batman (5) - Jack Nicholson’s Joker is still the coolest villain yet. Interested to see Heath Ledger’s Joker.

X2 (X-Men 2) (5) - A little biased because this was the first dvd I bought for my home theater system. Cool on surround sound.

Superman (5) - What can I say? Good popcorn-eating movie.

Batman Begins (4) - Christian Bale is the coolest Batman. Good cast. Might have given it a “5″ except that I originally bought the dvd in Thailand and it kept stopping midway through. As a result I didn’t see the end of the movie for about three months.

Superman II (4) - Not quite sure why I like this movie. Perhaps because, when I first saw it, there was a preview of the war movie “The Big Red One”, which was cause for a lot of snickers at the time.

Iron Man (3) - Read impressions above.

X-Men (3) - Liked X2 much more.

Hulk (3) - Saw this movie with my nephew. Liked it much more than I expected. I usually hate movies that overemphasize computer graphics, but for some reason this one didn’t bother me.

X-Men: The Last Stand (3) - The X-Men series is the strongest, in my opinion.

Ghost Rider (2) - Didn’t have high expectations for this movie, so wasn’t disappointed. Motorcycles were cool.

Batman & Robin (2) - Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Not good. Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. Good.

Batman Forever (2) - Tommy Lee Jones’ character pissed me off.

Superman Returns (2) - I remember seeing a clip of the airplane falling from the sky and thought it was really cool. Later, when I saw the movie, I found it didn’t keep my attention.

Spider-Man 2 (2) - The best of the worst comic book superhero series.

Superman III (1) - Richard Pryor. Nice try.

Batman Returns (1) - Danny DeVito’s character REALLY pissed me off.

Hellboy (1) - Like Ghost Rider, my expectations were low…and they were met.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1) - I saw this movie. I’m sure of it. But I don’t remember anything about it.

Spider-Man 3 (1) - After watching Spider-Man 2, I thought that perhaps “3″ would be alright. Nope.

Spider-Man (1) - Positively inane. Story: stupid. Dialogue: forced. Graphics: lacking. The only redeeming feature from this movie was watching twenty-something Korean guys pretending to shoot webs out of their wrists after the lights in the theater came on.

Catwoman (1) - Horrible. Though Haley Barry was, well, you know.

Daredevil (n/a) - Haven’t seen it.

Fantastic Four (n/a) - Haven’t seen it, though I don’t know why. Because Jessica Alba is, well, you know.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (n/a) - Haven’t seen it.

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Monday’s Music Fix

Iceberg on May 5th, 2008 | File Under Monday's Music Fix -

Today is Children’s Day, the day when parents take time off of work to nurse hangovers share quality time with their young ones. Keeping with the spirit of the holiday, here is Offspring’s “The Kids Aren’t Alright”.

offspring-the-kids-arent-alright

Happy Children’s Day everyone. Avoid those amusement parks.

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