Spiderman 3

Let me start by saying this:  It was terrible.  Bad?  No.  Terrible.  Want to know why?

Let's start with the acting.  I know Kirsten Dunst isn't the greatest actress ever, but what is with decent people sinking to the level of the movie they're in?  This is like Natalie Portman doing the robot in all three Star Wars flicks.  Toby?  He can act.  He just chooses not to.  Yes, Sam Raimi is largely to blame for handing them shit to work with.  What would you expect to find in a litter box?  An Oscar?  Probably not.

Raimi does seem to be mostly to blame.  Granted, the writing is bad.  But it's not as bad as Spiderman 2.  That was laughable.  I was actually a little disgusted, after getting worked up when I saw Chabon's name in the opening credits.  The main villain isn't Venom.  It's not Harry as Green Goblin Jr.  It's not Sandman.  It's the Black Parade that tempts Peter Parker with it's emo crying and copious amounts of eyeliner.  It turns out that the symbiote suit doesn't bring out aggression, it makes the wearer a pimp.  What was with the 20 minute pelvis pumping marathon?  Honestly, did the camera operators get hazard pay?  If you notice, the women in the background all look disgusted as his dry humps all of the models that happen to be passing him at that moment.  I know how they feel. 

But don't worry.  None of the villains have more than 3 or four lines.  The Sandman has a sappy "save my daughter who has every disease" backstory.  I'm really surprised that she wasn't stuck at the bottom of a well, to boot.  To balance that out, they make his origin story incredibly "funny".  He enters a particle physics experiment site.  Apparently, in the Marvel universe, "particles" does not mean molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles, but rather sand.  And the best place to experiment with sand?  (Why are they trying to reconstruct sand?)  I know, an open air pit.  It's not like the sand will blow away or anything.  Eddie Brock (Venom without the Venom) is forced onto us with his beautiful baggage of Gwen Stacy.  It's made painfully clear that Brock is a parallel of Parker.  Same job, gonna propose to his girl, ends up with a hand me down suit from Spiderman.  I kept thinking that Topher Grace would have been better as Peter Parker.  He was supposed to be a wise ass in the movie, but Spiderman is supposed to be a wise ass in the comics...  So he's pitted against  the same problems as Parker.  Parker goes back to his normal self when he turns away from the Emo side of the force.  Brock becomes Venom and tries to claw Spiderman's face off.  But why, when Parker faces bigger stresses like being a superhero, and Brock has a lighter outlook to begin with?  It just doesn't make sense.  Also, Howard seems unnecessary, but is still more nuanced, cuter and more interesting.  Parker: leave your super-needy, bitchy, catty, jealous MJ and grab a piece of that Gwen.   Side note:  Why do they have a blond playing the redhead and a redhead playing a blond?  Just asking.

Sure, the acting is sub-par, the script seems like it was outlined on toilet paper and the special effects haven't gotten any better since Spiderman one.  But that's not the real problem.  It's Raimi.  Normally he has a quirky, goofy style.  In one it worked well for a high school kid.  The second movie seemed to suffer a tad from it.  The "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" scene?  I suppose some people might think it's cute.  But in this?  It's almost malicious, the way he destroys scene after scene.  Sure, I left the second one thinking it was crappy.  But Doc Oc was well done.  I will acknowledge the good parts of the film.  This one is nothing but pain.  There were scenes where the audience was supposed to feel for the characters (like when MJ and Peter were crying on the bridge) and everyone in the theatre started to howl with laughter.  And it was that bad.  It seemed that Sam Raimi was mad at Spiderman fans.  Have they forsaken him and I did not know it?  I thought most people liked the second one.  Then why was he attacking them with such malice?  Allison describes the feeling she got from this as "It was as if he was giving a huge middle finger to everyone who saw it, and telling them to sit and spin on it."  The people I was with turned to me and said that X3 didn't seem so bad anymore.  I said that maybe Elektra deserved a second viewing. 

