I don’t care how many times I pull the joke out of storage, I will never grow tired of seeing Tom wearing the Spider-Man mask along with his street clothes. He can afford the mask, just not the body suit. It’s very innocent and charming to me. Plus, a lot of fun to draw.

Are you guys getting as hyped up as I am about Spider-Man 3? Man, I hope it lives up to the hype. This was actually something Gordon, Joe and I talked about on this week’s Triple Feature talkcast. If perhaps we’ve been waiting and thinking and salivating over Spider-Man 3 for so long, it’s lost some of it’s verve?

I haven’t seen a lot of television commercials for Spider-Man 3, which I suppose is good. Either that, or I’m just not watching the networks that run the bulk of the advertising. Oh, no! Am I culturally irrelevant?

For me, however, a lot of air was let out of my tires as soon as the marketing blitz took shape for the movie. I remember being in the toy aisle at Target a few weeks ago (looking for playthings for Henry, I swear!) when I came across the full line of Spider-Man 3 action figures.

The first thing I noticed is that they looked like ass. The SECOND thing I noticed was the Venom action figure. Production had been keeping things under wraps for so long and they were doing such a good job about it, seeing Venom on screen was probably 50% of my motivation to see the movie (even if he only gets 10% of screen time).

But then there I was, standing face to contorted plastic face with the tiny avatar of fictionalized evil and I thought to myself, “Hmph. Okay, so that’s what he looks like. Mystery solved.” I walked away almost defeated by my own apathy.

I’m turning 30 this year and I won’t pretend for a minute that it’s more than likely the window is closing in regards to my interest in such things. But I can’t help but imagine what delivering a movie like this would have been like in the days before the internet. The first Spider-Man kind of took people by surprise. X-Men was the first of the “nu comic book” movies to land in theaters and people were somewhat impressed. But I don’t remember people expecting great things from the first Spider-Man movie. When it arrived post 9/11 during a period where we REALLY needed heroes, people were over the moon about it. Since then, it seems like we’re all on the same page in terms of our Spider-Man love.

But is third time NOT the charm? You get the vague sense that with three villains in the mix and all the rumors about Raimi and the principle cast not coming back for a fourth movie that they’re really going for broke and adding everything imaginable. That worries me. Because I can’t think of a single blockbuster that was best served by a “What the hell – throw that in, too” mentality. Look at the latter Batman flicks or even the most recent King Kong. Sometimes, to have a great popcorn flick, you gotta show a little restraint.

Of course I’ll see Spider-Man 3 this weekend and of course I will love it. All the nit picking at this stage is just a nervous fanboy tic. But if the rumors are true and Raimi and the cast really decide to hang it up after this, I think I’ll be okay with that.

As mentioned above, Gordon, Joe and I completed another successful broadcast of The Triple Feature talkcast on Monday. I strongly encourage you to download it along with all of our other episodes. They’re a lot of fun and hopefully it will motivate you to participate in them as they occur live.

Since most of the free world will be seeing Spider-Man 3 this weekend and since that’s what we plan to talk about for the full hour this coming Monday, it’ll be a great opportunity for you to check out the show and call in live. We want to get your thoughts and reactions in real time. So set aside some time on your calendar, Monday, May 7 at 9:00 PM CST.

Another thing we had hoped would draw in more listeners are our contests and I announced two giveaways on Monday – Dreamgirls and Diggers (which both came out on DVD yesterday and – incidentally, was giving a glowing review on Ebert & Ropert this weekend). You need to download and listen to Monday’s show for the first half of the clue for these giveaways. I’m hear now to give the second half.

For Dreamgirls, the second half of the clue is “HIVE”

For Diggers, the second half of the clue is “BAKE”

If you’ve participated in a few of these, you know the drill. Send in the complete clue along with your name, age and mailing address to theaterhopper@hotmail.com. And for the sake of organization, please send in your entries in two separate e-mails. If you submit both clues in one e-mail, I have to throw it out because I won’t be able to keep them straight.

Sound good? Good! Fire away!

Oh, and by the way, I received in the mail my giveaway copies of Copying Beethoven, Deja Vu and The Queen and the winners have been chosen and mailed out. Don’t worry, I’m not going to post your name if you won. I just wanted to let everyone know that those contests are now off the table.

Come back a little later in the day. I have some news regarding that freelance movie review job I was shooting for with The Des Moines Register that I talked about about a month ago.