Movies I have seen this week:

Once -- SO good. I hate to use the words "charming," "witty," and "Irish" in the same sentence because they don't really give a good impression of what this movie's about, even if they're all true. Instead, I will just say that the Fox Searchlight logo at the top of the film probably cost about 5 times as much as the movie itself did to produce. It's an ultra-low budget singer-songwriter musical romance. (The link to the website, btw, WILL play music at you when it's done loading, so turn your speakers off before you click at work. And then go back and listen at home, because the music's really really good.)

Day Watch. Sequel to Night Watch. Sadly disappointing -- it obviously had a bigger budget than the first installment, but I didn't think they used it as well. The original had a fantastic filmmaking-by-the-seat-of-our-pants feel to it, and this one felt far more pedestrian and Hollywood-ish. I didn't like the way they sexed everything up, and I didn't like how slick it felt compared to the first one. DH disagrees with me and liked it more than I did, though, so it's possible I'm just being curmudgeonly.

it's possible I'm just being curmudgeonly.

That's just crazy talk, of course.

I finally got around to watching my Netflix disc of An Inconvenient Truth that I've had for just about forever and sent it back on Wednesday. I just got e-mail that my next disc should be arriving tomorrow--it's Macbeth from the late 1960s, with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench as the bloody couple. I am sooo looking forward to seeing this!

So. Spidey 3.

Dear Sam Raimi,

Even Batman abandoned the Batusi back in the 1960s. Seriously. What were you *thinking*???

Also, Warner Brothers called -- they're re-touching some old cartoons, and they need their anvils back.

Thank god for James Franco.

signed,
So Very Very VERY Underwhelmed

When I become a famous director, I want to make a Nancy Drew movie set in the era of the first books. I want it to have a very Hitchcock look and feel, something like Vertigo.

Also I want to cast Clare Bloom as George.

And I need a word that's the opposite of schadenfreude. Something about the way some people get hateful when other people are happy, when they try to make everyone as miserable as they themselves are.

But that's not for Nancy Drew or Clare Bloom.

Oh! Topic! Jess's comment about being the only ones laughing at a certain line in Hot Fuzz hit home - DH and I are often the only ones laughing at parts in movies, and one of my friends is always IMing me to tell me that he just went to see something and was the only person to laugh (examples include the scene in Cars where McQueen is onstage, and there's a long silence, and someone in the back yells "Freebird!").

And I need a word that's the opposite of schadenfreude. Something about the way some people get hateful when other people are happy, when they try to make everyone as miserable as they themselves are.

Spite?

Steph is me. Mayun! I was so disenchanted with S3...and I have zero expectations. James Franco was much better than the movie deserved.

At the end, all I could say was, "I never thought I'd be missing Doc Ock."

Note: I'm not whitefonting anything that appeared in trailers.

Okay. Here's what I liked about Spidey 3:

James Franco. Damn, does he have a killer smile. *Almost* as good as Scola's (but not quite). And I thought his acting was far better than the material he had to work with. As both a bad guy AND a good guy/amnesia guy. And he's pretty.

Despite how radically it diverged from the comics, I loved Pete and Harry teaming up to fight Sandman and Venom. (It just occurred to me -- the movie never gave a villain name to the symbiote, or to Eddie Brock+symbiote, right? Huh.) Anyway, I would have loved to see more of Pete and Harry working together. It was pretty much the only time in all 3 movies that there was any of the lighthearted quippiness that is S.O.P. for comic!Spidey. And the lighthearted quippiness while fighting is one of the things I always loved most about comic!Spidey (and it's why I took so well to Buffy).

Aunt May. She's lovely.

J. Jonah Jameson. Perfection.

Betty Brant (Jameson's secretary). Yeah, her part is small in all the movies, but -- RRRROWR!!!

Bruce Campbell's standard cameo. Heh.

I loved the *look* of Sandman. I also liked that he was given some depth and not just a 1-dimensional baddie. Unfortunately, Thomas Hayden Church has only one facial expression, which translated to "I am SO constipated."

I pretty much liked Topher Grace as Eddie Brock. It struck me how WELL he could have played Peter Parker, actually.

What I disliked:

It had too much in it. I get why there were three villains -- Harry had to be bad so that he could have the big reconciliation/sacrifical death thing, and there had to be both Sandman AND Venom (symbiote+Eddie Brock) so that Pete had to ask Harry for help. It was still just too much for one movie.

All. The. Freaking. ANVILS. As well as Deus ex Butler, which seriously almost made me get up and leave. It was so utterly, utterly contrived and clunky I wanted to scream. As was the foreshadowing when amnesia!Harry in the hospital said "I'd die for my friends." Uh, yeah. He might as well have said "I'm GOING to die for my friends!"

In the comics, the symbiote didn't turn Pete into a raging asshole OR into a swinging casanova. However, I don't mind divergences from comics canon IF it's done well. But this wasn't. It was so heavy-handed and buffoon-ish. Which pretty much negates the point they were trying to establish, which was that symbiote = bad. It came across more as symbiote = Two Wild and Crazy Guys!

Oddly, I *would* have been okay with the hey-I'm-cool-and-hip thing if it was limited just to Pete walking down the street, acting all cool, giving girls the eye, and even his goony little dance. I can live with a little bit of self-mockery, and that part did make me giggle. It's like, Peter Parker is meant to be Everyman. We identify with him b/c he's just a nerdly little guy. And so even with a magic symbiote costume, he can't overcome his nerdiness. That little bit would have been okay, EXCEPT....

Let us not even SPEAK of the dance scene. I have literally never seen anything that was more painfully watch-from-the-hall than that scene, starting with Pete playing the piano ("Double time!" WTF? The symbiote plays piano, too???), all the way through him inadvertently decking MJ. That scene is pretty much where the movie jumped the shark for me.

Mary Jane needed to brush her hair throughout the ENTIRE movie. Seriously, girl, if you're going to have hair that long, you HAVE to brush it, or else woodland creatures will build a nest in it.

Peter's "evil"/emo look -- was pretty much just Little Nicky. Sad and lame. Greasy, lanky hair and eyeliner do NOT make a person look evil/dark/menacing.

Ugh. It was just....a scattershot, bloaty, embarassing mess of a movie.

Pretty much what Steph said. (Although I did like the Bruce Campbell cameo.)

Even though I agree with some of Steph's criticisms, I really liked the movie. I don't think it reached the heights of the first two, mainly because there wasn't as much complexity/depth to the major theme of the movie. I think that all the plotlines were interwoven pretty well, and I like that they continued the ongoing plotlines from the last two movies.

So, overall, I found it very enjoyable and a good time.