Last night we got a big surprise as the new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises hit the web. It’s pretty awesome so you should totally see it. The one problem? The CG is whack. It looks pretty cheesy at times. And hey, what’s with the weird “it’s not a car” thing at the end. Totally unnecessary and doesn’t fit with the rest of the trailer. Lame.

What isn’t going to be lame: The Avengers. It’s hitting on Friday and we continue our retrospective. This time we look at the bloated film that is Iron Man 2. It also happens to be the most important film in the series, as it has the most connections to that movie coming out on Friday.

If you’re really excited you can watch as Joss Whedon commentates this clip from the film. Be warned, there are some spoilers. I can summarize it for you here, spoiler free: Whedon knows what he’s doing. The Avengers will be worth the wait.

The Avengers is a credit to Stan Lee (and Jack Kirby). Moviefone has a great little interview with Lee you can read. He talks about his favorite cameos and what movie he would like to see made (A trilogy about Galactus and Silver Surfer) and what his dream movie is (Silver Surfer by Steven Spielberg). It’s a must read.

You should also read about how Mark Ruffalo signed a 6 picture deal with Marvel and how he’ll likely appear in six more films. SIX. That’s a whole lot. And he probably would be too old to feature in six Avengers movies, so expect cameos in other Marvel movies and lots more Hulk.

Tom Cruise also signed to a new movie today. He’s going to play, and produce, a new Van Helsing movie for Universal Studios. If you remember there was a pretty terrible one in 2004 starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale. Boy, was that terrible.

What isn’t terrible is popcorn. It’s the exact opposite. But why do we eat it at the movies? We explain why here. I mean, don’t you want to impress your friends with awesome knowledge the next time you see them? Of course you do.

the avengers, the dark knight rises