Blank Check with Griffin & David - Spider-Man 3 with Jamelle Bouie

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

If “Spider-Man 2” had the reputation of being the greatest superhero movie of all time, “Spider-Man 3” had the inverse - a bloated mess with too many villains, and a very goofy Peter Parker going to the darkside, if by “darkside” you mean a trip to Men’s Warehouse and Hot Topic. But is that reputation justified? We’re gonna air on the side of…not REALLY. Notable Spidey 3 defender Jamelle Bouie (The New York Times, his podcast “Clear and Present Danger”) returns to Blank Check to praise this film’s focus on interpersonal relationships and quiet character moments. What else do we like? Griffin likes the “Editor’s Cut” (on Amazon Prime!). Ben *obviously* loves The Sandman. We all can agree that the much-memed sidewalk strut and jazz club sequences are a ton of fun. What doesn’t work? Let’s just say we have some issues with a lil guy named VENOM. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

you know i guess one podcast really can make a difference. Okay. Enough said. That's what you wanted to do. I wanted to. I was debating a couple things. Okay. There's this whole monologue at the opening, because I did that for...

I know, but it feels very strange that there's... Yeah, that he comes back to that for this. Yeah. Well, it happens at the beginning of two as well. Does it? Yeah. Yeah. But the one here is not

it's me peter parker your friendly neighborhood you know i've come a long way since i was the boy bit by a spider back then nothing seemed to go right for me now people really like me the city is safe and sound guess i had a little something to do with that my uncle ben would be proud i still go to school. Wait, you're just doing the moment. Stop it. I don't want you to do that. With the podcast of my dreams. Shut up. That is a moment where I remember just seeing this in theaters, opening

day, not Times Square, Lincoln Square, IMAX. IMAX. Took my sister. What, she must have been like nine at this point. Eight or nine, yeah. Yeah, these movies are a big thing that we shared. We're both wearing Spider-Man t-shirts. Everyone's fucking amped. And that monologue starts.

I'm like, this is going on a little too long. Like it was just one of those immediate moments of like. A little slight deflation. Just a little slight deflation. Just going, okay, I'll grant him this. Today we are talking about Spider-Man 3. Spider-Man 3? Spider-Man 3.

The Battle Within. The Battle Within? That was the tagline. The Battle? Spider-Man 3. The Battle Within. The Battle Within? That was the tagline. The Battle Within begins? I just see the Battle Within. I go, well, maybe there was a, uh-huh, right. Yeah.

I mean, I remember the iconic drop of the first poster, this one. Right. Where it was like, wait, is this in black and white? Or is, wait, what? That was the thing.

The poster came in and everyone went, oh, moody. And then Sony went, was the thing. The poster came in and everyone went, oh, Moody. And then Sony went, by the way, that poster's in color. Yes, I remember that. Ain't it cool? Exploded.

Yes. We're here to talk about Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3. See it in IMAX, Griffin. You did. I did. The end of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. Yes.

Almost unintentionally. Well, that's what's weird, is I think everyone viewed it at the time as like, he's going to finish the Spider-Man trilogy. And then very shortly afterwards, it became clear that he was like, I want to keep making these. Especially after this one,

I really want to keep making them. I don't think I ever thought of this as the conclusion to a trilogy. It doesn't feel like one. It's maybe the conclusion of the Harry Osborn. That's the thing that made it feel like a conclusion, and I think Maguire's salary was going... But it's not a conclusion

to Spider-Man's story in the slightest. No. No. Not that there needs to be a conclusion to the story. No, I do like the messiness of the ending. It's a conclusion of the Harry Osborn arc, absolutely. I think, you know, we just did the Batman Forever commentary yesterday for Patreon.

Absolutely. And we were talking about that's the last moment when the idea of these franchises, maybe you just treat them like James Bond and you never have to hit the reset button.

Right. If you lose cast members, Fine, bring someone else in. Whatever. Who cares? You keep the same supporting cast, you dump characters off at the side,

who gives a shit? There's a new girlfriend every time. Which I will say, I think there's a lot to be said for that approach. Absolutely. I think there's a lot to be said for sort of not being so precious about this stuff

because the alternate thing is that you do have to start being like okay well so there's a multiverse because it's the only way you can deal with a 30 entry series right that has to maintain continuity right you have to be like uh yeah well sure that guy died but he needs to come back so uh we're gonna pull him out of this dimension or whatever. There's that thing of like, you know, Judi Dench signs a five-movie deal. They get rid of Pierce Brosnan three movies in. They're like, well, we just keep her.

And here's a new franchise, a new start, a reset with the beginning of his career. And everyone went, look, this seems to confirm this fan theory that was long held that James Bond is a title. It is not a proper name. It goes along with 007. All of these guys are different people.

And then Skyfall actually goes out of its way to show like the gravestone of his parents and be like Mary and Fred Bond. Are those the actual names or could it be anything, you know, like Janice andma Bond. It could be anything, you know? Right. Janice and Rogers Bond. But for how much, like, the Craig series is so much more trying to play the game of tight chronology and serialized storytelling and everything, it still remains the only franchise that is just like, we just move along. Yeah. I admire that. I like that.

I do, too. I like that. I like that. I do too. I like that. And I think it is now hard to remember, as insane as this is to say, even just a little over a decade later, how insane it felt when the announcement came out, Sony is hitting the big red button, they're sending Peter Parker back to high school, they're restarting the entire cycle.

You're right. It was insane at the time time now it might even feel less insane just because we're so used to all this stuff but i do remember the time the thing i'm like 10 years is not long enough to be presenting me with a new spider-man no and like three years from when the last one came out right and they had a release date for four announced it comes out five years after it comes out right where years, right, where they announced it. But I think it was two or three years after. And the headline was, Peter Parker is going back to high school.

And we're all like, phew! The thing they were centralizing was, we feel like he's best as a teenager. We got out of high school too quickly in the Raimi trilogy. Do you read comics, Jamel? I do read comics, yeah. Do you remember, I'm sorry, introduce her, show her our guests and then I have a question for Jamal about all this. Absolutely. This is a podcast

called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Good job there. You did, it was very, it was so fast

I almost couldn't hear it. Right, right, right. Like it was a Doppler effect. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers

and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby.

Sometimes they swing also. This is a miniseries on the films of Sam Raimi. It's called Podcast Me to Hell and today we're talking about what inarguably has to be viewed

as his biggest bounce. I think so. Within the cultural legacy of his career. And it's probably the thing that the film that's the most interesting in the arc of his career if you're talking about the external arc of his career. Right it's probably the thing, the film that's the most interesting in the arc of his career,

if you're talking about the external arc of his career. Right. And a movie that he has openly talked about kind of breaking him. Not being able to get over, sure. Right. The reception to it.

Right. It's called Spiderman 3, as we said. Our guest today is one of the smartest men on the planet, Jamal Bowie of the New York Times and Unclear and Present Danger, who, I just want to say, one of the...

It's either on the Reddit or some message board thread that I saw when we announced Raimi people go holy shit does this mean we're finally going to get Jamel's Spider-Man 3 is good tape I think you've you know but this was the thing you put out on the internet tweeted anything about this miniseries but people just put the threads together and they said, I know there's this Jamel Bowie Spider-Man 3 is actually good take that exists in the ether that has never been fully unpacked. This podcast seems to finally be providing the perfect landing place

for that. Now, David has always contended that he hates this movie. That's not true. Not hate, but don't like. I don't like it. I've always been like, I think there's good stuff in it. I think that movie gets kind of a bad rap. I certainly don't think it works, but I think there's really good

stuff in it that I like, and I prefer it to most superhero movies. Even more coherent, tighter. I would always give you that in any debate where I'm like, obviously it's a true original versus what the genre's become. I just do think over the years I've had to push more on. I don't like it. I don't like it.

You have always taken the stance of, this movie's good. I think it's a good movie. Yeah. I think that it is obviously not, it does not compare to Spider-Man 2, but what does, right? Spider-Man 2 is, I think, still sort of like the great height of this entire genre. I totally agree.

Pretty much. Yep. But I think having watched, before we're speaking, I watched all these sort of night after night, back to back. And when you watch Spider-Man 3, like two days after watching the first Spider-Man, the drop-off in quality isn't really that,

it's not really there. I mean, there are parts. I don't agree with that. There are parts of Spider-Man 3 which do not work. And I will acknowledge that. But I think overall, taking this entire package, I think it's a good movie. I finished watching it last night and I said, I had a good time with this.

I go 2-1-3 with quite a gulf. I feel like that's the popular ranking, right? Right, sure. But I do think the drop off is, as you said, less severe than it was in my mind's eye. I think time has been a little kind to this movie. It has.

In ways that now we are so warped by what superhero movies are that this film feels oddly quaint. For a movie that was like the epitome of overstock. Bloat! Too many villains! Too much going on. I think one of the things that renders it um quaint is that and we were just talking about the the garfield angie garfield mark webb spider-man movies mark webb and uh amazing spider-man 2 is also overstuffed but not just with villains and characters but with lore yes it's sort of like it's a way down by having to explain that movie feels desperate

right right and it's trying very quickly it's sort of like what batman versus superman does as well where they're just like uh let's play some videos aquaman the flight you know like we're just like we need to lay some track for all the shit we gotta do but amazing spider-man 2 is both trying to like course correct for what people didn't like about amazing spider-man 1 and continue the threads that they didn't really successfully and set up seven side movies and kind of go back to rainy vibes. But Spider-Man 3,

it's overstuffed in the sense that there's one too many villains. But generally speaking, this is a pretty small scale story, right? Like the previous two movies, this is a movie about Peter Parker,er mary jane watson and harry osborn yep and i think the fact that it is still very focused on these three characters and their relationships is what makes it work huge asset and what makes it stand out even in comparison to the mcu this is my whole thing. So I was always just like, look, as the way I was

putting it to David, you know, I think I rewatched this maybe like two or three years ago. And then last night I watched the editor's cut, which have you ever seen? I've not seen. Okay. So I have some things to say about that as well. But my defense of it was sort of like, it's like a lesser Vincent Minnelli or Stanley Donen musical. It's like watching a kind of perfunctory MGM musical from the golden age that doesn't really hang together. But like the fucking sequences that work are still just so bravura and well made that I greatly prefer that to anything else. And it's got charm and it's got style and all that sort of stuff. But watching it this time, I was just taken by.

