Apparently this weekend’s opening of Iron Man won one notable fan.

“I love Robert Downey Jr.! He was the perfect choice for Iron Man,” Michael Chabon said Monday, according to BlackBook.

Chabon was speaking at a press conference for the opening of the costume exhibit “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Could it be? Is this a dream? Will the Joel and Ethan Coen adapt The Yiddish Policemen’s Union?

That’s the claim of British newspaper The Guardian. In a profile of Scott Rudin, the paper reports that Rudin “has already started working on the next Coen brothers film, an adaptation of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.”

And, as it happens, it’s true, according to Chabon.

“[Rudin] swore me to silence, but if he’s letting the cat out of the bag, then I guess I can finally tell you,” Chabon said via e-mail.

According to Chabon, the Coen brothers have agreed to at least write the adaptation, once the writer’s strike ends. (They made the deal pre-strike.)

“I am, of course, over the moon about this,” Chabon said. “They are among my favorite living moviemakers. Three or four of their films are on my all-time favorite list. They are geniuses. What’s more, I think they are perfectly suited to this material in every way, from its genre(s) to its tone to its content. I can’t wait to see what they eventually do with it.”

The Coen brothers, of course, are the directors behind this year’s Oscar nominee No Country for Old Men. And before that, they directed the crime drama Fargo.

Rudin bought the film rights to Yiddish about five years ago based on a one-and-a-half page proposal. Rudin is no stranger to Chabon novels. He produced Wonder Boys, and also owns the rights to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

“Now we just need to get this strike settled,” Chabon said.

It didn’t win any awards, and the early reviews are mixed to bad.

That’s the final word on Mysteries of Pittsburgh following last week’s Sundance Film Festival. Bloggers had long attacked the movie for not following the book close enough.

The Hollywood Reporter calls Mysteries a “reverential and smart distillation” of Chabon’s novel. But the Reporter takes some hits at the film too, saying the performances of Jon Foster and Peter Sarsgaard are what help invigorate the film and “keenly flesh-out its emotional dimensions.”

FirstShowing.Net‘s reviewer also liked the film. “What I discovered was not particularly funny, but rather a very endearing drama with a wonderful score and great characters. It’s not anything close to a masterpiece, but Mysteries of Pittsburgh is still a great film.”

Then there’s the mixed reviews, like Buzz Sugar’s. “It’s not a bad movie, by any means. The music is fantastic, for example. Many of the directorial choices (the way shots are set up, the use of voiceover narration, etc.) are superb. Several of the performances are arresting. But the dialog is stilted and the action feels extremely rushed.”

And then there’s the haters. A review posted on Ain’t It Cool News say while the film was “competently directed, the story was unengaging. Keep the faith in Thurber and most of the actors, but check this flick out only if you’re hardcore for any of ’em.”

And The Advocate slams the film as well. “Thurber’s changes have made The Mysteries of Pittsburgh flatter, more generic, and more like umpteen Sundance films that have come before it.”

A parting shot, from Chud: “Here’s the big mystery of Pittsburgh: How did this movie manage to be so completely terrible?”

The Los Angeles Times profiled Rawson Marshall Thurber in the run-up to today’s premier of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

A large part of the article focuses on the odd risk Thurber is taking professionally making Mysteries his follow-up to Dodgeball. The paper reports that Thurber’s friends and agent tried to convince him not to do it.

“I probably actively dissuaded him four times,” said John August (screenwriter for “Go” and “Charlies Angeles”). “A script is a year of your life, and there’s no guarantee it will become a movie.

“Rawson has always come to me for advice and rarely taken it. He understood the risk but was completely undeterred. That’s how somebody gets a career in this business.”

Over on his blog, though, August suggests he’s happy Thurber ignored him.

“I’ve seen the movie five times, and am ridiculously proud of Mr. Thurber,” he wrote.

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the Sundance Film Festival this week to see Mysteries of Pittsburgh premier, Spike TV is hosting online an interview with Rawson Marshall Thurber that features a clip from the film.

And never fear — while in the past some Sundance films have found themselves abandoned without a home and never to be seen in wide distribution, odds are good that Mysteries will get purchased thanks to the writer’s strike. The New York Times on Thursday profiled Groundswell Productions, the house behind Mysteries and two other competitors at the festival.