Movie Time
Jul. 2nd, 2004 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupI'm still so giddy over that going-back-go-school thing. Tee Hee! I'm such a big history geek;-). I get a big silly grin anytime I think about it. I'm going to graduate school!
In other news, in this week of stirring life-changing decision I somehow found the time to get out and see a movie. Yes, that movie. I saw it and now I'm going to talk about it.
Warning and disclaimer: I will hold no bars in this 'review' and I will discuss many key points about the movie that can be considered spoilers. If you don't want to know about it, don't read this. Just thought you'd like to know;-).
It's a well known secret that the first Spider-man was not my favorite movie of all time. It didn't work for me. Sure seeing Peter Parker get his powers was pretty sweet and Willem Dafoe had such a fun time hamming it up as the Green Goblin that his scenes were infectious. The thing as a whole just didn't work. The action was okay but the dialogue was so cheesy that I wanted to cover my ears and run screaming from the theater and the romance scenes were particularly excruciating. It's painful simply remembering them. I hated the way the screen play pounded "With great power comes great responsibility" into the audience's collective minds until it became a joke rather then a serious, plot important sentence. And I don't care if it's 'only' a comic book movie so the dialogue has to be comic book cheesy, that's not a cogent excuse. I can stand a fair amount of cheese (I watch Smallville for goodness's sake) but there's a limit and the first movie crossed it too egregiously too many times.
Spider-man 2 was head and shoulders above its predecessor. It was a lot of fun! And though it's true I still don't worship at the altar of Peter Parker I have to admit I kind of liked it;-). My liking has a lot to do with Sam Raimi and how he seemed to find his balance with the franchise and with his direction. The first one was careful, safe but this one does crazy, stupid little things that just make the movie. Things like the song 'Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head' playing while Peter is walking down a New York street or Peter climbing like a spider over a web he spun or Aunt May banging Doc Ock upside the head with her umbrella or the scene in the operating room where a docotr goes at one of Doc Ock's tentacles with a chain saw or Harry slapping Peter (twice!) in the middle of a society function. I love how nobody in this movie was perfect, they were stupid and short-sighted and selfish and Peter's frequently the worst of the lot! Sure, he'd fight bad guys but he wouldn't consider moving back in with his Aunt to help pay the bills.
Actually, I really enjoyed the path they took Peter on in the movie. He went from fighting as an escape from his life to fighting as a part of his life. You get the feeling at the beginning of the film that Peter was going off to fight the bad guys for both selfish and altruistic reasons. Sure he wants to help the helpless, but he also wants to feel powerful and invincible. He uses Spider-man as an excuse not to deal with the difficult, human issues in his life, as an excuse to run away from the important things. I enjoyed how the struggle for self-awareness was depicted through the loss of his super powers, it helped him realize that Spider-man was nothing without Peter Parker and vice versa.
Really, Spider-man 2's great strength was in the way it showed important decisions and emotions. The villains were so real and human. Otto Octavius was shown as being just a man in the beginning, not perfect but not evil. He had love and prestige and he was a little pompous but that was okay. His evolution into a villain was perfect in that he justified his actions every step of the way. He told himself that he wasn't doing bad things and yet, step by step, he became a monster. However, it was his inherent humanity that helped him overcome his own evil in the end. A truly great villain and Alfred Molina did an amazing job in the role.
And, how is it that I haven't talked about Harry yet? Dude, that kid is messed up. So, I noticed that two of the screenwriters were the creators of Smallville (Al Gough and Miles Millar) and boy did it show in the character of Harry Osborne. There's a scene at the end where Harry, after discovering the Spider-man, the man he's been wanting to kill for the past two years, is actually his best, and possibly only, friend. He's distraught and torn and doesn't know what end is up and then, he starts hearing the voice of his father. There's subsequently a great scene between Harry and the image of his father that smacks so much of the relationship between Lex and Lionel Luthor that I started laughing in the theater, but in a good way;-). There's heavy foreshadowing for Evil!Harry (aka Hobgoblin, possibly) and when Harry finds the secret room with the Green Goblin's old armament you know something wonky is about to happen.
The dialogue was still my least favorite part of the movie. Mary Jane, after running away from her wedding to the astronaut has this scene in Peter's apartment that could have been taken out of the end of any Smallville episode. Cheese factor of 100. The scene's saving grace is the greater maturity of the characters. Still, though, very cringeworthy. And yes, there was one repetition of 'With great power comes great responsibility' and I screamed when it happened but at least it only happened the once;-).
All in all it's a good flick. Am I wildly in love with it? No, no I'm not. It was fun and entertaining and thoughtful and good and definitely worth exorbinate movie ticket prices (and even the ridiculous cost of concession snacks) but it didn't turn me into a giddy wreck. That's okay, I'm sure I forgive them.
Dude, I can't believe I have four stories to write for ficathons that are due next week and I haven't even started on them. Oy, I need to get cracking.
GO SEE SPIDER-MAN!!!!!
In other news, in this week of stirring life-changing decision I somehow found the time to get out and see a movie. Yes, that movie. I saw it and now I'm going to talk about it.
Warning and disclaimer: I will hold no bars in this 'review' and I will discuss many key points about the movie that can be considered spoilers. If you don't want to know about it, don't read this. Just thought you'd like to know;-).
