Iron Man is, please excuse the pun, the steel foundation of Marvel’s Avengers series. If the first film hadn’t done well, they would have had little to build upon to lead into the collective picture. Iron Man 2 went a long way to laying the groundwork for all of the heroes to finally team up, unfortunately to the detriment of Tony Stark’s individual story. Iron Man 3 shows us that, while Stark’s... 

With a record-breaking $200 million opening weekend, I think we can all agree that there will be a sequel to The Avengers. Even better: most people I know want a sequel to the super hero team-up. It feels germane to the film for there to be a second one, instead of another chapter that is simply tacked on. We have a long road to travel before we get to a second Avengers film, but we can pontificate... 

Ever since the success of Iron Man in 2008, the Marvel Universe movies have been building to a point: The Avengers. With each individual character movie finding massive success, the idea of combining the characters into a team became even more of an enigma: how do you take four characters who have triumphed in their own pictures (as well as two supporting players) and combine them into an ensemble... 

Marvel’s The Avengers is extraordinary, a monumental accomplishment of super heroic proportions. Director Joss Whedon has done the impossible, bringing together four independent franchises (Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America) into a single cohesive whole. The Avengers is a better film with the heroes together than any single film with the each hero standing alone. It is quite a remarkable... 

Summer’s 8 months away, but already the Mighty Marvel Movie Machine is churning, releasing a full two-minute trailer for The Ultimates…I mean, The Avengers…sorry, m’comic bookiness reared its head there for sec. What we’re treated to is a snippet of the team’s (practically non-existent) chemistry, and I don’t mean on screen, I mean as far the in-story team dynamic goes. And that makes... 

An interesting question came up as we were recording this week’s podcast. Now that all of the pre-Avenger movies are out – that is, the individual films that serve as feeder movies for Marvel’s big shin-dig next summer, how would we rank them? It became a quick point of discussion during the show that I thought I would expand on here. For the record, the pre-Avenger foundation movies are:... 

Critics pretty universally liked the first super-hero movie of the summer, with Thor getting good buzz from most websites. More than one tossed around the phrase “Marvel Studio’s best picture to date,” which I’m not sure I agree with, but it’s a darn good movie. The characters are strong, Branagh brings good depth with his direction, and the story is entertaining with enough action thrown... 

Forget Norse gods. Forget ring-bearing alien cops who conjure up inanimate green things. Your summer spending needs to involve a ticket to Captain America: The First Avenger. At a time when movie studios are overfishing the cape n’ tights world, trying in vain to come up with another base hit in the likes of the Iron Man movies or underground indie comics hero Scott Pilgrim, Marvel Studios sets out... 

The legendary Robin Hood and his merry men weren’t quite enough to take down Marvel’s Iron Man 2 at the box office this weekend. We review both of those movies, with a second week spent looking at the comic book sequel. Walter Matthau’s Bad News Bears and The Fortune Cookie leave a disappointing taste for our artist of the month this week, while we talk about cast additions to Transformers... 

Margaret and Rafe have some interesting disagreements this week, as the group review Iron Man 2 and compare Walter Matthau’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with the Tony Scott remake. We also discuss Matthau’s Charlie Varrick, discuss the Bond franchise being on hold, and belittle Jeff as frequently as possible. Weekly Blend #226 – 25 Hours Later…(60 min, 27.51MB) Direct...