It was a straight battle of the heroes in this week’s weekend box office. In one corner there was Iron Man.

In the other, Robin Hood. In the other, if we’re being thorough, there’s the Amanda Seyfried character from that new film about letter-writing that looks like it’ll be a load of old bollocks. Who’ll come out on top? Why, Iron Man of course.

It goes without saying that Iron Man 2 beat both Robin Hood and Letters To Juliet at the US weekend box office this week. After all, Iron Man is a flying robot playboy who can shoot lasers out of his hands. And, you know, Robin Hood is a fat bloke with an unspecified regional accent who kills people with little bits of wood and then splodges around in some mud. And Amanda Seyfried is just annoying, obviously.

Congratulations to Iron Man 2 for seeing off Robin Hood‘s weekend box office challenge. It’s not entirely unexpected, to be fair – for its flaws, Iron Man 2 is still a typical fun summertime blockbuster, with jokes and special effects and pretty girls killing baddies with their thighs. On the other hand Robin Hood isn’t particularly fun, contains no jokes, minimal special effects and a tubby man in rubbish clothes who can’t decide if he’s supposed to be Irish or Welsh. Here’s the US weekend box office top five…

1 - Iron Man 2 (Remember to stay in your seats until the end of the credits. Not because there’s a cool extra scene at the end, but because you’ll really annoy the people who want to leave because their lives aren’t as comprehensively empty and miserable as yours) $53,000,000

2 - Robin Hood (The worst film ever made, if only because it makes you slightly nostalgic for Kevin Costner. At least he had a consistent accent) $37,100,000

3 - Letters To Juliet (We haven’t seen this yet, nor do we plan to, but if at least one letter in this film doesn’t read ‘Dear Juliet, HURRY UP AND FINISH THIS SHIT-AWFUL EXCUSE FOR A FILM YOU AWFUL WITCH’ then we’ll be terribly disappointed) $13,700,000

4 - Just Wright (A film where Queen Latifah falls in love with Common and… oh, wait, we think we know why this could only get to number four now) $8,500,000

5 - How To Train Your Dragon (Oh, just die already) $5,100,000

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You know, there must be a whole lot of people who enjoy watching Mickey Rourke massacre the Russian language.

Why? Because Iron Man 2 is number one. It might lack the simplicity and wit of the original, but Iron Man 2 is the number one movie at the US weekend box office this week. And that can only mean one thing – blockbuster season is here. That’s right, between now and September, we refuse to pay to see any movie unless it contains no fewer than 14 giant explosions and a furious metal robot that can fire lasers out of its knees or whatever.

Obviously that means that the brand new re-cut version of The Last Station, where Tolstoy grows a beard made of fire and marries a breakdancing cyborg with metal tits will do well when it’s released next month. But, you know, well done to Iron Man 2 and stuff anyway.

It’s no surprise that Iron Man 2 is the number one movie at the weekend box office this week. After all, it’s got everything that the first Iron Man film had, plus so much more – like Mickey Rourke, and Sam Rockwell, and Scarlett Johansson, and Larry Sanders, and Don Cheadle, and a cockatoo, and Roger Sterling from Mad Men, and about 14 unnecessary plot strands, and less jokes, and a thing about making a new element that didn’t really make very much sense! Hooray for Iron Man 2! Here’s the US weekend box office top five…

1 - Iron Man 2 (For us, the biggest letdown about Iron Man 2 is that Nick Fury was played by Samuel L Jackson again and not David Hasselhoff as God intended) $133,600,000

2 - A Nightmare On Elm Street (A remake of Nightmare On Elm Street? Whatever next? A remake of Child’s Play where Chucky is played by a malevolent iPad app? Huh? HUH?) $9,170,000

3 - How To Train Your Dragon (Now in its 450th week in the US weekend box office top five! For the record, that’s 449 weeks since we’ve had anything remotely interesting to say about it. Just so you know) $6,760,000

4 - Date Night (Now that we’ve run out of jokes about dried fruit to accompany these Date Night recaps, we’re going to have to start making jokes about medieval knights instead. Starting from next week. In other news, nobody go and see Date Night next week, because we don’t have any jokes about that either) $5,300,000

5 - The Back-Up Plan (Sorry The Back-Up Plan. Now that it’s blockbuster season, we have no use for the likes of you any more. Not unless Jennifer Lopez learns how to poo anthrax. UNLESS SHE ALREADY CAN) $4,345,000

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Great news everyone! Iron Man 2 comes out soon! Imagine all the glitzy no-expense-spared promotion we’re in for!

