I try not to do a lot of prefacing before I get to the meat of my movie reviews, but for this one it seems necessary, so here goes: I saw a lot of Shane Black movies in the late eightes/early nineties. As an only child with no restrictions on what types of movies I was allowed to watch, the R-rated Lethal Weapon movies were to me what The Goonies and The Sandlot are to other kids (even as a 10-year-old, I had a knee-jerk disdain for anything I perceived as treating me like a child, I even hated the Ninja Turtles). I got in trouble at school more than once for parroting Mel Gibson’s creative methods of telling his captain go f*ck himself. Today I can still quote my favorite lines from even lesser Shane Black films, like The Last Boy Scout (“I think I f*cked a squirrel to death”) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (“Nah, I just sock ‘em in the jaw and yell ‘pop goes the weasel.’”). Hell, I even liked Last Action Hero. And this was years before I even knew Shane Black’s name, or that it was the same guy writing all those scripts. I always wondered if my affinity for Shane Black was just a right-time, right-place situation, with his scripts being popular and me being young and stupid at about the same time. But now that I’ve seen the Shane Black-directed and co-written Iron Man 3 well past the age when I should’ve acquired discerning taste and reason? Bros, I’m here to tell you that my youthful stupidity was downright prophetic.

Iron Man 3 blows the first two out of the water. The first had a certain beef-headed charm, and was notable for being the first to present Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, one of the all-time great casting choices. And of course, ROCKET HANDS. The second was an extended trailer for The Avengers, best forgotten, apart from Sam Rockwell smirking and Mickey Rourke’s parrot. Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to a third. And then… All the weirdness surrounding Sir Ben Kingsley playing The Mandarin – an ethnically ambiguous sort-of Indian actor playing an ethnically ambiguous sort-of Chinese villain, who seemed to have been based on an earlier generation’s romanticized stereotypes about the Chinese and who in the movie speaks with consonant-heavy, Amerrrrican Innnnndian-esque a-rrrregional accent – all of it crystallizes in a character reveal that not only manages to make all of that make sense (!!!), but is easily the funniest scene in any superhero movie to date. And I’m counting the unintentional humor in Daredevil or the Fantastic Four movies. Was Iron Man 3 a silly movie? Oh my, heavens yes. But after that scene I would’ve followed it anywhere.

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Haha, quit playing around, you guys.

Laremy jumped off to a commanding lead in this year’s Fantasy Summer Box Office contest, as his first pick Iron Man 3 hand rocketed its way to a $175.3 million opening in North America, good for second all time behind The Avengers $207.4 million last summer. But we all saw this coming, let’s not start acting like Laremy is some kind of sage here. Iron Man 3 is to this summer’s box office what Barry Sanders was to Madden ’92, and any butt-fingering chimpanzee worth his own back ticks would’ve chosen it first. (Look, you do not want Laremy to get a big head, trust me on this).

Iron Man 3‘s $175.3 million debut is a huge leap over Iron Man 2‘s $128.1 million [and Iron Man's $98.6]. That’s a remarkable achievement given the dodgy history of three-quels—nearly all of them decline from their predecessor—and Iron Man 2′s questionable reputation. The main reason for this is simple: audiences viewed Iron Man 3 more as follow-up to The Avengers, which is almost universally beloved, than as a sequel to Iron Man 2. [BoxOfficeMojo]

I guess I can buy that the public saw it as a follow-up to The Avengers, since the average Joe Buttcrack and Charla Cheesesnack don’t think about stuff like Shane Black coming on to direct. Though for me, there’s a nice synergy to the idea that the best of the three Iron Man movies is also the highest opening. (*tattoos “SHANE BLACK 4 EVA” on chest with exacto knife*)

Weekend Top Ten and Fantasy standings below.

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Hey, you kids remember your old buddy Thor? I liked the first Thor alright. Chris Hemsworth was well cast (other than his shaved chest, which was weird), and I liked that Marvel got Kenneth Branagh to direct, who’s well off the beaten path of the usual directors they hire for these kinds of movies. It turned out passable, except for Jaimie Alexander and her gang of pointless characters, or whatever they were called. Now there’s a sequel, Thor: The Dark World, with direction by some no-named called Alan Taylor. I did a lot of research on this, and it turns out the bad guy is a big black thing, and Natalie Portman is sad because all the other girls hate her in Viking heaven. Something like that. I dunno, man, it looks really boring.

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According to LatinoReview, Georges St. Pierre, the UFC’s face guy sweet-boy dreamboat welterweight champion, who rules his division with a charming accent and boring decisions, has been cast as a villain in Captain America: Winter Soldier.  Meanwhile, word out of the Nick Diaz camp is that GSP only got the part because he was illegally greasing at the audition, and something seemed funny about his knuckle wraps. (*puts on “STOCKTON” hoodie, spray paints “209 FA LYFE DON’T BE SCARED HOMIE” on the side of abandoned check cashing store*)

GSP will play one of the villains, Batroc the Leaper!!!
Here is a bit of info on the character.
Batroc has no superhuman abilities, but is in peak physical condition in every respect. He is an Olympic-level weightlifter and has extraordinary agility and reflexes. His leg muscles are particularly well-developed which enables him to leap great distances with the strength of an Olympic athlete. He is an expert hand-to-hand combatant and specializes in savate (French-style kickboxing). He is also a skilled military tactician, having formerly been in the French Foreign Legion.
Batroc is an experienced thief and smuggler, who also speaks French and English. Although, as a mercenary, he does not hesitate to perform any number of criminal acts for his clients, Batroc has, by his own rights, a strong sense of honor, and he will turn against any client whom he feels has unfairly deceived him into committing crimes to which he might not otherwise have agreed. [LatinoReview]

Well that sounds like GSP. You know, except for the villain part. But I do like that one of Captain America’s nemeses is a French-Canadian. Who’s his boss, Gerard Depardieu? In fact, all of Captain America’s enemies should be offensive racial stereotypes. Maybe get Mickey Rooney back in his Breakfast at Tiffany’s make up, hire a drunk Russian like that one guy from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out – have it be like the It’s a Small World After All of malevolent, semi-racist caricatures. If Seth MacFarlane and Harmony Korine have proved anything, it’s that if you go half way, you’re an asshole. If you take it three steps further, you’re a genius.

And now, we go to Nick Diaz for comment:

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To his credit, director Marc Webb has been trying to build some buzz around The Amazing Spider-Man 2 by Tweeting one set photo every day that the film is in production. While some qualify as ominous – like showing the locker that Venom comes from – others are seemingly meaningless, like a guy planking on a dolly. Hell, the best part about Webb’s tweets are seeing the responses of one seemingly crazy Emma Stone fan, but again, he’s just trying to stir some interaction with fans for the sequel to his lackluster first effort.

But Webb isn’t giving us the good stuff, namely the set photos of Emma Stone, reprising her role as Peter Parker’s main squeeze, Gwen Stacy. Finally, though, photos have been popping up of Stone and Shailene Woodley, who plays Mary Jane Watson, as their characters meet for the first time. And nothing against Woodley – I’m sure she’s a lovely girl with a great personality – but Gwen Stacy looks like Emma Stone.

Maybe if she looked like Emma Thompson, Mary Jane would stand a chance, but if I’m expected to believe that Spidey is really torn between these girls, well, they better cram a few more villains into the film to distract me.

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