So the question I was left with was why did Sam Raimi actively try to make something so crappy?  Did something terrible happen behind the scenes?  Was he mad that they were already considering other directors for the 4th?  Something like this doesn't happen by accident.  X3 happens by accident.  That was careless, poorly plotted, schlock editing, and a disregard for the feel of the previous two.  But it suffered from an overzealous desire to make "cool scenes".  That's a well intentioned bomb.  Spiderman 3?  It was almost cruelly directed.  The action scenes were laughable (like when Spiderman suddenly manages to fly horizontally down the 3 mile back alley when fighting Harry), the plot was thin and everyone goes from angry to weepy.  Or, in Peter's case, weepy to more weepy.  And why oh why, when Harry wakes up from his amnesia (amnesia?!  Are you basing Spiderman on a fucking episode of I Love Lucy or something?!)  does he seem to be sedated and gay?  "Hey, MJ.  I love you.  I love you too, Peter.  And now I will got smile a lot and paint.  Oh, MJ, if you need someone to talk to, I'm a good listener.  Just come over and we'll make some 'comfort food'!"  I imagine that they would have ended the night by pigging out on ice cream together and rating how hot male celebrities are.  And speaking of random gay characters, what the hell is up with the butler?  Since when is Harry Osborne supposed to be the next Batman?  "Oh, and this is our butler, Mini-moose.  He's been with us all along."  He's super creepy, probably is just a homeless guy who wandered in and Harry simply thinks he forgot about him with the amnesia.  Seriously, if this guy went to work for Bruce Wayne he would just sit around and ask for more Robins.  "Master Bruce, don't you think you could use a little help?  Some youthful strength?  Strong, supple legs, slick and glistening arms...  Mm.... Robins...."  He would be fired.  How many times can you retcon your own continuity?!  It's not like you're taking this huge universe and trying to work in new ideas.  You made it up yourself 2 movies ago, Sam!  2 god damned movies!  Sam Raimi, I think you owe a lot of people an apology for tricking them into seeing this movie.  For shame, for shame.

This movie sucks.


Unless......




Perhaps it's a genius marketing ploy from Marvel.  Really.  Marvel knows that this movie would sell no matter what.  That's not a problem.  So make it the worst Marvel movie yet.  Really.  Maybe you should get the X-Men trilogy when they box it up.  Maybe you'll give the Avengers straight to DVD releases a shot.  Who deosn't love Black Panther?  And they will still reap a huge profit from Spiderman 3!  Really! 



Instead of seeing Spiderman 3, read the Notes on the First Draft of Spider-Man 3 or, hell, let's go for something completely different:

Photo filler!

Was was going to review Spiderman 3.  I saw it on Sunday.  I'm still not fully recovered so I'll just put up some arty filler.  Here are two shots from the storm we had on the first.  Comment in and let me know what you think.  These are my first lightening pictures ever, so keep that in mind.  Also, I have to give some credit to Jeff, who helped me with some artistic choices for the first picture. 

And of course, you can see some more stuff at my DeviantArt account which is, as always, linked to on my sidebar.  Comments?  Criticism?

The other thing I want to put out there is about audiobooks.  I'm back to scanning at work so I am going through my audio files like mad.  I'm about to start the last book of the His Dark Materials trilogy.  If anyone has audiobooks or podcasts they can recommend, I'm "all ears".  Really though, just toss anything out there.  You don't even have to lend it to me.  I work at a library.  If you know it exists and it's good, let me know.

And with those two prompts I expect the comments to come flying in.

