Spider-Man 2/Fahrenheit 9/11

Um. Ok, Kirsten. I’ll get on. No problem there. Anyway, enough fantasies. Time for some webslinging previews.

OPEN WATER-The press lines say that this is a nerve-wracking movie. Well, the preview is pretty damn nerve-wracking. We’ll call this The Blair Shark Project. It’s supposedly based on a true story (probably true this time), and it’s shot on very cheap digital video. We’ve got two people stranded in the ocean when their diving boat takes off without them. Just add sharks and you’ve got a movie that I really want to see. And no big studio to fuck it all up.

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW-This is a new preview and it looks a lot better than the one I saw back in December at the Butt-Numb-A-Thon. It’s darker and gives us a little bit more of the plot, such as it is. And the effects look better this time out, too. Can’t wait to check this one out. I’m sure it won’t be a great film, but it’ll probably be fun.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA-Speaking of not great, this one looks a little, um, well…did you ever see Phantom Of The Paradise? Yeah. This looks about as good, but it’s going to take itself seriously. But it does star Emmy Rossum from The Day After Tomorrow, and she’s pretty hot for jailbait. And she’s actually an opera singer, so that should work well. I’ll check it out, but I doubt that Joel Schumacher has the chops to make a movie even as good as DePalma did all those years ago.

THE VILLAGE-M. Night Shymalongadongadingdong is at it again. This time he takes his suspense machine to ye olden days of the early New England settlers of Pennsylvania. (Where else?) They have a deal with the creatures of the forest. If they stay out of the forest, the creatures don’t bother them. But now they have to venture out there. And the monsters have to venture in.

Looks good. I just hope it’s more Sixth Sense/Unbreakable than Signs. It’s always good to see Joaquin, though. And Bryce Howard is pretty cute. (Can’t wait to see what she does in Manderlay.)

Now, True Believers, it’s time for a couple of real live reviews. First a movie about an All-American Superhero and then one from a Real American Hero.

When we last left Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), he was walking away from his true love, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) after burying his best friend’s dad, whom he had just helped to kill. Now, a few years later, Peter is in college and is having a lot of trouble holding down a job. He’s falling out with MJ because he can’t seem to make it to her play. She also has a new boyfriend, John Jameson (Daniel Gillies), who she is planning on marrying. He’s an astronaut. And responsible.

But things aren’t so easy on Spider-Man. He has a new mentor/villain to take on. Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) is a brilliant scientist who is working for Oscorp. Harry Osborne (James Franco) took over after his father died in the last film and is trying his damnedest to put the company back on the map. With Dr. Octavius’ perpetual energy device (basically, creating a sun on Earth), he can, dare he say it? Rule the world?

After talking to Peter for a while he befriends the young nerd. But he soon gets his other creation (four metal arms with artificial intelligence) fused to his body and they start to take him over. He, of course, becomes the bad guy.

Add to that the fact that Peter is having a major identity crisis and desperately doesn’t want to be Spider-Man anymore (and, in fact, is having impotency issues with his webslinging abilities) and you’ve got a pretty emotional thrill ride for the summer blockbuster season.

Is it as good as the first one? I think so. Not sure that it’s better because I love the first one, too. But it’s at least as good. There isn’t as much action in it, but what’s there is killer. Check out the train ride, complete with another “You mess with one New Yorker, you mess with all of us” moment. This one is a little less cloying, though. And more personal.

The whole movie is more personal. Peter really has a lot of emotional problems to take on this time out. His love for MJ almost makes him sell out his powers. Will Spider-Man ever come back from retirement?

Of course you know the answer to that one, True Believers.

The whole cast is back in form with new guy Alfred Molina being particularly good. His turn as a conscientious scientist gone bad is probably better than Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborne/Green Goblin. It’s certainly more subtle. And you really kind of feel for the guy. And, yes, there is another “talking to his evil side” scene. But there’s no mirror this time. Well, not until the very end. But that’s a secret. Shhhhh.

It’s always fun to see characters change and grow over the course of a series like this. Harry is slowly going insane because of his hatred of Spidey. He’s being perfectly set up as the next bad guy, the Hobgoblin. But I do hate to see Daniel Desario go so bad. And what of John Jameson? Will he turn into Venom? Possibly. I hear Venom was once an astronaut.

This movie gets pretty depressing at times (after all, it is about the loneliness of a superhero), but it never loses its sense of fun, unlike other summer event movies.

Watch for the obligatory Bruce Campbell cameo (funnier than in the first movie) and an Evil Dead reference in the hospital scene, the most Sam Raimi-esque scene in the whole movie.

I can’t wait for Spidey 3, but I think I’ve got a long wait. Dammit.

By the way, has anyone heard anything about the Middle Eastern Spiderman? According to Entertainment Weekly Marvel is actually going forward with this. It’s a Middle Eastern kid who, I guess, gets bitten by a spider and get starts wearing half Spidey costume/half traditional Middle Eastern clothes. It’s an interesting idea that we may never see. The comic is being made specifically for that area. What do you kids think?

Personally, I’ll wait for the movie.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11

Now, let’s get to that Real American Hero.

