like... *GASP!*

This weekend has been a weekend for movies for me and Hubby. Saturday we saw Iron Man and then ran down the hallway to see Harold and Kumar, Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Then, last night, we saw Curse of the Golden Flower.

Let's begin with Iron Man shall we? ...... !!!wow!!! Perfect! It amazed me how everything moved and fit so very well together. Most super-hero movies I don't often want to see, mostly because the super-heroes aren't the ones I want to see. This one, however, I knew a little bit more about and just simply couldn't wait to see, and, as always, I was a little concerned with how it was going to turn out. After all, directors tend to take a lot of short-cuts or "creative license" with the movies and stories themselves. It doesn't matter if the viewers have grown up with the comics and know the hero's story from beginning to current position, or nearly up to the current position. The X-Men movies are perfect examples of this, as is The Hulk (hopefully this second Hulk movie will be a little better). About the only characters they got right in the X-Men movie was Wolverine and Professor-X. However, with Iron Man everything was perfect, OK "practically" perfect - Tony Stark didn't admit he was indeed Iron Man right away, but everything else was perfect!

Robert Downy, Jr. was the perfect Tony Stark. He whined perfectly. He manned up when he needed, and he had that particular hero quality about the performance that was fun and human. His banter with the computer while he was working on the prototype of the suit made me roar! "If you use the fire extinguisher on me and I am NOT on fire, I swear I will donate you to a children's museum...." Not exactly correct words, but close enough you get the idea. Pepper Potts was perfect. And Obadiah, well, how could you go wrong there with The Dude himself?! It was actually quite cool to see Jeff Bridges getting to stretch his "evil" muscles in the role of Obadiah Stane. He was believable, and his voice was tantalizing. It gave me shivers. You know the ones, those good creepy movie part shivers where you know the guy is a bad guy, and one of the baddest of bad guys.

And the action.... Oh my goodness golly! *GASP!* It was perfectly superb! And heroic! I was pumped after seeing Iron Man and when we ran down the hall to see Harold and Kumar's latest exploits, well, I was ready for something really cool, and it was there! Squee!

Kumar's exploits reminded me of some college friends (and one or two currently not in college friends) who might actually do something as stupid as what Kumar did to get them into trouble in the first place. The scariest part was the guy who was chasing them - I promise you I have worked with guys like him when I was working in my government job! It was creepy how accurate the portrayal of ineptness, which actually exists! I roared! I laughed! I giggled! I said, "Oh! No!" quite a lot and had a blast in the movie. However, you sort of have to understand something of the subculture that is in the movie before you can get some of the jokes.

Then, yesterday, Hubby and I weren't feeling perfect because of having introduced meat back into our systems after 50 days of Lent, so we watched EncoreAction and saw Curse of the Golden Flower and I was blown away by the story, the cinematography, the cleavage (there was a lot of cleavage), and the costumes. There were twists and turns, and Chow Yun Fat was not exactly a bad guy, but he wasn't exactly a good guy either. He was an Emperor. At the same time, though, he was plotting just as she was plotting. Sadly, some innocent people were hurt through it all and you saw a father's love portrayed. When you watch this movie, don't try to figure out the ending - it needs to catch you just as it did us. Let's just say the last thirty minutes of the movie is awesome. Sad in some strange way. But awesome.

Yeah, this weekend let the movie geek in me out to be free for a while, and it was worth it! Hubby and I had a fantastic time!