This article started as a review of Iron Man, but I had a writer’s block midway through, and couldn’t complete the review. So I’m gonna talk about a few things as well.
Iron Man Review

I went to watch Iron Man with Tou (because he was heartbroken over something stupid that he had done). First things first, Iron Man is awesome. You should watch it.

Iron Man follows the typical three-act structure that you can find in movies (though more prevalent in superhero-type movies). It is traditional as can be in terms of storytelling. It doesn’t feel as epic as Superman (the original 1977 movie), though it did feel about as good as Spiderman (which is the modern day epic). Iron Man is essentially Marvel’s answer to Batman (super rich playboy with no powers but gain super identity), and the movie feels like Batman Begins, only less epic, and a more rock-and-roll version of it.

There isn’t a feeling of greatness coming from Iron Man like Batman Begins or Superman did. I reckon this is a trend with Marvel comics movies. They do not feel as epic as the DC versions. The DC comics movies, like Superman or Batman had a larger-than-life feel (hint: with John Williams and Danny Elfman at the helm of scoring, its hard not to be epic sounding), while the closest that a Marvel comic movie ever came to such a feeling was Spiderman.

Visually, Iron Man is stunning. Tony Stark was played to perfection by Robert Downey Jr. And oh, do I even need to mention Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts? Even if Iron Man was totally shithouse (which its NOT), I’d go see it for Gwyneth Paltrow (yes I’m aware she is married with a kid called Apple). But even though it is stunning visually, it cannot compare to the visuals of Superman, Superman Returns, Batman Begins or even the very stylized Batman by Tim Burton.

Iron Man’s visual style feels normal, and perhaps that’s the style the director went for, instead of over-the-top larger-than-life visuals we see. The final fight scene with Obadiah Stone in the super huge Iron Man costume was hardly anything. Batman stopped a train from going into Wayne Tower, in effect, saving Gotham City from inevitable madness. Superman spinned around the planet to make time go back. Spidey killed his best friend’s father. And Iron Man? He fought a double dealing snake. Yes, it was epic all right, if you mean the size of things. But this is epicness on a personal level.

Oh yeah, Iron Man’s suit? Wicked sick!

All in all though, I really did like Iron Man. Iron Man is an awesome movie, and you definitely need to watch it in theatres. And I wish this review was more in-depth (those of you who read my reviews know). 8/10 for Iron Man from me.

Justice League: The New Frontier Review

The day following watching Iron Man, I caught Justice League: The New Frontier on DVD. I absolutely loved the Justice League animated series - it was simple, stylized art, with nice story arcs. Justice League: The New Frontier follows in the animated series’ footsteps, but instead of focusing on the modern day Justice League, the movie pulls back and focuses on the same characters, but from the Golden Age of comics instead (yes, Barry Allen is still alive). The time is set in the 50s and 60s.

The first thing I noticed from this movie is the amount of violence it portrays. Literally, within minutes of the film, someone pulls a gun on his own head. Now, I have nothing against cartoon violence, but the original Justice League animated series did well without extreme violence, and I don’t see why they should resort to violence in the movie. Also, I feel that the movie is stuffed with too many cameos. You don’t get to see most of them in action though.

Again, this JL:TNF is a good watch. Not epic type of awesome (I think the Justice League intro in episodes 1 and 2 was a better storyline), but I think it stuck really closely to its source material, the comics. 7/10 for Justice League: The New Frontier from me.

Numbers

The reason why I recently had a writer’s block is due to my assignment. It was the longest assignment I’ve had this semester yet. And there is a strange part of my brain that dedicates itself to writing. The only reason why you occasionally see more posts here when I have an assignment going on is because I decided to spend my brain cells on my blog instead of my assignment.

Anyways, I came to a rather sad realization when I was doing my assignment - it was hard to do it without any numbers. My life seem to revolve around numbers. And it was damn difficult to come to any conclusions for my assignment without having that constant urge to shove at least a number and its confidence interval in it.

And another thing about numbers is that despite its objectivity, deriving conclusions from numbers is still pretty much subjective. Take this blog for example - in recent weeks, the number of hits have went through the roof. But the numbers of comments per post is not doing well. What conclusion can you come about this blog?

Of course my solution to this is simple weighted scoring. But not all people do scoring rules for their blog’s health, do they?

Recent Events in My Life

And now, time to bore you with recent events in my life. This is what crazy things I did in the past week:

• I tried to set a bottle of alcohol on fire. Needless to say, I was pretty much dead drunk (Tou’s fault again - ah but that’s just self-deception - I should be the one controlling how much I drink considering I know how much it takes me to get really drunk). I don’t even remember trying to set fire to a bottle of very volatile liquid until Kelsey told me how she stopped me from doing it.
• I have insomnia. Again. Which is why I am posting this in such an ungodly hour.
• People seem to like writing to me asking for very weird technical questions. I still owe a bunch of them answers, which I haven’t had the time to reply.
• It took me 4 hours earlier today, but I finally read and replied courtesy emails to everyone. My inbox is now empty.
• Time to work those bills as well.
• SHYUING WORE A DRESS! THE UNIVERSE IS COLLAPSING!!
• I am now extremely knurd (thanks to an average of 6 cups of coffee+tea).
• Also, Tabasco sauce makes you really knurd
• Time for another introspective post soon.

And finally, to the person I promised an econometric answer today (Monday)… I’m so so so sorry. But I promise you the next post will be your answer on how to account for heteroskadacity. I promise

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