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Thursday, May 10, 2007
Song and dance isn’t why we go to Spidey flicks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re going to see “Spider-Man 3” — and I’m talking to the 17 people in the country who haven’t yet — you’d better not drink anything for a coupla hours ahead of time. Or, if you do, you’d be wise to invest in a Stadium Pal.
That’s how long the movie is. And I wish I could totally say that it’s worth the strain it puts on your bladder. And it is. Except for the parts where it isn’t. And there’s way too many of those.
Like, for instance, that long scene near the start where Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) walks down a stairway in a Broadway show and sings a loooong, dull song. Or the scene where Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) does this dance routine in a jazz club.
And I’m like, is this supposed to be a musical? Or did somebody slip some mushroom juice in my Coke?
This time around, Peter and MJ are dating, and everybody in New York is a fan of Spider-Man. Peter goes, “They love me,” and he lets it go to his head.
Meanwhile, Mary Jane gets fired from her Broadway show after opening night, on account of some bad reviews — which is about as hard to swallow as a guy who can shoot webs out of his wrists and swing from skyscrapers.
Even worse, MJ doesn’t tell Peter she got canned. And he meets her at a fancy restaurant and wants to propose, but neither one of them says the right thing and they talk right past each other and the whole thing gets all angsty and boring, and even Bruce Campbell as a snooty French waiter can’t save the day.
I mean, without all these talky-talk scenes the movie would be a good hour shorter and a whole lot better. And don’t even get me started on mouthy Aunt May, who deserves a ball gag for Christmas.
Luckily, there’s some great action scenes. But there have to be when there’s three (yes, THREE) villains for Spidey to fight. Which is about two too many.
First there’s Harry (James Franco), who fights Peter with the Green Goblin gadgets because he thinks Peter killed his dad. Only then Harry gets amnesia and forgets he was trying to kill Peter. Then he eats a magical omelet and loses his amnesia and decides to kill Peter after all. Though in the end he may decide to help Peter fight the other two villains instead.
Seriously, it’s like a roomful of second-graders wrote the script for this movie while drinking 32-ounce Mountain Dews.
The second villain is shape-shifting Sandman (Thomas Haden Church). Then there’s a piece of black space poo that crashes in Central Park, approximately 2 feet from where Peter just happens to be, and follows him home, then turns itself into a new black suit for Spider-Man. And Peter doesn’t even go, “Hmmm, I don’t know where this new black suit came from — but it makes my pecs pop, so who cares?”
He just puts it on, and it makes him do weird [excrement]. He struts down the street like he’s in “Saturday Night Fever,” with these bangs slanting down across his right eye, like the emo love child of Tony Manero and Hitler. The suit also makes him do that lame-o dance I mentioned.
Then, for some reason or other, Peter rips off the black suit. And it turns back into oozy space-poo and plops down on that kid from “That ’70s Show” [Editor’s note: Topher Grace], who then turns into a big, poo-colored monster with fangs and fights Spidey, alongside the Sandman.
At this point, the Sandman has figured out how to grow to be enormous. He looks a lot like the big, dumb, snot-nosed troll in the first Harry Potter movie. No, I take it back — he’s more like the “Ghostbusters” Stay-Puft giant. And that, my friends, is not scary.
After the movie, when I was in the bathroom watering the porcelain, a few questions came to me.
How come the scientists who are conducting their superimportant particle physics experiment with a pile of sand are doing it in the middle of the night? And why don’t they have a camera or a window on their test site to make sure that someone — like, say, an escaped convict — hasn’t fallen into the sand, so that they don’t accidentally zap him and restructure his molecules so that he can become a superpowered villain?
And why did they even bother to cast Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacy, when the only thing she gets to do in the whole movie is fall off a skyscraper and get rescued by Spidey and make Mary Jane jealous?
And why hasn’t anybody prescribed antidepressants for Mary Jane, because she has become a big, honking drag — am I right?
‘SPIDER-MAN 3’ aka ‘SPIDEY 3 TIMES LONGER THAN IT NEEDS TO BE’
• Naked breasts: No, but that’s OK, since Mary Jane and Gwen are pretty flat-chested.
• Dirty words: Nope.
