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I was coming across my notes for my review this morning and I remembered a bitchy little comment I wanted to make that I didn’t add to the final review.
“Spider-Man is without his mask so often in this movie, the should have called it ‘Peter Parker 3’ instead of Spider-Man 3.”
Look, I realize that the first movie was raked over the coals for the totally Power Rangers-esque dialogue delivery between Green Goblin and Spider-Man during that scene on the rooftop. Lots of overexaggerated head bobs to indicate words were being spoken. I also realize that Tobey Maguire is a big star now and probably pushed for more face time. For an actor, it makes sense. But it just bugged the hell of out of me. Put on your damn mask! Staple it to your neck if you need to!
Also, can anyone explain to me what Captain Stacy and Gwen Stacy were doing at a certain someone’s funeral at the end of the movie? Were these characters ever introduced to each other? Sorry, stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
Also, total waste of James Cromwell as Captain Stacy and J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. They were hardly in it at all. Another example of how this movie was stuffed to the gills, in my opinion – and in a bad way.
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Hey, guys. I hope you liked the first formal, main page review for the site for Spider-Man 3. I still kind of have my training wheels on, so hopefully it’s not too out of place.
If you guys are at all interested in reading more reviews, be sure to check out my recent concert review of Stone Sour that I did for The Des Moines Register. They posted it on their web site yesterday and readers have already left a few comments.
It was a good show. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed their music. I guess it’s just not cool for a hipster like myself to admit I like Stone Sour now. But what can I say? I appreciate their lack of irony. It’s just straight to the gut rock. Nothin’ wrong with that.
Be sure to tune in to The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at Talkshoe. Gordon, Joe and I will be discussing Spider-Man 3 for the full hour and taking your calls. If you’re a hard-core comic book nerd like me, I’m sure you have opinions. So don’t be afraid to call in and voice ’em!
Oh, and one more thing: I’m staying home from work this week to spend time with Cami and Henry before Cami’s maternity leave is up. If I have some free time, I have an idea for an extra strip related to Spider-Man 3 that I’d like to put together this week while it’s still timely. You’ll still get the Wednesday strip. I’m just giving you the head’s up there might be a little bonus comic action coming soon! Check the site again on Tuesday!
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This has nothing to do with anything, but I wanted to share it.
On paper, the idea of replacing Darth Vader’s dialogue from Star Wars with other random lines from James Earl Jones’s career sounds inventive, but not profoundly humorous.
Then you watch the video mash-up and realize how wrong you were.
For a generation that grew up knowing James Earl Jones from his roles in movies like Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America and Field of Dreams, you forget there was a period in the 70’s where he played a lot of tough talking soul bruthahs that are played to hilarious effect here.
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Hey, guys. I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone about The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at Talkshoe.com. Tonight Gordon, Joe and I will be discussing Knocked Up and taking your calls LIVE!
I haven’t really given T.T.F. the red carpet treatment in a while, so I really want to call your attention to it. Gordon, Joe and I have put almost two dozen shows under our belt and I think we’re really hitting our stride. We’ve been getting lots of compliments not only for our film criticism, but also for our individual sense of humor. I think tonight’s show is going to be particularly good because we have one guy who’s dating, one guy who’s recently married and one guy hitched up for the last seven years with a new baby in tow. We cover the entire demographic spread for Knocked Up and I think it’s going to be really interesting to listen to how each of us applied our personal filters when watching this movie.
Any way you slice it, you’re going to be entertained – so why not give us a try? If you miss tonight’s live broadcast, you can always download it later – which we encourage! – but golly, it sure would be nice if you could join us in real time!
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Sorry, it took me a while to post this information. But I’ve been sick today after a round of serious vomiting earlier in the morning. Today’s been spent mostly sleeping.
I just wanted to remind everyone that The Triple Feature talkcast is happening tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe. It’s a big occasion for us – our 25th episode. Can you believe we’ve been doing this a little more than half a year!
Tonight we’ll be talking about Ocean’s Thirteen and Paris Je T’Amie. We’re also saving the last half hour for our picks of the best movies of 2007… so far.
We want to strongly encourage everyone to participate in real time and to call in with your opinions. Seeing as how much flack I catch for posting reviews lately, a few of you seem to think you can do it better. Well, here’s your chance!
That’s not fair. I’m setting this up to be a confrontational thing and that’s not what we’re about. I seriously want to include everyone, so please, call in and tell us your thoughts.
Or, listen to the show and see if I flip out in a Robitussin-induced rage! A good time any way you slice it!
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Does anyone out there know anything about RSS feeds? I’d like to change up how the one for Theater Hopper functions.
If you check out how our feed is being displayed over at LiveJournal, you’ll see that there is an entry for every blog post along with a link back to the site. There is also a second entry for each comic, but with no image. Just the same link back to the site.
What I would like to do is somehow marry the two. I would like the first blog post to have the comic in it. So the order of the information would be the comic at the top followed by the first blog post all contained in one entry. Subsequent blog posts would be given their own entry without the comic image. Maybe if we added a link back to the site at the bottom of the post or somehow made a hotlink of the comic image back to the site, that would be a nice thing to include.