And let's just say, David, we saw Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness last night. We did. I literally did a back-to-back Sam Raimi double feature. Sure. Of Superhero Sequel. Did I just the other way around?

Yeah. And it is, like, kind of astonishing comparison to watch this movie for as much as the fundamental problem of it is Venom, New Goblin, and Sandman are three different movies and they never figure out how to

collate them into one story, the fundamental thread is incredibly clear and straightforward, which is just the Harry, Peter, Mary Jane thing. And I like that I can just fucking hang on to that. What was the question you were going to ask, Jamel? I was going to ask Jamel if he remembered Brand New Day.

One More Day, Brand New Day. Yeah. Which was the comic book version. Hated it.el. I was going to ask Jamel if he remembered Brand New Day. One more day, Brand New Day. Yeah. Which was the comic book version. Huh? Hated it. Right. Which was the comic book version of what you're talking about, though, where they were like,

Spider-Man, there's just not something working about this. And it's a common writer complaint, I think, going back way, because that was the Clone Saga was kind of about that, too. Where it's like, can we uncouple him from Mary Jane? She's not an interesting character their marriage is not interesting he's become a stagnant character and they would clone saga was they were like what if we do this and someone else becomes peter park and someone else spider-man and fans were like no all right sorry ultimate spider-man is huge which for those who don't know it was like

in between x-men and the first Spider-Man movie, Marvel goes, we need to have a comic book on shelves that has, like, clean continuity, is an entry point. And he's not fucking married to Mary Jane. For both X-Men and Spider-Man works, like, let's have this basically resemble the status quo of the movies that they're gonna see.

And then those are huge. Those are huge. And those are good. The Bendis Ultimate Spider-Man run is very good. Right. And then Raimi is so focused on the love story thing that I think there has to be some element of him chasing a girl. That's working in Ultimate. It's working in the movies. And in Amazing, he's a happily married school teacher. Right, right.

And so, one more day is this preposterous way from the break. Do you remember enjoying that, hating that? Because I definitely did not like that. I did not like it. Mephisto steals their marriage as a price for saving Aunt May's life. Ben, the premise here is that Aunt May is going to die and Spider-Man's like, give her one more day.

And Mephisto, who's essentially Marvel's Satan, is like, I'll keep your elderly, probably close to death anyway, 80-something, alive. If you let me rewrite the timeline so that you were never married to fucking mary jane and you don't know peter parker's like why and he's like i just love your marriage it doesn't really make sense so convoluted right a weird thing in marvel lore is that basically all gods and mythology right true if it's all real

it's all real it's like yeah you heard of norse gods they live on a planet somewhere you heard of Norse gods. They live on a planet somewhere. You heard of Mephisto. Yeah, he's a guy. He's got like fire hair and a tall collar. He sits on a bone throne. Right. Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. Damn.

He's legit. Yeah. Oh, fuck. But he's no good. He's no good. You don't want to get tangled up with him. Yeah, but he's just like, I love you being single. And they're like, why?

And they're like, because Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada thinks it's more relatable to young readers. It's funny. A couple years later, they did another, I guess not a couple, four or five years later, they did another kind of big reboot that worked much better

and that was the Superior Spider-Man. Yes. Where Dr. Octopus is put into his body. Right. A thing that on its face, people were like, this is fucking horrible. People were initially horrified.

Right. But it really does work because it shakes up the status quo. And it's about like, what is heroic about spider right it's very similar to um stark deconstructed but just like one of my favorite iron man arcs which ben if you don't know the premise of this one it is um it's someone it's like someone is stealing the iron man technology as often happens and so what as man is want to do as what tony stark does is he basically sort of like he goes from place to place, not just deleting information, deleting the part of his mind that contains it. And so.

Like eternal sun shining. He's literally deconstructing his mind over time. And the whole story is like what, what actually makes Tony Stark, Tony Stark, what makes Iron Man, Iron Man. And it's a really smart like take on the character comic books those are always the best comic books fucking and is the comic interior of his mind kind of it's both it's both yeah okay that sounds really interesting but that's always like the best I I feel like so often the best uh superhero arcs the ones that linger with us are the ones where a writer comes in

with a radical idea to just go like, I want to answer the fundamental question, who is this guy and what makes them special? Batman R.I.P. Yes. These are all kind of actually concurrent. They're all kind of happening at the same time. Right, it's all mid-2000s.

And like, I would argue all the best superhero movies try to do that same thing. Like, they treat it like an outside-the-box arc where it's like, we have to fundamentally test this character and why they are this person and why they do this and and all of that i will say as someone who only really kind of casually read comics the continuity thing was such like i was like where where is this story what's happening it's so hard to get into it ben the ultimate thing was they were like, you can buy a comic book.

It's called Ultimate Spider-Man, issue number one. It takes place in the year 2000. Peter Parker's in high school. He gets bitten by a bug. And the whole point was like, you can go to the shelves. But what happened to them? What happened is, over five years,

eventually it became just as convoluted. Right. They had to start undoing things because it was the exact same thing. They just build up continuity. And now they've just done that with the movie franchise. And then guess what happens? They were like, alright, forget the Ultimate thing, but then Ultimate Spider-Man can go live in the regular world. They only

made it more complicated at the end of the day. They started smushing everything together. But yes, Ben, that is exactly what happened with the movies, where they made the movies a clean entry point, and now the movies are constantly playing this gambit of like, is this going to make sense if I haven't seen the 27 other things? Do I need to have watched

the entire show? And so far it continues to work for them. Yeah. But I do wonder if there will be that point that has happened in every wave of comics

where it just goes like this is impossible to enter into or if streaming services essentially have negated that being an issue. If like viewer habits and just the fact that now all of it is just on one site makes it so that people go like,

my project for the years, I'm just going to watch all of this and catch up. I think it will continue to work as long as the writers and creators and everyone remembers that the lore isn't the point. Yes. Right. Like as soon as you, this was sort of, I mean, the DC stuff is much more, you. Right? Like, as soon as you... This was sort of...

I mean, the DC stuff is much more, you know, there's not as much of it, but this was the essential problem with all of that. It was like the lore was the point. It was sort of like, it was all about, you know, what was the backstory? How are these things connected or whatnot? But if you can just tell a straightforward story

and, like, drop some sprinkles to other things for people to kind of grab onto if they care that that means it can it's fine look

when people want to ding Feige for this being done in a way that feels a little bit vacuous or sort of like insincere or whatever

you can but it is it remains the superpower of those movies and their like hold on the culture is that they keep focused on

let's make these characters charming to people. Let's isolate what the characteristics they like are, what's funny about this actor, give actors good showcases that let them show their personality and build up relationships and all that sort of shit. Spider-Man 3.

Spider-Man 3. Which came out in 2007. It's written by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and Alvin Sargent. Yeah. It's about Spider-Man. A 15-year-Man 3. Which came out in 2007. It's written by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and Alvin Sargent. Yeah. It's about Spider-Man. A 15-year-old movie. It's a 15-year-old movie. That's right. And we've had 15 years old

this May. Six movies in that time with Spider-Man in the title. Tomorrow. 15 years old tomorrow. 15 years old tomorrow. Has it been six? Six. You have two Garfields, three Hollands, and Into the Spider-Verse. Six solo Spider-Man movies in the 15 years since this. With people like this guy.

Three different characters. I'll say, I mean, of those six movies. Three different portrayals, yeah. Spider-Verse really feels like the only thing that's done something genuinely exciting. Yep. I would agree with that. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like you say, six movies, but then also Tom Holland plays Spider-Man in an additional three movies. Right. And we have two more Spider-Verses on the way. Two more Spider-Verses on the way, and no doubt there will be more Tom Hollands on the way. Yeah. And of course, recently we met an MD

by the name of Michael Morbius. I hope this guy doesn't make house calls. I hear he's a living vampire. This is the thing with this guy. He ain't dead! You can check his pulse and you'll hear it. All right. Tap, tap.

And we met Venom. We did meet Venom. And we met Carnage. Vulture. Well, Vulture's around. Let there be Carnage. We let there. We did in fact let it.

We let Carnage be there. That's why I'm not. Truly, I feel like... That's why you have to vote. That's why you have to vote. We're letting there be Carnage feel like... That's why you have to vote. We're letting there be carnage right now. That's why you have to vote. A very cynical joke by me. But in Spider-Man 3, there had only been two other Spider-Man movies

and that was it. Yep. And so the plot is that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Mary Jane Watson knows that he is Spider-Man and they are together. Yeah. She's an actress of sort of slightly amorphous fame. i'm not really like is she broadway star is she a nobody like look here's what i would equate her to i would almost say she's at like a tovey gevinson level or like tovey like 10 years ago where you're like here's someone

who's kind of famous and then they're doing broadway shows and people are doubting them and they're quitting themselves slightly better than people imagined they're not maybe known by the public at large. Right. I'm just going to try and very quickly do the plot of this movie. Like, just what the setup of this movie is. Good luck. Right. Spider-Man is Spider-Man. He is Spider-Man. People like him. It's going great. He's on an upswing.

People are losing their minds about Spider-Man. Which is maybe the reason why the second the movie starts, I was like, this feels wrong. It does feel wrong. Spider-Man should never be popular. Right. He should always be kind of like one step behind. Yeah. And he is greeted with three problems that kind of just come at him in a sort of like do do do do do do.

Like they never really unite. But three villains. Yes. His old buddy Harry Osborn. When all three villains are on screen at the same time. They never really chat to each other. They never feel like they're in the same film. It is. I mean, I guess we'll get to it, David, but I have to say, I mean,

one of the villains, Venom, is literally introduced via a meteor that comes into frame, disconnected from everything happening in the movie. It just happens to happen. It's almost like a producer just kind of lobbed it from on screen and it landed on the script. This movie, look, it absolutely has

a lot of coincidences, strong coincidences that need to line up for anything to happen. Sure. And so rather than, you know, character action. Right. So there's the villain we would all expect. Harry has decided to become a new Green Goblin. The new Goblin. He's the new Goblin. He's got kind of. He's avenging him. Yeah.

