Resuming our MCU rewatch with Iron Man 3, a movie I sincerely love. I find nothing funnier than Tony literally rocketing away from talking about his feelings

I love Ben Kingsley’s unsettling Jim Jones-esque delivery in his Mandarin monologues. So effectively creepy

Anyway the reason I love this movie a lot is that when I first saw it I was struggling with PTSD—nightmares, flashbacks, frequent panic attacks with hyperventilation. I had a very corny but sincere reaction of “hey, even Iron Man has to deal with this shit”

Tony sending the suit onto Pepper when the bomb hits instead of saving himself is so genuinely romantic

I love how we get to see Tony basically sigh in relief and relax just a touch every time the suit goes on—it’s basically become his psychiatric assistive device

Tony is somehow good with kids when he has absolutely no right to be, because he just talks to them exactly like he talks to everyone else

“That’s all you got, huh? A cheap trick and an easy one-liner?”

“Sweetheart, that could be the title of my autobiography.”

I love this whole fight scene with Tony in handcuffs. Some really imaginative and original choreography there. And overall, another reason I love this movie: the whole thing is Tony having to be heroic without the suit. And realizing he can be

Rhodey you can’t just menace civilians because one of them laughed at your corny password!

The Oracle product placements are...darkly hilarious. Gary is a delight

I love a good intense research montage, although of course the plotline where disabled people become supervillains to get a “cure” is, uh...not ideal. Others have spoken to that more eloquently than me

I love that Tony’s idea of how regular people might dress is Unabomber couture

Respectfully, Rebecca Hall is SO fucking hot as well as being an excellent actor

Folks, let’s hear it for Don Cheadle’s arms in this movie

I sincerely love the thing in Marvel movies where there’s usually a scene where they just save civilians. This movie has one of the best ones

Tony crossing himself loosely before telling the suits to “take ‘em to church?” Tony Stark confirmed as a lapsed Catholic

The creature VFX design on the villains is so good. Genuinely scary in a visceral way, given I do NOT like depictions of burning

The running dramatically at each other across a big ridiculous bridge is so silly lmao

There are a lot of big, silly, comic book action pieces in this movie and you know what? I love them all

It’s good that Pepper’s hair can regenerate to exactly the same bangs now

It’s also extremely good that this movie starts out with a damsel in distress trope, then flips it

Tired: “Die Hard is a Christmas movie, actually”

Wired: “Iron Man 3 is a Christmas movie, actually”