World Enough and Time

Gotta be the best review of anything I have ever read... A review of Iron Man 3 by Laura Hundson and Jim Rugg. They nailed it. Sequential Stark: Wired Reviews Iron Man 3 — In Comic Book Format.

Especially the parts about identity.

A review almost as clever as the movie.

There aren't many movies I really care about going to see these days. There was a time I liked going to a movie every week - but most of the new movies don't look interesting to me.

Least of all are they worth seeing late at night. Midnight screenings? I'm the get up at dawn girl these days; so it's the rare movie that lures me into the late hours of the night. Even when I see things, I don't often think they're worth it.

So... Iron Man 3. Worth it.

I loved Iron Man 1, mostly hated Iron Man 2. Ads for #3 made me fear it would be like #2. No need to fear: it isn't.

I just heard an IMDb interview with Robert Downey Jr.. He says, "People are happy that it's kind of clever and defies expectations." That's certainly true in my case: it's very clever and kept defying my expectations over and over. Expectations based on lot of comic book reading over the years, and a long knowledge of how these stories work.

And it isn't just changing things for the sake of changing them, randomly. It's... clever changes. Things rooted in the comic, and in the set-up of the previous movies. Surprises that all make sense, but you don't see them coming. At least, I didn't.

It was wonderful. I love surprises.

On the non-surprise front: Too many explosions. I did expect that. No big deal. If a lot of explosions sell a good plot, I'll live with them.

Mind you, some of it was due to a year or two of clever misdirection in terms of movie publicity and promotion. Those clever dogs.

Okay, ( spoilery comments now...... )

I was reading something online where fans were talking about people Natasha Romanoff has slept with, and they mentioned Tony Stark.

Now, given what we know about both Natasha and Tony, I'd be surprised if they hadn't slept together somewhere down the line, but I can't recall any relationship between them being mentioned in the comics. Not so much as a kiss. Mind you, I haven't always been a faithful reader of either The Avengers of Iron Man, so it's possible I simply missed that.

So - can anyone with more knowledge of Marvel than I have, tell me if and when Tony Stark and Black Widow have ever been lovers?

Funny thing: I lived 56 years without ever being kidnapped by pirates. Now it's happened twice this year.

First time was somewhere in the Caribbean, when we were set upon by colourful cutthroats with knives and cutlasses as we emerged from the Michelangelo Dining Room of the Ruby Princess. Photos were taken and offered for sale. I'm pretty sure I bought one, but I'm not sure where it is now.

Second time was last night. I'd had a late supper with maaseru and another friend at the Ben Ben, and bought some groceries for today. I visited to admire the work done on maaseru's apartment, but didn't stay long, since I planned to go to bed early to sleep off a slight sore throat. Decided to play a few minutes of Princess Isabella: The Witch's Curse before going to bed.

At which point I was kidnapped by a drunken Pirate, who not only encouraged me to blog about it (knowing my LJ habits) but even wrote semi-legible piratical notes for me to copy on LJ - alas, they ended up being left in her lair so I don't actually have them to reproduce. The world is richer for it. She made me promise not to reveal her name, merely her fiendish exploits.

This drunken Pirate had scored a bootleg copy of Iron Man 2, which she forced me to watch. At scissorpoint. (I guess her cutlass was out being sharpened somewhere.) Ar.

Besides the movie, another of her evil deeds was to make me drink a foul concoction that had been supposed to be a Sonic Screwdriver, but since the sonic screwdriver now has a green light, not a blue one, and since she had confused the recipe for the Sonic Screwdriver with the Purple Nurples we were making last October in the throes of Supernatural fandom, the resulting mess resembled no known drink recipe on the face of the earth. Really, pirates will drink anything. Later on, my captor admitted she wanted to see whether it had an effect on me, since she is amazed by my ability to hold liquor. I'm this person who almost never drinks alcohol (no, really!) and she'd expect me to have a weak head for liquor, and instead, I can drink on and on and not show any effects. (I don't do this deliberately. Or, usually, at all.) She says she plans to use me to win bar bets because I can out-drink anybody. Actually, alcohol keeps me awake - not much of an effect. Maybe I'd drink more if I did get the happy buzz most people get.

So anyway, there I was, kidnapped to the den of a fiendish Pirate and forced to watch the exploits of Tony Stark in a murky Russian copy while drinking Sonic Nurples.

I loved the movie, though I have to admit that between poor sound, dim visuals, and a very funny (outspoken) running commentary from the Pirate, I probably missed all sorts of fine points in the plot. We both declared a desire to see it in a real cinema as soon as possible. We both loved Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark - again. And Nick Fury. And Pepper Potts. And Mickey Rourke. And Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, who has always been one of my favourite Marvel villains. Yes, really. And I adored Scarlett Johannson as the Black Widow, who has always been one of my favourite female characters at Marvel. This is what Elektra should have been like - smart, sexy and dangerous, which to my eyes Jennifer Garner just wasn't. Oooh, Natasha. The only remotely negative comment I can think of is that she should have had a faint Russian accent, because the Black Widow in my head has always had a faint Russian accent.

Or maybe she did. The sound quality wasn't stellar.

The unexpectedness of the whole escapade delighted me. I didn't plan to be watching Iron Man 2 at 1 a.m., and probably wouldn't have if invited to, but if kidnapped? Hey, it wasn't my fault.

Seems appropriate, too, that I just saw The Pirates of Penzance last week.

At one point my Pirate captor told me I had a truly generous spirit, which I thought was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. I was touched. And it's a pity people don't say more such nice things when sober.

explodedteabag pointed me to this: the site of Stark Expo 2010. What fun. Reminds me of some of the reality-within-the-reality sites some other movies and TV shows have had: Heroes, Torchwood (back when I could look at it!) and Lost.