Right. He's got kind of a not a major glider, more of a sort of snowboard glider. Wasn't there a character called Hobgoblin? There was They never do Hobgoblin Is he connected to Yeah It's them trying to repeat the original mystery of Green Goblin

Because when Green Goblin was introduced Part of it was like who is the Green Goblin? And so Hobgoblin It was a lot of like who could this be? Hobgoblin's like a copycat. He was a copycat. He was like 80% more pumpkin-y. He was like the same thing

with more pumpkin-y. I was like, kind of almost like, wait, might I get some fucking pumpkins? But then there's also, what's his name? Mad Jack?

Yeah, there were so many Goblin-y guys. all fucking pumpkin-y. Right. Pumpkin for a head. Like, he's fucking,

like a skeleton. It's a great choice on this part. But Harry became a Green Goblin, too. Right. He's Green Goblin. And then there's Demo Goblin. Goblin Jr. As Peter Gossam.

He becomes Demo Goblin or became one of the other fucking goblins. I don't know. There were a lot of goblins. But canonically in the comics, when Harry becomes the goblin, he is the new Green Goblin. Right.

He's not the new goblin. He puts on the fucking... He takes the mantle on. Yeah. So he doesn't re... We got Harry goblin. He is the new green goblin. Right. He's not the new goblin. He puts on the fucking. He takes the mantle on. Yeah. So he doesn't read. We got Harry Goblin. Harry Goblin. Harry Goblin.

We've got the Sandman. Who, of course, is not just a man of sand. But it turns out is the murderer of Uncle Ben. Uh-huh. And then later in the movie, we have Eddie Brock. Yes. The rival photographer who later in the movie becomes Venom. Yeah.

So those are three things that are happening. And they're like... Kind of in parallel. Yes, they are kind of three complete attempts at, in microcosm... Three columns. Three silos.

Here's what their deal is. Here's how they relate to Peter Parker's journey. And this is the arc that they have with each other. Right. It's like three complete movies that are all smushed together. And I think you could have, if you took out Venom, I think you'd have a movie that works better. If you took out Sandman, I think you'd have a movie that works better. I think two out of three they could have pulled off.

I think you can pull off two of those villains in part because they all, I mean, they all have like thematic resonance. Like they're not just, it's not just a villain for the sake of a villain necessarily. Like Eddie Brock is sort of what if Peter Parker were even a bigger shit. Right. And like, how would that manifest itself? The Harry stuff is self-explanatory and Sandman is sort of like, you know,

offers an opportunity for what you saw in Spider-Man two, which is a villain conflict that's resolved, not by Peterer beating the shit out of someone right but by something internal to him relating to the overcoming a thing about himself this is the whole thing they are very similar are right because dr octopus is the same where it's like what does he want to do he wants to like rob a bank you know it doesn't really matter what he wants it's all about he needs to overcome or he needs to reach the conclusion of this internal arc that he is going through. I think all three of these things

in Microcosm work on paper. And I think any one of these three options is valid as an approach for what you do for Spider-Man 3. And it's fine to have two villains. I think two would have worked. I also think if it had been one, and even if the one he did was

Aviarod forcing Venom on him or Sony forcing Goblin on him rather than Sandman which is clearly the one he wants to do the most I think if it was just focused on one of them he could have completely nailed this yeah even the Venom movie I think if actually given space although it's the one he clearly

wants to do the least yeah it is I think there's something there that he could have made work. I think when you get to like a meteor falls from the sky and happens to land on his bike and then follows him back to his apartment,

like all the things in the movie that are totally weird and slapdash and Russian whatever come from them just being like, how do we do all of these at the same time? Just fucking,

just grant us this shortcut. And the movie takes so many shortcuts that by the end, you're just kind of like. You can very easily imagine, right, like a Venom centric movie that kind of carries on with mary jane's uh former fiancee right who is who is an astronaut so that gives you that he's man wolf come on now he's now if they'd done man wolf yeah sorry go on no and i think there's i think there's a venom not

just what you're saying about him being a little bit of a ship but the the frank grimes of it i think is a little interesting. These first two movies have presented Peter Parker as being such a sad sack. And so bottom of the barrel, everything's so hard for him. And to have someone show up who's like, nothing works for me.

I didn't get bit by a fucking spider. The girl doesn't end up with me. Like the thing I like the most in the Eddie Brock plotline in this is that he and Gwen never really have a relationship. And he's just like, no, she's going to come around to me. I like that, but it also makes no sense and is sort of baffling from...

In execution... Right, in execution it just feels like... But I think you could do the whole Grimes-y... Right. Real quick, David. You want to ask something about the Eddie Brock arc? So, the thing that really breaks Eddie Brock is that he plagiarizes a photo

and Peter Parker catches him and, like, kind of... Which is the sort of classic comic book origin story for him, right? Would you have ratted out Brock? Watching it now, like, 12 years into being a journalist? Two journalists. Fuck that guy. Yeah, 100%. And he's, like, 12 years into being a journalist, I'm like, yeah, fuck that guy. Yeah, 100%. And he's, like, so craven. And, like, it's also...

Craven de summer de summer. Hello! Hello! The biggest game of all is in Central Park! No, I really wish they had done Craven. I know Remy wanted to do him. Eddie Brock doesn't make a lot of sense in this movie in any way. Right.

Like, but it's what you're talking about where he shows up and he's like, I'm pretty cool. Like, you know, I want a staff job. And he did fate, forges a photo and all that.

And Spider-Man's like, you made this up. He's like, please, man, I got nothing else. I like he immediately, but his,

I don't have any prospects. His entire arc needs to happen in essentially four scenes. That's the problem. When Peter is lean to him, you're like, Peter is honestly almost doing, even if Peter wasn't a dick after this, he's doing J. Jonah Jameson a favor here.

It's like, this guy is so bad that he immediately resorted to this. But that's why I bring up the Frank Grimes thing, because I just think there could be a thing where there's like, death by a thousand paper cuts. He continues to embarrass this guy leading up to the big moment right there's more of a rivalry right look this is the problem as we all know and we will i can get into a little more but i think a lot of people know ramey wanted to do a movie with the sandman yes and harry osborn and avia rod was like sam

the funds demand venom i'm doing a chancel being an accent for an Israeli guy. I don't know why. I'm like, yeah, yeah. Venom is crowbarred in. But then, of course, Venom actually becomes crucial to both the theme of the movie, which is like Peter wrestling with his darker side. To the advertising in the movie, the black suit and everything.

So you're going into this movie being like, alright, okay, this is like a Venom venom movie and then the movie is like so uninterested in that for most of the plot the other thing is for what it's and it doesn't know what to do with venom when he's venom right no all like that is the worst failing he's almost more interesting as eddie brock it uh it's obviously raimi was less resistant to the hairy goblin stuff than the Venom stuff. But the goblin stuff was also sort of

prioritized by Sony. Like, he was like, I want classic villain. But he wanted to finish the, right, the Osborne art. But I think Sony was like, he really needs to like,

we need to fill this. I think a lot of the design elements were like, there were sort of... His design is kind of lazy. But it feels very Sony, like, hip PlayStation 3 kind of like... Right, right. That's what he feels like. Right it feels very Sony-like, hip, PlayStation 3 kind of like.

That's what he feels like. It's not like horrifying, but it does feel, it's funny that. It's not your daddy's goblin. Right, it's funny that the Will Defoe goblin is so poppy and strange. And that the James Franco goblin is just like,

I don't know, he's wearing a ski mask. The vibe I've always gotten is like, Raimi obviously wanted to complete a Harry arc, but in execution, a lot of how New Goblin manifests was Sony Ziskin stuff. And then a rod is all about, there has to be a new suit,

there has to be Venom, you have to do symbiotes. And Raimi's like, I just want to do another like, I want to do another 60s villain who, you know, wants to steal a big bag of money, but he's also got a heart.

That's what Raimi loves. Yes. That's the only thing he cares about. You can see that in the movie, too. There's that scene where Sandman is, before he's the Sandman, is talking with his estranged wife, and it's like quiet domestic scene.

It's like truly out of the 50s crime movie. Right. Where you're like, I know this guy's going to have to go back to jail, but I'm also going to be like, and he's going to be played by Gene Turney or whatever. But the fact that it's Teresa Russell, like transgressive Nicholas Rogue. Gene Turney, what am I talking about? Glenn Ford, not

Gene Turney, sorry. Gene Turney's a woman. Yeah, it is that, look, like we will talk about Doctor Strange soon, right? But Doctor Strange is a movie that has to contend with like five different plot lines. This is why everyone was worried. They were like, Jesus, Raimi was

overwhelmed by one extra villain on three. How's he going to handle the MCU? Right. Now watching that movie, and we will talk about it, there are threads in that movie I care about significantly less than other threads. And when they would cut to them, I'd be like, okay, it's on with it, on with it, on with it. But that movie does feel more cohesive in the sense

that like, it is more successful at weaving them on a. But that movie does feel more cohesive in the sense that like, it is more successful at weaving them on a regular basis that you're not losing track of one. Whereas this movie will focus on like one of the guys and one of those threads and how they mirror Peter Parker for 20 minutes. And then when it cuts back to the other guy, you're like, I forgot that he was in this movie.

And it's like, he exists, he has three separate arcs in different ways relating to each of the three guys. Flint, Marco. Yes, you have the Raimi camp, you have the Sony camp, you have the Marvel camp, and they're all trying to fulfill different things.

And as Raimi puts it, I mean, we're going to just dig into this for a lot of the episode. He has this line I always think about where he said like, the first movie, I couldn't believe they hired me I went in with this pitch I did not think it was

hip or sexy I was not anyone's first choice and I couldn't believe they hired me to make the movie and that they pretty much let me make the movie I had in my head and then the second movie comes around and they let me do even more they gave me even more freedom I felt like I totally understood

what I was doing and it went over even better and I couldn't believe it. And the third movie, everyone said, now wait a second, we have some notes. The third movie, suddenly people said, and he's talked about that it was just like they started doing the calculations of how much was resting upon this movie. And whereas the films had already

been selling toys, been selling soundtracks, been selling fucking everything, DVDs out the wazoo. Suddenly they were like, could we make more? Can we come up with an algorithm to make more? And the analogy he says that I feel like now describes how most of these movies are made. And at the time I was like, that's tragic. Why would anyone put someone in this position? But it's all of these films now. He was like, they essentially, I was like on a helicopter or I was on an airplane and they said, here's your release date. And they handed me a bunch of fabric and a thread and a needle and pushed me out the plane and said, good luck making your own parachute before you hit the ground.