• Best lines: “I fell 62 floors, and someone caught me!” — Gwen Stacy
• The rest: Directed by Sam Raimi. Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence. At metro theaters. 2 hours, 20 minutes.
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Your oracle does his best to part mists of time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Mr. Smithee,
I am 10 years old and am very interested in the motion picture “300.” I already own the Frank Miller graphic novel and “300: The Art of the Film,” so I already know a lot. I just have a couple of questions about the film itself. How historically accurate is “300”? It is under my assumption that it was 300 Spartans against a million Persians from the trailer and book, but I have my doubts. Also, did the character Theron really exist? If so, how about Stelios, Dilios and Astinos?
VINCENT BORELLO, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Dear Master Vinny,
I don’t know too many 10-year-olds who use words like “motion picture” and “under my assumption.”
The 10-year-olds I have known point to toys or basketball shoes and say things like, “But I really need it and it only costs $185.”
Your parents must be very proud. And, apparently, there are rules at your house because it doesn’t appear that you have seen the movie “300.” Why should you? It’s rated R.
Anyway, I’m not sure anyone anywhere knows precisely what happened at the Battle of Thermopylae. It is chronicled in the “Histories of Herodotus,” and one must realize that when the bloody skirmish occurred in 480 B.C., Herodotus was but a wee lad of about 4.
Not that kids can’t be bright. But since it was much later that Herodotus actually got to writing, one must suspect the facts could get a little mushy.
Historians have debated and theorized for years about the battle. Herodotus apparently believed there were more than 2.6 million in the Persian force at Thermopylae, which was about half of the total army used to invade Greece. Others scoff at that, saying the little availability of water would mean the Persian force would not top 250,000.
There were 300 Spartans, but also more than 5,000 to 7,000 other Greeks at the battle. Ultimately, most of the Greeks left when the Persians found the handy end-around route. That left your 300 Spartans, up to 900 Helot slaves and maybe about 800 or so Thespians and Thebans.
As the story goes, those who remained to face the Persians fought valiantly to their deaths.
Clearly, there was a King Leonidas. He led the Spartans.
The not-always-accurate Wikipedia claims that Dilios, played by Faramir (i.e. David Wenham), is based on the real-life Spartan he-man Aristodemus, who had an eye injury and was ordered to go home by Leonidas.
Aristodemus was a rather unlucky fellow. It seems another injured warrior also was sent back, but the second warrior, who was blinded, had his Helot slave lead him back to the battlefield, entered the fray and died. Aristodemus didn’t and was considered a coward.
I have found no reference for the other characters you mention.
But I did find reference to Pantites. One of the 300, he was dispatched by Leonidas to Thessaly. Pantites didn’t make it back in time to fight the Persians. He, too, was disgraced in Sparta. So, according to Wikipedia, he hanged himself.
ALAN
P.S. You get the only “300” T-shirt I have left and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
Why do people who talk during movies get defensive when asked to be quiet, and act offended that you would even suggest their behavior was inappropriate? I ran into this again this week during “Fracture,” when I asked people in front of me to “shhhhh” after about an hour of their jibber-jabber. I was told to “shhhh my [expletive] self.” Then, when I asked them to be quiet, I was yelled at and told to move. In order to stop it, I would have had to go get management, causing me to miss even more of the movie. What can we, as polite movie patrons, do about such an epidemic?
CARL CLAYMORE, Lawrenceville
Dear Clearly You Don’t Understand,
This is my personal space, see. And what I do in my personal space is my business. You do not touch me. You do not speak to me. Was I talking to you? I don’t think so. I’m trying to have a conversation here and now you are bothering me. …
Now understand this, Carl.
Most people today are whiny morons who lack decency, respect for others and even the slightest inkling of what courtesy means.
You have only two options (I will not condone violence).
Option one: Move.
Option two: Go find management and demand the offenders be removed. Or ask for your money back.
ALAN
P.S. You get a “Pan’s Labyrinth” T-shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
HAVE A QUESTION FOR MR. SMITHEE?
E-mail him at alansmithee@ajc.com or go to accessAtlanta.com and click on Movies. Please include your name, city and daytime phone number. Mr. Smithee can’t reply to every request, but inquiries chosen for publication will receive movie-related prizes.
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