Avenge Me

May the 4th be with you, because it was not with me. I had every intention of waking up in the morning and reaching out to all my wonderful readers, and this was the day my internet decided it wanted to pick a fight. It wasn't like our normal fight where it decides to randomly go down and I have to give it the boot or when it leaves the toilet seat down and I end up peeing all over it in the middle of the night (the last one might be Jay's fault, but I still blame that modem bitch). No, this was an all day fiasco that ended in us going our separate ways before I made my modems new home the trash can outside. Normally the day would have completely brought me down. But not yesterday, oh no, not on Joss Whedon Day.

Since the day I discovered the release date of Joss Whedon's Avengers, I had plans. I would not settle for anything less then seeing it at the midnight launch. Just like the Avengers, I assembled my usual suspects of viewers: Jay, Eric, Steph, Troy, Teddy, Lesley, and Rod (I know I'm a weirdo, but every time I write Rod's name I flash to Bad Romance and go "Rod Rod, Rod Rod Rod . . ."). The theater I chose was tucked away in the "vast hills" of Rubidoux, where many people forget of its existence, and thus making the showing not so crowded. My seven companions and I were joined by 200 of some of the biggest nerds the Inland Empire could produce. If you had an IT problem that night, you probably couldn't get through to someone because they were at Avengers with me.

Now I have been to the last 3 Star Wars midnight launches as well as the last 6 Harry Potters, and at each screening there was a handful of people who dressed up to see the movie. I momentarily contemplated dressing up like Harry Potter for the Avengers, but due to the fact I had to work that evening the odds were not in my favor. Next I decided on my Avengers shirt that I bought at this classy place called Target, but due to my current weight loss, its now a tent on me.

Instead of being one of those guys that wears a shirt of the band they're seeing, I went with my Punisher shirt. Same universe, but not in the movie. As I stroll up to the theater, I see nine people wearing my original shirt idea. Oh yeah. I totally turned into that girl at prom when she sees another bitch wearing her dress. I totally looked better in mine.

I would have gone with this shirt:

But I think that would have been showing my age.

We pile into the theater, and I step off with Lesley to get a frosty beverage and Jay a popcorn. As we get to the counter, Lesley decides that she wants a churro that will take 7 minutes. Glancing at my new watch, I tell her we totally have time. 7 minutes later, they haven't even started making her damn churro. This is when my eye began to twitch because if I did something like this at my restaurant, I would have my ass chewed out by some soup-and-salad Nazi. How dare their ignorance make me miss the trailers. Didn't they know about the new Dark Knight Rises trailer that was said to be attached to this movie? To distract me from my anger, Lesley decided to take a self portrait of us seeing the Avengers.

(Me trying to control my rage)

I take my seat between Teddy and Lesley and brace myself for my trailer. Instead, the manager of the theater steps in and decides to ask movie questions for free tickets and shirts. If anyone knows me, I rock at movie trivia, so naturally I am about to wet my pants from excitement.

First question: "Who replaced Edward Norton-" I didn't even let the man finish, my hand shot up in the air and I belted out "Mark Ruffalo." Two free movie passes, MINE! Next came a barrage of lame movie facts until they came to this gem: "How many cast members of Avengers have been nominated or won an Academy Award?" Immediately I went threw my brain. Samuel Jackson did for Pulp Fiction, Robert Downey Jr. did for Tropic Thunder, Jeremy Renner did for The Hurt Locker, and finally Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are Alright, making it a grand total of 4. But we were wrong. Apparently they counted lame ass Gwenyth Paltrow (who I hate so much, I don't even care if I spelled her name right) as a cast member. But still, I was rewarded for naming 3 of the 5 and won Jason a nice Avengers t-shirt.

Finally it came down to the movie. For everyone that thought that Joss Whedon was the wrong guy for this movie, I send you a big fat "I TOLD YOU SO, BITCHES!!!!!" It was the first Marvel movie that was done right. It gave each character their time in the spotlight, and delivered like Domino's during the last 20 minutes of the movie. The one liners were all over the place, and the camera shots were pure gold. The acting was right on target, and yes even The Hulk was amazing (did you read that Ang Lee? This is how you should have done The Hulk). That movie was legen, wait for it, dary. I could not have been more happy. I'm ready to go again tonight and maybe twice more, that's how much I loved this film. So even though yesterday was a catastrophe, I rode that Avengers wave of euphoria all day long.

In closing, I leave you with this:

(This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this blog, but since its May 5th, I thought it was funny.)