So I loved The Avengers even more the second time around, largely because I went in to appreciate it as a "forming a team" movie rather than just a "fighting as a team" movie. I also paid attention to how Joss handled the characters, and I realized that the way you juggle the character development of six characters is to work the interactions and relationships between each character to highlight things about them individually. Duh. But I saw that the movie really is all about each member sort of coming to terms with their own identity, which only occurs because of how they fit into the team.

I am madly, madly in love with the "But that's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry" moment. This time, it gave me ALL THE FEELS; I almost teared up, it was so beautiful. It's one of those reclamation/declaration-of-identity moments I love so much. Luckily, the emotion carried over for the next minute or so into the big power shot. I watched Mark Ruffalo's performance the whole movie to see how he was playing the "always angry" bit, and, of course, it's not evident. He's not seething. But it's more that he is deliberately keeping the Hulk at bay every second, matching his anger with his own and keeping that anger inside so that he can maintain his calm demeanor. Which is why it feels so good to let it out. I'm not quite sure how the Hulk-out on the helicarrier works with that premise, though; it must be that he has the ability to Hulk out at will, but the other guy can have his way if he's too distracted to deal with him. Like if he's just been knocked to the ground right after almost losing control.

Also, this time I caught the Shawarma Palace. After Stark pulls his Jonah trick, he lands right in front of it. I was distracted by the giant Farmers Insurance product placement before, but that's the shawarma place they go to that the end.

Also, I really love Black Widow in this movie.

ALSO. The credits note special makeup effects for "The Other and Man #1." Ha! That must be what they called Thanos.

Yeah, "I'm always angry." resonated because I'm always angry. I tell people this constantly and they never believe me, but I'm just a seething little ball of anger all the time. It takes a lot of effort to keep that under wraps and I'm constantly aware of the damage I can cause if I let it slip. And sometimes I do. And sometimes I move to the desert and try to help kids.

So yeah. HULK RESONATE.

My question of the moment: Will boxofficmojo be correct in their prediction that The Dark Knight Rises will be the biggest box office success of the summer, or will The Avengers walk away with it?

I think it will be tight, but honestly, I think The Avengers might win. People like Batman, but my feeling is that fun will win over darkness this summer. And I'm not sure that The Dark Knight has maintained its reputation since it came out. I bought the blu-ray and re-watched it recently, and as I think I mentioned before, I was oddly bored and bummed out. I haven't seen The Avengers yet (I have to wait until we go to the beach with my parents to get the free babysitting) but I don't think it will have that effect on me in four years.

Will and I saw Avengers today in 3D. It was AWESOME ! of course and we had dinner afterwards and I ALMOST went to see it again.

But I didn't, I want to though.

The biggest laughs were: Hulk thwapping Loki all over the place and when the guy on the bridge switched back to playing asteroids (is that right?) when Fury left. I think it was just so unexpected and relatable.

There was so much in the movie and yet it didn't feel like there were too many plotlines, subplots or characters. The movie did have the benefit of the previous movies to establish characters, but there was still info for people who hadn't seen the movie.

Like Redtails had multiple subplots and a ton of characters and it felt like too much for one movie. Avengers was more balanced and it felt like layers on top of layers. And there are so many little things like when Stark and Caulson step out of the elevator and Stark's offering his personal jet to fly to Portland and, um, I'm blanking on other ones but there were moments and they were nice.

Black Widow was awesome! Natasha was seriously awesome I knew about the interrogation in the beginning but didn't realize she pulled the same thing on Loki.

Also I wasn't sure who Alexis Denisof was exactly, is The Other the one who Loki kept talking to? I need to watch it again. Enver was easy to recognize - young cop!

Was it Jilli who said she felt like Dru "Do it again!" because that was me.

That was me, actually.

Disaster assessment firm says the damage to Manhattan in Avengers would cost $160 billion.

Heh.

Living in NYC in the Marvel Universe would kind of suck, but on the other hand, property values would be pretty reasonable.

Matt okay, I was completely blanking and I associate Dru with Jilli which is how I came up with that line of reasoning.

Oh also I thought the flying creatures were really really cool. They were one of my favorite bits and if anyone makes a toy or model of those I want one.

Dark Shadows report! Color me pleasantly shocked, because itis far, FAR better than I had feared. Every "zany!" moment in the trailer was apparently picked to give people the completely wrong idea about the movie. It's almost every paranormal Gothic Romance Novel cliche rolled into one, and covered with brooding atmosphere. The "zany!" moments from the trailer are just that, moments. The rest of the movie is far closer in tone to Sleepy Hollow.

It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't the train wreck I dreaded. In fact, I want to go see it again, and I'm definitely going to be buying it. The parts that made me cringe were the scenes where 70s music was being used to lighten the brooding, tone. For instance, I would have been much happier if the hate!sex scene between Barnabas and Angelique had been played for unease and horror, instead of having a 70s funk-hit soundtrack.

So, I'm not just relieved, I'm happy!

Yay, Jilli! Now I can go see it.