August 20, 2012

Of movies.

Instead of combining this post and the last one I decided to keep it simple and separate so as not to venture into the realm of painfully long posts that not even I can skim over.

On Saturday night I saw The Amazing Spider-Man in IMAX. Having seen the other Spider-Man movies I was expecting very little although I wanted to see the movie in theaters for two reasons. The first reason was that I enjoy watching movies. Period. With our museum IMAX passes we can watch feature films in IMAX for only $4 each. It's a really good deal.

The second reason I wanted to see the movie is that I just love superheroes. I've never read comic books about them or anything (my tastes were strictly Riverdale-related growing up) but I loved the shows as a kid. I watched the original Batman show as well as the cartoon and all the movies. I watched the original Spider-Man cartoon along with the newer versions that followed. I watched X-Men cartoons sometimes, too, and love the movies; I have them all except for the latest one. I never saw The Green Lantern or the latest incarnation of The Hulk but I always watch the ones with the heroes I grew up with. I even tried to watch the latest Superman movie but I don't think I could handle it. I really liked Lois and Clark growing up but for some reason that didn't translate well into watching recent Superman movies (I watched the old ones when I was younger) but maybe I should give it a try.

My point is, I love superheroes and wanted to see what they thought they could do with Spider-Man a few short years after subjecting us all to the pain that was the last Spider-Man trilogy. Clearly they thought they had something special going on. Okay, I'll admit that I also really like Emma Stone so I wanted to see her in it.

I was so pleasantly surprised with what I saw on Saturday night. The Amazing Spider-Man was actually really good. It had some genuinely funny moments where I laughed louder than is strictly movie theater appropriate (I think it's an aging thing) and some excellent awkward moments that will probably go down in history as the most awkward yet successful encounter between two people on screen. Not only that, there was a really and truly beautiful moment towards the end where (miniature spoiler alert here) the crane operators of New York got together to help Spider-Man succeed. If I hadn't been silently laughing so hard I might have cried.

All I could think after the movie was, "Tobey who?" because Andrew Garfield did such a good job. Now all I can think of is, "Why would you spell Toby with an e?" after reading that last sentence. I highly recommend you watch The Amazing Spider-Man even if it is a little cheesy because it will redeem Spider-Man movies for you in the long run. And after rereading that last sentence all I can think is, "Why is Spider-Man hyphenated when no other superhero's name is?" Deep thoughts are happening, let me tell you.

Now, the IMAX is also going to be showing The Dark Knight Rises pretty soon so there was, naturally, a preview for it before Spider-Man. I decided that I'd rewatch the other two movies in the trilogy because I honestly don't remember much. Initially I'd found Batman Begins to be a little too dark for my tastes and not really enjoyed it. I don't remember thinking anything at all after The Dark Knight aside from how shocked I was that the joker was actually played by Heath Ledger. Makeup is incredible.

Last night I took the superhero dive and rewatched Batman Begins. I enjoyed it more this time for sure, but I'm still not seeing all the hype. I'd rather watch Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield be awkward around each other again. I guess I'm just a sucker for happier endings. Either way, if I can find the time I'm planning on watching The Dark Knight sometime this week to be fully caught up. There could definitely be worse themes in my movie choices this week than superheroes. 

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