May 28, 2012
Love-love
Time for my favorite Grand Slam tourney, Roland Garros.
Lots of historical possibilities here - Djokovic going for four in a row and completion of the career Grand Slam (something only eight have ever done - only four in the Open era)...Nadal going for a record seventh Roland Garros title...Federer trying to add to his already historic (16) Grand Slam total.
Can't wait...
Enjoy some of the posters from the tourney...thanks to uristilman's flick feed
Lots of historical possibilities here - Djokovic going for four in a row and completion of the career Grand Slam (something only eight have ever done - only four in the Open era)...Nadal going for a record seventh Roland Garros title...Federer trying to add to his already historic (16) Grand Slam total.
Can't wait...
Enjoy some of the posters from the tourney...thanks to uristilman's flick feed
May 26, 2012
Two more days...two more days
I can do two days on my knuckles...on my knuckles, I tell you...
- Ace Frehley "Back in the New York Groove" - Yeah, I know it because it closed a commercial, but it's still a rockin' song.
- Go Bucks - Cincinnati Buckeyes have their next home game in a week. Make plans.
- ComicsAlliance's betting odds on DC's next gay character - Really? Vibe? He's in play?
- Movie trailer of the day - Gatsby? Luckily it looks kinda awesome.
- BAMF of the Day - I know the Uncle Drew thing is a commercial, but it's entertaining.
- Making a Shot Glass Out of a Giant Jawbreaker - Cool to watch the rainbows develop
- Will Smith on the Graham Norton Show - Just sit right there...
- Bunka bathes hearoes, villains, and monkeys in black - stylish black
- Silly gecko, even you can't stick to teflon - IMFs in action
- MIT's freaky non-stick coating keeps ketchup flowing - gorgeous and unsettling to watch
- Ex-POTUS pic of the day - Bill Clinton, mack daddy
- Early bird special - Recursive commercial recurs
- Gotye "Somebody That I Used to Know" - I know this song's been out for nearly a year, but I just heard it this past weekend. I'm grooving to it and even digging the parody.
- Friends hack Scott Pilgrim game to animate the best wedding gift ever - So cute...
- Marvel girls on film - possible female Avengers?...I just went to see the film for the second time in the theater yesterday
- DC says gay character will be 'iconic' - Really? Vibe? He's in play?
- "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Lab" - Outstanding parody...thanks to Disco Stu for sending this to me
May 25, 2012
Update: All we hear is rdio gaga...rdio dada...rdio blah blah...
Yesterday's post earned a comment from Kyle endorsing rdio, and today we get a full out review from him.
Looks like on his ringing endorsement I'll be checking out rdio in the next few days and for a while at least.
Looks like on his ringing endorsement I'll be checking out rdio in the next few days and for a while at least.
May 24, 2012
All we hear is rdio gaga...rdio dada...rdio blah blah...
The Cincy Library had a news item up announcing the new availability of Rdio, a streaming music service.
From the few online reviews I checked out, it looks like rdio is a competitor to Spotify and Pandora with an iTunes-like interface. Their service is $5 a month for web-only access or $10 for web+phone-access, but the library is offering free 30-day access to anybody with a valid PLCH library card - which I conveniently have.
I'll report back in a month or so.
May 23, 2012
May 22, 2012
Update: Things I Didn't Know About Everest
After last week's post about Everest, I thought I should link to today's story that four (or five) people have died on the mountain in the past two days.
Never...ever...ever...consider going to Everest if you value your life.
When weird obsession and art meet
I may not be able to define art, but I know it when I see it, and this, m'friends, is clearly art.
Welcome to McHaughton Fine Art, home of artwork that lives in that tenuous territory where art, jingoistic radical right-wing politics, and fundamentalist Christian values overlap.
There's "One Nation Under Socialism"...
'Forgotten Man'...(do yourself a favor and click to the painting's page for the scroll-over information...it's worth it)...
'Wake Up America' (again, the scroll-overs are enlightening)
The man may not share my political views, but he's at least willing to go out on a limb...way, way out on a limb...
You go, John McNaughton.
Welcome to McHaughton Fine Art, home of artwork that lives in that tenuous territory where art, jingoistic radical right-wing politics, and fundamentalist Christian values overlap.
There's "One Nation Under Socialism"...
'Forgotten Man'...(do yourself a favor and click to the painting's page for the scroll-over information...it's worth it)...
