Grrr Raaaaaaar Etc.

Alright, position update. I am currently located in a delightful coffee shop on State St. in Madison, WI, little place called Fair Trade Coffee. Good coffee (or so I would say if I could afford any) and an excellent atmosphere: the walls a are nice warm yellow, the table distribution is calculated and perfect for accommodating everyone from that kid in the yellow and black sweatshirt by himself with the laptop to the small gaggle of peers that I've been dragged along behind.

So that's where I am (and if you could tell me right now I'm sure I'd love to hear where you are) and now that you know we can move onto more interesting things, like films I've seen recently. Let's go with The Incredible Hulk.

So, The Incredible Hulk, pseudo-sequel to Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk or The Hulk or whatever, is actually... not bad? Yes! It is! It is not bad, a worthy film to portray the Hulk-Smashtastic action that fills the comics and should be an easy adaptation to the screen, or so you'd think, and you'd probably be wrong, because the Hulk is another one of those Marvel characters with the wonders of internal conflict that the company might as well patent and slip somewhere into their logo. Unlike Spider-Man and Iron Man and all the rest of those witty bastards, however, Bruce Banner is too busy trying to cure himself of his oddities to bother with much wit, and the eponymous monster is too dumb to do anything but blithely narrate his actions, albeit infrequently. It makes for a strange comic book movie, all of the slam-bang action but none or at least few of the grins. They make it work, somehow, probably thanks to the lovely Liv Tyler, who manages to cement an emotional core into the film that one can actually care about, and even if you can't manage that (for God forbid a movie demand anything more than your ability to wonder slack jawed at CG explosions) than at least you can ogle her until your eyes dry out.

I'd talk more about the weird choice of Tim Blake Nelson for Dr. Stern and the occasionally spotty pick of William Hurt and maybe even how excited I am for the things that Marvel Studios is up to but I'm not getting payed by the word and Lord knows you lost interest somewhere around the word "gaggle."

Hm. Not as good as Iron Man, though.