Little update

Life is just chugging along. A big thing is that I am now done with the museum project. For anyone who has heard me complain about it, you know it's a bit of a mixed blessing. It's back to scanning now, though there will be one last trip to drop off the hard drives. In the personal realm, Al and I just got an officiant for the wedding. That is good. All that's left is a florist and we're set. Creatively, I have some stuff to post. I want to start reviewing books I read. I'll be posting about The Golden Compass shortly.  I'll give you a hint, though: it was good.  I have some photos to toss up as well.  I went out and took my first lighting shots with what I think are good results.  I am also working on 2 more movie scripts.  Technically, I'm working on 3, but my college final has been on the back burner for a while.  All of that is keeping me pretty busy, but what the hell.  I think I'll also work on my graphic novel and maybe a kids book or two with Sylvia. On Joost:  I was a bit surprised that i barely managed to give away 3 invites when they are going like hotcakes elsewhere. In case anyone out there still wants one, my invite count went up to 998.  So hurry before they're all gone.Let's see, since this is a post of randomness then I'll just toss out web sites.

• Did you like the PG version of 300.  Then you might like this commercially augmented trailer for Spiderman 3.
• The pill that stops menstruation (while you're on it) has been causing a lot of issues in feminist circles.  I think that's kind of dumb.  I know that there's a lot of pride in the cycle, but I think stating your gender identity on it is really a knee jerk reaction.  The whole fertility as identity is cool with me.  Goddess and all that.  But they never worshiped the actual menstruation in those cultures.  It's the ability to create life.  Menstruation was just a visible show of that ability.  This pill doesn't change a woman's identity anymore than the monthly pill does.  It's just a method of regulation.  It should be looked at as more freeing, if anything.  Here's a big secret: if you're on the pill now then you're not having a period.  What?!  Yeah, you're not actually releasing any eggs.  That's all just for show.  So the only difference between the pill now and this new one is that your body is a little more honest about what's going on.  But the truth of the matter is, I just wanted to link to that cartoon image.
• That's just awesome.
• It looks like the daylight-savings time change is causing a lot of unanticipated problems.
•  Batman to Robin: "When you get a little older, you'll see how easy it is to become lured by the female of the species."

Since there's really no way to top that, I suppose I'll end here.

Joost

Recently I got into a large number of closed beta programs. Among them was Joost. I've been reading about it everywhere and was dying to know what the fuss was about. Now I've seen. And I'm here to tell you all about it. Before you read this you may want to see what it looks like (on a mac, anyway).  Here's a sideshow walkthrough to give you a more detailed look.

The interface is nice. It runs well on my laptop, which is a tad old, and a little smoother on my desktop. There's still some lag when changing pages but I think a lot of that is because any change in My Channels is a small conversation with the Joost server.  The quality itself is actually very good.  Sometimes there's dropout and you have to start over and drag the slider, but that's probably a function of your connection.  It seems to work well from my apartment but other broadband locations have dropout. The format is simply On Demand. There are stations and within those stations are programs to watch. The channels are browsable by a favourites list, alphabetical or by genre. One issue is that the My Channel channels come preloaded. You can change them but it's a pain to scroll through each station and turn it on or off. It would be nice if it started empty since you haven't chosen those when you first load it up. It was tedious to turn off all the wank that they tack on there, from the strip trivia beach channel to the poker station. Really, I'm not watching those. Ever.

There are some nice choices for content. A lot of bad music channels, but a few good ones. There's a classical station that has slim pickings. A couple of good travel and documentary channels. National Geographic has one, but the content on pre-existing network stations (aside from the music and sports, so anything with real content) tends to be older than the made for net stuff. It's a shame because the production for the older stuff is less interesting but more trustworthy than the newer things you'll find. What has stolen my attention is the Circus Station. Each show is one to two hours long and is a circus performance from a global selection. I watched a good chunk of the Moscow Circus and I believe there's the Vienna one as well. Nickelodeon has some stuff, but nothing great. VH1 has nothing but reality shows. There are a few indie film stations but not from the larger indie sources like Sundance, Atom or any of the other traveling festivals.

The main question I'm left with is what market is it trying to break into? The fact that they use contracts with major stations (now through Viacom, soon more international choices through JumpTV) has the potential for greatness. It also has the option of loosing a firm marketing ploy and fizzling out like WebTV and countless other computer/tv crossovers that were half-assed successes in whatever they aimed at. Let me explain.

There are a bunch Internet/TV markets it can aim for and only a few it can win.