It’ll be so much fun! All the stars, dressed up to the nines, selling the movie for all that it’s worth. Maybe Robert Downey Jr will say something funny, or Scarlett Johansson will wear something sexy, or Mickey Rourke will be entertainingly shambolic, or Gwyneth Paltrow will declare to the world that she’s full of hatred, revels in the misfortune of others, was incapable of experiencing any maternal feelings towards her own child and looks like a grotesque sack of dogmuck whenever she takes her clothes off.

What’s that? Gwyneth Paltrow has just done that exact thing? Ahahaha hahaha hahahaha ha. No, really, that’s just wonderful.

Gwyneth Paltrow finds herself in a unenviable position less than a month away from the release of Iron Man 2. Back when the first film was released, it was all about her and Robert Downey Jr, and she was able to snare the most amount of headlines simply by wobbling around in some slightly impractical shoes.

But with Iron Man 2, Gwyneth has found herself trying to compete with not just Robert Downey Jr, but also Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson. So what can she do? She can’t try to be sexier than Scarlett Johansson, because that’d just be stupid, and she can’t try to be edgier than Robert Downey Jr or Mickey Rourke, because she has never blown her entire career in an orgy of drugs and/or a desire to be taken seriously as a professional boxer. She’s just Gwyneth Paltrow. Dappy old macrobiotic, brown rice-eating, Coldplay-enjoying idiot Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s screwed.

Except she’s not. Because under that simpering facade lurks the heart of a monster. Honestly, if you were to compile a list of humanity’s worst traits, Gwyneth Paltrow would tick all of them. With a hammer. Because it turns out that, by her own admission, Gwyneth Paltrow is basically Hitler. Listen to some of the things she’s just told Vogue:

“Oh yes, I can be mean. I can cave in to gossip. I can ice people out and I can definitely harbor revenge. In fact, I’m having a situation right now with a friend where I’m feeling pretty angry.”

No, not good enough? How about this, about her feelings towards her son Moses?

“At my lowest, I was a robot. I just didn’t feel anything. I had no maternal feelings for him – it was awful. I had no thoughts of harming him, thank God, but I couldn’t connect, and still, when I look pictures of him at three months old, I don’t remember that time.”

In addition to this, Gwyneth also did an interview with Harper’s Bazaar where she revealed that she’s eaten so much food lately that she weighs as much as a continent and her buttocks scrape along the ground when she walks and you could fit a full-sized dustbin inside her belly button (we’re paraphrasing). For some reason it seems like Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t want us to like her any more.

But you know what? Let’s not buy this darker, stormier Gwyneth Paltrow just yet. Once she’s realised that nobody is paying attention to her, she’ll have to try even harder to convince us that she’s not an insipid wimp. Who knows, maybe at the Iron Man 2 premiere she’ll kick a lamb in the face or punch a baby or something. We can only hope.

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Iron Man 2 is one of 2010′s biggest films – because what do people like more than beardy, middle-aged punching robots?

Nothing, that’s what. But what can we expect from Iron Man 2? Will there be more explosions? Yes! Will there be more fight scenes? Yes! Will there be more gnarled, topless old men who talk in an affected Russian accent so ludicrous that it’d be offensive if it wasn’t so indecipherable? Yes!

We know this because a new Iron Man 2 trailer has just been released. But, like most modern things, it’s all a bit too whizz-bang for us to understand. So we’ve decided to slow down the new Iron Man 2 trailer and talk you through it scene by scene. Once again, you’re welcome…

So let’s get things started right away. Here’s the new Iron Man 2 trailer…

Wait, what just happened? We don’t know either. That was such a jumble of unconnected images and noises that there isn’t a human being on the face of the planet who could have absorbed all of that information at once. So let’s put on our decoding hats and work out exactly what Iron Man 2 will hold…

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE 1

Hey, look, it’s Sherlock Holmes! No, wait, not Sherlock Holmes, the other one. You know, Charlie Chaplin. No, wait, not Charlie Chaplin either. That bloke from Ally McBeal? Yes, that’s who it is. He’s wearing a metal suit, but that’s probably got something to do with one of Ally McBeal’s zany fantasy sequences. Yes, that’s almost definitely what’s happening here.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE 2

It’s Scarlett Johansson. This is undoubtedly a good thing, because she always improves every movie she ever stars in. Like, say, that crappy Woody Allen film. And Michael Bay‘s The Island. And He’s Just Not That Into You. And… oh, who are we kidding? Scarlett Johansson makes all films worse. Incidentally, the sound you can hear over this shot in the Iron Man 2 trailer is the sound of Gwyneth Paltrow grinding her teeth because she’s not the prettiest woman in Iron Man any more.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE 3

