my picture with the president…
Tom and I went to the ballgame yesterday, to see the Washington Nationals eke out a win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-8.
We also went to see Iron Man on Friday night. People. See this movie. Now. It’s fantastic.
I think the movie is probably helped by the fact that so few people know anything about the Iron Man mythology. So I had no opinion on whether or not Robert Downey, Jr. was too old to play Tony Stark, or what the suit should look like, or whatever. And Downey really is great in this movie- he’s an excellent actor who really brings a lot of charm and life to what could have been a tiresome and yet nonsensical stereotype: Brilliant engineer who is also a billionaire playboy?
An aspect that appeals to my geeky nature is that while Bruce Wayne has to get other people to design his gear for him, Stark is able to design his suit pretty much in isolation, assisted first by a fellow prisoner where he’s being held by terrorists, and then only by a robot and his snarky British house AI. Finally, the geek gets to be the superhero. And then you get to see the iterations of the suit, the abortive flight tests, the unexpected altitude issues, etc. that you never get to see in any other superhero movie. Spiderman goes straight from sweatpants to the iconic spandex, the Batmobile is always pretty much the Batmobile, etc.
And of course, needless to say, my geeky friends and I were all looking at the house and the workshop and saying, “If I were filthy rich, of COURSE that’s what would be in my house. Of COURSE I would have a snarky British house AI.” So I think it really resonated with all of us. 