On display: Vintage Harley Davidson motorcycle used by Shia LaBeouf and Harrison Ford from the motion picture, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

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There’s nobody in Hollywood you’d like to root for more than Jon Favreau. More than the others before him, you could sense he was truly one of the geeks, making Iron Man as much for himself as for us. He gets it. One never really had to worry about whether the ship was on course. Well congratulations Favs, you’ve done it– you have the 10th biggest opening of all time on your hands.

It all worked so right that you wonder how there was ever a time when no one thought of making an Iron Man movie with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. For my money, where the film truly shines is not the tech-porn payoff so much as it is the wonderful handling of the story and the surefooted performances. Transformers did whizz-bang better, but thankfully, that’s not Iron Man’s sole identity. The journey there is as rewarding as the CG destination. Downey’s Stark is always magnetic, entertaining and compelling, even as a cave bound captive. I’d love to see the playboy face-off Stark and Bruce Wayne might have at some charity benefit in Gotham City.

Iron Man flew just in time to sustain and re-ignite Marvel’s future in feature film as the public’s love affair with Spider-Man died a sandy death with the tragic last installment (mostly the same goes for Rat-X3). The geeks, the bean counters, everyone, wants a Iron Man sequel, and we’re going to get it, as sure as anything in Hollywood. Next time, baby!

Speaking of Hollywood, here are some shots of a screen used Mark III suit worn by Robert Downey on display at my theatre.

I love perks like this.

By the by, if you have read this far, and you have not yet seen Iron Man (or even for most of you that have)– there is a bonus aft-credit scene, so stay for that. I wish I had known, but I’ll catch it on the second viewing.

I went back and took pictures, you see, because the Indian customer service guy (who is really quite nice and articulate) informed me that while Microsoft will fix it for free– they extended the warranty for a much ballyhooed three years, if you remember. However, this act of generosity only covers the red light errors– or RROD, the Red Ring of Death.

If your 360 dies a RROD-free, apparently you’re SOL, and have to pay $99 to have it repaired. Just FYI. Back to my case, while it was all candy and roses to have my my brick fixed for free– the man kindly let me know that should the repair center find any defects ‘unrelated’ to the RROD, that I would still have to pay the $99. I’m taking all precautions to proof myself from that BS.