This is Mickey Rourke‘s big scene. His big monologue that introduces not only his character’s personal philosophy, but also one of the main themes of the film. So it’s a bit of a bloody shame that he’s decided to do it in a ridiculously impenetrable Russian accent. We think he’s saying “Ivooka may cobbley, pee poo wiseizto bleevim. Deyvill deploy dewatoo anna shaksucum. AHAHAHA!” But we could be wrong.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE 4

Here are some of the other enemies that Iron Man will face in this movie. They’re stormtroopers. No, wait, not stormtroopers. Footsoldiers. No, wait, not those either. Oh, we don’t know.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE 5

But, look, here’s Robert Downey Jr and Not Terrence Howard blowing some of them up. Poor Terrence Howard. He must watch this and feel so sad that it isn’t a wholly computer-generated image of a robot of roughly his size that’s blowing up other computer-generated robots in a film.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE 6

In this scene, Scarlett Johansson makes something hot fire out of Robert Downey Jr’s penis. No, wait, we meant she’s made his weapon ejaculate. No, wait, we meant she’s wanked off his metal shaft. No wait, we… oh, actually we were right. Scarlett Johansson has wanked off Robert Downey Jr’s metal shaft.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE 7

In Iron Man 2, the Iron Man suit can be reduced into the size of a portable suitcase. The moral here is that you should never stand behind Robert Downey Jr at airport security. If a line can be held up by someone not taking their laptop out of their bag properly, imagine what they’d do if he tried to put a fully-functioning flying robot through the scanners. You’d be waiting for hours. You’d probably miss your plane. He’s inconsiderate, that’s what Robert Downey Jr is. Screw you, Robert Downey Jr! You can stick your Iron Man 2 up your arse!

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Iron Man 2, along with Toy Story 3 and Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, will be one of 2010′s biggest movies.

It’s going to have everything! Explosions! Robots! Robert Downey Jr! Sexy ladies! So many peripheral baddies that you can’t help but think that it’s going to be as bloated and stupid as Spider-Man 3! A man! Made out of iron! But what’s Iron Man 2 actually going to be like? Luckily an Iron Man 2 trailer has just been leaked to the internet, and you can watch it below.

What’s more, we’ve taken the liberty of decoding the Iron Man 2 trailer in its entirety, so you can make sense of all the flashing images and whizz-bang noises. This is because we love you.

This Iron Man 2 trailer isn’t much of a surprise. After all, for weeks we’ve been teased with posters and on-set pictures and international teasers and God knows what else, so it was only a matter of time before we were given actual moving evidence that the film existed.

However, Iron Man 2 has a hell of a lot riding on it. If it wants to repeat the success of the original movie and become the most entertaining movie of the summer until Christopher Nolan releases his film, then it’s going to need to dazzle and amaze and – most importantly – stop Robert Downey Jr’s slow transformation into Gene Simmons from KISS. Can it achieve all of this? Here’s the Iron Man 2 trailer – see for yourself…

We don’t know about you, but that all shot by so quickly that we barely know what even happened. Something about a robot, maybe? Let’s go through the Iron Man 2 trailer scene by scene to try and make sense of what we just saw.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE ONE

Oh look, Tony Stark is answering to the government. It’s just like the first episode of the last season of 24! Maybe this means that Tony Stark will save the world by trying to stab half a biro into Mickey Rourke‘s eyeball. Yes, that’s almost definitely what will happen. Iron Man 2‘s gonna be AWESOME!

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE TWO

Here, for reasons probably too pointless to get into, Gwyneth Paltrow kisses a cold, soulless robot head. Word has it that she trained extensively for this scene by being married to Chris Martin out of Coldplay for six years.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE THREE

Wait a minute. Gratuitous use of the American flag? Dancing girls? A Russian baddie with an unconvincing accent? A talking robot? This means that Iron Man 2‘s going to be identical to Rocky IV! AWESOME!

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE FOUR

Oh go on then, teenage boys. But hurry up. And wipe up after yourselves, would you? Jeez.

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE FIVE

Blimey, Jodie Marsh has let herself go, hasn’t she?

IRON MAN 2 TRAILER SCENE SIX

Robert Downey Jr and Don Cheadle dress up as robots and break things together. If you listen very carefully during this scene, you might just be able to hear the distinctive sound of Terrence Howard gently weeping to himself.

There. we think that just about covers everything. You’re welcome.

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So you played online poker for three hours and won a sum that a Polish minimum wage employee would snort derisively at.