If you have any experience with this, please contact me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com.
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Check out this picture I took with my cell phone (man, I love technology).
It’s this giant display at my local theater for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, mannequins? I’m just trying to figure out how they shipped the damn thing. Must have cost a pretty penny.
At any rate, I thought it was unique enough to share. Does your local theater have anything like this? Just curious.
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I need to put this out there before it slips my mind, but for those of you who are fans of The Triple Feature talkcast, we will NOT be broadcasting tonight.
Gordon is out of town, which Joe and I knew in advance. But what I had totally forgotten is that Cami and I are going to see John Mayer and Ben Folds in concert tonight (the whitest concert u know!), so I won’t be home to host the show. I doubt Joe wants to do it all by his lonesome.
If you haven’t had an opportunity to listen to The Triple Feature, this week might be a good opportunity to indoctrinate yourself. Just go to our show listing over at Talkshoe and download one of our recent episodes. I actually just got an e-mail from someone last week who said that he was listening to our discussion about Spider-Man 3 in episode 20 and that the conversation holds up really well. He felt a lot of the points we made were still relevant. So that’s nice to know!
Anyway, check us out and we’ll be back next week with an all new show!
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This is just a random bit of news. Take it for what you will.
On Monday, Cami and I went to see Ben Folds and John Mayer in concert. After Ben’s set, while they were setting the stage for Mayer, Cami and I were sitting and talking. Out of nowhere she says, “I think you should do Theater Hopper two times a week.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. “Why?” I asked. “Because I think it’s killing you to only do it once a week,” she said.
As you recall, I reduced the number of strips to once a week in order to spend more time with Cami and Henry. I’m still updating three times a week, having replaced the comics with movie and DVD reviews on Mondays that some of you really love (and some of you really hate) and random sketches on Friday (which almost everyone is indifferent to).
Now since things with Henry are kind of settling down and because I pretty much only work on the comic after he’s asleep, Cami has given me this “permission slip” of sorts to increase production on the site.
The problem is, I’m not sure what to do with it.
Cami suggested that I update with two comics a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think that’s a bad idea. I’ve gotten you guys into the habit of coming to the site every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for almost 5 years. It would be pretty jarring to switch to Tuesday/Thursday.
So, the obvious solution to me is to continue doing reviews on Mondays (tossing in sketches when I don’t have a review) and doing the comics on Wednesday and Friday.
I don’t know when this would begin, but I’m mulling my options and hopefully it will happen soon. I do feel a little rusty, though, so it’s intimidating. When you’re updating three times a week, you don’t have time to think about what you’re doing. You gotta be quick with the funny! But since I went to one comic a week, I could be a little lazy with how I scheduled my time. I need to draft a new schedule and figure out how things will work in the New World Order.
Anyway, I guess I just wanted to tease at a possible change in the future and I was curious as to your response. If you have anything you want to share, go ahead and leave it in the comments!
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I have to let everyone know right off the bat that the following content is not mine, but stolen from this post over at BestWeekEver.tv and I think it’s brilliant. It’s an excellent bit of satire poking fun at the ridiculousness of the AFI Top 100 list and the utter stupidity of their recently revised list.
Read and enjoy!
Citizen Kane Has Not Magically Become Terrible In The Last Nine Years
This week, The American Film Institute announced its updated list of the 100 Greatest Films of All Time, and while “Citizen Kane held down the top spot, I was surprised to see how many 40 and 50 year old movies are a lot greater now than they were in 1998. Here are some of the notable leaps from the 1998 List to the 2007 List and my explanations for how they happened:
“Raging Bull – 1998: #24, 2007: #4
2007 Oscar wins for “The Departed made critics go back and take a look at spunky, talented kid named “Marty Scorcese.
“The Searchers – 1998: #96, 2007: #12
Overwhelming gayness of “Brokeback Mountain has critics longing for the days of the John Wayne western, when gay sex was merely implied.
“The Godfather – 1998: #3, 2007: #2
(passing up “Casablanca)Critics were so happy the ending didn’t just go to silent black, they were able to disregard existence of both World War II and love.
“The Jazz Singer – 1998: #90, 2007: Not in Top 100
America is still just as racist as it was in 1998, we’re just not voting racistly anymore.
“The General – 1998: Not in Top 100, 2007: #18
Massive success of recent crappy sequels have made people realize they’d much rather pay to see Buster Keaton run around on top of a train and fall a lot.
“On The Waterfront – 1998: #8, 2007: #19
Critics agree that it’s becoming exponentially harder each year to not imagine that every time Marlon Brando speaks, he’s asking for butter.
“Vertigo – 1998: #61, 2007: #9
Grammy voters’ neverending U2 orgy somehow spills over to AFI list; Bob Dylan’s most recent album also named #85 greatest film ever made.
“Schindler’s List – 1998: #9, 2007: #8
Historians have discovered that the Holocaust was, in fact, about 1% more horrible than originally believed.
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