I'm Your Venus

MENTAL SCARS is going before the lens this week and I was polishing up a few scenes tonight for producer Richard Myles. Check out the updates here.

Many significant days this week. Tomorrow is election day and everybody is all about Indiana. We taped Bill's speech for work and Hillary was in my hometown and my daughter saw Chelsea at college. Obama was shooting hoops down the road at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. I can't remember whether this has ever happened before in my lifetime. My phone rang the other night and the caller ID said "Hillary Clinton." It turned out to be some dude campaigning for her but who would know for sure without answering, these days?

So whoever you want to vote for, vote. If you don't, don't complain later.

Another significant holiday was Free Comic Book Day Saturday, which I often miss, but I happened to be near a shop while moving my daughter home from college and I'm not one to miss a visit to a comic book store. Happily I arrived on this joyous day and left with a free issue of Hellboy, a free comic called Atomic Robo which when I picked it up I thought it said Atomic Hobo, and a free comic called Devil vs. Claw about the Nedor heroes, fresh from the public domain.

This one really sparked my interest as two of my favorite comic book dudes, Jim Krueger and Alex Ross, and bringing back a bunch of Nedor heroes in a comic book called Project Superpowers. I don't want to put my bros to shame, but if you want to scope my take on the Nedor heroes, check out the 24 Hour Comic I did a few years ago called The Liberator.

I have to say, Iron Man was very good. My Little Brother Harold and I geeked out to it on Sunday with a million other people. Robert Downey Jr. really made the movie. He has been firing on all cylinders lately and people haven't seemed to notice: check out Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, A Scanner Darkly, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, and Zodiac if you don't believe me.

For comic book fans, you will see Jim Rhodes (and a potential War Machine suit), SHIELD, Pepper Potts and Hap Hogan, and maybe a few sniffs of the legendary "Armor Wars" storyline. Updated from Viet Nam to Afghanistan which I liked just fine. Downey's riffs throughout elevated the whole thing, hand in hand with Jon Favreau's sure-handed, energetic direction.

Dare I say one of the best superhero movies?

But I also saw the ads for Prince Caspian, the new Batman, the new Hulk, the new Spirit movie (which looks like Sin City), and the new Indiana Jones, so if it rains all summer I am totally cool with that. Though my 12-year-old Little Brother Harold said, "Is Indiana Jones from Indiana?" God, has it been that long?

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.