Last Friday I went to see Iron Man on opening night at the Odeon on Leicester Square together with a big group of fellow geeks and bloggers, including Cristiano (of course), LJ, Sizemore, Whatleydude and a whole bunch of others. Suffice to say that it was a pretty great experience and this is one movie you must see in the cinema.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a genius playboy millionaire and CEO of the weapon developing Stark Industries. While he is the brain behind his company inventing many of the high-tech items himself, Tony is the stereotype millionaire: a hard drinking, gambling ladies man without a care in the world. That is, until he gets captured by terrorists in Afghanistan and is forced to reproduce one of his own missiles. Stark instead secretly develops a way to free himself, which puts him on his path to become Iron Man.

As a lot of people have been saying, I do think Iron Man is one of the best comic book adaptations so far. Unlike most superhero movies it stayed true to the comic books, without trying to make it more grittier and real, yet also without making it look cheesy. That being said, the visual effects in this movie are stunning. Not once did I have the feeling I was looking at CGI; everything seemed fluent and realistic. There also weren’t any unnecessary CGI scenes in it; sometimes with other movies it seems to me as if certain battles go on forever or that certain scenes are in it, pure for the sake of doing “some cool CGI”.

I don’t think this movie would have worked with anybody other than Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Tony Stark. This is one character he was born to play and, boy, does he play that character well. Downey brings a lot of his own personality to Stark, playing the millionaire-turned-superhero pitch perfectly. With Iron Man in the cinemas and Tropic Thunder coming up, I think we’ll remember 2008 as the year Robert Downey Jr. became a movie star.

While it is Downey’s movie, the performances of the other actors are also all top-notch. Gwyneth Paltrow is cute (although perhaps a bit smiley) as Stark’s assistant Pepper Pots and makes their relationship believable. One question: was it all makeup or does Paltrow really have freckles, but always covers it up? Jeff Bridges is almost unrecognizable as Stark’s mentor Obadiah Stone, even shaving his head for the role. Then there’s Terence Howard as Stark’s military friend Rhodey. While he isn’t featured that prominently in this movie, I know we’ll be seeing that character and his alter-ego War Machine in future sequels.

My only small gripe with this movie is parts of the plot. At times it was a tad predictable and to me the science sometimes seemed a bit off (although I’m sure a true Iron Man fan will be able to explain it all to me). The largest problem I had though wasn’t with the movie at all, but with it’s trailer. Seriously, how much can you give away? Besides showing a lot of the action sequences, most of the funny moments were featured in the trailers. Then they also took a bit of a scene from the final scene in the movie! Why?!

On a personal note (please don’t hurt me now), I didn’t love this movie as much as almost everybody else I’ve heard talking about it. It’s not that I don’t like Iron Man or that I don’t find it a great movie, but for me something was missing and I can’t seem to pinpoint exactly what. Typically when I love a movie, I come out of the cinema with this childlike glee and giddiness. And with Iron Man I didn’t get that feeling. Not sure why, cause it ticked off all the right boxes (maybe I’m just more of a Batgirl).

All in all, though, Iron Man is a great blockbuster movie. It’s up there as one of the best superhero movies ever. Plans have already been announced for a sequel to be released in 2010, so Tony Stark is here to stay. Try to catch it in the cinema, cause this is one movie where you’ll want the big screen experience. One more tip: stay seated until after the end credits, there’s a brilliant little extra you can’t afford to miss.

Episode 57: *click*

I’m somebody who always has to fiddle with something when listening to a lecture or when I’m in a meeting. Just need to keep my hands occupied (do you know how many pens I’ve broken because I was unconsciously messing around with them?). Anyhow this seems like the perfect toy gadget:

I so want one of these!

As a continuation on my previous post, I have a confession to make: I’m a comic book newbie. Rookie. Beginner. Call it what you want (not virgin though, cause I have read some comic books), but I’m really just starting out with comic books here. Or should I call them graphic novels? This is one geek lingo I’ve never taken the time to learn and I want to change that.