I think it's the disease of more with these things, right? Where it's like they can't just be happy with making hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. This is the thing that I've always struggled to understand. It would have been one thing had Spider-Man 2 been a big flop. But Spider-Man 2... Okay, okay. Hey, buddy. Spider-Man 2 makes like 10%

less than Spider-Man 1, but is beloved. I don't think anyone was complaining of the drop-off. I think especially at that time, sequels always did better than the first movie, by and large. And people were like, yeah, the first one, by and large, and people were like, yeah, the first one was a phenomenon. Right, you mean worse.

Yes, I'm sorry. Sequels usually had a slight drop off. It made pretty much the same amount of money and was beloved and sold a thousand fucking t-shirts and whatever. And even still, they were just like, what more could we be?

Yeah. And I think there was also this thing, Maguire goes from getting like, whatever it was, like $2 million on the first movie. And then for the second movie, it blows up. He is off filming Seabiscuit. His agents come back and they're like, he wants $20 million. And Sony balked and they were like, fuck you. We're going to hire Jake Gyllenhaal.

Or he said, he said, I want 20. They said, we're not giving you 20. And he went, oh, my back, my back hurts. I can't do the movie. They went, we're calling you bluff. We'll hire Jake Gyllenhaal. He said, I want 20. They said, we're not giving you 20. And he went, oh, my back hurts. I can't do the movie. They went, we're calling you bluff. We'll hire Jake Gyllenhaal. They brought Gyllenhaal in for a meeting. And he came back and they were like, we'll do it for 12.5. 17.5.

For two or for three? For this, no. He made less. Really? He made 15 million dollars but 7.5% of the gross. That's the thing. I think the other thing of this movie getting overstuffed... It means that his total gross,

his total earnings on this movie were about $60 million. Insane. Just FYI. Insane. Which is great. Insane. Yeah, it's a good amount of money.

I do think that's part of the manic rush to put as much in this movie as possible. Is there like, are we going to not be able to afford Toby anymore? Yeah.

Is there a point where his deal is going to become so insane? It's like what happened with Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies where they were like, even just the Depp of it all aside, they were like, we can't make these movies

without this guy. And in order to lure him back every time we have to offer him 25% of the gross, like it just becomes unreasonable. Do we want to reset him? At the very least, we want to resolve this fucking Harry, Mary, Jane, Peter stuff while it just becomes unreasonable. Do we want to reset him? At the very least, we want to resolve

this fucking Harry, Mary, Jane, Peter stuff while it's still him. Sam Raimi hated that Spider-Man 3 was announced while they were making Spider-Man 2. Yeah. And he hated that, essentially, there was a target on the calendar.

It's the parachute thing. Yeah. Right. It's like, May 4th, 2007. This thing's got to come out. Now, what is just absurd about that to consider is that Spider-Man 2 comes out

like 24 months after Spider-Man 1. Like, it was a much tighter turnaround, and that movie's immaculate, but I do think that gave them the wrong idea where they were like, we'll figure it out. Yeah. And he was like, I don't know if we have it yet. They were like, don't fucking worry

about it. He sits down with Ivan, and he's like let's break this story so he's very interested in solving the resolving the harry osborn thing very interested in continuing peter and mary's romance obviously but they are kind of like so obviously their fundamental thing is like he's gonna lose his way he'll come back like that's what three will be right like it's gonna he he falls astray he you know right and he comes on back he has to learn that villains are not so simple that he is not so heroic right that's what the sandman arc will be two has ended with him and mary jane

finally getting together and harry finding out the truth about spider-man two things that i remember in the theater watching two felt like they might drag this out for five movies. Which they could. I mean, you could easily imagine a Spider-Man 3 that actually drops the Harry stuff entirely and just leaves it for a fourth movie.

Absolutely. Harry's in the background. Right. He's just sort of like he's gobbling and becoming goblin. I just remember being astonished that they fully just said, here's the status now

going into the third one. Yeah. Do you guys agree with like their whole point? Like, like the whole, his, all his quotes are basically like the most important thing for P to learn is the concept of him as an Avenger,

as a hero, you know, paying, you know, bringing criminals to justice, paying down the debt of guilt about the, the death of uncle Ben. We felt to be a great thing for him to be a little less black and white,

to learn he's not above these people. He's not just the hero and they're not just the villains. But it's the thing that we were talking about of like, what makes Peter Parker

Spider-Man? It's not the suit. It's not the bite. It's the fundamental guy here. What does he need to learn about himself? We're all sinners. None of us are right and wrong.

Can I say something? Yeah. Yes. I don't think... The Sandman shot your uncle dead and he's, he's his killer, but you know, he had,

he had a daughter to feed is a really, really profound way of illustrating that. I think that's a little silly. I agree. I think the thing with uncle Ben is stupid. He shot his fucking uncle. Like this is a, this is a bad idea.

This is about like, it is going to be his character with a lot of pathos without introducing this weird he's tied to the original crime. Sandman is my favorite part of the film, and I also think that is the single worst decision in the entire movie to make him Uncle Ben's killer. I think it can work.

Sure. I think it can work because the problem for Peter then becomes he has established himself as this hero who helps people, and here he's presented with an opportunity for revenge. And so sort of the temptation of revenge is the thing that Peter has to overcome.

And I think it's entirely, I think it as a shortcut, it is a shortcut, but I think it works to just have him be involved in Uncle Ben's killing because it does become justifiable. That's in uncle ben's killing because it it does become justifiable that's what makes it difficult right sure it becomes justifiable for peter to want to sort of like murk this guy i am all in on the revenge aspect of it and i think that being

the right thing to test this character with at this point in the series my problem comes from it sort of invalidates the importance of the sequence in the first movie when he does like the shooter isn't some guy cast in shadow who we don't really see there's like 10 minutes of him interacting with this guy letting him get away the eye contact chasing him down having that moment where he fucking dark man's out on him like all that shit that i think the moment you go, he wasn't really the guy. He was an accomplice. It was this guy. And you wedge another guy in there.

That doesn't work for me. It's like the thing of like, if they could have brought Michael Papa John back and gone like, and then he turns into the Sandman. That's one thing to add a guy who fundamentally was not in the first movie. It rings weird for me especially when the thing you're doing is like the guy that peter had the interaction with did everything up until the point where he essentially passed a gun thomas hayden church and then thomas hayden church did the one thing right right um it's also he's taking this character sandman

from marvel from spider-man's rogues gallery the classic Dicko Rhodes gallery who has no backstory correct the Sandman's backstories he's a dude who turns into sand that's it right who's like hey Spider-Man eat some sand like that's all he doesn't have any motivation no no you're sort of layering this onto this to make a sort of classic like

you know Jamel was saying kind of old sort of Hollywood crime story guy where it's like you know you know he has a heart he didn't mean it like you know and Thomasel was saying kind of old sort of Hollywood crime story where it's like, you know, you know, he has a heart. He didn't mean it. Like,

you know, um, and Thomas Hayden Church is good casting for that. He looks like a fucking looks right. There's so many things. He does his face. Like really looks just like how they bulked him up. So yeah,

he looks kind of top heavy. Huge. Yeah. He says he worked out for like 16 months. Yeah. Like, which is funny because it's like kind of flabby and sideways because he was right he was over the hill i mean he was very much anyway i i think he's great in this i think he understands exactly what movie he's in he's got

such a great fucking voice for this he does have that thing where when you look at like herbie ditko ramita drungs in the 60s you're like do these guys know what skulls look like? And then you look at Thomas Hayden Church and you're like, he's got a 60s comic skull. Big brow, big eyebrows. The creases in his lips and the sides of his mouth and his ears jutting out. It's this funny thing where he had just had the pinnacle of his career

three years ago in Sideways. Right. Gets an Oscar nomination and a zillion awards. Like, the stat I always love to throw out about Thomas Hayden Church's career is that he is, of course, the villain in George of the Jungle. Yeah. And then he is the only actor who returns for George of the Jungle 2, the direct-to-video movie.

Woo! Which comes out the same year as Sideways. Right, yes. Like, that's where he's at, is like, what am I going to do? Not be in fucking George of the Jungle 2? Yeah, he's, he's George Showerman. It's an absolute Hail Mary pass, revival, casting.

Right. This is essentially his first role after Sideway. Yeah. He's in Spanglish, which he made before Sideway. Right. He has two voice roles, and he is a brief cameo in Idiocracy. Yeah, but that's it. This is the thing he signs up for

after the Oscar nomination. He clearly put so much work into it. And it's like, this comes out and people are like, all right, buddy, see you later. That's enough. Like, enough of you. Like, he never got to have his nice little character actor post-Oscar career.

No, he's like done some good work since then. He's in stuff. And of course, I'm sure he made some money for No Way Home. He's in that for a second. It doesn't feel like... Well, by the way, the footage in No Way Home... Is it literally not...

He didn't even record it. When Peter Parker spouts him with the water and he starts melting and turning into mud, they reverse that footage so his hand is reforming. Right, right. And that's what it is. They did not shoot a single day with him. His voice acting is very good. Yeah, totally.

He's totally good. He's got an incredible voice. It is a shame though where you're like, I feel like we were deprived of both the good character actor run after this and also he didn't get enough shots to do fun, big budget work like this as well. Like We Bought a Zoo is like,

why is this the... It's weird. Can I just say something about Sandman? Anything. You fucking rule yes sandman is my guy like my dry guy yeah well one obviously he's a dry sandman sure yeah but i feel like you also just like that he's like an old school hoodlum yes yes but this movie unlocks something for me that because i didn't really fuck with his character in the comics.

I just remember him from the video game. Sure. He always has the classic stripy shirt. That's his thing. He's got the stripy shirt. Because like Spider-Man one, they really make him rethink the goblin costume, right?

