What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Belive it or not, but I hadn't seen Sam Raimi's Spider Man up until now, but I finally was in the mood and sat down and watched it.

Overall I enjoyed myself, but it also plenty of cringe and dorky moments. Also, not sure if they used green-screens or CGI, but it looked a little off at times, but still pretty decent.

But man, while I usually love Willem Dafoe, and he was ok as the antagonist, the character he was playing, The Green Goblin, couldn't be a dorkier supervillain. Starting with the costume which looked absolutely ridiculous.

It was also interesting how awkward Tobey Maguire played his character when not wearing the costume. And then he was much better when actually playing Spider man.

Another that was hilarious, was JK Simmons. I had only seen moments of him in various internet memes. But he was over-the-top and funny. I guess that's how most of the characters acted, if I had to sum it up with one label. Over-the-top.

Anyway, it was still an enjoyable and fun little ride. I still considering if I want to watch the other ones of this trilogy, since I hadn't seen those either.

Had no idea where to post this, so I'm doing it here.

Another 5h magnum opus from Mr. Gervais. This time on the Dark Souls trilogy. It's so much intriguing listening to his stream of consciousness. He also has views that quite different from your run-of-the-mill dark souls opinions.

I Beat the Dark Souls Trilogy and All I Made Was This Lousy Video Essay

I think it's because Peter Parker is supposed to be awkward and dorky, that's his character in the comics, a bit like Superman's alter ego. I don't know if they still write him like that though.

JK Simmons is a national treasure. He entirely killed in Spiderman, and I don't think I've seen him in anything I've not enjoyed, including Oz, SVU, Counterpart(one of the best tv shows ever!). I'll pretty much watch anything that features him.

I saw Spider Man 2 (2004), and it was better than the first one in all regards. I was really surprised how much more I liked it than the first one.

I watched about half of Spider Man 3, and I'm starting to get tired of it. It took such a long for anything to develop, and I really hate the bullshit love triangle which I imagine they're gonna spin again between Peter, Harry and MJ.

Also, really weird how they introduce Venom. So what is it? Did the organism turn into the black spiderman suit that Peter was wearing? Did he initially wore two suits, since the organism plastured itself over him while he was sleeping? Kinda weird.

Is the recent Venom movie , with Tom Hardy, related to Spiderman? I didn't see it, but it looked way more imaginative than just a black Spiderman suit.

Anyway, I'll probably to and finish the second half of Spiderman 3 later. I'm really not feeling it. The second one was definitely the best one. That was engaging from start to finish, and also had some wholesome messages. This one just drags and feels directionless.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Is the recent Venom movie , with Tom Hardy, related to Spiderman? I didn't see it, but it looked way more imaginative than just a black Spiderman suit.

The (parasite) black suit first attached itself to Spiderman and became his 'black suit' in Amazing Spiderman #300:



It was hugely popular with the fanbase.

And for a few issues it was just a new black suit, but with a personality, a bit like a talking sword possessed by a mage in an RPG. The suit tried to influence Spiderman though, so Spiderman decided to get rid of it. Which the parasite (the black suit) didn't like, and only a few issues later VENOM was born:



And Venom gradually became it's own character in the Marvel Universe, able to have it's own independent series and appear in all of the comics, not just Spiderman.

A bit like how you can have Wolverine comics and movies without them needing to be X-Men comics or movies. Or Punisher comics and movies (he also started out as a Spiderman antagonist).

Carnage was then a spin-off from Venom's popularity, because Marvel never let one penny of opportunity to scrape every inch of the barrel's floor go to waste, first appearing in #361:



With Carnage being a much more thoroughly evil version of Venom.

So I can imagine it makes little sense to regular film goers. It barely makes sense in the comics going through the storyline, let alone just dumping it into a bit of a film. Fan service though and all that.

Originally Posted by lackblogger
So I can imagine it makes little sense to regular film goers. It barely makes sense in the comics going through the storyline, let alone just dumping it into a bit of a film. Fan service though and all that.

Yeah, it made a little more sense after I actually finished the movie. But it felt like it was kind of randomly thrown in. Fan service, as you say. Also, Sandman also felt kind of randomly thrown in. At least the previous antagonists had more of a connection to Parker. Sandman especially felt like it was retconned for him to be the one that killed his uncle, for a little personal connection. Is that what also happened in the comics?

Anyway, after finishing it, it wasn't that bad. It was ok, but the second one still feels like the best one. I especially loved the scene in the second one, where the citizens caught on the suspended runaway rail car promise to keep his identity secret. Felt a bit hammed up, but it was kind of special moment.

Man, seeing those above images of great Spider-man volumes from the past makes me regret selling mine some years ago all over again. I'd be re-reading all of those great comics if I still had them.

Actually, the alien symbiote that became Venom was introduced (and first worn by Spiderman) in a popular mini-series called Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. I had that series when I was a kid and can still remember the scene where Parker finds it.

Shhhh… don't tell the comic book collectors!

The Secret Wars series from the eighties was, hands-down, one of the best conceptions ever in the world of comics. I was even somewhat jaded by comics at that time, yet good story telling always shines.

And I swear I was the only kid in the seventies that even read the X-men. At least at my school.

The 33

Based on the 2010 incident of 33 miners who were trapped in a gold & copper mine in Chile for 69 days after part of the mine collapsed.

It was intense. I'm sure some things were probably exaggerated for the Hollywood audience, but it's a pretty amazing story.

I watched a film last night that I'd heard others talk about a few years back, Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story. Some of the humour totally miffed with me, though the music nods were evident and rather well done. Perhaps this film would benefit more if the viewer was drinking heavily at the time, I'm not sure. Not something I'd see myself ever re-watching, though for the music alone it was tolerable.

The Blackcoat's Daughter

I was expecting more from this. I had heard from a few people that it was good, but I found it somewhat boring and predictable. I did like Kiernan Shipka in it, but that's about all. I saw the plot twist coming from a mile away.

Originally Posted by JDR13
The Blackcoat's Daughter

I was expecting more from this. I had heard from a few people that it was good, but I found it somewhat boring and predictable. I did like Kiernan Shipka in it, but that's about all. I saw the plot twist coming from a mile away.

I really liked the bleak atmosphere. I love these sorts of slow and tense horror films over the jump-scare ridden ones. But about the movie overall, it wasn't a masterpiece or anything, but I certainly wasn't bored.

Sing 2 is very good, imho.

Since it just got released on hbomax, I just saw around 45 min of The Batman. I was too tired to watch more, but from what I saw it's pretty solid. Pattinson seems to do a decent job so far.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Since it just got released on hbomax, I just saw around 45 min of The Batman. I was too tired to watch more, but from what I saw it's pretty solid. Pattinson seems to do a decent job so far.

This seems to be a regular thing with you, the whole reviewing movies in small chunks thing. It's something new and novel that I've never seen before.

I get that watching movies in chunks is a thing, I do it myself sometimes. But rushing to tell people about the chunks prior to having seen the whole is something entirely new to me.

45 mins of The Batman represents 25% of the movie. You could start a whole new craze of episodic reviews of single movies. It would be quite difficult to keep it fresh though as "so far it's good enough to keep watching" would likely be a common episode-end review.