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can't sleep - spoilers will eat me
Saw Spider-man III last night with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellen_fremedon. Spoilers ahoy.
Actually, first: trailers.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. omgyayawesome. I don't think Orlando Bloom needs the do-rag, but this has kind of been a trilogy about Will Turner and dubious headgear, hasn't it, so I suppose I can let it go. Geoffrey Rush yay. NORRINGTON IS BACK IN THE WIG HUZZAH. (I liked -- I mean, really -- the scruffy Norrington, of course, but the cleaned-up one is a whole other kind of wonderful, and also now we know he's scruffy underneath.) Chow Yun-Fat! ... On the other hand, I hear it's going to be three hours long, and hi, memo to Jerry Bruckheimer etc.: it was kind of even not that cool when Peter Jackson did it, y'all, and Senator, you're no -- yeah. Sigh. Whatever. I won't get a soda.
Other trailers:
Fantastic 4: The Rise of the Silver Surfer, in which the villain is apparently that creature from the Abyss in 1989? with a surfboard. Whatever -- I just need Ioan Gruffudd to stop going grey. The man is thirty-three years old, and might be the only person over twenty-five in show business who looks older than he is. KNOCK IT OFF IOAN PLZKTHX.
Across the Universe. Following the trailers for PotC and FF, this began with a dude on a beach looking at the camera and sort of (as I recall) singing tunelessly, "Is anybody going to listen to me --" at which point he went on but I leaned over to Ellen and said "Doesn't seem likely, does it?" and several other people went a little more literal and said "No!" We couldn't tell what this thing was -- at one point, I was like, hang on, did they remake "Hair"? -- but it's a film by Julie Taymore, who is gifted and visionary and does better work in live theatre, thanks, Julie. Actually, the movie will probably be very good -- but wow, was this the wrong place and time (and crowd in front of whom) to tease it.
Surf's Up. Sort of "Happy Feet" but with surfing, right? The trailer was cute, but I feel that I've seen the whole movie.
There was at least one more, something whose trailer made me say "Hmm -- video, I think", but I don't remember what it was. We did not get the Order of the Phoenix trailer, which, grr.
Maybe it's representative of the fact that Spider-Man travels by swinging, the way the moods and affiliations of the characters keep switching back and forth? Peter is weak -- no, he's strong! -- no, he's -- wait -- and also, Mary Jane loves Harry! -- no, whatshisname! -- no, Peter! -- no, Harry! -- no, Harry loves Peter! -- no, he hates him! -- no, everything's happy and James Franco has the best smile in the picture! -- no, he's an angry drunk! -- Topher Grace is goofy! -- no, he's slimy! -- no, Aunt May is an old softie but she's hard as nails! I mean, sure, you want characters, even comic-book ones, to be three-dimensional. But these guys get a lot of their dimension from not talking to one another, which doesn't really do it for me. :-)
Not that the movie wasn't fun! It was good fun, but I spent a lot of the time wanting to smack no fewer than two characters at a time upside the head. Memo to Peter Parker: when the scene cuts from you defeating the second of three villains to a bit where the audience learns that the first villain wasn't defeated after all, and the audience is glad because maybe that villain will smack some sense into you?, you may want to note that you have reached new high levels of being a dick. But in fairness, I understand that you were written that way.
I do love being at the movies on first nights, with the cheering and the laughing and whatnot. The sound and feeling of a whole theater full of people being shocked when Peter actually knocks MJ to the ground? That's cool.
Tobey Maguire -- still not an action hero, but neither is Peter Parker, so I guess he continues to be the right choice. A solid A-minus performance.
Kirsten Dunst -- can't the wardrobe people find her a dress that she could wear with a bra? I'm just saying, a chest that size shouldn't sag, and yet. Performance-wise, I give her a B-plus if she was dubbed, an A-minus if she did her own singing.
J.K. Simmons -- love. Nothing but love. A-plus.
Thomas Haden Church -- ooh, that's another thing, the sound a crowd makes when a character is set upon by police dogs and punches the dog in the face before climbing a chain link fence to escape. THC played a well-animated character and also did a nice job with Expository Backstory Goofiness. ("You're an escaped felon, Flint", his wife says to him, "and the cops are after you." ... Does she not think he maybe knows that, having just changed out of the orange jumpsuit he was wearing when he broke into her house?) (And if it was meant to be a sort of emphatic line reading -- if she was telling him he was an escaped felon the way a guy says "Of course I love you; you're my wife!", where of course the wife already knows she's his wife -- then the actress failed pretty spectacularly, yes.) THC gets an A for delivering the line "Hrrmgh" like it actually meant something.