Spider-Man two. He's just like, we're just going to put him in street clothes. He's just got the jacket he steals on the day. We're not even gonna try to emulate the costume. This is like the most direct adaptation of how a character looked in the comics to screen arguably ever it's like what does sandman wear two-tone green striped shirt brown slacks thick ass belt yeah done right his whole fucking thing he's a goon he's a goon he's a big old goon but the way that they portray him traveling in the wind

that's i was like wait a second sandman is like actually this really incredible fucking character well and he got me really excited ramey it's such a good match for ramey because there's so many visual ideas you can come up with for sandman he's a guy whose power is so like and every time you see him in a scene it gets dusty dusty as hell. You know? He leaves dust in his wake and just... I love that. My favorite Sandman scene in the movie is when the cops are chasing him and he goes into the dump truck and the cop is like, where did the sand come

from? There is a lot of sand in that dump truck. So, Raimi says, we chose a villain that didn't have a detailed backstory so I could do this. He admits it. And he says like, look, we changed the web shooters yeah and i got away with that i think he you know he's a little bit like i love the visuals of sandman but i figured there had to be more peter parker sees himself as a proud person in a very narrow way he's right and they're wrong

it's about taking on other points of view he keeps hitting that you know he keeps hitting this like weird sort of like, we have to teach Peter Parker to expand his moral worldview kind of. I do think for a guy who's succeeding this hard in this franchise at this point in time too, he sort of likes the challenge of like, we don't know if we can pull this off effects wise.

This is a very different type of challenge. Let's see if we can do it. I mean, it's cool. I think they do, right? I mean, I don't think I really have any complaints about the visuals of Sam. He's cool, right? Yeah, he's do it. I mean, it's cool. I think they do, right? I mean, I don't think I really have any complaints about the visuals of Sandman. He's cool, right? Yeah, he's fucking cool. I mean,

but you get to things like, how does he turn into Sandman? He's running away from cops and he falls into a pit. Oh, he's escaped from prison, of course. I understand. He's escaping from prison.

He runs. He falls into a pit. The pit happens to be the... Sand experiment. It's a super collider or whatever. Yes, right. I do watch this movie and go, it would have taken five more minutes,

but this is like, the movie doesn't have time, right? The idea of this movie being two hours and 17 minutes at this point is like, this is so overstuffed. This is so... What are you supposed to do? Let this movie be three hours?

Who would see a three-hour Spider-Man movie, right? Do you really need to justify radioactive sand? Who gives a shit? No, this is all I'm saying. It's fucking Spider-Man, right? This is all I'm saying. This is like the hurry this movie is in where I feel like they don't have the time

to sort of unpack stuff in the way I feel like Spider-Man 2 in particular really gracefully builds shit up. Does the character not become more tragic if the whole thing is he's like, I will agree to be a fucking scientific experiment to get out of jail, to have my sentence shortened or whatever. Sure. Right?

That it's part of the thing of him wanting to get and see his daughter make money. He thinks it's going to kill him or whatever and he'll have money to send to his wife and daughter. That's the original backstory. There is no, no, no. You're inventing that. Okay. I wasn't the original. That's a much better solution. That is is actually the original backstory i believe literally is he fell into a fucking sand no but i'm just like if if you've set up this whole thing of he's doing it for his

wife and daughter he's a guy who's riddled with guilt mistakes he made he wishes he could provide for them they don't believe you know i get you yeah and we're gonna have to accept that there's some fucking technology that turns people into sand. Just the coincidence of this is where the testing site is. They're doing it three o'clock in the morning. He happens to run by and fall into it. Like an open manhole cover.

It's as... I was just like, turn it on. Did you check one last time to see if there's anything with it? Come on, just turn it on. Yeah, come on. Who cares? Get a bird or something.

Let's turn this stand up But in the same movie we're like How does the symbiote attack Comet hits and latches onto his bicycle Everything's a little too The original plan Was to have Vulture appear at the end of this movie To set up Spider-Man 4

They wanted Ben Kingsley John Malkovich was considered There's a lot of names like that As Thomas Hayden Church puts it All that got derailed And then he corrects, he's like, well not so much derailed But took a different railway, which I actually think is a good way of putting it Where it's like

Sam Raimi had his idea and then suddenly Avi Arad is pulling a switch And the train is going express I believe Kingsley was like In negotiation They definitely talked to him about it. And for Spider-Man 4, they straight up hire Malkovich.

They did hire Malkovich for a movie that never existed. It was a done deal. Yeah. It's interesting just sort of thinking about, you know, wanting to stuff multiple villains into this movie. And this, you know, the train was derailed.

It does feel like Sony basically has spent the last 15 years really trying to make a movie with all the Spider-Man villains. Yes. They're obsessed with the Sinister Six movie. They're absolutely obsessed with it and... Having them coexist on screen. Which makes no sense because the Sinister Six are not independently a comic book entity.

It's not like I pick up a Sinister Six comic. No. They fight Spider-Man. Right. But I don't then Sinister Six comic. No. They fight Spider-Man. Right. But like I don't then like read about like their interaction. No. Like I don't get what a Sinister Six movie is. Who are the Sinister Six? Well this is the thing. The Sinister Six. Fucking Doctor Octopus, Sandman who we got. Electro, Mysterio Rhino. The Vulture.

The Vulture. And then maybe you know eventually you can swap one in. It will take Cravens in there sometimes. It's basically all of Spider-Man's villains are sort of like every so often they're like let's get together and try to really like fuck this guy up Cravens in there sometimes. It's basically all of Spider-Man's villains are sort of like, every so often they're like, let's get together and try to really fuck this guy up. Like, hang. But mostly fuck him up. It's like Ringo Starr

and his all-star band, where it's like, who's available this weekend? It's the traveling Wilburys. There's a lot of comparison. The idea is just, let's get six of us. Around the same time as the Superior Spider-man reboot there was the uh was the superior it was the the something enemies of spider-man it was a book there was all of his like b and c tier enemies yeah who hung out together and kind of just

griped about getting their asses kicked by the superior foes and that was actually really good yeah right that's like beetle and shocker and speed demon like the really lame that's kind of a premise for a movie right that's that's the direction you would go where you're being funny about right the drew goddard sinister sticks movie always sounded like it was like the thing he always said was that he was making like sorcerer like it was a bunch of cons who all were stuck on a mission together it sort of sounded like he was trying to make suicide squad yeah sure and that it was a heisty suicide and it's amazing that marvel's never done who all were stuck on a mission together. It sort of sounded like he was trying to make Suicide Squad. Yeah, sure. And that it was a heisty Suicide Squad. And it's amazing that Marvel's never done a Thunderbolts movie,

which would be their Suicide Squad. Yeah, but it also feels like whatever the Julia Louis-Dreyfus stuff is happening is either going to set up Dark Avengers or Thunderbolts or some version of that. It never ends. Anyway, okay. But I do think, just because we watched Batman Forever yesterday, David, there is that thing that I think Sony is jealous of, where they're just like, there was a point where Warner Brothers was able to put a bunch of these characters on the screen at the same time. And it even goes back to just Adam West series, how exciting it was if you saw an episode where two of them teamed up.

And in a certain episode, I talked about how, like, they made so much fucking merchandise of all the civilian characters because they were like, I don't know, it's Spider-Man. Well, kids want to buy Norman Osborn and Oxford shirt for Spider-Man 2. They were like, no, we have two characters. We only can make merchandise of two characters. It's Spider-Man. It's Doc Ock. We don't even bother making anyone else. As much as like Batman Forever gets dinged with like, that's the toy addict.

That's the movie where the toy companies come and start demanding stuff. The main producer on this film is Avi Arad, whose background is a toy company. And I think he's going to him and he's like, you have two characters per movie that are visually dynamic. You need to give me more. You need to give me fucking something to work with here. Yeah. And the idea of being able to like have a lineup of, you know, these characters coexisting

on screen at the same time visually I think was just like Sony was jealous that they weren't playing that game. Was Sandman the toy filled with sand? Should have been. There probably was. At some point. Look. Sandman is in Sam Raimi's story.

Laura Ziskin swings in and says Gwen Stacy should be in the movie. Sam Raimi's like that makes no sense why would she be in the movie we skipped Gwen right she's actually Peter's high school girlfriend Mary Jane comes later like I don't think Gwen is not a compelling character in her own right

which she's not she's a terrible character in the comics she's just like oh Peter why won't you pay attention to me like she more or less exists just to get killed by the green guy right the reason they kill her off like it's funny because of course you know they talk about it they're like we can't believe we did that it was such a shocking loss of innocence for the comics but also she was a non-character yeah right uh she's very defined more personality by the first frame well i mean the introduction of mary jane in comics is the greatest panel in comics history

it's so good um but uh but yeah so like gwen is just not like you know there's nothing it's not like we can't wait to have gwen on screen so she can like there's no answer to that question but i think that must have been the thing of like have we resolved the love story do people like it's the the one more day thing of like do people want to watch him just be happy with mary jane there has to be trouble in paradise right but it's also i think it's it's what more what you're saying as well where it's just like no there needs to be gwen she's a character from spider-man right she hasn't been in these movies yet right put her in the movie right so that they can have gwen then like gwen will be available at all times going forward like it's just like get these people in

movies and gwen gives us captain state like get fucking everyone in here now so you read all this stuff about raimi to his credit, basically just complaining to Premiere Magazine about this. But then Raimi says, well, okay, so we decided to take this policeman character who's on the periphery of the scenes and turn him into Captain Stacy and make this one character who's in the

jazz bar, Gwen Stacy. The worst possible fix is like, why don't we just take this nothing character, flesh her out a little more, put her in five scenes versus one. Yeah. And now Gwen Stacy's in the film and it's like, well now you just have this like distraction.

Yes. Who doesn't get to do anything. Right. Anyway, I like her line when she's introing Spider-Man, she goes like, he's everyone's favorite. He saved me from 89 stories above.

Like what a weird, like credit to like intro someone yes yes it almost sounds like a joke but i don't think it's actually a joke and then avia rod right of course it's like sam the fans demand venom they want venom i know you were reading comics in the 60s and 70s this was his whole fucking thing you're stuck in the 60s and 70s. This was his whole fucking thing. You're stuck in the 60s. Kids these days love Venom. Ben Hosley loves Venom. I love Venom. Ben Hosley is asking where Venom is. I do not like Venom.

You're anti- I'm anti-Venom too. I'm not anti-anti-Venom. Another character. You're not like a serum or anything. Right. Right, right. But I've never liked Venom.

