ROBERT DOWNEY JR. REVIEWS THE DARK KNIGHT

ITEM! A giant No-Holds-Barred, No-Kidding-Around, Nebulous No-Prize goes out to Our Gal Val (she of the Occasional Superheroine fame) for this little slice of journalistic op-ed. Valorous Val reports on a interview with my bestest biddy buddy in the whole wide world, Robert Downey Jr., who is, shall we say, somewhat bewildered and underwhelmed by all the hoopla surrounding The Dark Knight. Go read it here. In fact, he was moved to express himself in a way that your Uncle Stanley doesn’t normally avail himself to in public. I usually resort to a smile and my six-volume thesaurus before getting too sassy. But still, RD Jr. makes some good points that Val expounds upon with insight and intelligence. So Valerie D’Orazio, for meritorious service to Merry Marveldom above-and-beyond the call of duty, consider yourself No-Prized and hereby field-promoted to the rollicking rank of Fearless Front Facer! Your comic-reading country thanks you!

Excelsior!

Smiley

AN OPEN LETTER TO MARVEL STUDIOS CHAIRMAN DAVID MAISEL

ITEM! You True Believers out there are just gonna have to excuse your Uncle Stan while he gets a little something off his chest today. Frankly, this is part of why I started this under-my-lawyers-radar boisterous blog to begin with — so I could fire one off across the bow every once in awhile without having to hear about it for weeks from corporate Hollywood legal types. And yes, I have my old-man cranky pants on today, so the faint of heart, the incontinent, or those suffering from delicate derrieres should just click away now and come back tomorrow!

An open letter to Marvel Studios Chair David Maisel:

Dear Greed-for-Brains,

Are you out of your ever lovin’ mind? Am I missing something, or did you hire Jon Favreau for a song and he turned around and gave you a $638 million franchise-starting movie when half of Wall Street was betting against you? What is your major malfunction? Are you seriously considering killing the goose that laid the golden armor-plated egg? If Jon Favreau says he needs an actual fair wage for writing and directing Iron Man 2, then your answer is YES. If he and Robert Downey Jr. say that a 2010 date is not enough time to mount a quality sequel, then it’s YOUR JOB as studio head to figure out the scheduling issues and how to solve them. Dear Lord man... do you want another Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on your hands? Stop acting like a parody of the hebetudinous Hollywood half-wits on Entourage and take a good look at the long range gains versus the short term ones. Use some of that $4.1 million dollars you made in 2007 and go buy yourself a clue... cause you need one son.

One more thing: when my people call your people, please return my calls. My attorneys can eat your attorneys for lunch and still have room left for dessert. Bet on it.

Sincerely,

Stan

Thanks for your indulgence, pilgrims. If you want to know the secret to livin’ to the ripe old age of 85, the secret is that sometimes you have to get up and take out the trash! ‘Nuff Said!

Excelsior!

Smiley