Captain America: The First Avenger – South Bay Galleria 16, Torrance, CA

Absolutely amazing! So beautiful!

Fantastic job by Chris Evans.

Hugo Weaving is an amazing villain.

When I grow up I want to be Stanley Tucci. He’s such a great and dependable character.

Yay for Stan Lee’s cameo!

Awesome music by Alan Silvestri. I’m glad I didn’t know it was him going in because it would have distracted me, but one I knew it was him I could hear bits of Van Helsing in the credits.

Yay Howard Stark’s Expo! They re-used the Sherman brothers song from Iron Man 2! :-D And that new song, “Star Spangled Man” is so pretty! And it’s written by Alan Menken and David Zippel (the song-writing duo behind Disney’s Hercules)! Yay Marvel and Disney synergy!!! :-D

Thor – AMC 12 @ Downtown Disney

I don’t see what everyone is bitching about – this film was beautiful.

Chris Hemsworth looks absolutely incredible as Thor. I mean he really bulked up for the role and it looks awesome (we last saw him as George Kirk in J.J. Abram’s phenomenal Star Trek reboot).

I love that Kenneth Branagh directed the film – especially after reading interviews with him where he talks about growing up in Ireland reading the Thor comic books and enjoying them!

Side Notes: In the lobby we noticed a display for Puss In Boots, which just makes me roll my eyes that they’re taking anything vaguely Shrek and giving it it’s own movie. Also there was a HUGE 3-panel display for Cars 2 with so much pretty that we stood there for about 10 minutes analyzing all the little details. I am so very excited with what Pixar has accomplished just with this display (the tiniest details of the architecture have automotive highlights and there’s a billboard featuring a Lotso product) which means the bar is even higher for the actual film! It’s absolutely incredible.

Update (5/20/2011): saw the film in 3-D and didn’t mind it – Asgard was beautiful as was the credits sequence. Other than that, it’s still a solid film the 2nd time around.

Sucker Punch – Incline Village Cinema, NV

This film is absolutely phenomenal! We first became aware of this film as a series of posters in the theatre lobby when Laura and I went to see Green Hornet, and it looked like fun (sexy girls with advanced weaponry in fantasy/sci-fi environments). Then we watched the trailer and I was completely blown away and couldn’t wait to see it. Actually I desperately wanted to know more about it, but luckily my wife was able to curb my need for spoilers. And of course seeing that it was a Zack Snyder production automatically made it a definitely-worth-seeing flick (based on my appreciation for his handling of 300 and Watchmen – I can’t WAIT to see what he and Christopher Nolan cook up for Superman). Apparently this is based on an original story by Zack Snyder, which makes this all the more interesting – we’ve seen how he handles other comic book material, now let’s see how he handles his own material.

I absolutely LOVE the character names.

It was also interesting trying to figure out the time period of the movie – if I had to guess I would say mid to late 50s. The costume design was absolutely gorgeous.

The cast is phenomenal. Carla Gugino (Dr. Vera Gorski) is a nice little holdover from Watchmen. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen Rocket (Jena Malone) before, but then IMDB just flooded details back to me and I was like – oh yeah! Vanessa Hudgens (Blondie)?!?! When did she grow up to adult movie roles? Just kidding. Yay for Scott Glenn as the Wise Man! Oscar Isaac is absolutely phenomenal as the chief antagonist, Blue Jones. And he sings too! Jon Hamm “guest stars” as the mysterious High Roller.

The music was awesome. I only recognized one of the songs (well technically two because Queen’s “We Will Rock You” is snippited) from the first fantasy sequence and only because Blue Man Group performs it (“White Rabbit”).

I need to go and see the movie one more time. Not just for the amazing action sequences, but for the opening and closing monologues – they are very heavily layered with the purpose of the film, why it was created, what it represents, etc.

Here is a lovely article/interview with Zack Snyder talking about the film which just makes me laugh out loud.

I have an idea about a part of what the fantasy sequences represent. It is strictly opinion. It revolves around the aircraft used in the three major fantasy sequences representing the global conflicts that America has been involved with: we started with World War I (or The Great War) flying ace biplanes; then we moved on to World War II bombers; then we ended with choppers (symbolizing a mish-mosh of jungle and desert missions a la Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars).

Be sure to stay all the way through the credits to enjoy the full out musical number which I hope is in it’s unedited form on the home release (it’s so PURDY!!!!).

The Green Hornet – Regal Garden Grove 16, Garden Grove, CA

It was almost perfect. The number of times Seth Rogen’s character was a stubborn jackass was ALMOST proportional to the number of times he got his butt whooped…but who’s counting.

This was definitely a very fun and enjoyable movie.  It was nice to see Cameron Diaz again…feels like she’s been absent from my movie screen unless I watch The Mask again.  ;-)

The definitely amazing thing to come out of this movie is Jay Chou – he kicks butt, he’s funny and he sings! Be sure to stick around through the end credits to hear him rapping it up!

I was almost unsure how I was supposed to fell about this movie thanks to the webcomic The Gutters, but I’m glad I went.  Seth Rogen does look like he put in some physical training labor (not to mention the scripting and producing credits) and got into a slightly less dough-y shape in order to play this part which pleases me even though I’m not that familiar with the source material.

All in all a very satisfying flick.

Iron Man 2 – Century 20 @ Bella Terra, Huntington Beach, CA

Freaking amazing. The entire cast and crew do a fantastic job.

Does Disney even exist in the Marvel universe? Was that an awkward moment at the Disney-buys-Marvel-negotiations? “Um yeah…Howard Stark replaces Walt Disney in our universe”

RICHARD SHERMAN WROTE THE JINGLE USED IN THE ARCHIVED STARK EXPO FOOTAGE (it’s called “Make Way for Tomorrow Today”). EEEEE!

Jon Favreau must really love AC/DC as he features them very prominently in both Iron Man movies so far.

Sam Rockwell ALWAYS seems so sleazy to me.

I know the strawberry vendor! He was in Torrance Cultural Arts Center’s summer production South Pacific (circa 2002) as Stewpot! Ha! It’s always fun to pick him out in movies. He was in one of the Fast and The Furious trailers as the truck driver who’s rig is being dismantled while he’s driving it.

Having read some reviews, my language/opinions have been slightly tainted/biased, but there are still some things worth saying. In comic book movies, the antagonist plays almost as important a role as the protagonist. That being said, Sam Rockwell’s character mucked up the works a bit in terms of antagonist just like in the first film you had the leader of the 10 Rings being one of the antagonists. Whiplash (expertly played by Mickey Rourke) was a pretty awesome antagonist though…shame Sam Rockwell had to steal his thunder.

The thing I love the very most about both Iron Man movies is the holographic/3-D tech (AKA Jarvis). It’s very fun to imagine such an interactive computing experience when right now we’re just goofing around with tech akin to the dummy robot that keeps futzing about (to great one-liners from Robert Downey, Jr.).

The Dark Knight

This film is staggeringly epic in it’s darkness and execution. Heath Ledger’s performance is incredible, but not in my mind Oscar-worthy (but the Academy doesn’t listen to me so we’ll just let Marissa Tomei win again ;] ).

I love that the movie opens with the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) because it maintains the new Batman mantra of not killing off your villains and letting them be little side jokes that Batman totally destroys.

Joker lines

I’m like a dog chasing cars…I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one!

And here we…go! Can’t rely on anyone anymore…

Why so serious son? Let’s put a smile on that face….