The disappointment you feel could not compare to that of these fine gentlemen of film after learning what the wardrobe department had in store for them. We’ve all had to wear tights for one reason or another in our life, but even the butchest of men struggle to pull off these fashion faux pas.

So kick-starting the list is a man who drinks ugly and craps failure…

5: Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2

Wearing some sort of contortion device normally found in David Carridine‘s wardrobe, Mickey Rourke seems to be going bondage in next year’s Iron Man 2.

4: Sylvester Stallone – Rocky III

More a tragic reminder of a time when this sort of fitness fashion was acceptable than anything else! Still, Stallone manages to put some camp into the third Rocky film numerous times during the montage as he changes his vest, each time getting smaller and more colourful *shudder*.

Number 3: Sting – Dune

Some valid debate as to whether Sting qualifies as ‘manly’ in the first place. Either way this costume made Sting look like a ginger, bullied, repressed homosexual Gollum.

Number 2: George Clooney – Batman and Robin

We doth my cap to the costume designer on this film – she made Schwarzenegger look like a (Ice) berk but that doesn’t compare to Clooney’s horrific ordeal. Is it cold in the Batsuit? It must be with those razor-sharp nips flying out! Matching codpiece doesn’t help matters, thus turning comic’s most feared Dark Knight into a bigger camp icon than Robin.

Number 1: Sean Connery - Zardoz

It was an obvious choice but the Scotsman has formed a career on his dripping bravado with misogynistic glee. Then came this costume choice from the (thankfully) forgotten Zardoz. Rumours of Connery being incontinent at the time of filming prompting this choice remain unfounded…

Agree? Disagree? Think there is a man more deserved of the crown than these bunch of camp crusaders? Let us know below…

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Ciphering through the wasteland of recent movie related news, a few choice nuggets stick out between the tidal wave of trailers and clips that have submerged the internet recently.

Sherlock Holmes is now blowing shit up instead of smoke rings and all creativity seemingly being lost, Hollywood enlists Peter Berg to direct an adaptation of the board game Battleships (Wasn’t that Crimson Tide?). If someone doesn’t shout out “You sunk my battleship” then something has truly gone awry.

So at least this week has proved to be surprising! Here’s some more…

Headlines:

Terminator Salivating Footage Online:

Like the kid being ignored in the corner, T4 is flapping its arms for attention. Debuting online are eight new clips that help flex its own character complexities (see; Star Trek) dark plotting (see; Wolverine) and giant robot madness (see; Transformers 2). Warner Bros. are hoping to release enough footage pre-release so that any semblance of surprise is taken out of your cinematic experience.

Click here for clips

Buffing the Iron:

News trickles out of the bottom of the Iron Man suit this week as Jon Favreau (Director/Favs) has been regularly updating about the shoot on Twitter. Also official stills and set photos have gone online. God knows what will happen when a photo appears of leather-clad Scarlett Johansson emerges online.

Pictures Here

Filling up on Diesel:

The action star/franchise whore/washout Vin Diesel (delete where applicable), has now become somewhat of an innovator. Recently released action game Wheelman, which starred the more economically run action star, has been greenlit into a full motion picture! It was meant to be a film before it was a game, so now it’s a film adaptation of a game that was a tie-in for a film that was never made. Confused? Not Vin!

Prime Adaptation:

Why? Inexplicably the ITV drama Primeval has been picked up by Warner Bros. for adaptation into a big screen dino-adventure spectacular! Expect less S Club 7 alumni but much more nonsensical, cross-dimensional bollocks. Except it’ll look prettier. Much, much prettier.

Sly Remake:

The Stallone remake you never asked for is here! Cliffhanger – that 90’s nail-biter which featured a bloke from Eastenders – is the latest in line for the remake treatment. Although nothing is confirmed expect lots of cliffs and muscles.

Must See This Week:

Star Trek:

If you haven’t seen it yet – watch it! Making the uber-geekfest that was Star Trek into the hip new must-see summer blockbuster was like turning water into wine, but Lost supremo J.J.Abrams has managed to do just that. It’s got boom and crash and ahhhh and ooooo and all the rest….

Must Not See This Week:

Angels & Demons:

Pseudo intellectual guff with potato-Hanks running around the Vatican investigating a dead Pope. Did you also spot that bad guy in the first five minutes? Damn you Hanks and Ritchie Cunningham – you can do better!

Video Corner:

Demoted Trailer:

One to keep an eye on; a return to comedy from Sean Astin, who hasn’t hit these highs since California Man. Also featuring the ever reliable David Cross going some way to show that there are still plenty of laughs to be had in toilet jokes.

