Many have lamented this summer movie season as lackluster, but it hasn’t been. Things did get off to a bit of a rough start, but we ended up receiving a handful of worthwhile blockbusters and plenty of excellent indies. And most importantly, we got plenty of characters that will be remembered as above-the-cuff badasses. Read the full story

Betty Anne Waters, a film with some major Oscar potential, has officially had its title changed to Conviction. Perhaps in an attempt to redeem the disaster that was Amelia, Fox Searchlight picked up the film a while back, and has settled on an October 15th release date. [The Playlist] Read the full story

Iron Man 2 reigned for a second weekend at the box office, toppling the heavily favored Robin Hood by roughly $15 million. In its second week, it brought in $53 million, bringing its total to $212 million. Ridley Scott and Russel Crowe‘s Robin Hood under performed in its debut weekend, accounting for only $37 million (perhaps solidifying how stale their partnership is). Read the full story

In this episode of the The Film Stage podcast Jordan Raup and Dan Mecca are joined by Conor O’Donnell to review Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2. Read the full story

Jon Favreau‘s Iron Man 2 debuted to $128 million dollars this weekend and a solid 74% on Rotten Tomatoes. It seems to be getting good buzz among theatergoers as well. Was I the only one that saw a poorly constructed film ridden with problems? Check out my reasons below. Read the full story

With Mother’s Day Weekend in full swing, Iron Man 2 enjoyed a lucrative debut Friday, en route to a stellar opening box office weekend. It had the 5th highest opening Friday ($52.2 million) and opening weekend ($133.6 million) of all time. Keep in mind that these are early estimates, and with Mother’s Day in full swing, we could see it shoot up even higher. Read the full story

Two years ago the summer couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. Iron Man came out of nowhere and defied expectations, a critical darling fully embraced by general audiences and nearly every comic book nerd out there. The second time around? Don’t expect the same results. Read the full story

Despite some overwhelming disappointments last summer i.e. the mind-bogglingly bad Transformers Revenge of the Fallen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it was still a great summer. It’s not too often that some of the year’s best films debut in summer: Inglourious Basterds, Up, Moon, The Hurt Locker, District 9, The Brother’s Bloom, World’s Greatest Dad, Drag Me to Hell, and 500 Days of Summer. And who could forget how solid Public Enemies, Star Trek, and even The Hangover were? Will this summer be up to par? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a slew of films not to get your hopes up on. There will definitely be more than one great film this summer and while, like most summers, there’ll be more B-movies and lackluster ones, a few stand outs are worth the trash. Right? Read the full story

In the summer of 2008, Hollywood raised the bar for the modern superhero film. With The Dark Knight, audiences discovered that a superhero yarn could spin itself in the utmost seriousness and still be immensely enjoyable, while a film like Iron Man could be equally enjoyable, and also know when to relax here and there. It is the latter’s ability to chill out that makes it more accessible, and – I dare say – more watchable time and time again. The mood of the film mirrored it’s hero: It knew it had a calling – a duty – to do, but it did that job on it’s own terms, never shying away from a lush sarcasm that always hit its mark. Jon Favreau gave both comic book fans and the general movie-going public effortlessly enjoyable characters and a lean story that was such an easy meal to swallow, it left them with sated appetites begging for seconds. Read the full story

Like the mysterious Cloverfield trailer before Transformers, we will be seeing a glimpse at another secret J.J. Abrams project before Iron Man 2. HitFix has the scoop that the project is titled Super 8. It is produced by Abrams, but the teaser before Iron Man 2 will be directed by him. Read the full story