Lunch with Friends, Iron Man 3 & Buffy

Woke up with a bit of a headache this morning.. only did two shots of Fireball last night but I guess that was enough. I was up earlier then I had planned.. went to bad at 2am, expected and wanted to sleep until 10am but was up at 9am. Will was still sleeping.

So I got up, put a bow tie on my Yoda doll and headed out back to take a picture for May The 4th (which you can see in my previous blog post). I came back in and started surfing the net. I knew Will was a late sleeper.. my buddy Robert was coming over today as we plan on spending the day doing lunch and seeing Iron Man 3.

Love these guys!!!

Robert arrived a little after 11am, we sat in the living room and chatted for a bit. Around 11:45 Robert and I went to pounce on Will and wake him up but unfortunately Will was already up and getting ready. Will was joining Robert and I for lunch but he couldn't join us for Iron Man 3.

We headed out around 12:30 and over to Chili's for lunch, Robert had a $15 coupon that he had gotten from Klout. It was a fun lunch, we had a very nice but kind of kooky waitress. We ate our lunch and then we drove back to my house to drop off Will before heading down to the Sherman Oaks Acrlight theater.

This is pretty much the only theater I will see brand new movies at. I love assigned seating, no lines, you just show up a few minutes before the movie starts and there are your perfect seats. Of course I use to stand in line for movies for hours on end. The longest being Star Wars Episode 1 (17 hours). But as I get older the novelty of standing in line get's old... so I opt for assigned seating.

We got to the theater about 10 minutes before the start time, grabbed a drink and some junior mints and found our seats for Iron Man 3, now if you don't no the plot of Iron Man 3 here's a synopsis: Marvel's "Iron Man 3" pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

My Review: I loved this movie. (there will be spoilers, if you haven't seen the movie don't read the rest of this blog until you do). I think this is my favorite of the three. I admit I have to go back and re-watch 1 again but I know for sure I love it more then 2 and if it's not better then 1 it's a very close second. I enjoyed everything about this movie. The effects were amazing, the story was great, the acting was good... it was the complete package.

I love how it's set after the events of the Avengers. We get to see how those events effect Tony Stark. I think this film took a huge chance at not really having Tony in the suit all that often, but I have to say it worked. I absolutely loved Pepper Potts in the suit, that scene was amazing all in slow motion as the house is being blown apart Tony direct the suit to form around her to save her life and then she winds up saving him... awesome. I loved Gwyneth's roll in this movie. Pepper was a big part of it, especially at the end as once again after being saved by Tony, then supposedly dying, she saves him at the end and kills the bad guy. I loved the interaction with Tony and the Kid. The supposed bad guy (Kingsley) was this really kooky (2nd time using that word in this blog) actor and the real bad guy was really bad. I like how these "bad" people were part of Tony's past.

And then you have the ending where we get nothing but amazing action as the 42 suits battle the "super" humans (BTW my buddy Fernando Chien is one of those bad guys). Some awesome action scenes. And I thought they ended this movie perfectly. I don't need an Iron Man 4, This tied up the story nicely and anyways we are getting an Avengers 2 and will see Tony Stark/ Iron Man back in action. This is a defiantly must buy on bluray when it comes out and I think I'll be seeing it a few more times in the theater. I give Iron Man 3 a solid A.

Afterwards Robert and I went back to my place to watch a the last episodes of Season Five of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. We normally do our Buffy watching on Wednesday but Robert was crashing at my place tonight as we are carpooling to the Ren Faire tomorrow and we have a few hours to kill before bed time.

First up was from Season 5 Ep 19 "Tough Love" Under the mistaken impression that Tara is the Key, Glory attacks and brain-sucks her, leaving her completely insane, which puts her on the receiving end of an enraged Willow's wrath.

Love this episode, Willow is one of my favorite characters from Buffy, and the Willow/Tara relationship is the best. When Willow tries and take revenge on Glory she's pretty bad ass, unfortunately she's not strong enough to take her out and Buffy comes to her rescue.

Next up is Ep 20 "Spiral" With Glory now knowing that Dawn is the Key, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, Anya, Tara, and Spike flee from Sunnydale only to run afoul of the Knights of Byzantium. 

My least favorite of the set for tonight but still a good episode. Glory finds out that Dawn is the key (poor insane Tara is the one to spill the beans).  I never liked the Knights of Byzantium, I kept saying.. how is this large group of Knightly looking men on horses suppose to be living in our modern times and no one noticing them. They were always a weak part of this storyline. But they all die by Glory's hand at the end. I like that everyone finds out that Ben is Glory but then forgets except Spike who keeps telling them that Ben is Glory. In the end Dawn is taken by Glory and Buffy goes catatonic. These last few episode have these crazy cliffhangers and I remember having to wait a week sometimes more for the next episode.. but for Robert and the re-watch it's a completely different experience as you can just watch the episodes back to back. Not sure which is better.

Our third episode of the night is Ep 21 "The Weight of the World" Willow tries to reach Buffy, who has been rendered catatonic by Dawn's abduction by Glory. Meanwhile, Glory is having her own problems as the line between herself & Ben gets thinner, causing her to start feeling human emotions.

Watching the Ben/Glory battle now reminds me of the Gollum/Smeagal battle in The Two Towers. It was really well done. Willow inside Buffy's mind was interesting. It was a nice set up for the finale which we will be watching next.

And to cap off the night and season five we watched Ep 22 "The Gift" Buffy faces Glory as the ritual commences. In order to save Dawn and the world, Buffy must sacrifice her own life. 

I've been waiting for this episode since we started watching season five. As I have mentioned in past blog posts, season five is my favorite season and season five finale is my favorite of all the finales. I enjoy how everyone comes together at the end to defeat the hell god Glory. I like that they win but then all of a sudden a character that we saw a few times continues the ritual and open the portal leaving Buffy to finally realize that when the first slayer said her gift was death, it meant her gift to Dawn, who was made of the same material as Buffy, leaving Buffy to understand that she didn't have to kill Dawn to close the portal, she could die and close it herself... which she does. It's a super sad ending but extremely satisfying. It was crazy watching Giles kill Ben because he knew Buffy couldn't and it was great seeing Tara healthy and whole again.

This was the end of the series, The CW cancel Buffy so this was how it was going to end. And to be honest I would have been upset but happy. Fortunately UPN picked up Buffy for another 2 seasons.. so now the fun thing we had to wait for over the summer was how would Buffy be returning.

Wow this was a long post, which translates into a long but extremely fun day.