[story by David Scarborough]

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10 - Public hysteria through history – Time

9 - More slow motion goodness, this time ridiculously beautiful – YouTube

8 - The new Star Trek movie would have been better if any of these aliens had been included – Cracked

7 - The Beatles Rock Band game is quickly becoming the best way for rich idiots to look authentically stupid – Gearlog

6 - Oh, the law. You’re funny – Trutv

5 - The world’s oldest dog is younger than Lindsay Lohan. Dogs are crap - MSNBC

4 - Why Barbarella died. Also, thank goodness Barbarella died – Movieline

3 - Iron Man 2! It exists – Paphotoshelter

2 - Old school computer death the way it should have been – Geekologie

1 - The best thing Guy Ritchie has ever had a hand in (insert Madonna joke here)…

Scarlett Johansson wants you to know that she don’t need no steenkin’ bosoms, or no steenkin’ bottom.

The actress, once famed for her Marilyn Monroe-like curves, has recently slimmed down and is a shadow of her former self.

Rather than take the well-trodden path of just wearing spectacles or living in her gym clothes, when she wants to make herself comparatively ugly and be taken seriously as an actress, Scarlett has stripped herself bare. Gone is the long, blond mane of cascading curls. Gone is the hourglass silhouette. And worst of all, the famed ScarJo chichis are now barely a C cup!

Salma Hayek can breathe a sigh of relief, and call off the hit-man hired to take care of her greatest competition for “Most Enviable Chichis 2009″. Her title for this year safe. Anywho, even if the Latina were to slim down, her goodies are so magnificent that nothing short of an act of God could make them any smaller.

Back to Scarlett’s boobs. The actress, 24, has disappointed all those who looked a gift horse in the mouth and took her at her word, when she proudly exclaimed that she would never diet.

She said, only back in February, to In Touch magazine, “I don’t need to be skinny to be sexy.”

In the same amount of time it takes Heidi Montag to work out how to heat a Pop Tart (two months), Scarlett has turned her back on her resolution to keep eating like a pig.

She could well have sat in a plum position; one envied by her peers. She could have remained just about the only starlet of her age-range who was allowed to eat more than a handful of grapes in one go.

Being too blind to this privilege and squandering the Hollywood luxury of consuming anything like the recommended daily allowance of fats etc., the Lost In Translation star went head-first into the skinny arms of a famous pal.

Known best for being about the width of a piece of broccoli, and about as interesting, Gwyneth Paltrow was the person to run to Scarlett’s rescue. And by “run”, of course, I mean limply drag her carb-starved bottom as fast as her atrophied legs could carry her.

In preparation for the filming of the new Iron Man 2 film, Scarlett has reportedly lost over 14lbs. Which is, for those who are mathematically challenged, about 7lbs from each knocker. A source told Star magazine:

“The pair have been doing daily workouts with Gwyneth’s personal trainer Tracy Anderson. Scarlett is also staying away from carbohydrates.” The 24-year-old actress decided to diet, reportedly fearing she could lose out on the roles she wants to younger, more attractive actresses A friend said: “Scarlett has always been happy with her curves, but recently she has been feeling pressure to lose a few pounds. She knows that she is up against tough competition from younger, prettier and increasingly skinner actresses.”

Hopefully Scarlett will come to her senses, once the Iron Man 2 filming ends.

It would be far better, in my humble opinion, to be famed for your timeless curves than for your talent. Any stupid old Oscar winner can claim to be talented. But not everyone can make Salma Hayek go green with envy.

This was a blog post by Amy Grindhouse, who will cut you if you don’t read her website immediately.

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If all the Virgin Media TV adverts haven’t already made you utterly sick of Samuel L Jackson’s face, we’ve got good news.

You’ll be seeing more of it. A lot more. In fact, if you plan on seeing any Marvel movie over the next decade, chances are that at some point Samuel L Jackson is going to walk on as Nick Fury, waggle his good eye around and bugger off again.

Because Marvel has just signed Samuel L Jackson up for nine movies – including Iron Man 2, Thor, Thor 2, Captain America and the long-awaited Nick Fury Sings The Hits Of Genesis.

Depending on how much of a geek you are, Samuel L Jackson’s surprise post-credits cameo as Nick Fury in Iron Man probably sparked one of the following reactions:

1 - “Oh cool, this means that S.H.I.E.L.D is going to play an important role in the tapestry of all future Marvel films!”

2 - “That’s not Nick Fury. He doesn’t even look anything like David Hasselhoff.”

