Iron Man

[ria_oaks]

Saw Iron Man today. Fucking loved it. I can't believe I'd barely even heard of this movie until like 2 weeks ago, then it was released and was getting such good reviews and I sat up and took notice. I'm the first to admit that I'm not a comic books fan, beyond the Buffy comics, Japanese manga, and when I was a kid the Sonic comics. ^^ But damn, I do enjoy a good comic book movie, and this is easily one of the best I've seen from the recent crop of comic book/superhero movies in the past 5-7 years. It's been awhile since I saw a movie that had me practically bouncing in my seat with pure glee and making randomly excited noises and grinning crazily whenever I think about it. XD But seriously. It was damned shiny. I loved how character based it was - all explosions aside (and I can't deny that I greatly enjoyed said explosions...), at the core it was about Tony Stark and his growth as a character. I... feel like I should have intelligent and detailed thoughts on it, but at the moment I'm mostly all flaily. I loved the snark. I loved the fact that Tony grew the fuck up and took responsibility for his actions while retaining said snark. I loved Pepper, I loved the fact that she was smart and competent and awesome, and I loved the fact that their relationship was kept at a subtle UST level rather than a Grand Epic Superhero Romance level. I loved the fact that RDJ totally owned the role and became the character. And on a not-so-deep level, hotDAMN but I loved the bulging muscles and alternately the tank tops and the expensive suits. And is it strange that I found the... whatsitcalled, the thing on his chest keeping his heart going... kinda hot? ^^; I dunno, it just added to his look, heh.

So yeah, deep thoughts... not happening right now. But I thought all the elements of it worked together really well - the character drama, the action, the comedy and snark, the themes and such, and just in general the editing and cinematography and effects and music and all that jazz. I'll prob see it again on DVD, so my parents can see it - I'm def having the urge to see it again. Already. o.o

But for now, new icon. Because I realized that I've had my Scrubs one since fall, and it's now May for chrissakes, plus I'm pretty sick of it, and because I want a pretty pretty Tony Stark icon. So. New icon. :) Credit goes to sincerely_jane. Now I just need a wallpaper. XD Found a really nice header which I might use as a wallpaper, but being a header it's rather small. Hmm.

Comments

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Well, I still wouldn't exactly say that it's propaganda. I too was wondering a bit at the start, since I went into the movie knowing basically nothing, but I figured they would turn it on its head and they did. After all, the whole point was to show the destruction that American weapons and the American 'let's blow shit up!' ethos can cause. The real villains, and the truly corrupt ones, were the Americans selling their weapons to the terrorists - which is certainly true enough, given that the US government is at least partially responsible for the original arming of a good number of Middle Eastern dictators and terrorist groups. ^^; I'm also inclined to point out that there are in fact some pretty batshit insane and dangerous people over there, and that pointing that out doesn't necessarily equal American propaganda. (the problem comes with a. assuming that everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist, and b. that raging into their countries with guns a'blazing is going to solve anything) After all, the first thing Tony did with the suit was to go and rescue Afghani civilians - they were the real victims here, and he came to recognize that. His weapons, and his country's policies, were at least in part responsible for the destruction and pain in the Middle East.

But yeah. I was feeling a bit "whaat?" at first, too - I just decided to go with it, and figured that if certain people on my f-list loved it then it couldn't be super-over-the-top-American-propaganda.

Otoh, I did kinda feel like even if American policies and weapons were censured by the movie, they still kinda fell into the trap of "and then the white guy goes and saves the poor Afghani victims". Otoh, it all really goes with the theme of taking responsibility, and the fact that Tony had been responsible in part for this mess and ergo he had to clean it up. Because the US (and probably us, too, I know far too little about this county's politics sometimes...) does have some responsibility to clean up the mess they're made - just... without invading and making things worse. o.o

Anyway. All things considered I think they came out of it with a good theme, aka blowing shit up is not always the answer unless you're actually using it to save people rather than fucking things up more. Or something like that. ^^ Or more to the point, "selling weapons to terrorists is not a good way to bring peace to the Middle East". Heh. ^^;;

Though really, even as all this was going through my head while watching the movie, in the back of my brain I was really just thinking "dear god that man looks amazing in that suit/that tank top/shirtless". *ahem* I enjoy watching movies on multiple levels. ;)

[bk635.livejournal.com]

"Well, I still wouldn't exactly say that it's propaganda. I too was wondering a bit at the start, since I went into the movie knowing basically nothing,but I figured they would turn it on its head and they did. After all, the whole point was to show the destruction that American weapons and the American 'let's blow shit up!' ethos can cause. The real villains, and the truly corrupt ones, were the Americans selling their weapons to the terrorists - which is certainly true enough, given that the US government is at least partially responsible for the original arming of a good number of Middle Eastern dictators and terrorist groups. ^^; I'm also inclined to point out that there are in fact some pretty batshit insane and dangerous people over there, and that pointing that out doesn't necessarily equal American propaganda. (the problem comes with a. assuming that everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist, and b. that raging into their countries with guns a'blazing is going to solve anything) After all, the first thing Tony did with the suit was to go and rescue Afghani civilians - they were the real victims here, and he came to recognize that. His weapons, and his country's policies, were at least in part responsible for the destruction and pain in the Middle East."

