MCU Retrospecticus: Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Original Review: Heart of Iron (three and a half stars)

Robert Downey, Jr. fully realized his big comeback in 2008. Not only was Iron Man a massive hit, with a sequel almost immediately greenlit, but just a few months later he delivered an Academy Award-nominated performance (in blackface) in Tropic Thunder. He followed that up in MCU-less 2009 with another massive win, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. It seemed like he couldn’t stop winning, especially since in 2010 he would be teaming up with one of the biggest comedy stars of the time, Zach Galifianakis to make a buddy road film called Due Date and bringing in the hotly anticipated Iron Man 2.

And then there was Mickey Rourke. Like Downey, 2008 was a banner year for this troubled actor, who gave probably the best performance of the year in The Wrestler. But Rourke never shook his reputation for being a bit off-putting and couldn’t find a good direction to pivot his redemption in, making super forgettable action flicks like Killshot and 13 as well as whatever the hell The Informers was. 2010 was stretching the limits of his good vibes, but he had to sure-fire hits to keep him going: Iron Man 2 The Expendables. Whoops.

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MCU Retrospecticus: The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Original Review: Doing the Monster Smash (unrated)

I think it’s funny that at the end of John’s Incredible Hulk review he wrote, “this kind of flick is truly what I look forward to with the summer season” because I ended my Iron Man review a month earlier with basically the same sentence: “Iron Man is one of those great summer escapist movies.” I think that speaks to the low expectations we still had for super hero movies back in 2008 (and our own writing). The Incredible Hulk is most certainly summer fair, but it is far from being a great escapist experience.

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A Home At The Table

Solange – When I Get Home

Solange probably knew that whatever her latest release was would have to stand in the shadow of 2016’s masterful A Seat At The Table, so you have to respect the fact that she leans into it. From the similar album artwork to the meandering tracklist to the spoken word interludes, it all bears a striking resemblance to her last album. So much so that it feels a bit like a companion to it. And yet, it once again finds an artist so comfortable in her own skin and so willing to abide by her own musical whims, that it’s easy to get lost in the subtle soundscapes she paints without it ever feeling too familiar. Continue reading →

MCU Retrospecticus: Iron Man

Next month’s Avengers: Endgame will bring a close to the third phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and quite possibly be the last we see of a group of iconic characters. I’ve come to love the MCU quite dearly, and its existence pretty much exactly lines up with that of this blog, so I thought I’d take a chance to reevaluate these movies as well as my own writing, starting with my review of Captain Marvel and going through all the other films in chronological order every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That’s 11 years and 21 moves to get through in just over a month, so let’s not delay!

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Higher, Further, Faster, More

Captain Marvel

Similar to Marvel’s decision to introduce Ant-Man to the MCU between Age of Ultron and Civil War, the idea of dropping Carol Danvers in the eye of the Infinity War storm is a questionable one. It feels like it has been a long time since last summer’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the hype for next month’s Endgame is real. Does anyone want a new hero right now? Especially since a post-snap version of the world seems like an interesting place, setting Captain Marvel 24 years in the past could have really backfired by making this adventure seem totally inconsequential. Fortunately, that’s not what happened, and instead we got a movie that adds some amusing depth to a ton of side characters and creates a hero I can’t wait to see take on Thanos.

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The People’s Albums: #16 Journey’s Greatest Hits

Well… it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Back in 2013, I started counting down and reviewing the top 50 best-selling albums in the U.S., in the hopes of getting to the bottom of what exactly makes an album that America loves. Though, as you may have noticed, I haven’t done one of these since March of 2016. Which makes it all a bit fortuitous that my last entry in The People’s Albums referred to then-candidate Trump in its opening paragraph.

Obviously, a lot has changed since the Spring of 2016, and our perception of what exactly America is has also changed. This probably shouldn’t have impacted me talking about mega-selling albums from the past, but for some reason, it did. In each People’s Albums piece, I would declare (in plain terms) why America would go for a certain album. But in the wake of the 2016 election, I wasn’t in the mood at all to write about what America did or didn’t like and why. All I knew was that America sucked, and I didn’t want to think about that fact.

But now, two years later, I’m starting to feel like I have a bit more perspective on why America is the way it is. And why the tectonic shift in our perception of it happened when it did. I also still believe that there are transcendent pieces of pop culture that can unite the two warring Americas, if just for the duration of a pop song or two. Yes, even if you’re a small town girl living in a lonely world, or a city boy born and raised in South Detroit.

(Yes, I realize that was cheesy, but what do you expect? We’re about to talk about Journey for god’s sakes!)

Album: Greatest Hits
Artist: Journey
Release Date: November 15, 1988
Copies Sold In The U.S.: 15 million

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