Oh, and before my mailbox fills up with e-mails on the subject, I’m already keenly aware of the first official photo to emerge from the set of Iron Man 2. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

You’ve got to hand it to Paramount releasing this image on the same day Fox is going to theaters with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Way to undercut ‘em, boys.

Man, waiting another year for this movie is going to be torture.

Something I wanted to mention in my review, but couldn’t find a way to fit in was the opening credit sequence and first 20 minutes of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This was the best part of the movie.

In a credit sequence that shows Wolverine and Sabertooth fighting in nearly every war from the last 100 years, we get a sense of their camaraderie as well as Wolverine’s concern and condemnation of Sabretooth’s growing blood lust and violence. Fast forward a few years to when the two are part of William Stryker’s elite mutant black ops team, they’ve done a good job of setting the stage for conflict while succinctly introducing a lot of supporting characters.

It should be mentioned that Ryan Reynolds steals the show in these opening scenes and it’s positively criminal he wasn’t given more to do.

At any rate, before I de-evolve into more criticism, I wanted to make mention of the curious phenomenon going on with 20th Century Fox’s super hero movies. It seems like they’re able to knock it out of the part in the first 20 minutes, but totally lose traction after that. Exhibit B? Watchmen.

Another film with a brilliant opening credit sequence and strong opening scenes. Then, a handful of screwed up details later and you’re left with a big steaming pile of “Oh, well.”

What’s going on over at Fox that creates this? Are the executives so busy they only have time to watch the first 20 minutes of their films and the crew knows they can phone it in after that? Or maybe the just have EXTREMELY unfocused editors who only have enough stamina to maintain the narrative in the first reel? In any case, I thought it was worth mentioning.

Something else worth mentioning is The Triple Feature, the movie podcast I host with Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies and Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex.

There’s no doubt we’ll be talking about X-Men Origins: Wolverine tonight. But we’ll also be talking about something else…

Joe issued an interesting challenge last week – To predict the Top 10 Box Office earners between now and the end of August. The victor will be judged not only by how many correct movies he has on his list, but by how many movies he correctly places within the Top 10.

All three of us have put together our lists and will be sharing them on the show tonight. So be sure to tune in at 9PM CST so you can listen live and chat with us in real time.

If you need a reminder, follow my Twitter account. I usually send out a notice 15 minutes before we start recording.

Be there!

Something I’ve found very interesting since instituting it last week are the comic ranking results that are being returned for the individual strips.

I know a lot of comic creators who don’t feel comfortable opening up their work to this kind of scrutiny, but I appreciate it because it let’s me know how you guys feel in an environment where you might otherwise be uncomfortable telling me directly.

For instance, Monday’s comic about how they changed Cyclops’s optic blasts in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It’s the highest ranked comic on the site with the 3rd largest number of votes. That tells me a lot, so I wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been voting.

Incidentally, if Monday’s comic was something you enjoyed, feel free to share it with others by using the ShareThis application that’s linked directly above the voting tool.

And if you’re interested to see how some of the other comics stack up, I’ve created a ratings page that shows you the 25 most popular comics, the 10 least popular comics and the 10 comics with the most votes.

If you think a comic is being represented either fairly or unfairly, feel free to vote and change things! The more people who vote, the more valuable the ratings become!

Thanks again!

As some of you know, I’m in the middle of pursuing my Master’s degree. Y’know, because a full-time job, a two year-old and a comic I’m updating three times a week isn’t enough to keep me busy.

As part of my degree, I am taking a research class. For our final paper, we can write about any subject that we find interesting so long as we support it with research.

I’m writing a paper about the decline of print publication and the rise of online news sources – specifically as it pertains to film criticism. Within that larger topic, I am trying to uncover the value opinion leaders place on film criticism – do they turn to it as a resource and how to they regard print versus online?

The survey is 4 pages and about 30 questions long. Mostly “yes” or “no” questions. Nothing complicated.

It would really mean a lot to me if you would participate in this survey. I’m hoping to use you guys as a resource, not only as opinion leaders but as the means to wow my professor with by returning big numbers in the survey results.

If you’d like to take the survey, you can do so by clicking here.

To provide you with incentive, I will be choosing one survey participant at random to win a FREE t-shirt and FREE book. All you have to do is submit your e-mail address at the end if you want a chance to win. If you don’t want to give me your e-mail address. That’s fine, too. It’s totally voluntary and you can remain anonymous if you wish.

What’s important to me is that you take five minutes to fill it out. I would be very grateful.

Thank you.

Before seeing Star Trek on Friday, I poked my head into my movie theater’s arcade and played Guitar Hero. (Did you know they made Guitar Hero for arcades? I didn’t.)

Anyway, on a goof, I picked Deftones, “Hole in the Earth.”

It didn’t dawn on me until later how appropriate that song is for what Nero does to Vulcan in Star Trek. It’s perfect, really.

Happy accidents!