SpiderMan III or What I Would Have Rather Done On Sunday Afternoon...

I saw Spider Man III this past weekend and there 2 1/2 hours of my life I won't get back-and I want them back because i could have done a million things that would have been better than watching Spider Man III and that includes taking a nap or watching Hellboy again. Where do I begin with all the things that are wrong with this movie? Let's start at the beginning, with Peter Parker as Spider Man about to receive the key to city and being so completely self-absorbed that he doesn't listen to Mary-Jane trying to tell him that she got fired (don't even start with the completely stupid Broadway sub-plot and her getting fired after opening night-I guess the director figures that no one will know better, but it's insulting, really to think they don't know. Anyway...). Let's move to Spider Man flying past the American flag. I'm going to ignore all the symbolism that goes along with the flag these days and instead note that while yes, Spider Man is a hero at least to the person on the street and maybe the police, he was never a hero the those in power and who generally viewed him as threat no matter how many people he saved. Spider Man was always the reluctant hero, with power thrust upon him, who tried to do his best. He is not and never was a symbol of the American government (and who else would a flag represent?). A patriot? Yes, in the best way, meaning that he lives his life according to his values-and to have that symbolized by the flag is insulting at best. And as for when he turns bad? THIS is bad? Granted, he's not a bad person, so how evil can he be? But this is ridiculous. The black clothes, the dance with Gwen Stacey-it was embarrassing. This movie was lazily written, lazily directed and the characters were walking through their parts-there only so many times before that wide-eyed innocent look gets old, Tobey Maguire. You're Spider Man-haven't you grown-up a bit by now? If something similar happens in the third Bourne movie (and I have a bad feeling about it) I won't be happy-but it's directed by Paul Greengrass, so maybe it won't be too bad.

On the other hand, I watched Happy Accidents this weekend. I was a bit wary because A) Netflix recommended it and that hadn't worked out so well before and (see Straight to Hell, a movie I hated) and B) Its a romantic comedy-a genre I stopped liking once I realized that no one could make a good romantic comedy in which a female character was not a complete nitwit. This means I haven't watched a romantic comedy made in the last 20 years that I've actually liked. If I wanted to watch one, I would watch something made in the 30's or 40's. But I really liked Happy Accidents-and it was made in this decade! it stars Vincent D'Onofrio and Marisa Tomei-who meet by accident and fall in love...their scenes together are charming. He's sweet, funny and nice and she's beautiful, spunky and has a tendency to yell Motherfucker! when she gets angry. But something is a little off...why does he not know what perfume is? Why is he scared of very small dogs? And why does he need Dramamine all the time? And who is Chrystie Delancey? When he tells her the reason for his quirks-that he's from 400 years in the future, she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Is he crazy? Is he really a time-traveler? This movie is not about time-travel-it IS about love and trust and I liked it.

I also read The Eight by Katharine Neville-and it's a book about which I have mixed emotions. Overall, I liked it. I'm a sucker for a plot has a good conspiracy theory, goes on for years and puts innocent people in danger for a reason none them really know until almost the end. My quibbles are few-but I really don't like books of the "if I had only known at the time, I could have saved us all the trouble of..." or "It was 1973 and I was going to work for a little known organization called OPEC". This book is good enough that it can leave out the comments like that-and I won't go into detail detail on the anachronisms-but lets say that I don't believe a bedu tribesman in 1793 would use BOTH the metric system and say "its about a mile over that way". I freely admit that things like that annoy me but the errors like that are few and this book is well-written and intelligent. Its secret is not easily guessed until the near the end of the book-and it makes you work a bit to get it-it's more than your average thriller.