Topher Grace -- I admit that my expectation is always to be pleased by Topher Grace, so I'm a little on the biased side. I did like him here. He was funny and nasty to appropriate levels at appropriate times.
Bryce Dallas Howard -- wasted, in this role, but I was glad to see what little was made of the character so she wasn't just a vapid ... vapid thing. (Understand that I don't know the comics, so I have no idea if any of these non-star characters are true to anything that might ever have gone before.) I particularly liked that she was angry at Peter, in the jazz club, and that she apologized to Mary Jane.
James Franco -- oh, Harry. Harry, Harry, Harry. I'm afraid I've seen movies before, so nothing that happened to him (in the whole movie, really) was a surprise to me, but still.
Willem Dafoe -- OH MY GOD SO SCARY. And, I mean, he actually does less than he did in the second movie (which, remember, was almost nothing), but you guys, there is a picture of Willem Dafoe that is the scariest damn thing I've seen in a long time. (It's got a ruined eye that's always open, you know what I'm saying?) We left the theater with me assuring Ellen that I would not be able to sleep because Willem Dafoe was going to SUDDENLY BE THERE AND STRANGLE ME IN MY BED WITH HIS BARE HANDS THAT HAVE NO THUMBS. I mean, this picture is scary as FUCK.
[ETA: Actually, a lot of the credit for the scary goes to Sam Raimi, because if it hadn't been for the photography, the way he does those jump-zoom shots, I don't think I'd have been quite so convinced that Willem Dafoe was going to step down out of the painting and kill Harry, Peter, and assorted other citizens (and then quite possibly step down out of the movie screen and kill ME). Suspicious, perhaps, based on the painting alone, but not convinced.]
I am pleased to report that Willem Dafoe did not in fact strangle me in my bed.
Anyway, the writing of the Peter/Harry to please me can commence now, y'all. I remind you all that it is my birthday soon.
ellen_fremedon. Spoilers ahoy.Actually, first: trailers.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. omgyayawesome. I don't think Orlando Bloom needs the do-rag, but this has kind of been a trilogy about Will Turner and dubious headgear, hasn't it, so I suppose I can let it go. Geoffrey Rush yay. NORRINGTON IS BACK IN THE WIG HUZZAH. (I liked -- I mean, really -- the scruffy Norrington, of course, but the cleaned-up one is a whole other kind of wonderful, and also now we know he's scruffy underneath.) Chow Yun-Fat! ... On the other hand, I hear it's going to be three hours long, and hi, memo to Jerry Bruckheimer etc.: it was kind of even not that cool when Peter Jackson did it, y'all, and Senator, you're no -- yeah. Sigh. Whatever. I won't get a soda.
Other trailers:
Fantastic 4: The Rise of the Silver Surfer, in which the villain is apparently that creature from the Abyss in 1989? with a surfboard. Whatever -- I just need Ioan Gruffudd to stop going grey. The man is thirty-three years old, and might be the only person over twenty-five in show business who looks older than he is. KNOCK IT OFF IOAN PLZKTHX.
Across the Universe. Following the trailers for PotC and FF, this began with a dude on a beach looking at the camera and sort of (as I recall) singing tunelessly, "Is anybody going to listen to me --" at which point he went on but I leaned over to Ellen and said "Doesn't seem likely, does it?" and several other people went a little more literal and said "No!" We couldn't tell what this thing was -- at one point, I was like, hang on, did they remake "Hair"? -- but it's a film by Julie Taymore, who is gifted and visionary and does better work in live theatre, thanks, Julie. Actually, the movie will probably be very good -- but wow, was this the wrong place and time (and crowd in front of whom) to tease it.
Surf's Up. Sort of "Happy Feet" but with surfing, right? The trailer was cute, but I feel that I've seen the whole movie.
There was at least one more, something whose trailer made me say "Hmm -- video, I think", but I don't remember what it was. We did not get the Order of the Phoenix trailer, which, grr.