• There's the DVR market. This is what it should be aiming for. NBC, ABC and CBS all have the option to watch the most recent episodes of their shows online. Supposedly there are ads in them. I watched Lost on NBC.com and it was broken into 4 sections, with a single commercial between each one. At the breaks it told me it was loading and then skipped to the next part of the show. Hey, I'm not complaining. ABC just upgraded their site to run full screen. I haven't tested it yet, but from the other stuff I've seen the quality is pretty go so far. If Joost partners with these services and offers new network and (dare I say it?) cable (I said it!) shows with limited interruptions it would boom.
  
  Just as a side note, I've been noticing a lot of shows that get canceled finish out the season online now.  I like this idea, but why not produce a few really risky shows, put them online first and then move it over to network is it plays well?  Or they could just stop cancelling good programming, but what are the odds of that?
  
  
• The iTunes/Torrent market.  This one is pretty much a non-issue.  This is streaming and web based.  iTunes and Torrents are downloads and scaled on portability.  There's really nothing overlapping here.  The only thing that will bleed over is a bit of the Torrent market because there are a lot of people who just use torrents to time shift.  Technically this is illegal.  Not because you're downloading a show.  All network digital signals must be unlocked and copyable by law.  It's does break copyright law to get it from a source other than the networks themselves.  DVR a show and burn a DVD of it, that's fine.  Download it the next day to catch up and that's a crime.  Hey, it's not my law.  Anyway, since the signal would be legal there wouldn't be an issue.  Sounds like a plan...
  
  
• Standalone competitors.  This includes things like the Democracy player and Zattoo.  Comparing it to Zattoo is easy.  You can't get Zattoo in the states.  Joost wins.  Democracy is torrent based so it's a bit of a different game.  I can't see Joost wanting to add torrent to the program because it doesn't fit with what Joost is (a streaming, on demand TV set up) and that's just a whole world of legal trouble.  Oh well, it's not like Democracy is as popular as you would expect (no pun intended). 
  
  
• Upcoming competition.  I've been reading about the BBC streaming project and it makes me hot.  Very very hot.  In cases like this, it's a contract issue more than anything.  A lot of big networks and stations are going it alone.  These are the same people that Joost needs to sign deals with in order to get content that doesn't suck.  Joost, get to work!  It does look like they aren't slouching, as the Viacom V. YouTube lawsuits might be connected to Joost. since Viacom is now very protective of their clips (and in some cases, other people's clips just to be safe) and have a deal with Joost it looks like Viacom is clearing the way to put up (a lot?) of content on Joost.  Let's see.

It looks like Joost is set to pull ahead once it's released.  With the big contracts in the works there could end up with some really good content.  As for now, it looks really good and has some OK stuff.  But it's beta so it's where it should be, though it is getting released soon.  I do hope they sort out some of the location based restrictions on the channels, though.  Alliance Atlantis Sci-Fi is a worldwide channel, except in the US and Canada.  Because it's a Canadian company?  Jump TV Arabia is everywhere but the Middle East.  That's not even a country!  Jump TV Latino is global except Canada and Latin America.  Seems a little wonky.  Don't worry, though.  At least America gets the Diddy Channel, now with 24 hours a day more than your recommended daily dose of Puff Daddy.

Finally, a gift.  I have 2 Joost invites left.  I see sites like Lifehacker put up contests for these so I guess they're hot.  Leave a comment and maybe you'll get one.  I will base my choice on wit and favouritism.

Funny/Depressing P.S.  The MTV channel is located in Entertainment and not in the Music section.  I guess that makes sense since the MTV channel doesn't have a single music video on it.  At first I was shocked.  Then I found it odd that anyone would expect MTV to have music content.