3 - “What’s going on? I don’t know why I even bothered sitting through the poxy credits. I need a wee and one of my legs has gone to sleep. Oh, I hate this life.”

We won’t tell you which one of these was our reaction (Clue: the third one), but Samuel L Jackson went down so well as Nick Fury in Iron Man that Marvel has signed him up to do more of them. Nine more of them, in fact. Reuters reports:

The actor, who just weeks ago was seemingly on the outs with the studio over reprising his role as Nick Fury, agent of spy outfit S.H.I.E.L.D., in the “Iron Man” sequel, has signed an unprecedented nine-picture deal to play the character in a series of Marvel movies. In addition to “Iron Man 2,” scheduled for release next year, the movies include “Thor,” “Captain America,” “The Avengers” and its sequels.

We don’t know whether to be happy or sad for Samuel L Jackson. Given Marvel’s taste for cannibalistic incest, there’s a chance that he’ll end up in more than nine films – getting to star in far-off gems such as Thor 2, Thor 3, Captain America 2, Captain America 3, Thor Vs Captain America, Thor And Captain America Vs Iron Man, Iron Man Vs The Avengers, The Avengers Vs The Bavengers and Thor Gives Iron Man A Sneaky Hand-Job While Iron Man Is Away At A Conference.

Plus there’s a chance that, if all goes well, Samuel L Jackson will end up being given his own S.H.I.E.L.D movie, and that’s bound to excite everyone interested in seeing the day-to-day administrative chores of a large organisation thrillingly played out on the big screen.

But, on the other hand, we don’t think Samuel L Jackson should get his feet too far under the table just yet. It might be an uninformed hunch, but we do have a ‘Samuel L Jackson To Be Replaced By Don Cheadle‘ post loitering around that we don’t think will stay unpublished for very long, if you know what we mean.

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10 - If you ever go to Abbey Road, please don’t think for a second that you’re being original…

9 - Apparently sleeping badly actually turns you mental. Gee, thanks professor – Newscientist

8 - A collection of Stax album covers that are roughly fourteen trillion times cooler than you are – Riverfronttimes

7 – Some facts about Iron Man 2. if you like that kind of thing – Askmen

6 - Hair weaves: the next must-have piece of bodyarmour – Yahoo

5 - A story about dolphins that’s sad if you like dolphins, but good if you think that dolphins are bastards – MSNBC

4 - Top 10 sin cities. One of them has just given women the vote. Progressive! – Askmen

3 – Finally! Something to allow women to piss standing up – NBC

2 – This ungodly picture of a pizza cheeseburger has made us so hungry it isn’t true - Image

1 – A porno flow chart that’s surprisingly accurate. Um, we heard – Holytaco

Yesterday we implied that Mickey Rourke’s comeback would consist of The Wrestler, a rubbish Stallone movie and nothing else.

Turns out we couldn’t have been more wrong. Mickey Rourke is hot property again – and he’s proving it by also starring in Iron Man 2. According to reports, Iron Man director Jon Favreau is keen to have Rourke play the movie’s villain.

It’s bittersweet news, really – Mickey Rourke must be thrilled by the enthusiasm in which he’s been re-embraced by Hollywood, but it’ll be a bitter blow to The Puppet Corpse Of Orson Welles. He really had his eye on that part, you know.

Over the next couple of years or so, there’s a chance you’ll be seeing Mickey Rourke’s face more often than you’ll actually see your own. And, no, for once that won’t be because you’re hounded by a recurring dream that involves you being chased through a cave by a slurring monster whose face appears to be made entire out of flan – it’s because Mickey Rourke is going to be in just about every film made within the next few years.

Thanks to the critical acclaim heaped upon his performance in The Wrestler – aka The Story of Mickey Rourke, In A Wig – everyone wants a piece of Mickey Rourke these days. As we reported yesterday, Mickey has signed up to join the cast of Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, but that’s not all.

Just to prove that there’s more to him than movies about former box office giants who bottomed out and spent years in the wilderness before finally gaining reacceptance from their Hollywood peers, Mickey Rourke is apparently close to landing a starring role in Iron Man 2, a film starring Robert Downey Jr – a former box office giant who bottomed out and spent years in the wilderness before… oh tits, he’s done it again hasn’t it?

Anyway according to the Hollywood Reporter:

Marvel has been keeping a very tight lid on the script for the sequel, being written by Justin Theroux, but it is known that Rourke would play a tattooed Russian heavy named Ivan who becomes Whiplash, a man with deadly, technologically enhanced coils.

