neverbeencool

Smell that? Smells like nerd, huh? Sorry about that. I’m wreaking of nerdliness and it’s putting my deodorant to the test.

See, last night, the Boy and I caught the 8pm Iron Man at the local cinamegaplex and here I am, twelve hours later, still geeking the fuck out.

Oh, quick sidebar? Odds are, this here post’ll probably* be full of spoilers from the movie. At the very least, I’ll have to bring up the short sequence that rolls after the credits.

Ok, so first thought? Robert Downey, Jr. IS Tony Stark. I don’t mean “is” as in “plays the part of,” either. I mean is is.

He’s brilliant in the role. You know how they always talk about how difficult it is to act in a CGI-heavy movie, that even “good” actors (talking to you, Portman and Christensen) have a hard time working in front of a green screen and/or exchanging witty banter with something that won’t be added until post-production? RDJr has debunked that theory for good.

Half of the man’s scenes involve working with inanimate objects, with shit ILM will add later, and/or at an extreme closeup with the suit’s heads-up display projected onto his grill. And he pulls it all off smashingly.

(Which is all the better for me, because I rarely get to use the word “smashingly.”)

Sure, there are a couple little plot holes (um, the Afghan guerrillas watching him day and night in his make-shift cave lab don’t know something’s amiss when his “missile” includes a faceplate?), but who cares? Everything else about the flick is so good that you can easily overlook those little problems.

My only real problem with that movie doesn’t really have anything to do with the money itself…

After the credits roll, there’s a brief (like one minuteish) sequence in which Tony, having just announced to the world that he IS Iron Man, returns to his fancy pants Malibu home to find a stranger waiting. Of course, we recognize the voice right away (even if there’s no mention of muthafuckin’ snakes on muthafuckin’ planes) and, sure enough, see Samuel L. Jackson step out of the shadows and introduces himself as…

Oh, fuck, I can hardly say it…

Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury?!? WTF??

Mace Windu aside, I dig Jackson. I like the man and I generally like his movies. But what jackass decided that this guy:

Should play this guy:

 

Yes, I know that the Marvel people already bastardized the man in their Ultimate Universe, but something tells me that they did it specifically so SLJ could be cast in the role down the line. It’s a travesty, much worse that Starbuck getting the estrogen treatment.

Seriously. Hasselhoff made a more believable Nick Fury than Jackson will. Then again, doesn’t Hasselhoff make just about anything better?

One last, quasi-related side note…

The Boy’s education continued this weekend with a double-feature. Silja made him watch Billy Elliott in the morning, and I forced him to sit through Die Hard Sunday night. Have to admit that the latter doesn’t hold up as well as I’d hoped. Still essential viewing (if for no other reason than to make sure I don’t have to explain why I want this sweatshirt), though.

By the way, I should clarify my “education” of the Boy… Aaron mentioned in the comments of another post something about me making the Boy ‘watch man movies,’ which made me realize that I might not have been very clear about my intent.

Yes, some of the movies that I’ve thrown at him have included more than their fare share of testosterone, but that’s not really what I’m going for here. Not trying to “toughen him up” or anything like that. It’s just that, at his age, the action-oriented flicks will be more interesting for him. In a year or two, we’ll move to the Casablancas, Godfathers, and Annie Halls of the world.

Up next? One word: KHhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

*As with all the crap I throw at you folks, this is pretty much unedited stream-of-consciousness. I don’t know where we’re going until we get there, either.