Nerd in the 'Noke

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), PG-13, 133 minutes - Spider-Man: Homecoming has been a highly anticipated film ever since Tom Holland's Spider-Man made his Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut in last year's Captain America: Civil War when he burst onto the scene lending a hand to Iron Man's cause.  With this film we're not only getting the first solo Spider-Man film since 2014, but also the second reboot of the character on the big screen (following the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield incarnations).  It also also marks the first co-produced film between Sony and Marvel Studios after their deal to share the character's film rights (take note Fox...cough, cough...Fantastic Four...cough, cough). Peter Parker (Holland) is a sophomore in high school, and actually looks age appropriate this time around.  He and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) are your typical smart kids and social outcasts who participate in things like band and the debate team.  Peter doesn...

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), PG-13, 141 minutes - What does one do to follow up a film that becomes a global phenomenon and banks more than one billion dollars at the box office? If you're Joss Whedon, you co-create a television series within the shared universe (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) then take the reigns of the follow up film; taking the Avengers on a romp around the world, neutralizing another global threat, and officially solidifying them as Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Not having to worry about introducing the world to these characters, Whedon throws us right into the fray as the Avengers: Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) - lay siege to a H.Y.D.R.A. stronghold under Baron Wolfgang von Strucker's (Thomas Kretschmann) command. A mission that uncovers the artificial intellige...

Chef (2014), R, 114 minutes - I've heard a lot of great things about Chef since it was released earlier this summer and I was pretty excited when I was finally able to watch it last week. It is a smaller film that first hit theaters back in May so there's a pretty good chance that it's no longer playing at a theater near you.  The good news is that it looks like it will be available on blu-ray/digital/On-Demand in about a month. Written and directed by Jon Favreau, the film is about Carl Casper (Favreau), a chef who was once known for his creativity and who now finds himself at a crossroads in his life and career after a very public confrontation with food critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt). At the urging of his ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) and with the financial backing of his ex-wife's ex-husband Marvin (Robert Downey Jr), Carl opens a food truck named El Jefe. With the help of his son Percy (Emjay Anthony) and his former line cook Martin (John Leguizamo), Car...

Iron Man 3 (2013), PG-13, 130 minutes - Iron Man 3.  Wow.  There's quite a bit to say and I'm not really sure where to start (and that's after thinking about it all last night and this morning).  There were things that I liked and things that I didn't.  I'm not sure that I've worked it all out yet, but I do know this for sure: there will be a longer than usual spoiler section at the end of this post. Iron Man 3 starts off with a narration from Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) himself, thinking aloud, trying to figure out how to best tell the story of how he has gotten to this point in his life.  He starts once, stops, then starts again, flashing back to a technology conference held over New Year's of 2000, settling on that as the point at which everything currently happening can be traced back to.  That flashback sequence sets up some of the major players of Iron Man 3, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), and Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) as well as giving us a ...

The first teaser trailer for Iron Man 3 just hit the web in the last day or two and from this first look at the film, it appears to be more of the same Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark goodness that we've come to expect from the first two films (and from The Avengers for that matter).  Iron Man may not be my favorite Marvel Comics character (that distinction belongs to Daredevil), but judging from the success of the franchise, there is no denying that he is the character that drives the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The trailer is absolutely packed with great looking action sequences, Stark's Extremis Armor (from Warren Ellis' run on the comic), Stark's Armory, Iron Patriot, and the first sights and sounds of Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin (a classic Iron Man villain who has been brought back to the forefront in Matt Fraction's current run on the comic)! Iron Man 3 boasts an amazing cast, no different than the first two films in the franchise.  The aforementioned ...

The Avengers (2012), PG-13, 142 minutes - Wow.  I'm completely nerding out right now.  I've had high hopes for The Avengers for a while now.  Ever since the idea of cramming a bunch of super heroes into a single movie was teased with the post credits scene of Iron Man.  Hopes were raised even more when Marvel announced that Joss Whedon would direct.  That's right, Joss Whedon.  He who has an amazing resume when it comes to highly entertaining tv and film revolving around character driven stories with a large, diverse cast.  The Avengers really couldn't have been put in better hands.  But even though I had raised my hopes so high, the comic book nerd in me wondered if The Avengers would really work on the big screen.  Could you fit that many characters in a movie that wasn't five hours long?  And if you could get a script down that solved those potential problems, could you piece together a cast that could set aside egos and bring it a...

The third installment of my countdown to The Avengers is my review for Iron Man 2.  This was review was actually one of the earliest reviews posted here on my blog back in May of 2010.  I think I still prefer the first Iron Man to this one, but it was another strong installment in the franchise, and it further teased The Avengers. Iron Man 2 (2010), PG13, 124 minutes  - Iron Man 2 kicks off the 2010 summer movie schedule with a bang. It's bigger, louder, wittier, and more action filled than the original. Version 1.0 however, is still the superior story. Robert Downey Jr retains his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man in a film that sees the character struggle with even greater levels of fame (after his admission of being Iron Man at the end of the first film) and deteriorating health (his body has an adverse effect to the element powering the arc reactor in his chest), while trying to stave off a new threat to his 'privatized world peace'. Downey Jr continues to be the perf...

Originally I thought that I might try and use this week leading up to the release of The Avengers to re-watch each of the five Marvel films that directly feed into this weekends film (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger).  It doesn't look like there will be time due to previous engagements so I thought that I would do the next best thing: dig through my personal movie review archives and share my thoughts on these five films with everyone in a countdown fashion.  Not all of these have appeared here on my blog.  Some pre-date the blog and were originally posted on myspace.  So here we go (in chronological order by release date), number one on the countdown to The Avengers: Iron Man Iron Man (2008), PG-13, 126 minutes -  The comic book nerd in me has never been a big fan of the Tony Stark/Iron Man character, but I've been looking forward to this movie since the teaser was released months ago. Not only did the...

Iron Man 2 (2010), PG-13, 124 minutes - Iron Man 2 kicks off the 2010 summer movie schedule with a bang. It's bigger, louder, wittier, and more action filled than the original. Version 1.0 however, is still the superior story. Robert Downey Jr retains his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man in a film that sees the character struggle with even greater levels of fame (after his admission of being Iron Man at the end of the first film) and deteriorating health (his body has an adverse effect to the element powering the arc reactor in his chest), while trying to stave off a new threat to his 'privatized world peace'. Downey Jr continues to be the perfect embodiment of Tony Stark. Mickey Rourke (Ivan Vanko) and Sam Rockwell (Justin Hammer) provide the villainous combo hellbent on tearing down Tony Stark and his legacy from the ground up by using variations on his own technology against him. If it sounds familiar, it's because it is. The decision to go with virtually the s...