Category Archives: Superheroes

The 2013 Movie Anticipatometer

Last year I invented the Anticipatometer, a method of anticipation-measuring that involves a third-party shouting various movie titles at me while I bounce on a trampoline. A fourth-party then measures the seismic readings of my “leaps for joy”, then feeds that data to a physician who adjusts the measurements according to my size, weight and body mass index. The properties are then ranked accordingly.

Looking back on the 2012 results, there were some instances where my anticipatory leaps became mournful hops of regret (Prometheus, American Reunion) and others where I continued to leap for joy upon exiting the cinema (The Avengers, Django Unchained). The rest were pretty good and were worth the wait – except maybe GI Joe (I quite enjoyed it, but the wait outweighed its merits).

What’s interesting is that only one movie from the list (The Avengers) made it into my 2012 Top Ten at the end of the year (although Django would have made it had it not been released here in January). This could indicate that sometimes too much hype can kill a movie or that there were a lot of surprises in 2012 or just that the movies I get excited about are rarely the best ones.

Here are the ten movies I’m most leaping for throughout the rest of 2013 (could not for the life of me find a still for Gravity):

The 2013 Movie Anticipatometer

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Some thoughts on The Amazing Spiderman

Amazing Spiderman review thoughts

To be clear, this is not “my thoughts on the film”, these are “some thoughts I had during the film.” Very different things, I think you’ll agree.

Also, spoilers, kinda

- Web shooters are cool
- Andrew Garfield is a better Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire
- Martin Sheen is a better Uncle Ben than both this guy and this guy
- Emma Stone is far less annoying than Kirsten Dunst
- The Lizard look like the goombas from the Super Mario Bros movie
- Why would a high school intern have unrestricted access to a lab that includes a terrorist-friendly, potentially-city-wide-lethal gassing device?
- Why do they keep that same device lying around when Connors says they don’t even use it or need it?
- How easy is it to whip up anti-lizard antitode? Is that already a preloaded option or something?
- Where’s JJJ?
- Who uses Bing?
- Who leaves voicemails that read like state of the nation addresses?
- If you have to do a post-credits sequence, make it something people would actually give a shit about

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The Avengers: Too many superheroes improve the broth

So it’s now a fact. Spiderman 3 had no excuse for being so bad. The “too many villains” angle was a criticism frequently levelled at Raimi’s third spider-flick. And yes, there were too many villains, there was too much going on, but no, that’s not why Spiderman 3 was so bad. Spiderman 3 was so bad because it didn’t blend all its ingredients together properly. What we got was too many disparate elements, carelessly juggled onto a page and then thrown together for a finale as if it would make up for the previous 90 minutes of messy neglect. A smoothie, if you will, whose ingredients were all blended separately and then tossed together in a mixing jug of disappointment, resulting in them all sitting flat on top of one another.

On the other hand, The Avengers is the exact kind of smoothie you would want to drink and proves that you can have too many ingredients and still make it taste delicious. I promise I will now stop talking about Spiderman 3 and smoothies. Continue reading

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This is Cool: If Pixar Made Iron Man

iron man pixar

I love both Pixar and Iron Man, so would absolutely love to see this happen.

It was created by digital artist Victor Hugo and brought to my attention by Tony Reilly of the DSB.

Zoom in on the full image for a cool Portal reference.

Matthew Vaughn will direct X-Men: First Class: Year Two: Semester One

James McAvoy X Men First Class

Here’s the full story at The Guardian.

I, for one, am mostly pleased. I like Vaughn and really liked First Class. But I”m not quite sure if this really needs a sequel. It might have worked better as a standalone entry in the series. This is not a popular opinion, but personally I would have liked for them to continue the X-Men Origins line of thinking, and give some of the more interesting characters in the X-Men universe a platform.

X-Men Origins Wolverine is a guilty pleasure of mine and these films could still benefit from the period setting. Each one could focus on a different period. Gambit’s origin could be set in New Orleans in the 70s, which could be very cool. The only problem is that there aren’t enough bankable characters with mainstream appeal for the studios to take a risk on. I’m still holding out for that Deadpool movie though.

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Rewatching: Spiderman (2002)

spiderman movie 2002

Spiderman. You probably don't remember it. It's from years ago. They're turning it into a movie now, it'll be out this summer.

With Spiderman being shamelessly rebooted this year, I decided to go back and watch the original. It holds up really well.

It has a nice amount of Sam Raimi’s distinctive directing style, very solid effects and a spot-on comic book tone. Tobey Maguire was great casting as Peter Parker, James Franco was good as the betrayed-to-be best friend. Kirsten Dunst was a bit of a sap, but that’s just the character really.

The major problem  is the dialogue , which was cringey bad a lot of the time. It’s easy to say “oh, it’s a comic book movie, the  dialogue is supposed to be corny.” Yes, maybe 50 years ago, but the graphic novel medium has come a long way, thanks to the likes of Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, and Alan Moore. Comic book does not have to mean naff. Continue reading

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