Yeah, I don't like Venom either. I just think Venom smacks- Venom, who was a thing when we were all kids the height of his popularity in the comics was just a drool and absolutely the biggest new

comic major creation for a decade if not more it's too much of the 90's gotta be extreme it's just too it's so the character feels so dated and it's not be extreme it's just it's too it's so the character feels so dated and it's not for nothing that like

recent takes on Venom have basically been an attempt to sort of like walk that back right like Venom now is sort of like he's kind of an anti-hero he's sort of like you know he's not slobbering all over the place it's like he slobbers a little bit he slobbers a little bit but he's not he's just I don't know he's not slobbering all over the place slobber's a little bit

he's just I don't know I think that the Tom Hardy movies do try to encapsulate the chaotic energy of Venom yes he goes to the club yeah but that's what I like is that they're not trying to make him badass exactly he's weird and silly I mean to Venom created by Todd McFarlane

and David Micheline or whoever it's not like it's a great American fiction, right? But I look at Venom and I look a lot at that McFarlane Spider-Man stuff and I'm like, this is dry run for Spawn and Spawn for what it is, is just

it works more successfully when you're just letting Todd fucking go off and give you his whole fucking worldview. And I feel like Venom just feels like Todd McFarlane trying to impose his shit onto a Spider-Man universe that isn't really a match for it. Yeah.

The counter would be, and that was not a huge... I'm like, just let him do Clown and Violator and just go all the way into that shit. I think what they did in the 80s is they were like, we're looking at the Rogues Gallery. The Rogues Gallery is notorious.

It's all these dicko guys. It's not like Spider-Man has bad villains. Right. He doesn't have like a mirror image villain. Right. Like he doesn't have a like who's the anti-Spider-Man or whatever. And so that's the idea. Right.

Right. And the idea of the suit is so good. And I love that plot line in Spider-Man. Like him getting the alien suit. Right. And eventually realizing like this thing's kind of malevolent. You know the whole Secret Wars thing. Right.

We can't get into that. We're not doing that. It's too much. Can I give one sentence to Ben? They made a deal with Mattel, the toy company, and they were like... This is why he wants to talk about it, to be clear. It's a toy. I had a bunch of those toys.

Yeah. They were like, superhero toys don't sell. We need to build a comic series around setting up a toy line. And so Mattel gave them a focus group list of things that kids like. And they were like, the two most popular words are secret and war. Kids, they love to keep secrets and they fucking love war.

Kids are vicious, man. And they were like new costume. How did they come to that? Aliens. That's insane. This is the whole thing. I'm sorry.

Right. So they were like, you have to do a series called Secret War in which these 20 characters go to a planet, Spider-Man should team up with an alien, he should become an alien, and they were just like, okay, fine. They essentially had this huge comic book run written by Toy Executive. What's the Simpsons joke?

The Simpsons joke? It's like a focus group joke? You want him to be like, fuck, it's the focus group of, you know, where they're trying to get Poochie done. Right, right, right. Fucking. you want him to be uh like the fuck what it's the focus group of uh you know where they're trying to get poochie done right right uh fucking you want him to be down to earth and realistic right but totally out of control right but but there is that thing where like the entire alien symbiote so so you want a realistic down-to-earth show that's completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots but the like the i would watch that yeah sure the miracle is that the symbiote stuff

is well written it's kind of a cool idea and the design is good and all of that they execute it well but don't get rid of the suit they're like sort of like well what should we do with this alien thing right and it's also it's like um you know it makes sense to turn it in you know he attaches to eddie brock eddie brock doesn't like peter parker you know it doesn't like the idea of whatever went to the wrong guy right and then as you say the top because when you initially see venom he doesn't have the big pointy teeth or anything like that the Todd McFarlane thing yeah just kind of takes it over where it's like make him bigger make him slobberier make him have the weird tongue right I think it had to happen this is something comics had to get out of their system in the late 80s and then it spins off into image like it is sort of right it's but

Venom remains as this sort of like but that guy, he made it into the rogues gallery, right? Like he is one of those few eighties Spider-Man villains, but I just, let's keep him around. I never found Eddie Brock very compelling. He's so big, which is why I'm just like,

when other people were like, why are they turning Eddie Brock into just like Weasley or Peter Parker? And I, I, there was nothing sacrilegious about that to me. I was like, that sounds like a more interesting take on the character to just make it

Peter Parker without morals than making him a bully. Let me read you a quote, in fact, to Topher Grace, who plays Eddie Brock in this film, says,

he's more of a doppelganger to Peter. He's someone very similar, has the same powers, but had a bad upbringing. These parallels is what I like about the character.

He doesn't have an Uncle Ben. i would say to sam on the set with great power comes great fun tofer grace seems to be the biggest fan of this movie of the people involved with it yeah but the most fun making it yeah and it's kind of like i know people don't like it but like i really like what we were going for at least it also grinds his career to a halt more than anyone else it's devastating to career. Because this is the moment where everyone's like, is he Tom Hanks? Because he had just done In Good Company, right? I feel like

In Good Company was everyone was like, this guy, this guy. Yeah. It was a PS. He had a run of things where they were like, we're like He's in Take Me Home Tonight, right? He is. So that is he wrote that movie or at least He wrote the story. Okay. He, it's when I least... Which is a movie I like a lot. He wrote the story. Okay. Yeah.

It's when I think they've shot this movie before it comes out. Correct. He goes to Revolution and he's... Everyone's like, Topher Grace, you're about to be the next big star. What do you want to do? And he's like, I want to do My American Graffiti. There hasn't been an 80s generational coming of age movie. We're finally at enough distance. I want to do this.

They shoot it. It sits on a shelf for like three years. Right. That famously took forever to get released. It was supposed to be like, I think the immediate cash-in from the success of Spider-Man. And when that didn't work

and all of Dan Fogler's comedies didn't work and whatever, it's that thing where like it comes out and Anna Faris and Chris Pratt have been married for three years. And that's the movie

where they meet. Yeah. But yes, that's like his follow-up to this. This movie ruined his career. It sits on a shelf forever. Yeah. Because his follow-up, after this, he's in Valentine's Day in 2010.

Yeah. He's in Predators. Which is him being like, I'm playing against type. I play a serial killer. He's in Take Me Home Tonight, which is released very late. But that's, it's really, that's it. So Predators is the one where they're on the planet. Yes, yes.

That's actually pretty good. It's a really fun movie. Ten different types of deadly human. Right. And everyone's like, what's this guy doing here? And it's like, oh, he's like... He's this. He's this kind of bad thing. Right. Yeah. I mean, when Topher popped up in Interstellar, it was truly a like,

is that Topher? Like, it was really like, I haven't seen him in years! He just like quietly has a hit ABC show now Home Economics Season 2 I believe it's been picked up for Season 3 You made this up

Home Economics I'm reading it but you wrote this Wikipedia article What's his name? Jimmy Tatro I'm seeing what you wrote down on Wikipedia But this is not real Picked up for Season 3 It certainly has done two seasons. I'm not sure about season three yet, but I'm

hoping against hope that he'll probably get another bite at the apple then. Yeah. I mean, he seems like kind of an eternal. How old do you think he is? I think he's like 40 something. He has to be like 45, right? It's 43. To me, that's younger than I thought. Just because

that 70s show to me, I'm like, I was like a teenager when that was on. Also, Kirsten Dunst just turned 40 this week. She was really young in the first Spider-Man. She's one of those people where you're like, for how long she's been famous, it's impossible that she was still in her 30s until seven days ago.

What do you guys think of Topher Grace's performance in this film? We're talking Venom. We might as well. So here's what I'll say. I remember defending this performance when We're talking Venom. We might as well. So here's what I'll say. I remember defending this performance when it came out. I felt like he largely

does what is asked of him well. I think the only scene that doesn't work is the church scene, which I don't even put on him. It definitely doesn't work. And I think his performance is kind of embarrassing there, but I think that's a failing of what they're asking to do. I think that is an impossible scene to play.

You mean where they basically just have to rush the venom origin so quickly. Right. And it's just like, it does not make sense in any way. Patricia Colambre, who played my mother on The Tick, who was also in Signs, she plays Mel Gibson's crushed wife.

Great actor. There was a scene I had with her that was like a big emotional scene and I was really struggling and it was that thing of like, I was like pushing. The thing that I feel like in a lot of the like tearful, emotional scenes in this movie,

you feel in the performances where it's just like, they're sort of trying to make sad faces. Yeah. And crying voices, but it doesn't really feel like they're actually upset. And she said this thing to me, I always think about where she said, I find like if I'm in a scene like this and I'm pushing for the emotion and I can feel myself struggling, it's because I'm not getting specific enough.

You have to think of like what the specific thing is rather than just the general idea of being sad. And I think this movie has a lot of scenes where the direction is be sad. And it's like the you're upset the movie has not spent the time building up the emotions to that point where it's like there's one scene where he gets vaguely embarrassed and the next scene we're supposed to believe he's like having an emotional breakdown crying on his knees saying god please kill peter parker which i gotta say it's very funny incredibly funny it's very funny to go to church and be like I know I don't come here often enough Lord, Lord, my Lord and Savior

Jesus Christ, all I ask for you, all I ask in your eternal goodness is to kill that motherfucker It's so funny because usually it'd be like look, I know I'm not a church going guy I know I haven't talked to you in a long time but my wife is sick but it's like this guy

is really grinding my ears. He embarrassed me like two hours ago. He totally fucked me over by revealing that I did something bad. My point is, I think he deserves to die. Don't you? I think he's really bad in that scene, but I also think there is no way to make that scene specific. Okay.

That scene doesn't make any sense. How do you feel about. So in defense of the performance, I think everything before that is good. I agree. He's good when he's a slick little... I like his vanity. Like, I like his shitty...

Okay, all right. That was my question. I do. I defend it. When the mask is up and he's got the sort of like the tendrils and the weird teeth... I just wish the mask stayed down more,

but I still like his performance. They do take the masks off a lot. And I wonder if they're just kind of like, well, these are the stars. We need to see their faces. When you rewatch the first one, they both take off their masks so infrequently. And there is that problem where he, like, and Rami has talked about.

The Green Goblin, especially. There's nothing to relate to if both of them have masks on, and I would have to force them to gesticulate more, and it felt silly. So the second one, it's like, Doc Ock's face visible the entire time. And Peter Parker's mask comes off a lot more. It's coming off all the time. The thing blows up.