It's a well known secret that the first Spider-man was not my favorite movie of all time. It didn't work for me. Sure seeing Peter Parker get his powers was pretty sweet and Willem Dafoe had such a fun time hamming it up as the Green Goblin that his scenes were infectious. The thing as a whole just didn't work. The action was okay but the dialogue was so cheesy that I wanted to cover my ears and run screaming from the theater and the romance scenes were particularly excruciating. It's painful simply remembering them. I hated the way the screen play pounded "With great power comes great responsibility" into the audience's collective minds until it became a joke rather then a serious, plot important sentence. And I don't care if it's 'only' a comic book movie so the dialogue has to be comic book cheesy, that's not a cogent excuse. I can stand a fair amount of cheese (I watch Smallville for goodness's sake) but there's a limit and the first movie crossed it too egregiously too many times.
Spider-man 2 was head and shoulders above its predecessor. It was a lot of fun! And though it's true I still don't worship at the altar of Peter Parker I have to admit I kind of liked it;-). My liking has a lot to do with Sam Raimi and how he seemed to find his balance with the franchise and with his direction. The first one was careful, safe but this one does crazy, stupid little things that just make the movie. Things like the song 'Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head' playing while Peter is walking down a New York street or Peter climbing like a spider over a web he spun or Aunt May banging Doc Ock upside the head with her umbrella or the scene in the operating room where a docotr goes at one of Doc Ock's tentacles with a chain saw or Harry slapping Peter (twice!) in the middle of a society function. I love how nobody in this movie was perfect, they were stupid and short-sighted and selfish and Peter's frequently the worst of the lot! Sure, he'd fight bad guys but he wouldn't consider moving back in with his Aunt to help pay the bills.
Actually, I really enjoyed the path they took Peter on in the movie. He went from fighting as an escape from his life to fighting as a part of his life. You get the feeling at the beginning of the film that Peter was going off to fight the bad guys for both selfish and altruistic reasons. Sure he wants to help the helpless, but he also wants to feel powerful and invincible. He uses Spider-man as an excuse not to deal with the difficult, human issues in his life, as an excuse to run away from the important things. I enjoyed how the struggle for self-awareness was depicted through the loss of his super powers, it helped him realize that Spider-man was nothing without Peter Parker and vice versa.
Really, Spider-man 2's great strength was in the way it showed important decisions and emotions. The villains were so real and human. Otto Octavius was shown as being just a man in the beginning, not perfect but not evil. He had love and prestige and he was a little pompous but that was okay. His evolution into a villain was perfect in that he justified his actions every step of the way. He told himself that he wasn't doing bad things and yet, step by step, he became a monster. However, it was his inherent humanity that helped him overcome his own evil in the end. A truly great villain and Alfred Molina did an amazing job in the role.
And, how is it that I haven't talked about Harry yet? Dude, that kid is messed up. So, I noticed that two of the screenwriters were the creators of Smallville (Al Gough and Miles Millar) and boy did it show in the character of Harry Osborne. There's a scene at the end where Harry, after discovering the Spider-man, the man he's been wanting to kill for the past two years, is actually his best, and possibly only, friend. He's distraught and torn and doesn't know what end is up and then, he starts hearing the voice of his father. There's subsequently a great scene between Harry and the image of his father that smacks so much of the relationship between Lex and Lionel Luthor that I started laughing in the theater, but in a good way;-). There's heavy foreshadowing for Evil!Harry (aka Hobgoblin, possibly) and when Harry finds the secret room with the Green Goblin's old armament you know something wonky is about to happen.
The dialogue was still my least favorite part of the movie. Mary Jane, after running away from her wedding to the astronaut has this scene in Peter's apartment that could have been taken out of the end of any Smallville episode. Cheese factor of 100. The scene's saving grace is the greater maturity of the characters. Still, though, very cringeworthy. And yes, there was one repetition of 'With great power comes great responsibility' and I screamed when it happened but at least it only happened the once;-).
All in all it's a good flick. Am I wildly in love with it? No, no I'm not. It was fun and entertaining and thoughtful and good and definitely worth exorbinate movie ticket prices (and even the ridiculous cost of concession snacks) but it didn't turn me into a giddy wreck. That's okay, I'm sure I forgive them.
Dude, I can't believe I have four stories to write for ficathons that are due next week and I haven't even started on them. Oy, I need to get cracking.
GO SEE SPIDER-MAN!!!!!
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-03 04:11 pm (UTC)I LOVED this movie! It was absolutely the most awesome movie I've seen all summer! Of course I'm a little biased, since I really loved the first one, even the "cheese".
You're right though, this one was definitely better than the first. But I don't agree with Peter Parker being called selfish. I think he was at parts, but as a whole, no... definitely not a selfish hero. The cartoons I used to watch in the 90s portrayed a more snide, cocky, and selfish Spiderman than Tobey's anyday.
I could probably go on forever and ever, but I think the number one reason I loved this movie so much was all the angst, all the secrets, and the importance of making sacrifices. That's something I can identify with. Vindicated by Dashboard Confessional was a very appropriate song for the credits, in my opinion.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-03 08:38 pm (UTC)Hmmm, I wasn't specific enough with my selfish comment. I didn't see Peter as a primarily selfish person only in the superhero gig for the adrenaline, I actually liked the selfishness, it wasn't overt, it made him a real person and gave us viewers an interesting character to invest in. Sure, he was stupid, but no more then reason;-). The best part was that he learned and grew and by the end he really became the hero he had wanted to be in the beginning.
This'll teach me to be more precise;-).
And YAY! We can finally agree on a Spider-man movie!