Iron Man the movie hit the theaters yesterday, and the game hit stores. The PS2, PSP, PC and Wii are the ones I got to produce. The next gen SKUs were done by Sega’s own studio.

Last night we went to the movie, then home with the newly purchased game and I watched Jonathan play. The evening was a very cool ride, a happy culmination to 18 months of hard work.

When I produced Happy Feet, access to assets was complicated by the fact that the movie was being produced in Australia. Nevertheless, the whole team got to see the movie at various stages of its production. I had therefore seen it three times by the time it was released.

With Iron Man, the film crew was extremely open with assets, and we visited the set, witnessed some scenes being shot, met director, cast and crew, saw flight animation tests and the Iron Monger suit in the “flesh”, visited Stark mansion and saw Iron Man suit concept art, but I never read the script or actually saw the movie. Consequently, having been allowed access to some information, without seeing the finished product, just made the whole thing extremely tantalizing.

And last night was the biggest payoff a superhero fan could wish for. The movie is awesome, definitely up there with the first Spider-Man for superhero movies.

Go. And make sure you stay until the end of the credits

Nobody hated sharks more than I did growing up. I couldn’t even look at a picture of them without being nauseous, and I’ve never swam (swum?) in the ocean because of it. But when I saw this trailer I was intrigued.

Sharkwater just came out on DVD and I highly recommend it. Watching it this morning did make me nauseous, but only at the human indifference portrayed and the weight of the consequences. When you see what’s happening to the oceans and to the world’s top predator, you will not stand for it.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched Donnie Darko again for fun. It led me to read about time-travel paradoxes, which led me to theories of parallel universes which led me to string theory, which is apparently gaining acceptance by physicists and posits the existence of parallel universes (real ones!). In order to learn more without adding another book to my reading list, I ordered the Nova special series The Elegant Universe on DVD.

Although the documentary is sometimes really dumbed down, the animations are evocative and beautiful, the production value is excellent and the subject matter, nothing less than fascinating. Explaining something as esoteric as string theory, which says that there are 11 dimensions and that everything is made up of vibrating strings of energy, to the general public, is no small feat. Although I felt a little condescended to at first, by the end of the three 1-hour episodes I had brain sprain, and was glad the documentary was holding my hand as it was.

Wrap your head around these concepts for size: gravity may not stick well to our universe, and possibly seeps off into parallel ones. Our universe may exist on a membrane parallel to many others, and may have been empty until a collision with a neighbor transferred matter to our universe at the collision point. That’s why at the Big Bang, lots of stuff materialized out of nothing.

A fun way to spend a couple of hours getting smarter.

-What’s the matter?

-I can’t sleep.

-Why, what’s wrong?

-I’m worried about global warming.

Of course I’ve always known it was a problem, and in fact, the trailer makes it sound like the movie will only restate what we already know. But it doesn’t. I didn’t know how bad - and how immediate - global warming was until I’d seen An Inconvenient Truth. The Scotsmontonian and I rented it this weekend, and we had to pause it to let our heads stop spinning. That night I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that my condo might be under water within my lifetime. My condo, Old Montreal, the Netherlands, San Francisco - basically my home and those of about 100 million other people, too. Watching it felt like waking up.

Most ecological warning documentaries are so incredibly dire that you are discouraged from believing that true global change can come from local action. Probably the most amazing thing about An Inconvenient Truth is that while is probably the most alarming ecological warning I’ve ever seen, it managed to convince me, for the first time in years, that action isn’t futile.

There’s something about watching it in during a green Christmas season in Montreal that just brings the whole thing into sharp focus, too.

The good
- Crash! Up until the last moment I was torn between it and Brokeback. And you know, I still am. Simultaneously happy and sad about the outcome.
- March of the Penguins! That was my big moment of undiluted pleasure and happy SMSing for the night.
- George Clooney’s speech.
- Ang Lee! I’m glad that he got best director and Crash got best picture. That honors both great films of the year.
- The fact that Woody Allen didn’t win for plagiarizing himself and re-making a movie I saw in the eighties. Dude, it’s still the same movie if it’s set and London and doesn’t star aging Jews.
- Best score for Brokeback Mountain. Every once in a while there’s a score that really brings you back to the movie. Truly deserved.
- Keira Knightley was an abomination as Elizabeth Bennet. I’m glad Oscar went home with someone else, even if it was Reese.

The bad
- The pimp song. What the hell?
- Still no Oscar for Joaquin, who is fantastic. On the other hand, I have to admit Walk the Line wasn’t his best role ever, and I’m quite confident he’ll get his one day.
- I just can’t bring myself to like Reese.
- Not enough awards for Brokeback. I would have liked to see one actor get an oscar, and my choice was Michelle Williams.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman’s acceptance speech. Yeah, he’s good, but I would have liked him to… oh, I don’t know… emote.
- Jennifer tripping. Doh!
- What’s the deal with making Jack Nicholson the center of it all? Yeah, we loved you in The Shining. Can we move the f*ck on?

The meh
- Jon Stewart. Love him, but I thought he was a little too subdued. I don’t know if the biggest show on Earth is the right venue for his ironic, understated humor and funny little faces.