A Russian heavy with deadly, technologically enhanced coils? We’re not even sure we know what that means. However, we’re fairly certain that if Mickey Rourke takes this Iron Man 2 role, the character description should probably be changed to ‘a crying Russian heavy with deadly, technologically enhanced coils who’s found himself on the outs and is determined to make one last shot at glory in the field of having deadly, technologically enhanced coils. Possibly.

And that’s not all – as well as The Expendables and Iron Man 2, IMDb says that Mickey Rourke has also got upcoming roles in The Informers, Killshot, 13 and Sin City 2. And there’s a rumour he’ll be playing the lead in High School Musical 4. Plus he’ll be playing Samantha in the next Sex And The City movie. Plus if you film anything on your mobile phone between now and Christmas 2010, Mickey Rourke is legally obliged to hang around crying in the background of every shot in a creepy way to ensure that nothing is ever made that he doesn’t appear in.

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Iron Man 2 was going to be Terrence Howard’s big chance to shine, at least until he got the boot in favour of Don Cheadle.

Even now, nobody has any idea about why Terrence Howard was sacked from Iron Man 2 – not even Terrence Howard himself. In fact, Howard claims that he’s still in the dark about it all. All he knows is that he’s angry enough to wail about it to anyone close to him who happens to be holding a microphone.

Still though, Terrence Howard will get the last laugh here. After all, Iron Man 2 might be one of the biggest movies in history, but can Don Cheadle look himself in the eye and say that he’s making a rubbishy Karate Kid knock-off about street fighting that starts Channing Tatum? No. No he cannot. So in that respect, Terrence Howard wins. He loses the bits about being rich and famous and powerful, but he wins the Karate Kid bit.

It seemed like such a brilliant idea, didn’t it, when Marvel decided that it’d hire big-name credible actors for the roles in their movies. Robert Downey Jr, perhaps the finest actor of his generation as Iron Man. Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts. Edward Norton as The Incredible Hulk. Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes. What a brilliant way to make low-grade superhero schlock seem intelligent and highbrow, we all thought.

Marvel forgot one very important thing in all of this, though – the reason why nobody had thought to do it first is because everyone knew that when you hire an important actor for a movie you’re essentially hiring an enormous raging ego trapped inside the body of Veruca Salt from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

That’s why earlier this year we were treated to the sight of Edward Norton threatening to hold his breath until Marvel made The Incredible Hulk into a three-hour exploration of the frailty of the human condition – and it might be why Terrence Howard is no longer in Iron Man 2.

There were plenty of hints in Iron Man that Iron Man 2 would be Terrence Howard’s film – all the nods to War Machine certainly pointed that way – but last week it was revealed that Don Cheadle was replacing Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes in the sequel.

At the time there were vague murmurings about Terrence Howard wanting too much money, but according to Howard himself, he hasn’t got a bloody clue about anything. And he’s mighty displeased about it, as he told NPR:

“It was the surprise of a lifetime. There was no explanation. I read something in the trades that implicated it was about money or something but apparently the contracts that we write and sign aren’t worth the paper that they’re printed on. And promises aren’t kept. Good faith negotiations aren’t always held up. You know, even friendships, people that you support…”

So who knows why Terrence Howard got the shove from Iron Man 2. Maybe it was money, or maybe it’s because Terrence Howard seems to be such a self-important nobsack that nobody could bear to spend another second working with him.

Either way, let’s just pray that Marvel doesn’t run into the same difficulties with Don Cheadle, because then it’d have to switch black actors a third time for Iron Man 3 and, as well as giving the slightly dubious impression that the moviegoing public can’t really tell the difference between one black actor and another, it’d only be a matter of time before the studio decides to cast Chris Tucker as Jim Rhodes, and that would just be hideous.

With all of this in mind, someone who should be watching his back is prospective Thor director Kenneth Branagh. He’d better not get any flighty ideas about the movie or he’ll be out and Marvel will jump on the phone to the bloke who directed Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Terrence Howard got a raw deal out of Iron Man – his sole job was to follow Robert Downey Jr around disapprovingly for a while.

In fact, an Oscar-nominated actor like Terrence Howard probably only agreed to star in Iron Man in the first place because his role would grow exponentially in Iron Man 2, where he’d become War Machine. Except it won’t now, because Terrence Howard isn’t going to be in Iron Man 2.

Thanks to rumoured financial disagreements, Howard is out of Iron Man 2, and he’ll be replaced by Don Cheadle – the man whose godawful British accent ruined Ocean’s 11 and its sequels. There are bound to be some cosmetic changes to the script because of this casting change – for example, to suit Cheadle’s voice, War Machine will now only be referred to as Woooaaar Mableedingchine Innit Guv’nor Chin Chin Toodlepip Mary Poppins.