'Wake Up America' (again, the scroll-overs are enlightening)
The man may not share my political views, but he's at least willing to go out on a limb...way, way out on a limb...
You go, John McNaughton.
Goin' Frazey
The Girl noticed on the Fraze Pavilion schedule mailed to our manse that there's a certain famous person coming to Dayton on August 6. Looks like we'll be getting tickets...
May 21, 2012
Oi oi oi!
Looks like it's time to go down under for a little tunage today...
And if you need a source for the title, do some research, k?
And if you need a source for the title, do some research, k?
May 19, 2012
Closer and closer
Little more than a week left before summer starts in earnest...
- Disassembled - Weirdness, man, weirdness
- The Spandex Closet: 10 Superheroes Who Need to Come Out - Lots of these are interesting choices, but the last one would be radical.
- Licensed to Ill - Nice tribute mural for MCA, click through to see all the photos
- Mahai's Inferno - Lego can be evocative, but circle #2 is the first I've seen that required blurred out parts
- Man completes triathlon while juggling - That's just showing off, man.
- Posted without comment of the day - Must fight urge to buy dog costume
- The trickle-down effect of realignment - College basketball continues to feel the effects
- Butler: 10 Things to know about the A-10 - How did I miss that Butler was going to the A-10?
- Sports reporter of the day - He's actually good, and funny. Maybe I should watch more high school lacrosse.
- Why Nikolai Tesla was the greatest geek ever - Warning:
...clearly I have some reading to do to check up on all the phenomenal claims Oatmeal makes here - Minifig babies - brilliant...are those tiny heads real Lego pieces?
- Graham's number - I can't think about it or my head will collapse into a black hole. Seriously, the clip warns you of exactly that happening.
- Fluorine Video - The periodic table of videos is one that chemistry-interested folks should check out at their leisure.
- Voices in Your Head - It's a fine performance, but there may be nothing whiter than a private college a capella group in all black with rainbow accents. Seriously, can anybody come up with a whiter thing? I would argue that this is the white version of a black college's step team. Refute me...g'head
- Beastie Boys "Sabotage" video starring kids - A nice tribute
- Someone owes someone a Coke - Graph humor...always funny
- I don't get it - I do, but seriously, graph humor...always funny
May 18, 2012
Today's Random Ten
Today's random ten playlist from the iTunes via 8Tracks...
- "Good Hearted Woman" by Yonder Mountain String Band (4 stars) - From the second volume of the live Mountain Tracks series, is a fun jam/bluegrass romp. Love their live shows better than their studio albums, and they're all about posting every show online. Buy yourself a couple if you enjoy this one.
- "Song for Whoever" by Beautiful South (4) - This is a live version of their phenomenal, spectacular song that was a big hit when I was in Scotland. The writing all over their songs is subtle, brilliant, and far darker than the sunshiny lyrics suggest. If you've never heard of them, do yourself a favor and check out Carry on Up the Charts.
- "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" by Johnny Cash (3) - Cash is a great interpreter of songs, but his voice sounds misplaced here, largely because, I think, the Patrick Skye version with which I first became familiar. It's a heartbreaking tale of 'Drunken Ira Hayes', one of the men who helped raise the flag over Iwo Jima and who died in 'two inches of muddy water'. Great song...okay version
- "Whiskey from the Field" by Pat Kilbride (4) - Ah, the joys of poitÃn...there are so many Irish and Scottish songs dedicated to it, and this is certainly one of the better. From the quality collection Jug of Punch.
- "Star Spangled Banner/Purple Haze/Instrumental" by Jimi Hendrix (2) - This thing - from the remastered, extended Woodstock released a few years back - is a mess. It goes on and on for almost fourteen minutes. In concert, at Woodstock, stoned, maybe this would have been impressive, but I'm not so sure. I'm deleting it.
- "It's All Been Done" by Barenaked Ladies (3) - Pretty enough...fun enough...
- "Crucify" by Tori Amos (4) - I remember Amos's Little Earthquakes album fondly. It's a rough, emotionally raw work, but it came out when I was in high school, and I listened to it pretty solidly through college. I remember it playing in The Girl's college apartment.
- "Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates (3) - This is just fun.
- "Sarah" by Ray LaMontagne (3) - Meh...LaMontagne's voice is pleasant and easy going enough, but this is just pretty background music.
- "Why When Love is Gone" by The Originals (3) - Motown is my go-to choice to play in my classroom on open house and conference night. Older white people (the parents of kids I teach) and black people both like it. Everybody likes it. So I'm always looking for a little Motown variety. This album, A Cellarful of Motown, is just that kind of album: a few minor hits from slightly more obscure artists than just the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Smoky Robinson.
