I'm back after a well-deserved two-week break, and I figured I should take a pause from reading Oscar Wilde for my Lit Theory class and check in with my quartet of dubiously loyal readers. Without further ado, here's some random thoughts from the last two weeks.I saw Spider-Man 3 on opening weekend (take that, Pirate movies!), and I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said better by folks like Geoff Klock and Mike Sterling. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, as the good bits certainly made up for the bad. Even the bizarre team-up at the end of the film, which should have pissed me off as a comic-book geek, managed to appeal to the dork in me who loves it when mortal enemies join up against a greater evil. I still have a few complaints, though:
- The buzz is that Tobey McGuire and Kirsten Dunst don't want to make #4. McGuire's good, and his Peter Parker has been a big part of the series' enjoyability so far, but I can accept a replacement for him. I hope to Jeebus that someone convinces Dunst to drop SM4 and go make some grrl-power crapfest - it's bad when the supposed heroine is so unappealing in the film that you not only want the hero to leave with the new girl (or at least the hot secretary), but you kind of hope she just gets killed at the end.
- On a related note, one of the recurring themes in recent Spider-Man comics has been Peter Parker's regret that he married MJ instead of Gwen Stacy (his original lady friend in the comics), and there have been only a few brief time when we, the reader/audience, actually sympathizes with the Peter/MJ relationship, such as the new Sensational Annual or the recent Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series (which retells the high-school story from MJ's point of view). If Sam Raimi could revise the past movies, I'd hope he casts Dunst as Gwen Stacy in the first film, lets the Goblin kill her at the bridge (like in the comics), gives Parker the second film to cry it out, then brings in the much more likable Bryce Howard as MJ in SP3. Plus, Raimi could trim the budget by avoiding hair coloring, dropping the movie's cost to $199,999,983.00
- Speaking of Sam Raimi, there's a troubling rumor that he might drop out of SP4 as well (now that he has a chance to do Darkman Begins and a broadway musical version of Army of Darkness - Okay, so I made both of those up, but you've got to admit that either would be freaking sweet). Raimi has done an excellent job with the franchise, and I don't want to see some hack director (looking at you Bret Ratner) do away with the blend of melodrama, humor, and POV shots from bullets. Plus, then we'd lose both Ted Raimi and Bruce Cambell's cameos, the best scenes in the film, hands down.
Before I get to anything else, I need to make a quick mention of how awesome Bruce Cambell really is. Aside from Kent Anderson, who is on track to complete his entire dissertation on Cambell, not enough folks give the guy credit. I point you to the newest Old Spice ad, wher Bruce does a lounge lizard version of "Hungry Like A Wolf" while the ladies look on. I must also point out that, now that Old Spice is cool again, I have been using the stuff for over a decade. Me 1, Trends 0.
I'm going to be posting a severe criticism of the newest Jack Chick tract (fish? check. barrell? check.), but I need to go buy books for the summer term and go to my Cold War Cinema class, so that'll have to wait.