When Michael Moore started talking about this movie two years ago at the Telluride Film Festival I knew it would be a big deal. I had no idea, however, that it would be the biggest documentary in the history of documentary film and be the only non-musical doc to ever hit number 1 at the box office. That says a lot for Mike.

Or does it say a lot for the current administration? That’s probably more likely.

There’s been a lot said about how untrue a lot of this film is. That most of the facts and interviews have been manipulated to make Bush look bad. But if even 25% of the facts are true, George W. Bush, the 43rd “President” of the USA, should be brought up on charges of treason.

And I can’t imagine that 75% of the film is untrue.

In case you don’t know, this movie is about the ties between the bin Laden family (and the rest of the Saudi royals) and the Bush family. It tells the facts of how entwined our economy is with theirs. If Saudi Arabia goes down, then so do we. It’s a scary, scary movie that everyone should see. Will it change the minds of people who have already made up their minds? I doubt it because Bush backers won’t believe a word of it and the rest of us will want to believe all of it.

What it is out to do is get to the fence-sitters. The ones who have no clue which way to vote this year. A buddy of mine saw the film in the middle of Jeb Country down in Florida. On his way out he overheard a 16 or 17 year old kid saying, “Man, I can’t WAIT to register to vote.” THAT is what this movie is meant to do. It’s meant to make people passionate. One way or the other Americans need to be made to feel. And if a movie makes them do that, so be it. At least it’s not thousands of people dying.

There are scenes with the troops in Iraq that are hard to watch because they are so graphic. There are scenes with a mother in Flint, Michigan who lost her son in Iraq that are hard to watch because they are so heartbreaking. There’s a scene with a mother in Iraq who lost her son that is hard to watch because it’s so condemning. (“God, take their houses! Why would they do this?!”)

The real question, of course, is how much of this is all true and how much is a fabricated set-up (as one woman in the film actually accuses the woman who lost her son of being)?

Well, that’s hard to say. I know Mike doctors and manipulates his footage to make a point. (Take the scene in Bowling For Columbine where he gets the gun from the bank, for instance. It actually took them a week to give him the gun. But, really it doesn’t matter how long it took. What matters is that HE GOT A FUCKING GUN FROM A BANK! That’s the insane thing that needs to change immediately.) But is he any different from any other documentary filmmaker? All documentaries (and, indeed, all films) are propaganda and they have a point of view and an agenda. One of the greatest docs in history, The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris, had an agenda. Morris believed that his subject was innocent of the crimes he was convicted of, so he made a film that eventually made the courts open the case back up. So, don’t damn Michael Moore for making a film that shows his agenda. Damn people who are making films that have NO fucking point of view.

Now, we all know that Bush and the bin Laden’s have a connection. The two families have been friends and associates for decades. The bin Laden’s actually helped to bail Dumbya out of a few problems back in the day.

What is a little shakier is the bin Laden/Hussein connection that Bush and Co. have been trying to get by with lately. Now we are finally told exactly why we are fighting these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s not because there be terrorists there. It’s because of an oil pipe that Haliburton (I believe) wants to bury right through the middle of both of these countries.

This is what this film is against. Mike hates Bush and it’s becoming personal. I can respect that. Two things that Mike obviously loves are our troops and the USA. He loves the fact that he can say anything about our fearless dumbass and not be arrested. He loves the fact that we are free. And he loves the fact that we have troops who are willing to lay down their lives for that freedom.

What he doesn’t like (besides Bush) is the fact that someone sent those troops into harms way based on a lie. This film is NEVER anti-troop. It is only anti-Bush.

He also hates the fact that Iraq and Afghanistan have taken the brunt of the blame for 9/11. Bush has used the deaths of 3000 people to go to war and he’s not even after the right people. The real “right” people are, of course, the Saudis. But, since they control about 7% of our economy, we can’t go after them. They aid and abet terrorists. Some of their royals ARE terrorists. They control our oil/economy. But we went after Iraq. Of course. ‘Cause they tried to kill Bush, Sr.

One big problem a lot of people have had with this film is the fact that it shows a lot of kids playing and having a great time in Saddam’s Iraq, but it never shows Saddam being the asshole that we all know him to really be. Well, I’ve seen enough of that without needing to be told it again. We all know (even Mike knows) that he’s fucking insane right in the gallbladder. What we don’t know is that there are kids in Iraq. Kids who died because of our bombs. Kids who will never grow up because of our tax money. THAT is what Mike is trying to show us.

There are better ways of getting evil men out of power. Bombing half the country is NOT one of them.

True enough, these two films don’t really seem to have much in common on the surface. But in a way they do. They are both improbably insane hits and they are both about unsung heroes who are doing their best to stop evil men from doing evil things. Some think of both men as heroes, some think of both men as nuisances. I think of both of them as flawed men who have nothing but good intentions in their hearts.

They are also both very emotional films. All through Spider-Man I wanted to be Peter’s buddy and help him through his turmoils and all through Fahrenheit 9/11 I wanted to hit somebody. But that, I guess, is the power of film. Thank Hitchcock for that.