May 17, 2012
La Caja Mágica
This past week's Madrid Open - did I mention that m'man Roger won the title and moved back up to number two - was held in the Magic Box, something I'd never seen or heard of before a week ago but that looks pretty frickin' cool and kinda makes me want to get myself to Madrid to check out the building and the tourney.
See, those big flaps up topside are roof sections that can retract to let the sunshine in over the three stadium courts.
Apparently not everybody loves the stadium - finding it cold, but I love the idea that tourney owner, Ion Tiriac, is making a major push to be the 'fifth major'...
...and that he took a big leap to dye the clay blue and make a huge news splash - even if he racked off a number of the top players. Give the man credit for trying something different...
...and for having an absolutely rockin' 'stache...
Man, I want to see a major clay court tennis tournament.
I'm thinking that the Madrid-Rome-French Open swing would be phenomenally fun.
See, those big flaps up topside are roof sections that can retract to let the sunshine in over the three stadium courts.
Apparently not everybody loves the stadium - finding it cold, but I love the idea that tourney owner, Ion Tiriac, is making a major push to be the 'fifth major'...
...and that he took a big leap to dye the clay blue and make a huge news splash - even if he racked off a number of the top players. Give the man credit for trying something different...
...and for having an absolutely rockin' 'stache...
Man, I want to see a major clay court tennis tournament.
I'm thinking that the Madrid-Rome-French Open swing would be phenomenally fun.
May 16, 2012
Things I didn't know about Mt Everest
In the past couple of weeks, I've had two separate events about climbers summitting Mt Everest come up in my daily history search, so I've been reading a lot about the mountain.
The event has been much explored thanks, primarily, to the presence of author Jon Krakauer who was writing an article about the tendency for people to pay their way up the mountain and who subsequently wrote the marvelous - if debated - book Into Thin Air.
If you have an illusions about climbing Mount Everest or simply want to read a white-knuckle account of what that could be like, give his book a try. It's a brilliant read.
Take a listen to Ken Kamler's take on the event. He was there that day.
May 15, 2012
Sumer is Icumen In
So I'll be doing a quick little update of my media consumption knowing
that once summer rolls around, I'll see a spike in consumption rates.
Jim Henson's Tale of Sand - Warning: no Muppets or puppets are involved in this one in the least. Instead, it's an a graphic novel adaptation of a screenplay written by Jerry Juhl and Jim Henson almost fifty years ago. The screenplay was never made into a movie even though it was shopped around to a number of studios on two separate occasions.
The screenplay explores Hensons's far more experimental side, being closer to Time Piece or The Cube. The story - such as it is - finds our unnamed protagonist (that's him on the cover there) awaking in a western town only to get the bum's rush out of town with little in the way of supplies or instructions other than that he has a ten-minute head start and that he'd better run.
Run to where? Run from whom? That is only hinted at as we see an eye-patch-wearing man pursuing with leisurely confidence behind the protagonist. Character development is thin as is linear storytelling. The man's identity is never revealed, nor is any of his background. The identity of the pursuer is hinted at but only barely revealed in the end. Where are we? How did we get there? What are the rules in this magical place? No clarity is provided, and eras, locations, rules of physics are all mutable to the exploration of the man's quest.
As a piece of linear storytelling, this is a miss entirely, but that's not what the book seems to aim for. Instead, we find ourselves rushing along with the man, swept up by the gorgeous artwork and the artist's use of very non-linear comic page layouts.
The story's progression is episodic and fractured, just as is the man's memory and understanding of his new world.
It's not one I'd want to own, but it's certainly one that I enjoyed 'reading'.
1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die - This is the second or third book in the series that I've flipped through. I think I've looked at Songs and Albums as well. It's a commercially viable sort of book, something that you could easily pickup either as an architectural enthusiast or as a sort of life checklist around which you could frame any number of vacations.
As a library book, however, I found the scope simply to be far too daunting. The idea of actually reading a book of this magnitude - 960 pages with photos of about half the buildings - was far too overwhelming for a three-week period. I ended up flipping through, finding a few buildings that really interested me, and treating the book a bit like a checklist of 'been there, seen that'.
The book presents the buildings in chronological order broken up into eras from "Ancient World to the Renaissance" through post-modern times. Each era is presented without a discussion of the major trends of the era - something I would have found helpful. Instead, the buildings are shown with a one- or half-page essay of each and a label of the style, architect, location, and year of completion.
