Photo-A-Day #2586

Today I finally saw the long awaited movie, The Avengers! I went with Uncle Mike, Loki to his friends. You might remember Uncle Mike from previous Man Dates as the Red Robin ones. We’ve previously gone out for dinner and then a movie but this time we dd the movie first and then grabbed some dinner at Fire and Ice. We’ve hit action movies like Transporter 3 and also comedies like Hall Pass. This was by far the best movie we’ve ever seen together and being that we both love comic books and can talk comics for hours it made it all the better.

Mike and I have crazy schedules and because of that Monday at noon was the best time for us to catch the movie. We got tickets for the Avengers in IMAX 3D at the Providence Place Mall. We got some popcorn and drinks and got our seats. Seats are assigned at the Providence Place IMAX and we had pretty decent ones but would have liked to have been up a bit higher. None the less it was great to see and the 3D was very good.

The Avengers was definitely worth the hype, the wait and whatever else you need to do to see the movie. It was the best Super Hero Movie that I have ever seen. Even though there was a bunch of CGI at the climax of the movie it was balanced by some great storytelling in the beginning of the movie. Joss Whedon knows how to tell a story and he can write the heck out of dialogue. Each member of the team had shining moments and good lines. There was balance between the super powered characters and the human characters and every member of the team pulled their own weight. The breakout character for me was Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk. Ruffalo played an incredible Bruce Banner and when the Hulk finally appears you feel great empathy for the torment within the man inside the monster. And without giving anything away I have to say that my favorite part of the movie was a Hulk moment. I literally laughed out loud because it was such a comic book moment.

After the movie we went for an early dinner at Fire and Ice. If you are going to have a Man Date this is the place. You choose all your own ingredients and then they are cooked on a giant circular flat top grill. The guys who are doing the grilling are very good with the spatulas and fling cheese onto your plates and chunks of pineapple into the air so you can catch them in your mouth. I made my first run with Udon noodles, shaved steak, cajun chicken and a bunch of vegetables and more. I also mixed up some sauces like fajita sauce, teriyaki, chili lime and a couple more sauces all mixed together. Mike went with a hamburger with a hot dog chaser. Round Two I went with a burger with banana peppers, black olives, bacon, pickles, and cheese plus a special sauce mixture. It was a very tasty burger. Mike’s round two was some chicken fajitas. Yes, Fire and Ice is a great place to have a Man Date.

What is a Man Date?

“Some people have asked about what a Man Date is all about. Well, I did a little research and found a New York Times article about it. Here is the definition from that article.

And here is the rule of thumb on movies on a man date: When attending a movie together – preferably with explosions or heavy special effects, never a romantic comedy – guys prefer to put a nice big seat between each other. (This only sounds like an episode of “Seinfeld.”)…“