500 Days Of Spider-Man

It started like this; Sam Raimi, the director of the first 2 SPIDER-MAN movies, was given the chance to direct SPIDER-MAN 3, logically. So he accepted, and wanted the villains to be Sandman and Hobgoblin. Well Sony, the studio who owns SPIDER-MAN wanted the main villain to be VENOM, kind like the rest of the fans. Raimi protested, and admitted that he was not a fan of Venom as a villain and did not think he could properly translate him to film. Sony didn't care. So against his will Raimi worked VENOM/Eddie Brock into the story, while still keeping his own two villains in tact. Well this imposed a struggle upon Raimi, trying to make a film that he wanted to make, and at the same time keep it from becoming a movie he DID NOT want to make. Well, we got SPIDER-MAN 3. Due to the strong negative opinions of fans, Raimi decided to never put himself in that situation again. That he would only make a movie if his whole heart was in it, and not battle with the studio and producers to keep his film from becoming somebody elses.

Well Sony wanted to make SPIDER-MAN 4, and offered Sam Raimi the job. Rami agreed, seeing this as an opportunity to make a new SM movie that can make up for what he did in SM3. Then Sony played the same crap and had all these provisions Raimi had to follow in order to make the movie, and Raimi quit. And so did Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and everybody else that was involved with the film.

Sony made the quick decision to rewrite the already written script into a 'reboot' of the franchise and hire an all new cast and crew to start SPIDER-MAN fresh. And today Mark Webb, director of this summer's surprise success 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, signed on to direct THE NEXT 3 SPIDER-MAN MOVIES. Is this good? Is this bad? A little of both, but for now, I'm leaning on the good. Although I personally didn't enjoy 500 DOS as much as everybody else, but it had solid direction. Visually it was very impressive, even marvelous they way everything looked and how certain scenes were handled. Webb has a way of bringing out those 'odd' emotions that aren't as standard as 'happy' and 'sad'. But at the same time, the man has little to no experience with action scenes, and some of the most amazing action scenes came from the Spider-Man movies.

It's rumored (and assumed) that Sony is going with a 'Batman Begins' style reboot. Hopefully that DOESNT mean that it will be a real world, gritty, serious drama and instead means that they develop the characters and then reveal the superhero half way during the movie. Whether we get a good or bad movie, we will definitely get a fresh Spider-Man movie under a talented up and coming director, and a superhero movie that I can't wait to see.

Public Enemies. A review.

I've been meaning to update my blog this week with something other than a movie review but frankly, it's been a little tough.  More articles will come, soon, so please just stay patient.  I'll try my best to write something new this week for everybody, until then here's my review for PUBLIC ENEMIES.

I'm sure you are all aware of my extreme attraction to Michael Mann's HEAT, so for that, his new film PUBLIC ENEMIES was always going to be great in my mind.  But was it?  I wouldn't say great, but it's definitely one of the more enjoyable films so far this year.

This film is certainly rich with story and characters, only they all just appear, all of a sudden.  Most of their backstories and motives are never really explained, they just are, and they just do.  Which is fine, except with a film about one of the most notorious, elusive, and mysterious criminal minds in American history, I expected a little bit more.

It seems as though the director's goal was to somewhat ground all the myths around John Dillinger and the way he lived.  And in the film, Dillinger is not as mythical and mysterious as all the stories you've heard may lead you to believe.  That's all well and good, but we needed more, we needed to see what sets Dillinger so far apart from other gangsters like Baby Face Nelson and Al Capone.  What makes him so unique that he warrants a two and a half hour movie?

The film takes place during some of the most significant events in Dillinger's life, and each event is played out so naturally, it'll feel like you are watching a documentary.  All of the standoff/gunfighting scenes feel so real, and place you so close to the action you might catch yourself flinching at some gunfire.  And though the movie is about two and a half hours long, it really felt like every scene of the movie needed to be in there.  This movie doesn't leave you with a lasting echo in your brain when it ends (like HEAT does), but it does fulfill your needs for a highly entertaining gangster epic that audiences have not seen in a long time.  And one that's truly worth seeing.