I would love to have seen more of the actual buildings, but I don't know that I would enjoy owning the book.
In case you're curious, my conquests from the full list...
Blue Beetle: Shellshocked - I groused a while back about DC's choice to off Blue Beetle III, Jamie Reyes; The Atom, Ryan Choi; and Ion, Kyle Raynor, three of the most high profile minority characters in the DC Old 52 universe.
Of course, I hadn't actually read any of the Blue Beetle or Atom stuff, so I didn't have much of a leg to stand on in my complaint - not that it's ever stopped me before, of course.
Here's the first volume of the newish Blue Beetle series which sort of introduces Jamie Reyes and his retconned blue scarab thing which turns into armor that he certainly doesn't understand at the beginning of the volume. I say 'sort of introduces' because little is clear a the beginning as the series came out of DC's 'One Year Later' event which dropped the heroes into a world where the readers had no idea what happened in the past, lost year and revealed bit by bit in the subsequent issues.
The idea was dumb.
Luckily, this series is actually interesting enough that I've gone ahead and requested the other five volumes of the since-cancelled run from PLCH. The setting of El Paso is an interesting choice and makes for natural inclusion of young, Hispanic characters, something that I assume DC was making as a conscious choice to bring in a different market than the typical, middle-aged white guys (like a certain ChemGuy).
The inclusion of a strong magic-theme left me cold and a bit confused as characters popped in and out of the series with cryptic and never-fully-revealed comments about Jamie's scarab's magical background. The exploration of Jamie's powers - he doesn't know what the armor/scarab is going to tell him or make him do, and he often struggles to maintain control of the armor - is interesting but needs to fade away soon if I'm going to see this all the way through.
Worth a read...
Batman: Gates of Gotham - I hate steampunk...hate it.
It's the weird, stupid mix of goth/romantic and faux science that just annoys the crap out of me, and this is just shy of steampunk in my eyes.
I appreciate the creation of Gotham as a character, a city with a rich history of madness and families guiding the creation of both an underclass and a privileged class that looked to help the underclass with their money, sort of the Carnegies of the DC world. Here we see the Waynes, Elliotts, and Cobblepots (?) as the three guiding families whose legacy - bridges and skyscrapers reaching to the heavens - are being tainted and revenged by the descendants of the architects whose designs were made into those 'Gates of Gotham'.
There's some interesting stuff, particularly Dick Grayson's finding of his way as the new Batman (has that entirely disappeared in the New 52?) and worrying about whether he can replace Bruce's knowledge of the city, but in general, this is forgettable.
The covers, however, are highly memorable. It's a shame that they weren't included in the trade.
Sadly, though, I stumbled upon these panels in searching for the covers. What the hell, folks?
Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol - Entertaining enough, but Tom Cruise is aging fast, folks.
He's going to have to slip into playing a different kind of action hero pretty soon.
Good stunts, fun locales, pretty girls...it's lesser than the first two MI's, but it's still a fun enough lark.
Jeremy Renner is a standout here. His star is very rightfully on the rise between the forthcoming Bourne Legacy and the already released Hurt Locker, Avengers, and this flick. He's the real deal, folks. My advice is to see just about anything he's in.
Chemistry Imagined by Roald Hoffmann - This man is the real deal - survivor of the holocaust, Nobel prize winning chemist, host of World of Chemistry, science popularizer, general stud.
When I saw that he had a new book out, I headed to the PLCH catalog to find check it out. Sadly, it's not in their catalog just yet, but this volume was. Since I'm always on the look out for books that might fit the parameters of my ongoing extra credit project, I'll pick up and skim just about any quasi-chemistry book.
This, however, isn't what I was looking for. The book's short (mostly two-page) essays are quick musings rather than somewhat deeper explorations or applications of chemical ideas.
Ah, well...we'll always have World of Chemistry...
Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes - This man is a laugh riot. Every page is full of hilarious gags and japes.
...or it's a 'love story' from the master of depressive comics.
Yeah, that's more like it.
Luckily, Clowes does a great job here of not falling to hopelessly into downerville, saving himself moment by moment with glances into a possibly redemptive outcome - which thankfully does come at the end of the book.
Give it a try.
The Avengers - Well, there...this one's just about perfect.