The floodening

It's been a few crazy days, hasn't it? On Monday I decided to go out and get into the down and dirty a bit. Not with the VA thing, with the flood here in Jersey. So I left my house, grabbed my SLR and tripod and went out into the water. I steered clear of the really bad places like Bound Brook. I was curious, but didn't want to get in the way. There's a column about Bound Brook businesses by Peter Applebom, but you might need Times Select to get it (free if you're a student, and while I can't send from my old account I can still get e-mails from it). I also didn't want to get stuck and loose my car. Below the break are few shots I took.

Dam facility where 18 and 1 meet. That's the dam.  And yes, that shed has slid through a fence. Other side of the bridge I'm standing on. It looks like the pavement collapsed after the dirt below was washed away. From the distance I didn't even get the scale of those pipes and pumps until those guys got there.  You can see one of two (that I counted) sump pumps chugging away. Those fences aren't usually under water. And a  wide-angel long exposure from above.  Don't worry, there was a small ledge.  I'm not standing on the dam. Bridge into Milltown. There is usually a lot more space between the water and the bridge. That's a railway bridge.  The bottom is already submerged.  What you can't see are the ledges that people usually sit on and fish off of.  They are probably under 7 or 8 feet of water right now. If you look at this shot and the one above you can see trees and shrubs half submerged.  At upper left you can make out the post office's parking lot/pond.

Today only!!!

Just to make sure everyone is aware:

Today is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's.

I heartily recommend the Bananas on the Rum

What about... now?

What have I been up to? Good question. Well, work has been a hassle, mainly due to someone who is completely batshit. And not in the cool HST way. More like the "Dear god, I can't function in society and therefore neither can you... Head explodies!" way. So I have been trying to keep my mind from jumping out of my head through my sinuses and strangling her. I've been reading books. I've been reading the news and I've made myself a little project.

I have decided to mail the internet. Not all of it. That would be crazy. No, just a lot. A handful of gigabytes. Well, more than that. Maybe 12-20 gig. I don't know. Yet. That's because part of this project is going to be measurement. A measure of the bandwidth of USPS! It won't be accurate but... Oh hell. Here's the low down:

I've amassed a great amount of data. I have seasons of TV shows, episodes of unaired pilots,movies pulled from global sales, giga-packs of comics and albums upon albums of fantastic music. Everyone out there knows that I am a bit of a pop-culture junkie. I am a collector. I am also a finder. I'm that guy that you go to to get something. And now it's time to give it all away.

I have blank DVDs and CDs lined up along with jewel cases and padded envelopes. I have found an OP pad of vintage art-deco letterhead. I have my 1950's smith-corona (well, one of a few, actually) all inked up and ready to fire. And I have been burning.

What better way to spread my fantastic crap then to actually give it to people. But this is not the casual file sharing that you are all used to. The files are too big to be easily share. Oh, I know how I could get them to you, but do you people each have 3 gig set up for me? No. And I wouldn't ask you to do that. So I will provide the content. I will provide the storage media. And I will provide the postage. And to stress that these are not simply "songs you should hear" or "something cool to read" I am also including a hand typed letter detailing what I have given you and why. Each letter is a little mini-essay from me, to you, about what you will be holding in your hands.

There are, I think, 7 people on the list. Some of them will be getting "birthday presents". Others, I've owed them these things for a while. A couple are simply names I picked out of the blue. I hope you like what you get. Expect them to go out sometime towards the end of this month.

P.S. Sorry if this sounds a bit pretentious, but it is... It's a hipster nostalgia project. It's a reset back to when mix tapes were on tapes and mixes on CDs were novelties. Not to make it sound like G.O.D. but I miss spending days putting a mix playlist together and then spending hours copying it onto a cassette. I miss the mix being difficult to produce and therefore special. And when you gave it to someone, most often you'd be there when they heard it. I know I'm not the only one who sat there and watched their friends faces change with each song, seeing how one track played off the next. Fuck yeah, it's pretentious. But it's the best kind. It's the kind that pulls you out of the mundane. It's not telling you to download a mix off ITunes from someone in Brussels because they listen to a few of the same bands. It's having fingerprints on each copy of something you made. It's organic.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to climb off my soapbox and get back to work.