Maybe it's representative of the fact that Spider-Man travels by swinging, the way the moods and affiliations of the characters keep switching back and forth? Peter is weak -- no, he's strong! -- no, he's -- wait -- and also, Mary Jane loves Harry! -- no, whatshisname! -- no, Peter! -- no, Harry! -- no, Harry loves Peter! -- no, he hates him! -- no, everything's happy and James Franco has the best smile in the picture! -- no, he's an angry drunk! -- Topher Grace is goofy! -- no, he's slimy! -- no, Aunt May is an old softie but she's hard as nails! I mean, sure, you want characters, even comic-book ones, to be three-dimensional. But these guys get a lot of their dimension from not talking to one another, which doesn't really do it for me. :-)
Not that the movie wasn't fun! It was good fun, but I spent a lot of the time wanting to smack no fewer than two characters at a time upside the head. Memo to Peter Parker: when the scene cuts from you defeating the second of three villains to a bit where the audience learns that the first villain wasn't defeated after all, and the audience is glad because maybe that villain will smack some sense into you?, you may want to note that you have reached new high levels of being a dick. But in fairness, I understand that you were written that way.
I do love being at the movies on first nights, with the cheering and the laughing and whatnot. The sound and feeling of a whole theater full of people being shocked when Peter actually knocks MJ to the ground? That's cool.
Tobey Maguire -- still not an action hero, but neither is Peter Parker, so I guess he continues to be the right choice. A solid A-minus performance.
Kirsten Dunst -- can't the wardrobe people find her a dress that she could wear with a bra? I'm just saying, a chest that size shouldn't sag, and yet. Performance-wise, I give her a B-plus if she was dubbed, an A-minus if she did her own singing.
J.K. Simmons -- love. Nothing but love. A-plus.
Thomas Haden Church -- ooh, that's another thing, the sound a crowd makes when a character is set upon by police dogs and punches the dog in the face before climbing a chain link fence to escape. THC played a well-animated character and also did a nice job with Expository Backstory Goofiness. ("You're an escaped felon, Flint", his wife says to him, "and the cops are after you." ... Does she not think he maybe knows that, having just changed out of the orange jumpsuit he was wearing when he broke into her house?) (And if it was meant to be a sort of emphatic line reading -- if she was telling him he was an escaped felon the way a guy says "Of course I love you; you're my wife!", where of course the wife already knows she's his wife -- then the actress failed pretty spectacularly, yes.) THC gets an A for delivering the line "Hrrmgh" like it actually meant something.
Topher Grace -- I admit that my expectation is always to be pleased by Topher Grace, so I'm a little on the biased side. I did like him here. He was funny and nasty to appropriate levels at appropriate times.
Bryce Dallas Howard -- wasted, in this role, but I was glad to see what little was made of the character so she wasn't just a vapid ... vapid thing. (Understand that I don't know the comics, so I have no idea if any of these non-star characters are true to anything that might ever have gone before.) I particularly liked that she was angry at Peter, in the jazz club, and that she apologized to Mary Jane.
James Franco -- oh, Harry. Harry, Harry, Harry. I'm afraid I've seen movies before, so nothing that happened to him (in the whole movie, really) was a surprise to me, but still.
Willem Dafoe -- OH MY GOD SO SCARY. And, I mean, he actually does less than he did in the second movie (which, remember, was almost nothing), but you guys, there is a picture of Willem Dafoe that is the scariest damn thing I've seen in a long time. (It's got a ruined eye that's always open, you know what I'm saying?) We left the theater with me assuring Ellen that I would not be able to sleep because Willem Dafoe was going to SUDDENLY BE THERE AND STRANGLE ME IN MY BED WITH HIS BARE HANDS THAT HAVE NO THUMBS. I mean, this picture is scary as FUCK.
[ETA: Actually, a lot of the credit for the scary goes to Sam Raimi, because if it hadn't been for the photography, the way he does those jump-zoom shots, I don't think I'd have been quite so convinced that Willem Dafoe was going to step down out of the painting and kill Harry, Peter, and assorted other citizens (and then quite possibly step down out of the movie screen and kill ME). Suspicious, perhaps, based on the painting alone, but not convinced.]
I am pleased to report that Willem Dafoe did not in fact strangle me in my bed.
Anyway, the writing of the Peter/Harry to please me can commence now, y'all. I remind you all that it is my birthday soon.
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Keitel as Judas??
Re: Keitel as Judas??
And with the commentary turned off, it's a really impressive movie. Also slashy as hell.
Re: Keitel as Judas??
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She did. :) She also sings in Cat's Meow, and over the closing credits, and she is insanely good in it as well.
And Ioan Gruffudd isn't going grey -- that's what Mr. Fantastic looks like in the comics, so they greyed those parts of his hair. You can see it in the bottom left portrait here (http://www.samcci.comics.org/fantasticfour/084.htm).
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