I'm not hitting any detailed reviews here because there's just not that much to say that hasn't been said in more detail than I'm willing to offer up. Check Comics101's review for a good deal...and Ashleeta Beauchamp's take on the Banner-Stark relationship.
The short of this is that if you've seen all the lead-up flicks - Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Captain America (ignore the Hulk stuff, really) - you're gonna go see this one, and you're not going to be disappointed in the least.
Plus there are a few points of laugh-out-loud funny in the flick.
Go see it.
(And let's cut the crap about this being the best comic book movie ever. Nolan's pair so far are both better because there's a theme there. This is widescreen comics translated appropriately and brilliantly for the big screen, but it lacks the gravitas that's required to top Nolan.)
The screenplay explores Hensons's far more experimental side, being closer to Time Piece or The Cube. The story - such as it is - finds our unnamed protagonist (that's him on the cover there) awaking in a western town only to get the bum's rush out of town with little in the way of supplies or instructions other than that he has a ten-minute head start and that he'd better run.
Run to where? Run from whom? That is only hinted at as we see an eye-patch-wearing man pursuing with leisurely confidence behind the protagonist. Character development is thin as is linear storytelling. The man's identity is never revealed, nor is any of his background. The identity of the pursuer is hinted at but only barely revealed in the end. Where are we? How did we get there? What are the rules in this magical place? No clarity is provided, and eras, locations, rules of physics are all mutable to the exploration of the man's quest.
As a piece of linear storytelling, this is a miss entirely, but that's not what the book seems to aim for. Instead, we find ourselves rushing along with the man, swept up by the gorgeous artwork and the artist's use of very non-linear comic page layouts.
The story's progression is episodic and fractured, just as is the man's memory and understanding of his new world.
It's not one I'd want to own, but it's certainly one that I enjoyed 'reading'.
As a library book, however, I found the scope simply to be far too daunting. The idea of actually reading a book of this magnitude - 960 pages with photos of about half the buildings - was far too overwhelming for a three-week period. I ended up flipping through, finding a few buildings that really interested me, and treating the book a bit like a checklist of 'been there, seen that'.
The book presents the buildings in chronological order broken up into eras from "Ancient World to the Renaissance" through post-modern times. Each era is presented without a discussion of the major trends of the era - something I would have found helpful. Instead, the buildings are shown with a one- or half-page essay of each and a label of the style, architect, location, and year of completion.
I would love to have seen more of the actual buildings, but I don't know that I would enjoy owning the book.
In case you're curious, my conquests from the full list...
- Colosseum - Rome. Italy
- San Miniato al Monte - Florence, Italy
- Salisbury Cathedral - Salisbury, England
- Florence Cathedral - Florence, Italy
- Palazzo Vecchio - Florence, Italy
- Florence Baptistery - Florence, Italy
- Uffizi- Florence, Italy
- Basilica of St. Peter - Rome, Italy
- Craigievar Castle - Aberdeenshire, England
- Colonnade of St. Peter - Rome, Italy
- Culzean Castle - Ayrshire, Italy
- Royal Albert Hall- London, England
- Glasgow School of Art - Glasgow, Scotland
- Casa Milá- Barcelona, Spain
- La Sagrada FamÃlia - Barcelona, Spain
- Fox Theatre - Detroit, MI, USA
- Chrysler Building - New York, NY, USA
- Empire State Building - New York, NY, USA
- Rockefeller Center - New York, NY, USA
- Pentagon - Arlington, VA, USA
- Italian Chapel - Orkney Islands, Scotland
- Indiana College Life Insurance Company Building - Indianapolis, IN, USA
- Sears Tower - Chicago, IL, USA
- East Building, National Gallery of Art - Washington, DC, USA
- United Airlines Terminal, O'Hare Airport - Chicago, IL, USA
- Aronoff Center for Design and Art - Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art - Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Walker Art Center - Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Centre Pompidou - Paris, France
Of course, I hadn't actually read any of the Blue Beetle or Atom stuff, so I didn't have much of a leg to stand on in my complaint - not that it's ever stopped me before, of course.
Here's the first volume of the newish Blue Beetle series which sort of introduces Jamie Reyes and his retconned blue scarab thing which turns into armor that he certainly doesn't understand at the beginning of the volume. I say 'sort of introduces' because little is clear a the beginning as the series came out of DC's 'One Year Later' event which dropped the heroes into a world where the readers had no idea what happened in the past, lost year and revealed bit by bit in the subsequent issues.
The idea was dumb.
