Tony Stark is one of the biggest reasons to see this film. Stark is one of the most dynamic characters in comic book history, and he shows no signs of stopping.
Stark is a genius of child prodigy level, but also quite a hedonist as an adult. He's set his father's burgeoning weapons manufacturer Stark Enterprises to pretty much function on his own – something that works a little too well, as Stark sees his weapons used by insurgents in Afghanistan during the time of his capture. Upon his return, Stark decides to reinvent Stark Enterprise's direction away from armaments.
Tony is an alcoholic. This is only lightly touched upon in the movie, but might provide the bulk of Tony's inner demons in later films.
Tony's secretary is Pepper Potts, and as the movie illustrates, she's more than that. Confidant, aide de camp and right-hand woman, Pepper has the unenviable task of keeping billionaire playboy Stark in line in the beginning, and forms the logical counter-argument to Tony's epiphany-driven quest for redemption. A key difference from the comics: Pepper learns about Tony's alter ego early on, further intensifying their relationship.
n the comics, Jim Rhodes is Tony's eventual rescuer from the war zone, and though he plays a similar role in the film, there Rhodes and Stark are depicted as long-time friends. Rhodes is seen as Tony's liaison to the military, and takes all of his responsibilities extremely seriously, making him a visible foil to Tony's carefree playboy ways. As hinted in the movie, however, Rhodes later dons one of Tony's prototype armors as War Machine. Actor Terrance Howard has stated interest in this direction, but his role in the first film is largely on the sidelines.
Another key character is Iron Man mythos is Obadiah Stane, Tony's mentor, business partner, and ultimately, adversary. The last of the movie Iron Man's notable assistants is undoubtedly Jarvis – in the comics he's a wry English butler, but the movie Iron Man depicts him as a super-intelligent computer voiced by Paul Bettany. Lastly, there is also a heavily-hyped appearance by Colonel Nick Fury, the head of SHIELD whose appearances heralds Marvel Studio's effort to interconnect its characters.
Characters in Iron Man
Spiderwick Chronicles - the movie
Based on the best selling novel, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a story about the Grace family(Jared, his twin brother Simon, sister Mallory and their mom) who move to a large home once owned by their great great uncle Arthur Spiderwick after their dad leaves the family. At first Jared doesn't like the house and is blamed for strange disappearences of medals, keys and many different other things,but when he finds a food transporter in the wall with all the missing things and a strange key in it, he decides to use the transporter to find out where it leads to. He finds himself in the workroom of Arthur Spiderwick.
He searches the room with his flashlight and discovers an old trunk with some clothes and the book, 'Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You', written by Arthur Spiderwick himself, with it. Before reading the book he hears a noise behind him and see's writing in the dust which says 'Jared Grace leave this place'. On the book he finds a note written saying that whoever is to find this book was to face the consequences. Jared opens the book despite the note and spends the night reading it. Soon after opening the book strange things start happening to the Grace family and they all blame it on Jared. Soon he discovers a creature living in the study and his brother Simon is attacked by goblins.
The creature, a brownie named Thimbletack, tells Jared to leave the book in the house to protect it from Mulgarath, an evil shapeshifting ogre who wants the Guide. Try as he might to keep the book inside the house Jared ignores him. Jared goes into the woods and finds a creature named Hogsqueal, a hobgoblin who is trying to find a way to kill Mulgurath and to avenge the family that the evil troll killed. Jared finds Simon and they are chased by an army of goblins who surround the house only to be disappointed that they can't get in be cause of an invisible barrier. This barrier is shown to be made by Arthur to protect his family from the goblins and Mulgarath.
The movie goes on with a search for Arthurs daughter Lucinda who was put in a sanitarium years ago after goblins attacked her, a search for 125 year old Arthur Spiderwick who is supposedly dead and the battle of their live including a lot of tomato sauce and salt. Also Jared goes into an emotional turmoil when he discovers that his dad din't leave them because he didn't love Jared's mother. The kids and their mother all discover the magical creatures with the help of a little Hobgoblin spit and a seeing stone given to them by Thimbletack.
This movie is fascinating to watch showing that in peoples life we all have the bad things and the good things. Although it does not say this in the movie it shows it with the goblins and sprites and the little brownie Thimbletack who transforms into a boggart, or in other words, his bad side. Even though this movie is rated PG, I would recommend this for people 7 years and over.
The Cast: The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian
Making a full-scale motion picture like Prince Caspian is a journey unto itself -- not only a physical one that took hundreds of filmmakers thousands of miles across two hemispheres, but also a spiritual and emotional voyage for the film's family members.
With mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, and husbands and wives away from home for close to a full year, the film company's 600-plus members bonded closely, sharing in both work and play, to create not only a friendly on-set environment over the lengthy seven-month shoot, but hopefully something greater than the sum of its parts -- something all can hail proudly when the lights go down, the projector flickers, the film unspools, and their collective movie magic enchants audiences the world over.