When Marvel makes a movie, it likes to hint at sequel possibilities to arouse the geeks. That’s why Nick Fury turned up at the end of Iron Man, Iron Man turned up in The Incredible Hulk, the crappy semi-outline of Captain America popped up in one millisecond of a deleted scene in The Incredible Hulk and the rest of The Incredible Hulk was so bad that people fantasised about a sequel because it could only ever be better than the film they were actually watching.

And another moment like this came in Iron Man when Terrence Howard took a loving look at the Iron Man suit, patted it and murmured “Next time.” The message was clear – rather than just being Robert Downey Jr’s dull, Driving Miss Daisy-style companion, in Iron Man 2, Terrence Howard was probably going to become War Machine. In fact, that’s probably the only reason why Terrence Howard agreed to play such a menial part in Iron Man to begin with.

But that dream is over, because Terrence Howard is out of Iron Man 2, and in his place is lovely old Don Cheadle, as Reuters reports:

In a surprise move, Don Cheadle will replace Terrence Howard as Robert Downey Jr’s best friend in “Iron Man 2,” the sequel to the superhero saga. Marvel had no comment, but sources close to the deal said negotiations with Howard fell through over financial differences, among other reasons.

Apparently, along with the casting change, Marvel wants to take the Howard/Cheadle character Jim Rhodes, in ‘another direction’.

We’re not completely sure what that means but, given Don Cheadle’s previous movie roles, we’re fairly certain that in Iron Man 2 War Machine is either going to end up as a victim of racism who works as a UN humanitarian volunteer in Darfur, or as a gor blimey chim-chiminey cockney urchin who lives up the apple and pears, stands up and weeps every time the national anthem plays and works as a rag and bone man with his cantankerous old father. Our fingers are crossed for the latter.

However, Terrance Howard’s sudden unexplained removal from Iron Man 2 should just go to show the other other actors that nobody is bigger than the movie and everyone is expendable. So everyone had better watch out, otherwise there’s a fairly solid chance that, in Iron Man 2, Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow will be replaced by Gary Coleman and Gary Coleman in a blonde wig and a miniskirt. Consider that a warning.

Robert Downey Jr was known for some things, then everyone forgot who he was, then they remembered again.

And now that the people of the world once again recognise Robert Downey Jr in the street – and now that he’s likely off the smack and charlie – people are more likely to listen to him. So it comes as a nice big pile of fun when the man gets all ranty, decides he disagrees with just about everyone in the world and that he hates The Dark Knight, because it makes him feel ‘dumb’.

For once we don’t have to add much to that – it’s simply what he said in an interview with Movie Hole.

Speaking about the plans for Iron Man 2, the Marvel-contracted actor decided that he shouldn’t just talk up some vague plot points, speculate on what may happen in the sequel and start the ball rolling on some early hype for the upcoming blockbuster.

No – he would also stick the knife in in a pretty spectacular fashion, especially when you consider this is mainstream Hollywood cinema, people are likely to see what he’s said and it will get widely reported.

Just for that, we have to give Robert Downey Jr a special hecklerspray ‘Well Done You Have Some Balls’ award that we’ve just invented.

Congratulations, Bobby – how does it feel to be the first ever recipient?

Granted, he may not have threatened his mum, died or had a serious car accident, but directly slagging off a competitor’s film is good enough for us. Talking to Movie Hole, Downey Jr let loose this barrage:

“My whole thing is that that I saw ‘The Dark Knight’. I feel like I’m dumb because I feel like I don’t get how many things that are so smart…and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.’ I…still can’t tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so high brow and so f–king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.’ You know what? F–k DC comics. That’s all I have to say and that’s where I’m really coming from.”

Clearly not a man worried about burning any bridges… oh, wait, he went on about that too, the little git:

“You know, you’re never too old to burn your bridges because I believe I have offended everyone. I think I’ve got a couple more. ‘I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it’ is my favourite phrase I’ve ever coined.”

Well, we’re not going to argue with that.

Maybe years of drug abuse, carrying weapons around and getting arrested every three-point-four minutes is the recipe to make the perfect movie star – one who can actually act pretty well and one who has both an actual set of balls and a lack of inner monologue, leaving them free to say what they actually mean.

Set the plan in motion, Hollywood berks – prescription smack and a shotgun for Lindsay Lohan, followed by four arrests in a week. Maybe that’ll make her fun again.

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Movie Hole