Luckily, this series is actually interesting enough that I've gone ahead and requested the other five volumes of the since-cancelled run from PLCH. The setting of El Paso is an interesting choice and makes for natural inclusion of young, Hispanic characters, something that I assume DC was making as a conscious choice to bring in a different market than the typical, middle-aged white guys (like a certain ChemGuy).
The inclusion of a strong magic-theme left me cold and a bit confused as characters popped in and out of the series with cryptic and never-fully-revealed comments about Jamie's scarab's magical background. The exploration of Jamie's powers - he doesn't know what the armor/scarab is going to tell him or make him do, and he often struggles to maintain control of the armor - is interesting but needs to fade away soon if I'm going to see this all the way through.
Worth a read...
It's the weird, stupid mix of goth/romantic and faux science that just annoys the crap out of me, and this is just shy of steampunk in my eyes.
I appreciate the creation of Gotham as a character, a city with a rich history of madness and families guiding the creation of both an underclass and a privileged class that looked to help the underclass with their money, sort of the Carnegies of the DC world. Here we see the Waynes, Elliotts, and Cobblepots (?) as the three guiding families whose legacy - bridges and skyscrapers reaching to the heavens - are being tainted and revenged by the descendants of the architects whose designs were made into those 'Gates of Gotham'.
There's some interesting stuff, particularly Dick Grayson's finding of his way as the new Batman (has that entirely disappeared in the New 52?) and worrying about whether he can replace Bruce's knowledge of the city, but in general, this is forgettable.
The covers, however, are highly memorable. It's a shame that they weren't included in the trade.
Sadly, though, I stumbled upon these panels in searching for the covers. What the hell, folks?
He's going to have to slip into playing a different kind of action hero pretty soon.
Good stunts, fun locales, pretty girls...it's lesser than the first two MI's, but it's still a fun enough lark.
Jeremy Renner is a standout here. His star is very rightfully on the rise between the forthcoming Bourne Legacy and the already released Hurt Locker, Avengers, and this flick. He's the real deal, folks. My advice is to see just about anything he's in.
Chemistry Imagined by Roald Hoffmann - This man is the real deal - survivor of the holocaust, Nobel prize winning chemist, host of World of Chemistry, science popularizer, general stud.
When I saw that he had a new book out, I headed to the PLCH catalog to find check it out. Sadly, it's not in their catalog just yet, but this volume was. Since I'm always on the look out for books that might fit the parameters of my ongoing extra credit project, I'll pick up and skim just about any quasi-chemistry book.
This, however, isn't what I was looking for. The book's short (mostly two-page) essays are quick musings rather than somewhat deeper explorations or applications of chemical ideas.
Ah, well...we'll always have World of Chemistry...
Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes - This man is a laugh riot. Every page is full of hilarious gags and japes.
...or it's a 'love story' from the master of depressive comics.
Yeah, that's more like it.
Luckily, Clowes does a great job here of not falling to hopelessly into downerville, saving himself moment by moment with glances into a possibly redemptive outcome - which thankfully does come at the end of the book.
Give it a try.
I'm not hitting any detailed reviews here because there's just not that much to say that hasn't been said in more detail than I'm willing to offer up. Check Comics101's review for a good deal...and Ashleeta Beauchamp's take on the Banner-Stark relationship.
The short of this is that if you've seen all the lead-up flicks - Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Captain America (ignore the Hulk stuff, really) - you're gonna go see this one, and you're not going to be disappointed in the least.
- The action is a blast.
- Loki totally works as the bad guy.
- The two just human folks hold their own.
- The Hulk is the best Hulk that we've seen on screen - in spite of the fact that Norton did a fine job.
- Stark and Banner are the best characters here.
- Captain America's appropriately wooden but heroic.
- Scarlett Johansson doesn't ruin the thing and looks pretty throughout.
- We get a teaser for the next Avengers. (I have no friggin' clue why anybody leaves before the credits of a Marvel movie at this point...c'mon, folks!)
- Fury is marvelously controlling and starting to lean a bit further toward his Ultimate universe persona of living in the morally grey areas.
- I'm thinking Colby Smulders is going to be a fine replacement for Agent Coulson, though I'm really sad to see him go.
Plus there are a few points of laugh-out-loud funny in the flick.
Go see it.
(And let's cut the crap about this being the best comic book movie ever. Nolan's pair so far are both better because there's a theme there. This is widescreen comics translated appropriately and brilliantly for the big screen, but it lacks the gravitas that's required to top Nolan.)
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