As production began over a year ago on that mid-February morning in Auckland, there stood Andrew, the lanky director, alongside his Pevensie clan like a proud father with his children, home for the holidays. Even though it had been barely two years since the completion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, his film family had, indeed, matured, both physically and emotionally. Their patriarch grinned with pride at the progress.
There they were, anticipating their forthcoming experience and joyously reliving the last one -- Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, in the guises of actors William Moseley (now a dashing 20-year-old), Anna Popplewell (a newly minted Oxford freshman), Skandar Keynes (with vocal octaves much deeper at age 15), and Georgie Henley (approaching teenhood, a good six inches taller than we last saw her).
"They've all grown up really well," Andrew beams about his young English cast. "It was nice to see them go back to a really normal life. They were excited about doing this again, and treated it like another adventure. There's change in very positive ways about growing up, but I'd like to say the movie hadn't changed who they are, which I'm really happy about. A lot of that's attributed to their parents. They've all got great parents.""We're a really tight unit . . . a formidable four, you could say," quips Will, the eldest of the quartet. Adds Anna, "The dynamic among the four of us has pretty much remained constant, which is great. I know we'll all still be friends after the movie finishes."
"Do I feel like the leader of the group?" the handsome, fair-haired Moseley wonders when asked about the professional and personal dynamics of the four Pevensie actors. He responds proudly and without hesitation: "I definitely do!"
"Like I said before, I'm the oldest in my family," he continues, "Anna is the oldest in hers, so she is also kind of the leader. Skandar is the youngest, but wants to be the elder as well. Georgie is the youngest as well. We form a very tight unit. The parallels to our characters are simple -- we're all playing ourselves, drawing on our own lives, to show how similar we are to these characters."
While reflecting back to the beginning of the lengthy shoot, Anna was not surprised at the changes the cast experienced since they last worked together, over two years ago. Except, maybe about herself.
"What's nice is everyone has grown up a little bit and changed a little bit," she observes. "But, I've probably grown up the least, I'd say. Maybe that's just because I haven't noticed the change in myself." To which Andrew smiles and replies, "Anna's right. When I first met her, she was 13 going on 40. Now she's 18 going on 40."
Perry Moore's wonderfully evocative book took us behind of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where we first met these four relative unknowns, memorably though Perry's vivid and poetic portraits in each actor's chapter. Let's take a further peek at the lives of the four Pevensies, now older and (one hopes) wiser, as they venture from their own private worlds in England back to a magical landscape that has changed drastically since the first movie -- much like the actors themselves!
Iron Man Cartoon
A few months ago, one of my friends sent me a text – "I'm so glad to be part of the Marvel/DC generation!" Technically, anyone alive during the 1960's and on is part of the Marvel/DC generation, but my friend had a point – in the 1990's specially, fans were introduced to all variety of comic book characters on Saturday morning cartoons – and Iron Man is no exception.
The first Iron Man cartoon debuted twice before the 1990's – first in the 1966 series The Marvel superheroes and second in a guest spot in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends,. Most people – my friend included – are familiar with his appearance in the 1990's. Iron Man had his own show in 1994, which ran for two seasons. Ironically, Iron Man shared the spotlight considerably not only with Jim Rhodes' future alter ego War Machine, but also with the Avengers spin-off Force Works, which consisted of classic heroes like Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. Iron Man's arch-nemesis the Mandarin appeared, with a similarly prolific group of supervillains, including Blizzard, MODOK, Grey Gargoyle, Justin Hammer.
The next Iron Man cartoon appearance came during Spider-Man: The Animated Series, when Spider-Man teamed up with both War Machine and Iron Man against the likes of fan-favorite adversaries Venom and Carnage. Iron Man cartoons would continue with appearance in the Incredible Hulk animated series as well as a non-speaking role in the Fantastic Four cartoon.
The Iron Man cartoons have been continuing through present day. Iron Man showed up in the Ultimates-based Avengers: United They Stand as well as his own direct-to-DVD animated feature the Invincible Iron Man. Iron Man was also seen in the latest Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Hero, and there is a second Iron Man cartoon series airing soon – if it hasn't already. An older Tony Stark will also appear in the direct-to-DVD animated feature Next Avengers.
In many ways, the scattered appearance of the Iron Man cartoons through several animated series through both stand-alone series and guest spots represents a larger strategy by Marvel Comics. One of the principal charms of Marvel comes from the interactivity of its characters, which all inhabit the same fictional New York City. Since Marvel Studios now owns the rights to its own film projects, expect to see a guest appearance by Tony Stark in the upcoming Incredible Hulk, paving the way to a big screen Avengers sometime in 2011.