Overall, an Oscar night that, while it was a little more engaging than the past years, still didn’t manage to make it all the way to “exciting”. Maybe it’s because I rushed out to see all the Best Picture nominees over the past two weeks out of Oscar-night obligation rather than inclination. Maybe something more controversial than boys kissing boys has to happen. Maybe I’m getting old, but Oscar night just isn’t as spicy as it used to be.

Funny how we see what we want to see.

My hopeless romantic of a friend Extravaganza Me saw Brokeback Mountain and loved it. It made her cry. She said “When true love is… separated by circumstances”, it breaks her heart.

I saw Brokeback Mountain and loved it. I took it as a critique of traditional ideas about nuclear coupledom (which as you know I consider so outdated). I was uplifted by the thought that love is fulfilling in whatever form it comes, even when it doesn’t follow the conventional, ordained path.

What it was actually about doesn’t really matter, does it?

Just watch it.

(Thanks to Dr Wank)

This year’s Oscar nominees have been announced, and it is easily the year in which I’ve seen the least of them, so I’ll hold off on my usual rant.

Nothing completely preposterous or thrilling in the nominations, which seems to suggest that this year’s festivities may be even duller than last year’s. All the better, I’m not even planning on being in town. Just a few things I’m smiling about: Clive Owen’s nomination for Supporting Actor in Closer, and the Original Screenplay nomination for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Oh, and of course, Johnny Depp. For anything.

Well, if you’re looking for me, I guess I’ll be at the movies…

Here are a few disorganized notes about films I’ve recently viewed. As Martine so elegantly put it, I’d rather leave the care of writing actual reviews to those who do it well. But here are my thoughts nonetheless, in particular disorder.

I loved La mala educacion, but it’s probably my least favorite of Almodovar’s movies. It’s hard to say why, because I can never really put my finger on why I’ve always liked his movies so much. There’s something about the way he can usually make me deeply relate to characters and situations that are completely alien and surreal to me. After watching one of his movies, I usually feel like I’ve grown a tiny bit, the same feeling I get when returning from travel, albeit on a smaller scale. I know that’s a tall order, and I’m not sure if it’s the delay in seeing this one that over-whetted my appetite for it, but it just didn’t engage me. It was just plain entertainment.

Elektra, sadly, was every bit the piece of putrid crap I expected it to be. It wasn’t even good for mindless action scenes, of which there were about two, so badly shot you couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t even good for nice hottie shots of Garner in her red suit, which she only dons twice. Huge plot holes, a terrible, terrible, watered-down, dumbed-down treatment of Elektra’s turn from “Evil” to “Good”, and mostly unimpressive villains (which is the true test of a good superhero movie, IMO). I should have left after the first 20 minutes, which were ok.

What to say about Closer? One of my favorite types of films, an all-dialog movie, brilliantly pulled off by a great cast, Clive Owen being particularly stellar. The only reason why I’m reluctant to recommend it high and loud is that I’m not sure these dialog movies are everyone’s cup of tea. But most of you like Woody Allen, right? A worthy renter, unless, like me, you like to have seen most of the movies nominated for Oscars each year.

Looking forward to seeing Hotel Rwanda, Sin City, In Good Company, House of Flying Daggers, Oceans Twelve, and What the Bleep do we Know?

This started as a comment on Bill’s post in which she says she will not see the third Toy Story movie, because it is not by Pixar. Then it turned into a rant so I thought it best to rant on my own page.

The fact of the matter is that with the notable exception of the Toy Story movies, Pixar is fantastic at one thing and one thing only: pushing the technical envelope in animation. Whenever I see Luxo the lamp in their logo sequence, I’m amazed by how they manage to have an object like a lamp convey so many emotions, by simply moving it (watch the short here, it’s worth it). And they’ve moved ahead by lightyears since then.

But their scripts often leave much to be desired (especially in the laughs department). And personally, I go to animated movies to see some great visuals, yes, but mostly to laugh and be entertained by the story.

Script-wise, A Bug’s Life (Pixar) was okay, but Antz (non-Pixar) was better. Monsters Inc and Nemo (Pixar Pixar), same thing: animation that makes my jaw drop (and there isn’t much tech these days that does that for me), but gave me at most a chuckle. Shrek (non-Pixar), on the other hand, had me in tears of laughter. Ice Age (non-Pixar) was pretty funny too.

Don’t get me wrong; I really want to like Pixar wholeheartedly. I so want to like The Incredibles, I so want it to make me laugh, that I have deliberately not watched any previews, to give it the best chance of surprising and entertaining me.

But I’m a little annoyed that Pixar are so popular that they constantly get away with scripts that are just “somewhat funny”, especially since I know they can do better (eg. Toy Story). Mike’s New Car (their short based on Monsters Inc) was the epitome of this. It got the automatic Pixar Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short, though it was quite craptacular, even according to my Pixar-ho friends. When you’re aware of the sweat and love that goes into indie animated shorts (like The Cathedral of the same year), and you see Pixar’s little brainfart garner the Oscar, it’s frustrating.

Anyway, as far as Toy Story 3 is concerned, it will probably suck as sequels of anim features usually do. But in my opinion, it’s wrong to suggest that anything is automatically crap when it is not Pixar, or automatically great when it is.