Wednesday, July 04, 2012

A Spider-Man Note



Look, a brilliant mad scientist has a beautiful woman chained to a post:


Of course, that’s Alfred Molina as Dr. Otto Octavius and that’s Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, from Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2.” In that scene, Mary Jane is chained to a post, but in fact she is yelling at Dr. Ock:





“You got what you needed for your little science project now let me go!”






That’s my favorite scene of all the Spider-Man movies I’ve watched over the years.

I strongly suspect that’s the kind of luck I’d have if I were a brilliant mad scientist with a beautiful woman chained to a post. Instead of her being impressed by my brilliance and instead of her being intimidated by my scientific prowess, probably she would just yell at me and belittle whatever great experiment I had in progress.

The reason I’m thinking of this is because just recently—in an internet sort of way—a woman yelled at some people who were talking about Spider-Man and I was among those getting yelled at.

Here’s why some people were talking about Spider-Man.

Yesterday Sony Pictures released a new Spider-Man movie, “The Amazing Spider-Man.” This has gotten a lot of attention from movie buffs for at least two reasons. First, this movie is what’s called a ‘re-boot.’ The filmmakers have gone back and started with the very first Spider-Man story, the so-called ‘origin’ story, even though it was only ten years ago that director Sam Raimi started his Spider-Man trilogy with his version of the origin story. Secondly, this movie was made by an entirely different group of filmmakers and they tell the story with an entirely different tone than Sam Raimi used.

So some film buffs are taking sides and arguing about if it was a good idea and which films are better and which filmmakers are better and just about everything else.

I liked the new Spider-Man movie a lot. There was no one great scene like Mary Jane Watson yelling at Dr. Ock, but overall I liked the new film much better than any of the old films.

Anyway, however, this is the kind of stuff that film buffs can argue about forever and sometimes, not to engage in stereotyping or anything, sometimes women lose patience with guys arguing about stuff like this. Here’s what happened recently:


So “Hannah” wasn’t impressed with everyone’s Spider-Man erudition and cinema sensitivity and passion for their beliefs.

There was a time in my life—and not really all too long ago—when I would have worried about upsetting “Hannah.” I would have worried about upsetting her, and I would have worried about being too involved with movies to begin with.

It doesn’t bug me anymore. Neither part of that. So I’ve either grown, or just gotten comfortably numb. Or some combination.

Now I just replied to her comment with that little joke.

Spider-Man is sometimes considered the most existential of the popular Marvel characters. Works for me.






















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