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To be honest, I was more interested in seeing Iron Man when it was just a Jon Favereau-directed, brilliantly typecasted, comic-book movie.  Since it started getting good reviews and the occasional blasphemous comments that it’s “better than Spider-man” *ptui*, then I lost interest in going opening weekend.

I’m more of a “bandwagonner” than an “anti-establishment” type of geek, but I had my mind set on watching Iron Man as an individual choice, not looking like I’m one of the crowd.  I also don’t like crowded theatres.

Last year I saw Spider-man 3 on opening night at Paramount, and again later that weekend with a theatre full of kids. It was more enjoyable watching it with the kids, because they were allowing themselves to be pulled into the storyline - as cheezy though it may have been. The twenty-somethings at the first showing wouldn’t shut the f*** up. 

I’ll wait a little bit before seeing Iron Man, but I will be seeing it soon. This summer is a little too packed to put off any movie for too long.  Speed Racer comes out this Friday, but I doubt it will top the $100 million that Iron Man brought in.

However, I have seen a few new(er) movies over the last couple of weeks. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was typical Judd Apatow material. Nothing new (besides full-frontal male nudity) but more of the same formula. If you enjoyed Superbad, Knocked Up and 40-year-old Virgin, then this is good. But again, nothing new.

The next night I was treated to yet more full-frontal male nudity with Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay . I guess weiners are the new taboo-of-the-moment to break in high concept filmmaking. For some reason, Sarah Marshall, the movie with full-frontal male nudity, simulated sex scenes but no female nudity, alcohol consumption but no drugs, and very limited swearing got an 18A rating, while Harold & Kumar got a 14A rating.

It would seem that simulated sex scenes and a few extra shots of weiner gets a higher age-limit rating than excessive female nudity, swearing and drug & alcohol abuse. I guess it really is the new taboo of the moment.

Again, Harold & Kumar was just as good as the previous film. Nothing new, but worth watching if you liked the first.

These sound like disappointing assessments, but it really is an accomplishment when a series manages to maintain its quality while spawning sequels. Not every writer/director/acting team can do that.

Following up two days of immature adult humour, I went to see Nim’s Island with my neice and nephew. Simple movie, but good for kids. Jodie Foster plays against type as a person who has several phobias, including the inability to leave her house. The irony being that she’s a successful writer of Indiana Jones-style adventure novels. She has to leave her house to help save Nim, but doesn’t get to the island until the last twenty minutes of the movie.

If her struggles paralleled Nim’s a bit more closely, then it might have worked. Instead, the effort was clearly made but did not succeed in the final film. This feels like it might have been a studio edit, but it could simply have just been badly translated to the big screen.

The last movie I’ll mention is Mr. Brooks. There was a lot of critical acclaim for this one, and it’s well deserved.  The writing is brilliant, the direction fantastic, and the acting is very impressive. For someone like William Hurt, you just hire him and have him show up and he’ll put in a good performance. However, the director managed to get another great performance out of Kevin Costner (small difficulty), Demi Moore (medium difficulty) and even Dane Cook (high difficulty).

The film changes gears as frequently as a Schizophrenic changes personalities, and I think that’s what was intended. That being said, there was very little difference between Kevin Coster and his alter-ego, William Hurt. I bought this movie on DVD and I’m glad I did, I will be watching it again.  I’ve always wanted to see Kevin Coster get his second wind after the problems he had following Dances With Wolves. With this performance he might be able to get back on the horse and make an enviable career after all.