All Kinds of Mental Pain...and SPIDER-MAN 3

I'm in all kinds of mental pain. It's romantically inclined pain, so I'll spare you all the sob story. I'm already dangling way too close to blog cliche to get into break-up stories. But I will say this: angry, pain-filled argument, bickering break-ups are better than weird loving-but-angst-issue-filled discussions about feelings. I wish we had fought, because then I might actually be able to understand what happened and I would want to get over it. As it stands now I don't know what to feel or what to do, all I feel is this weird loss. Its pretty bad. Not what I need right now.

Nevermind. Sigh.

Anyway, the Spider-Man 3 teaser has been released at Apple.com

http://www.apple.com/trailers/Sony_pictures/spider-man_3/ Ohhh! BLACK Spider-Man!

The Spider-Man Franchise has never been my favorite. I'm more of an X-Men girl (RIP quality X-Men films). The character of Spider-Man/Peter Parker is important in the history of superheroes as he was the first major hero that readers of comic books could directly identify with: a geek. Up until then heroes, like Superman and Batman, were these mythic visions of unattainable stature. The best a teenage boy could do was be a sidekick, like Jimmy Olsen or Robin. Spider-Man was a teenage boy. With teen angst issues and superpowers. This factor had a lot to do with that character's popularity and longevity. He's a classic for Marvel, so a film adaptation was inevitable. The films were widely well-received by fans, but not so much by me.

Sony played it safe, hiring an adept and popular filmmaker, Sam Raimi (mostly known for his Evil Dead horror/comedy series of films), which lead to comparisons to Peter Jackson, but I don't think he is anywhere near the quality of other big blockbuster directors like Jackson, Spielberg, or Cameron (shudder). Hired a predictable and uninspired cast, led by the wildly uncharismatic Tobey Maguire (and don't even get me started on the insipid Kirsten Dunst, whose publicist should be given a Nobel Prize for...Achievement in... publicising. OK, that joke bombed, my heart was never in it). Sure, they looked good on paper, but they're not that good at acting, and let the script dictate their enthusiasm. See Depp in Pirates for an A-List actor taking responsibility for entertaining a wide audience, or Jackman in X-Men, or Kilmer (he'll always be A-list to me) in Tombstone, or Pfeiffer in Batman Returns. Anyway, my point is Maguire phoned it in, should stick to support/occasional leads in indies, and Dunst should stop fooling herself in general.

The first film was OK, it got the job done. I thought the series might improve but I was supremely disappointed in Spider-Man 2. Honestly, why did Dunst and Maguire sign on if it makes them so miserable? They looked like they were delivering lines with guns to their heads. And the effects never really sold it for me.

So we come to the first glimpse of Spider-Man 3. The geeks are happy with it. The inclusion of Venom, Sandman, Gwen Stacy, and a new Green Goblin should make for an exciting (if cramped) drama. Looks like Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church) will be the main villain for Spider-man, with the Venom/Black Suit/Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), Peter/Mary-Jane/Harry Osbourne (James Franco)/Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) love-square, and the emergence of Harry as the Goblin are the sub-plots. I could probably guess the plot right now, but you don't care. Church, Grace and Howard are all good actors (although, again, safe) and Franco was always ok, hopefully I can just watch them and ignore the boring twins.


Topher looking very Anakin Skywalker with his Eddie Brock blonde locks


The redhead playing the blonde who steals Peter's heart away from the blonde playing the redhead. Confused? Yes, why did they cast Dunst? Why?


Church as Sandman. Talk about comeback.

So yeah, bottom line: it looks ok because of the new bigger cast and interesting storyline with Venom, but I'm not holding my breath.

Saw Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, last night (after "honours drinks" which ended up being Amy and I bitching about various things, but it was cool to catch up) Very, very funny. Steve Coogan. He takes the piss out of himself often for being a brilliant-comic asshole, and so you think, "he must be pretty cool". But then you look at him and read some stuff and then you think, actually, maybe he is an asshole. He does kinda give off that vibe. But Rob Brydon was also super-funny. It cheered me up a lot.

I then went to see my bro play at the Paris Cat jazz club. It had a pretty old vibe. Not overly impressive. But bro played well.

Better get back to the thesis. Man, life sucks for me right now. I just wrote a whole post about pretty much nothing.