This is the one where it's like he won't stop taking his mask off. Venom's face retracts. Goblin's mask retracts. Salmon's thing, whatever. I even like Topher's vocal performance when he's Venom. I like Venom just being some little shit. Like, I don't need him to be tough or scary. I like him being a pain in the ass.

You like how his eyebrow is kind of like cocked? Eternally cocked? I mean, that's like genuine prosthetic makeup where he was just like, his face was being grabbed all day. I just think they play that too much considering he's only on screen for eight minutes and for seven of those eight minutes.

He looks like this. Yeah. That's what he looks like. He looks like this. Yeah. That's what he looks like. They should keep the face down. You know what's not helping him at all is those frosty, frosty tips. Well, that's true. It's very, very right of the moment,

his blonde hair. So bad. Yeah. But if we can go back to the church scene for a second. Spiky blonde hair, sure. Much like saying, why isn't Flint Marco donating his body to science to get money for his wife and daughter, right?

That scene even makes more sense if the energy of it is him walking in being like, I want Peter Parker dead. Not the, I am crushed. I am humbled. Yeah, why isn't he angry? On my knees. Like, that's why that scene is impossible to play. And it's also based on, once again, the coincidence of Peter Parker decides at that very moment he has to take the suit off in the spire of a church. I just think that once we'd seen Tom Hardy have this take where he's like, the guy's kind of burly, but he's also just inherently bizarre.

Yeah. Before Venom touches him. Right. He's just one of those guys where, like, you want to sit him down and be like, what's going on with you? You don't want to be cornered by Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock at a party. No. And then once Venom joins him because he's a

brutally tough journalist. He'll ask the hard questions for the Eddie Brock show. Yeah. I got a question for you. Why are you corrupt? What's in your lab? I like that his whole bit is that he's like this like fucking vice young turkish journalist everyone's like integrity you seem like a bad guy what's up because like the premise of that movie is why are you so bad is it ron cephas jones plays his boss he's like

eddie just do me a favor yeah go interview lord evil you know Evil Corp. Don't ask him any tough questions. This is a simple job. Just go ask him. He's like, yeah, one question. Everyone who takes your chemicals seems to die. Any comments? I got one question for you. You ever think about being good? What's the matter with you?

And then, like, the idea... Danny Zuko now. Hey, Sandy, I got a question for you. Why are you smoking cigarettes now? What's the deal? Paul Part, what's your problem? Take it easy, man.

Once the suit merges with him, right? The best gag in Venom is the suit saying like, you're kind of a loser. Me too. I was also kind of a loser. Me too. I was also kind of a loser. We kind of suck. This is all we got going for us. Right. Whereas this

is more like Topher Grace wants God to kill Spider-Man and instead Goop lands on him and he's like, I'm going to be Venom and then he tries to kill Spider-Man. I think when anything else. No, I think when Venom takes over, what happens... He could have some fun,

right? Like, you know, if you're going by Tovar, why don't we see Venom do a thing? Here's the arc... To be sort of like a shitty Spider-Man. Yeah, go do some weird thing. Here's the arc of Venom as a character. Okay, Venom, specifically. Church, please, God, kill Peter Parker.

Screams at screen, right? right symbiote takes over him screams at screen next scene is he's crawling on a wall flint marco in an alleyway hey you're a bad guy right i'm a bad guy too let's kill spider-man together the scene that you were like saying happens in every one of those classic batman movies where they have to at some point go our interests are two-faced you're very two--y and I'm a Riddler, so I'm sensing a lot of mixing here. That scene happens one hour and 45 minutes into the movie

and the next time you see Venom, Mary Jane is in a car, in a web, at the top of scaffolding and he's just jumping around. That's the entire arc of Venom and then there's just that final fight sequence. His face stays down for a total of three minutes maximum. Web is cool.

It's Black Web. I like the way Venom looks in this. It makes like a real spider web. You like that it's not, it's basically just Spider-Man with some teeth. It's not really too different. And look, you can see their alternate designs, not even just like designs,

but like makeup costume tests they did where they pushed even further the idea of it like looking like an evil Spider-Man suit making the webs more jagged like they're cooler alternate versions of it there's one where they did his face totally prosthetic that is terrifying the actual venom alien face like done in prosthetics it's fucking creepy as shit um but i yeah i i like this i prefer a true mirror, as we said, like that's sort of what he started out as. And then he got heightened to this like spawn dry run thing.

And I like bringing him back down to there. I just, I think it's so rushed at the end. And, uh, I, I think Topher Grace could have worked in this. I think he is fun in parts. And I, I just think everyone wanted venom so fucking badly they were like largely hiding him for the marketing you were only getting glimpses it truly was a thing where people were like i can't wait to see fucking venom in his full glory and then when every five seconds his face peels up and it's so for grace being like hey how do

you like them apples i think people were just irate how did you feel jermel do you remember how you seeing this film at the time i did i saw this opening weekend um i was at uva so it was in charlottesville and with my buddy a buddy of mine and we went to go see it and he i remember coming out of it he was like that sucked and i was like i kind of liked it um and this has been my my view you've always had this yeah yeah right um but i i at. But at the time, I just, I don't, I think it's very clear watching the film that the Venom stuff is just sort of extraneous. And that like, it is like the one part of the thing

that is really kind of like, this doesn't really fit the vibe or the tone or really anything of what the movie is trying to do. Having said that, I think, and you said this earlier, David, the Venom stuff also is occasion for some of the moments in the movie that I really like. do. Having said that, I think, and you said this earlier, David, the Venom stuff also is occasion for some of the moments in the movie that I really like. The best parts of the

movie. So we haven't talked about it, but sort of the dance sequence. Yes. The whole, the James Brown sort of like, you know, walk montage thing, the dance sequence in the jazz club are great. And I was watching it last night. My wife, who is a normal person, doesn't like watch. Not the wife, but the who is a normal person, doesn't like watch...

Not the wife, but the normal person. But also who doesn't go on Twitter and have arguments about Spider-Man 3 like we all do. She had never seen this before. And I was like, you know, people... People hated this. This was like the height of derision.

But when you watch it, you're like, no, this is great. It's so good. Not only that, Sam Raimi is in complete control. Yeah. You're like, this thing is completely hitting the bullseye of exactly the tone it is trying complete control. Yeah. You're like, this thing is completely hitting the bullseye of exactly the tone

it is trying to do. I remember Dave Polin, notorious movie blogger. When he does this, and the camera zooms into him, it's so good. Or when he sheds the jacket and the camera goes like,

boom. Yes. The entire time, there are two women who are always sort of like kind of in the frame. They're always sort of like looking back at him like,

what the hell is happening with this guy? I love it. It's just, always sort of like looking back at him like, what the hell is happening with this guy? I love it. It's just, I remember also feeling my entire audience go like, what the fuck? And then you think that this is a year before Iron Man and the Dark Knight. I know.

Their universe is apart. That's kind of, I mean, I don't want to distract too much from the movie, but like, it is crazy to think that the next year, this is like the end of an era for a kind of a movie. It's the end of this kind of like, yeah, these very earnest, poppy, 60s inspired, yeah. We've gotten

past the 90s sort of embarrassed that these are genre superhero movies. Right. These things are powerhouses now. Right. Sort of like now it's earnest, it's sort of like trying to be really faithful, and we're just about to get over to this new phase of them being kind of like totally culturally dominant. These are the two ways you can do this movie.

Now you can do Iron Man or you can do Dark Knight. Those are the only two options. And like the dance sequence becomes sort of like a tabula rasa of like, we have to make sure this never happens again. It becomes like Batman and Robin level. Oh God, that was embarrassing. Batman and Robin is kind of good. Well, that's true. Agreed. We're in the God, that was embarrassing. But Batman and Robin is kind of good. I agree.

I agree. We're in the middle of that on our Patreon. Absolutely. It is like the strongest take Sam Raimi has in this movie from a story perspective

is this idea of like, Peter Parker is inherently a dork. What defines him is that he is a dork with good morals. Sure. There is no evil version

of Peter Parker. There's a selfish version of Peter Parker. There's a dork with good morals sure there is no evil version of peter parker there's a selfish there's a dork with morals right right there's there's sort of like a quasi incel version of peter parker right and i think people were like because even the marketing command for this movie even aside from that poster there was the poster that was him with the bags under the eyes and the hair and the idea of like oh fuck peter parker's gonna go bad and i think everyone assumed he was going to be badass and tough. They had successfully hidden all of the comedy in the trailers. So when that happens, people are like, why is this movie not giving me him being a vigilante,

Venom being an asshole and a bully? But those sequences are so fun. Dave Polin, notorious movie blogger and the true blogger. I remember at the time, the cold blog. At the time when that movie came out, said like, Jesus Christ, does Sam Raimi clearly want to make a musical?

It is insane that he has shoehorned three full musical numbers into this film. And you watch and it is incredible. Well, because there's the early Broadway show number, which I think is actually kind of great. Agreed. And kind of calms the movie down after the opening or whatever. And then there's the dancing.

The jazz club sequence. And then it ends with this sad musical number at the club. It does. And you even have the twist sequence with Harry and Mary is almost a musical number in and of itself. And I want to say all of that to me really works. And I wish the whole movie could be on that level.

Now, I do think that would have been poorly received. Absolutely. Right. By audiences at the time. But I at least, like, I want that tonal consistency throughout. Like, I want it to feel like that throughout.

It's the character stuff that works. Yes. Right? Sort of like that's, that's, um, you guys have already spoken about Spider-Man 2, but that's, I mean, Spider-Man 2 is great

because not, there's not a frame of that movie is disconnected from the characters, from Peter, Mary Jane, and Harry. The entire movie. That movie is slow. And again, we did talk about this, but that movie takes its time in the first hour. It is so patiently paced.

The last hour is really... Lots is happening and the action is so incredible. Yeah, it's careful. It has a whole scene of just like, uh, uh, doc, his wife and Peter having lunch.

I mean, that scene is phenomenal. It's maybe the best scene in the movie. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, and it's not the best thing in the movie because that movie has such amazing

scenes, but it's so crucial to the end of the movie. Right. Right. Right. Which, which this movie tried. This is God.

Another reason I will always defend this movie is that even though it can't get the execution right because it has too many things on its mind, this movie still attempts to have those scenes. They're clumsier. Right. But it still attempts to have that. They usually feel more rushed is the problem.

