Iron Man: The Legal Viewing

There’s only one theater left to really see a movie at in New York City.

The Ziegfeld.

Luckily, that’s where Iron Man was playing.

It cost twelve bucks for the ticket!

Was it worth it?

Hell yes!

To prove that I saw it, here are things missing or too indistinct to see from my online viewing:

1) I couldn’t see that the old ersatz arc reactor Pepper gave to Tony was actually ringed with “Proof Tony Stark Has A Heart.”

2) I couldn’t see that when Stark calls Rhodes to admit he’s the bogey the F-14s are engaging, Rhodes’ cellphone lists Stark as “The Starkster.”

3) The Iron Man opening credits — there aren’t any. Just the title Iron Man. Which wasn’t in the cammed version.

4) All of the subtitles that were in Chinese now made sense. I didn’t know the movie begins in Afghanistan. I didn’t know the dialects of the terrorists was translated into English at points. I didn’t know it flashed back 36 hours earlier.

5) I didn’t know what was going on in the cammed version when the doctor tells Stark “I have steady hands” — nor that what was fabricated was a thin ring.

6) The entire end credits were missing from the cammed version. I got to see the wire animations. I was pissed that the creator credits for Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, and Larry Lieber were a simple line in the huge credit scrawl. They should have had prominent credits, dammit.

7) And, of course, the post-credits surprise was missing.

Another thing: Damn, there actually was an orchestral soundtrack for most of the movie! It wasn’t the typical thing, however, and got smothered in the cammed version.

MINOR SPOILER ALERT!

I didn’t like the post-credits surprise. I think they’ve boxed themselves in now. They can’t not do that, after teasing us like that. I think the direction it points to is just wrong. Iron Man, more than any other superhero movie to date, is based on character chemistry.

Iron Man is the movie equivalent of TV’s Moonlighting series and of Remington Steele.

If they veer from that direction into bombastic superheroics, I think they’ll ruin it.

But what’s there on the screen now is pure magic. Go see it!

It’s Iron Man Sunday, Baby!

In about an hour or so I escape from Satan Staten Island and go on safari to find which theater I will see Iron Man in.

This used to be a very, very simple process.

Go to Times Square, find the ginormous theater playing it.

But all those real theaters are now gone.

Now there are mutant monster multiplexes that have screens basically smaller than people have in their own damned homes — and I do not want to wind up in one of those shoeboxes!

And since I do not keep abreast of theater tech, I have no frikkin idea what “stadium seating” or “DLP” mean. “Stadium seating?” Hard wooden benches or hard wooden slatted and sticky chairs? “DLP?” “Don’t Leave Pissed?” “Don’t Like Popcorn?” WTF?

I also discovered this may well cost me $11.50 for one ticket!

But I want to see it.

The movie’s been running through my mind all last night and this morning and there are several key points I want to relive to see if I’m recalling specific Tony Stark character aspects that I neglected to highlight in yesterday’s post.

Oh baby! I just found this on YouTube:

IRON MAN SPEAKS

*pounding on my desk in excitement!*

The hell with the rest of the world today. I’m going to see Iron Man!