I do know my superhero lore, but most of that comes from watching the cartoons as a kid and procrastinating reading up on Wikipedia. I’ve only recently (=3 years ago) “gotten into” comic books, but most of the stuff I’m reading is movie or TV related. On the one side those are the comics based on movie/TV shows; I’ve got the Heroes, Buffy and Serenity ones and want still want to get the Battlestar Galactica spin-offs. On the other side, I’m also reading the comics which are getting movie adaptations, like V For Vendetta and Sin City.

Truth though is I don’t want to read comics purely because of some movie. I want to read comics, because of the great stories being told. Now here’s where I need your help: Where the heck do I start?!? Take Batman and X-Men, for instance, I have no freaking idea which line I’m supposed to pick up. And then there are of course a million and one comics I most probably never have even heard of, which deserve to be read too. The pool of choices is just so large and I need some people to point out the best starting points. Faithful readers, help me please?

Episode 56: “Awesometeen”

The more I hear about it, the more I can’t wait for Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. This video is a short interview Neil Patrick Harris did with EW. He not only talks about Dr Horrible, but also his role in Harold and Kumar 2 and what he thought of Jason Segal (his How I Met Your Mother costar) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

I just found out that tomorrow today (I haven’t gone to bed yet, so for me it’s still “tomorrow”) on Saturday May 3rd is Free Comic Book Day. As the name indicates, it’s a day when participating comic books stores give away comics to anyone who comes to their stores. It depends on the store and their policy how many free comics you’re allowed to receive, but every visitor will receive at least one absolutely free comic book.

Free Comic Book Day is an annual event, held on the first Saturday of May. It started 7 years ago as a promotional effort by the North American comic book industry to help attract new readers to independent comic books stores. Typically major comic book book publishers will produce special edition comics aimed to attract non-comic book readers. For instance, past special editions included titles from Archie, Disney and Battlestar Galactica.

This year’s FCBD has 41 titles to giveaway for free, as well as 2 miniature Star Wars and Iron Man figures (again it does depend on the store). If you want to see the full list of comics offered, check out the FCBD site. There are a couple of interesting looking comics, a number of which I could easily see non-comic book readers pick up*.

So people: check if your local comic book store is participating and if so, head on down to it and get your free comic books!

*Disclaimer: I am not a real comic book reader… yet. See my next post.

Interesting links for April 30th through May 1st:

• Science Museum – Launchpad Online – Launchball – Fun little game where you have to put the the right objects on the right spot to help the ball get to it’s end point.
• ARG Stats – Cool compiled list of stats for a lot of ARGs.
• Ben Linus plays mindgames with Quint! LOST’s Michael Emerson speaks! – Great interview with Emerson who plays Ben on Lost. After last week’s episode this comes at the perfect time. No real spoilers, but it’s interesting to see his perspective on the series.

Episode 55: “Never think I need backup plans”

This video was featured on /Film yesterday and it’s too good not to repost it here. And having rewatched Raiders of the Lost Ark myself only just last night, it seemed appropriate.

It’s RSS Awareness Day today! I guess maybe half of you are now tsk-ing, thinking “what’s the big deal? RSS has been around for some time”, while the eyes of the other half are glazing over and thinking I’m talking about some mumbo jumbo. Now both halves don’t run away! This day I’ve got tasks for both of you.

First off, for those of you who do know what RSS is, here’s your task for today: go out and explain RSS to one person who you know has never used it before. About only 5% of the internet users is aware of RSS, which is a shockingly low number. So go and proclaim the usefulness of RSS!

For those of you who don’t know what RSS is, I’m not going to explain what RSS is. Why not? Because they are already so many good explanations out there and it’s no use for me to add another one on top of that. Instead I want you to check out this video:

Still not completely sure what RSS is? I’ve got a couple more posts from other blogs who explain it pretty well. The first one is from RSSday.org, the organisers behind RSSday. Then Back in Skinny Jeans has a great post explaining RSS the Oprah Way. Finally, Problogger also has a great page on what RSS is.

So now you know what RSS is, get yourselves an RSS reader and subscribe to Miss Geeky. How, you ask? All you have to do is click on the Subscribe to RSS in the sidebar on the right. Easy, right?