Alexander

I took my eight-year-old daughter (who has also seen all three "Lord of the Rings" films, all three "Spider-Man" films, all three "Pirates of the Caribbean" films (her current obsession. She has declared that she wants to captain a Clipper Ship when she grows up) and the Indiana Jones films) and she absolutely LOVED it. The scene in question shows Tony Stark in a (very brief) clinch with a female reporter early in the film. They kiss passionately and then fall off of the bed. The next morning, the reporter is shown alone in bed (she is naked, but is laying on her stomach and strategically covered by a sheet). I don't think it's any worse than what you'd see in a sixties Bond film.

Well, Rhody isn't really JUST a senior officer. He's eventually going to be Iron Man. In the comic book, Rhody took over the Iron Man identity when Stark was derailed by alcoholism (Tony had had the shrapnel removed by that point and was no longer dependant on the suit). The problem is that Stark's armor was designed to interface with his brain, so it began to subtly effect Rhody's personality until he becomes violent and paranoid. Eventually, Tony has to fight Rhody in order to get the armor back (he wears his old armor). In time, Rhody would wear armor that was designed for him as War Machine. As I understand it, the next film will deal with Tony's alcoholism and land Rhody in the suit (foreshadowed by Howard's line, "Next time, baby."). I actually sat through the film a second time JUST to see the Nick Fury bit (I hadn't known about it the first time)!

Ya gotta love Crumb. Did you see the Terry Zwigoff documentary ("Crumb")? After reading several lengthy interviews with Robert Crumb over the years (usually in the pages of The Comics Journal) I found the film fascinating. I saw "Crumb" in the theater when it was first released. His family is so disfunctional and so disturbing that it's certainly not a film one "enjoys", but I too found it fascinating. When my wife saw it (and she is NOT a Crumb fan) she said, "My God. He's the most normal one out of his whole family!"

How do you feel about Monk and Powell? Both of them could get quite loud...

Has anybody read the first two issues of "Kick-Ass" by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.? I think it's VERY well done. Some of JR, Jr's best work to date.

I'm a BIG Crumb fan. I have several soft-cover collections (which I have to keep in the basement, since my wife doesn't want our daughter stumbling upon them). I was recently looking at an article on race and the current mania for racist antiques (Lawn Jockies, post cards, old Aunt Jamima packaging before her make-over, etc) and Crumb was mentioned in connection with his sixties work (in such strips as "Angelfood McSpade" and "Ooga-Booga"). The author was of the opinion that on some level Crumb was a racist, despite his supporters frequent claim that it was "just" satire. To me, it seems that what Crumb was doing during the '60s was being as transgressive as he possibily could be, breaking tabboos for the sake of doing so. Not only does he delve into racisim, but he also casually depicts murder ("Forky O'Donnell"), rape ("Get Away from Me") and incest ("Joe Blow"). Any thoughts from other Crumb fans or detractors?

Indeed. That's why Hulk's green with purple (!) pants. And here I thought that Bruce Banner had some sort of deal with a purple pants wholesaler!

Jim, I'm so very, very sorry to hear about this.

Clearly, Stan Lee had a thing for redheads. Pepper Potts, MJ, Jean Gray...

Jeez. What does it say about me that when I saw the thread title, the first thing *I* thought about was birds?

Emily Dickenson: Because I could not stop for the chicken He kindly stopped for me.

Oh yes, that was definitely suggested - though thankfully the filmmakers didn't go there. I think it's definitely suggested that he DOES fall in love with Juno, but that he's smart enough not to act on it (at least not directly). Its kind of hard to imagine somebody NOT falling in love with Juno!

I've heard that that is exactly what Marvel wants to do: Eventually produce an Avengers movie. We've already got Downey's Iron Man and will soon have Norton's Hulk (the Hulk is a charter member of the Avengers, recall). Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz") is apparently working on an "Ant Man" movie (which would, one presumes, also feature the winsome Wasp). A Thor movie is also reportedly in the works, as is a Captain America movie (possibly with Matthew McConaughey in the title role). I've also read that they would only go forward with an Avengers movie if they could get the actors who originated the roles to participate (rather than recasting the roles with second stringers).

David Foster Wallace: The chicken (1) crossing the road brings us to the eternal question: Why (2) ? (1) By which I mean the chicken in the sense of its Platonic ideal rather than one specific fowl. (2) When I use the word "why" here I don't mean to get ontological. The Chicken Crossing Road (CCR) problem is one that mankind has pondered for centuries, but always in the sense that one questions the act of crossing but not the existence of the chicken itself. I don't want to bring a whole lot of philosophical B.S. into the issue, hence the need to clarify my question in this f.n. rather than in the text itself.

Oh, I love that "twee" sounding anti-folk stuff... Belle and Sebastian is an awesome group!

I loved it. A note perfect adaptation of the comic book. Absolutely nothing was sacrificed. The film has stellar peformances from Downey, Paltrow, Howard, and Bridges. Their peformances elevated what in lesser hands would be pretty formulaic material, this proving that it ain't what you do, it's the way you do it.

Love the soundtrack, too.

You're saying that headphones didn't exist in the 60s? How did the engineers listen to them in the studio?

Wow, that's exactly what happened to me! Junior & senior years of high school. Then I stopped listening to them almost completely. Oddly enough, thanks to this thread, I'm going through that old phase all over again! I forgot how much fun it was listening for those differences. And "Tomorrow Never Knows" in mono ROCKS!!!! I'm finding that the albums sound much better in mono in almost every instance. What made them decide to put them out in such primative stereo (where one instrument is in one ear and the voice is in the other)? The CDs are hard to listen to on headphones for just this reason...

Quite so.

Allen Ginsberg - I saw the best chickens of my generation destroyed by the road... William Burroughs - The chicken crossed the road to meet the Gimp who sold him some Junk. Then the Gimp hung the chicken.

They say that behind every great man is a great woman (or vice versa, I would argue). Milt and Mona gave truth to that cliche. RIP

My guess is that the session material is taken from previous bootlegs (the sound on the outtakes is necessarily not as stellar as the albums themselves). The albums were taken from LPs, but the outtakes? I don't think so.

Foobar. I haven't used another audio player since I started using it. This site will also list a bunch of other players that support FLAC. Can Foobar be used to burn FLAC files to disc?