I think that because US Foreign Policy and self-image really has grown to irriate me a great deal over the years, it's kind of gotten to the point where I'm seeing it everywhere now, even though it's not really there.

"But yeah. I was feeling a bit "whaat?" at first, too - I just decided to go with it, and figured that if certain people on my f-list loved it then it couldn't be super-over-the-top-American-propaganda."

I was going into the movie knowing completely nothing, so I was probably going "whaat?" longer than you. :p

But yeah, I don't think it's propoganda anymore; especially having read the backstory.

"Otoh, I did kinda feel like even if American policies and weapons were censured by the movie, they still kinda fell into the trap of "and then the white guy goes and saves the poor Afghani victims". Otoh, it all really goes with the theme of taking responsibility, and the fact that Tony had been responsible in part for this mess and ergo he had to clean it up. Because the US (and probably us, too, I know far too little about this county's politics sometimes...) does have some responsibility to clean up the mess they're made - just... without invading and making things worse. o.o"

Usually the only reason they start shit is because they want to get something out of it, which goes into my whole not liking their Foreign Policies-thing. Although we're probably guilty of it too.

"Though really, even as all this was going through my head while watching the movie, in the back of my brain I was really just thinking "dear god that man looks amazing in that suit/that tank top/shirtless". *ahem* I enjoy watching movies on multiple levels. ;)"

There wasn't much eye-candy for me in this movie. :\

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

I think that because US Foreign Policy and self-image really has grown to irriate me a great deal over the years, it's kind of gotten to the point where I'm seeing it everywhere now, even though it's not really there.

heh, tell me about it. ^^; and really, thinking on it more, the movie's not entirely innocent by any means.. I mean, ultimately it is pretty damned pro-American and anti-terrorists, but I figure they tempered that message well enough with the "but the Americans are corrupt too!" that it didn't bother me too much by the end of the movie. Plus I figure, hell, it's a superhero movie - they're always pro-American/patriotic/etc (remember the last shot in Spiderman 1? Of Spiderman landing on a flagpole with an American flag on top of a building? Course, this was less than a year after 9/11, so I suppose it was to be expected. ^^;) Anyway, they could have done a better job of not making the terrorists such flat and typical villains, but I suppose the movie was never really meant to be a pointed political commentary of any sort. ^^ More of a "big metal suit! big guns! big explosions FTW!!" type of thing. lol. Fortunately it had good acting, good characterization, and sharp writing at its core to elevate it beyond a typical 'big robots smashing each other' action movie (Transformers, I'm looknig at you...).

Heh, yeah, Canada's not especially innocent, either... though I'm inclined to say that we're not as bad as they are. XD ...i hope.

Poor baby. Well, Gwenyth Paltrow is attractive, and she did get to wear a backless dress. :) but really, it was all about RDJ and the bulging muscles and... mmmm... *goes to happy place* Funny, cuz I wouldn't have necessarily found him attractive before (though granted a lot of people do, heh), but he brought so much charisma and intensity to the role that it made him damned sexy.

*ahem*

Sorry. XD

*stares at clock* 1 more hour... I wanna go home and draw Tony Stark. XD And try to make a wallpaper with OpenCanvas, since I'm lacking Photoshop at the moment (on that note, you get my email? no more to be said here ^_^).

...I should do some work. Boss is away this week, which means that I'm not especially inclined to work hard. ^^;

[bk635.livejournal.com]

We're guilty of helping, definitely, but I can't recall many events where we started shit abroad. The US just usually does it because it has interests (e.g., resources, political leverage). But it doesn't admit to that; usually just says that it's for the good of freedom and rights (because you know, only they have those things). Then there have been times where, after retracting their forces from whatever country they were meddling with (Somalia for example, I think), ended up resulting more civilian death. I definitely wouldn't say that there's a lot of difference between the US and terrorists; it's just that the US is more systematic and political about it.

Haha.. Oh Spiderman.. Yeah, I forgot about that scene. You're right that superhero comics are very pro-American; I guess I was wrong in expecting that it would be otherwise.

But yeah, I enjoyed Ironman. Looking forward to the sequel.

I'll check my email. Gmail notifier has been fucked for a long time so I usually only find out when I bother to check manually.