Every once in a while I like to rag on CNN …

Can we get back to real news?

Have a great day! :D

I had a plan when I was little kid…

Today is my brother’s birthday.

Today is our very own Angry Zen Master Jami Noguchi’s birthday! Happy birthday man!!!

IRON MAN
Director: Jon Favreau, MARVEL Studio

The deal: Marvel’s Iron Man movie came out in theaters last week! It features Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes, Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts. It’s 2 hours long, and playing everywhere.

The summary: Billionaire, genius, inventor - Tony Stark is all of these. He’s also a playboy, an ass, and … well, an ass. His company, military contractor Stark Industries, is the Marvel Universe’s Lockheed Martin - the similarity is played down to the logo. Stark goes to Afghanistan to sell missiles, but on his way back to the airport his convoy is attacked, and one of his own missiles - somehow in enemy hands - blows up in his face. Tony Stark learns a lesson here, and begins to construct a suit with which he can save the very people his company has put in harm’s way.

The review: Like I really need to review this. It’s good. By now word of that is all over the internet, so I’ll try to briefly expound on why without giving anything away. Very minor spoilers below.

1. The casting: Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow is adorable as Pepper Potts. To me those were the two strongest actors, but the casting across the board is pretty good. I was less excited about Terrence Howard/Jim Rhodes, but I think that’s the kind of character he was supposed to come across as - hopefully he will step up to the plate in the next one.

2. Character interaction: There’s something very nuanced about the way Robert Downey Jr. handles his relationship with each person he comes across as Tony Stark. For me personally, it was the most fun to watch him and Pepper Potts banter.

3. Cognizance of current events: There is a sequence where Tony Stark appears on a series of magazine covers. Another director would have opted for TIME, but Favreau makes a point of using magazines like WIRED. He’s with the times. This is equally apparent during the Mad Money scene. Likewise, the plot of this movie addresses current events quite well, and recognizes that the problems Tony Stark has are global rather than local (like Spiderman).

4. Not pushing the hero trait too far: There is a blissful lack of superhero-ish speeches, which is wonderful because they rarely come across as anything but cornball.

5. Humor: They make good use of it.

I believe that this is also the first movie that Marvel has released through their own studio, and you can see that they’ve already started to build their universe by the time the movie ends (WAIT THROUGH THE CREDITS!). I’m speculating that, prior to this, Marvel farmed their properties out to various movie studios, and thus shied away from tie-ins as much as possible. Now that they have full creative control, I think we’re going to see some interesting things happen.

The recommendation: You won’t be disappointed! Go check it out. You don’t need to know anything about the movie to enjoy it - my folks saw it Sunday morning and were all smiles afterwards.

MARVEL Studio, playing everywhere, movie tickets cost a hojillion dollars

ODE TO KIRIHITO
by Osamu Tezuka

The deal: Ode to Kirihito is a huge brick of a volume, a whopping 832 pages in length by godfather of manga Osamu Tezuka. The book is about two inches thick, and it’s beautifully and cleverly designed - there’s actually a moving part on the cover that tells a story about the book. The publisher, Vertical, also publishes a lot of Tezuka’s later works in English.

The summary: Ode to Kirihito is a dark medical thriller. The main character is Kirihito Osanai, a promising young doctor whose realm of expertise is infectious diseases. He is studying one in particular called Monmow Disease, a sickness that turns the victim into a dog-like creature, and he travels the world looking for a cure. His journey ultimately take him to all corners of the earth, where he encounters all the brightness and darkness of human nature.

The review: Ode to Kirihito is considered to be one of Osamu Tezuka’s seminal works, and was his personal favorite. It reads in stark contrast to Tezuka’s earlier works, like Astro Boy, for which he is better known - in that sense, Ode to Kirihito can be shocking in it’s intensity, darkness, and sometimes graphic nature.

The story itself is epic in scale, with a large cast. Despite all that, however, the plot generally moves at top speed, occasionally cutting away from Kirihito to the others that are caught in a web the slowly begins to emerge as the book progresses. The function of Monmow disease within the story also evolves as Ode to Kirihito draws to a close.

Tezuka’s art is expressive even in it’s simplicity, and his use of layout is unique and set the trends for what was to come - to read Ode to Kirihito is to see a cartooning master at work.

With all the positives are a few negatives, though. My biggest complaint about Ode to Kirihito is the somewhat lackluster handling of female characters. They often come off as very two-dimensional, and the story on occasion takes a heavy-handed approach to explaining away certain details. These complaints are grains of sand on a beach, though - there’s so much to like in Ode to Kirihito.

The recommendation: If you’re a fan of manga and you’re interested in it’s roots, Ode to Kirihito is a good place to look. Likewise, if you like medical thrillers or works that put human nature under a microscope, then you should check this out.

from Vertical, 832 pages, $24.95 ($16.47 on Amazon right now)

Ok, I totally saw this coming after watching Iron Man over the weekend.

The Incredible Hulk scheduled June 13 2008
Iron Man 2 announced for a release on April 30, 2010
Matthew Vaughn’s Thor is set for a release on June 4, 2010
Captain America will kick off the summer of 2011 on May 6 2011
The Avengers scheduled for July 2011.