They feel rushed. They feel sort of like they're written with sort of like clear, obvious signposts of emotional beats that are telegraphed to directly rather than earned. But I still just watching this now 15 years later, when so many of these movies

are so caught up in every scene is lore building, mythos building, teeing up other shit. Peter going to his man talking about wanting to marry Mary Jane and Rosemary Harris giving a pretty good monologue about what it takes to be a good husband. The Teresa Russell scene

where she's just like, you fuck everything up in your life. Yeah, that seems... Again, I wish I was... None of them work as well as one and two, but they're there. But the thing is now with these MCU movies, which I enjoy and watch,

but it's like with those movies, you can look at your watch and be like, it's been 15 minutes. We're about to have a set piece. Right? Like those movies just kind of have that internal clock. Where's the set piece? Exactly.

Where it's just like, don't worry, don't worry. Yeah, yeah. We had to have two scenes where everyone sat down and explained what's going on. But then, like, don't worry. Shuma Gareth is going to, you know, show up. Like, something's going to happen. Right. Raimi isn't quite, I feel like, as slavish to that.

Like, or whatever. No. I mean, here's an interesting thing I clocked watching this film. You know, we talked about David Koe interesting thing I clocked watching this film. You know, we talked about David Koepp when he was pitching Spider-Man. His two things were he can't end up

with the girl at the end and I want to take a long time until we introduce Spider-Man. We really have to earn it. We have to, like, treat this like Don or Superman where we build to that, right? So the opening credit sequence

in the first Spider-Man, which is so good, is Raimi sort of trying to appease the audience by being like, we're going to give you the hero theme right off the top.

We're going to give you CGI imagery of Spider-Man. So you remember while you're here and then buckle in because it's going to be 45 minutes until he puts the suit on. Spider-Man 2, he puts the suit on like minute three to deliver pizzas. He's Spider-Man. He's Spider-Man. This movie starts with Peter Parker.

And also the opening credits sequence was another moment of slight deflation where you're like opening credits and first one. Cool. Opening credits and second one, replaying the greatest moments alex ross alex ross incredible this one's just like pictures elfman's quit yeah you're using like getty images yeah it's a little it's kind of samey right kind of again and then you have this weird like i'm spider-man everything's going great he does not put on the suit until 35 minutes into the movie, which is kind of crazy. Considering the movie starts out with I'm Spider-Man.

Everyone loves me. Everything's going great. Is that because the first fight with Harry, he's not wearing the suit. Yeah. So when it gets to the first fight sequence, 20 minutes, he's wearing civilian clothes.

He's like, come on here. And he's like, what did you think? I wasn't going to do this. Did you see the last movie? This is the whole idea. Yeah.

He, he puts on the suit like 35 minutes in the scene where he's talking to Mary Jane and he's like, sorry, gotta go. And then really the first...

And she's like, I hate being married to Spider-Man. The first sequence where he's really Spider-Man is the press conference or whatever, the key to the city thing. Yeah.

It takes so long for him to be Spider-Man considering the movie is like, I've nailed it. I figured out how to be Spider-Man. We don't like, I've nailed it. I figured out how to be Spider-Man. We don't get to see any of him just

doing it well before things start going kind of poorly for him. So Topher Grace, staunch defender of the film. I know the movie did well for Sony. I know people weren't happy about it. I think Sam is so talented. I remember one time I was on ninth unit. Ninth unit. It's like he's running a small country.

I'd love to see anyone slamming one of these movies try to fit into Sam Raimi's position. He was like the president of a country and the movie had the gross national income of a small country. I have huge respect for him. I think he did a fantastic job on that trilogy. So he just you know who else loved being in this movie though?

Who? Bryce Dallas Howard. Really? Yeah, because she was basically just like, one, why are you casting me? I'm not a blonde. No. And I'm not like, I don't feel like I fit the profile of this character. They cast a blonde to play a redhead

and a redhead to play a blonde. She's one of the few redheads of prominence in Hollywood. That's a Laura Ziskind joke. My joke is I cast a blonde as a redhead and a redhead as a blonde. Well, five comedy points to Laura Ziskind, RIP. But Howard basically, and I guess this vibes with her now where she basically is clearly more interested head and a red head is a blonde well five comedy points to laura zeskin rip um uh but howard basically and i guess this vibes with her now where she basically is clearly more interested

in making movies than being in them she the way she talks about it she's just like it was so cool to be on those giant sets yeah like and see the whole collaborative process of making a movie like it has always felt like her involvement in the jurassic world trilogy is more about her trying to learn everything she can yeah to get ready to to do the Jurassic World trilogy is more about her trying to learn everything she can to get ready to do the big dance. Which, look, her Mandalorian episodes have been great. Yeah, she's definitely going to get some big movie. She clearly wants to make

one, so I think that job is coming for her. Wait, like, other elements where you're just like, when Dylan Baker is cast as Kurt Connors in 2, you're like, fucking great. Great job. The entire time watching the movies, I was like, doing the whole, like, that's chappy with her.

So, like, you know, Dylan Baker shows up, and I'm like, that's the lizard. She's like, who the hell's the lizard? Well, he's Kurt Connors. Dylan Baker rules. It's such good casting. And I love the idea of just keeping him there, simmering for a little while, having him be, like, an ally just keeping him there simmering for a little while having him

be like an ally a mentor that can exist for a little bit but you're so annoyed that they don't let him do it in this movie you're so annoyed when you read that it was not part of any plan for four what were you gonna say about him i was gonna say how much i love dylan baker in that role and sort of it's again you can imagine a future movie or whatever, but like this, the thing, okay, so the thing I like about the Raimi movies is really about how all the villains have some personal relationship to Peter. Agreed. They're not just like entities that come out of the sky. They're not just sort of like, you know, malevolent forces. They're specific people who have specific relationships to Peter.

And part of the challenge of them for Peter is sort of like I actually care about this person in some way. And all of them are like tragic monsters. It's that thing that No Way Home to its credit kind of identifies which is like oh all these guys have like a tragic accident and is there still a humanity in there we can solve it?

And so with Kirk Connors it would have been great to have a film where you have that dynamic play again. Here is a mentor, someone who cares about Peter and Peter cares about him and he has to deal with this horrible thing that's happened to him. and have him turn and redeem himself in one movie. The idea of letting Baker just hang out there. Yeah. And then the indignity of the second they hit the reset button, they're like, by the way, we're finally doing lizard.

Here's my question. And I like the casting of Dylan Baker and I love Dylan Baker. Yeah. Do you feel like there's a 50, 50 shot? They would have made Spider-Man form been like, he's still in it. Don't wait,

Dylan. We'll do lizard. We'll do lizard. Or were they definitely going to do everything? Everything Rami has talked about with Spider-Man 4 Did not include Lizard Exactly And now our new villains the Vulture

It was Vulture and Black Cat Black Cat or Felicia Hardy Exactly was going to have some sort of thing But it was going to be Anne Hathaway Playing a Felicia Hardy type Vulture and then Bruce Campbell At certain stages was going to play Mysterio in a sort of jokey cameo version

it would have been the opening of the movie is him busting never ever heard anything about fucking Lizard in that movie and even he was like we toyed around with Kraven Lizard never seemed to be any and it is so funny because they would have just kept him there for five

you think about it and it's like at the time the beef, the beef that the studio had with Raimi was like, stop doing these fucking boring 60s vulture and old guy. Like, that's what you want to... And then, of course, by the time it comes around to the MCU, they're like,

we're going to do vulture. Michael Keaton will be playing the vulture. The stereo, they're doing all that stuff. Yeah, it's sort of it's just because these movies are in this kind of weird in between zone yeah where it's like studios don't seem as if they trust that audiences are really gonna go for the the lame 60s stuff but by the time we get to the 2010s it's very apparent that like yeah you can you can throw like a fucking raccoon on screen and people lose their minds. You know what's most confounding about it to me,

that attitude, is that yes, obviously, Venom has popped so hard in the 90s. He is the freshest villain, right? There is a generational excitement about him. Yeah, he's got a bad attitude. But as Ben is illustrating very well, all these 60 villains were still

on the cartoon show that was incredibly popular in the 90s. They were in the comics. They were in all the video games. In the video games. Right. 100%. So like if you're a kid

watching at this point maybe Venom is like the hot new. Right. Dude. But like you're still familiar. You're familiar with the Rhino

with Scorpion with all those guys. Yeah. I think the reason Vulture really got on their nerves was that he's an old guy. Raimi was like

so I'm looking at a bunch of guys in their 50s and 60s, and they were like, I swear to God, we told you millennial villains. I believe, I mean, perhaps this is apocryphal, but I believe I've heard an interview where he did confirm this, that at one point, Sam Remy took a meeting with Larry David, and Sony was like, fucking stop it. That definitely... 10 out of 10 10 best picture.

It would be so good. That he did the meeting with Larry David. Larry David was like, why would anyone, I never, four times in theaters. Yeah. Larry David Vulture.

Perfect. But Sony was like, absolutely not. If it's an old guy, it has to be an old guy who has been nominated for an Oscar. I don't, I don't know. I don't think this is real.

I'm only finding like fantasy casting stuff which i love it i feel like i read something where he was like i mean it would be great obviously which this they did not do with keaton with the idea of the vulture usually is that he's an old guy who like is trying to suck out your energy to get young again right which but they never did that with keaton and said he was just a guy he salvages parts yeah he was like you know he was an Attleboro Trump voter he was like a Trump guy where he was like look I'm just a blue collar guy and it's like aren't you like a millionaire and he's like shut up well one thing

I wanted to ask you guys about while we're talking about the contemporary MCU when Peter's emo, right? He's in emo mode. Bully Maguire, as the kids like to call him. The Zoomers call him Bully Maguire. Bully Maguire.

Yeah. Huge in gifs. Right. Interesting. His hair changes. It gets all floppy. Bully Maguire. Yeah, it gets floppy.

It definitely looks like he listens to Dashboard Confessional. Exactly. He's got a Thursday, rice. Right, and he dances like this. For the Listerdome, David's doing the dance. And all that, yes. There's this moment where he is on the phone

and he's talking to the landlord's daughter and it's kind of like, he's playing for comedy as that, you know, type of character. You know what I mean? He's in that transformation. The most of a badass asshole Peter Parker can be is asking her for more milk. More milk and cookies.

He's like eating the cookies. But he's acting like an asshole. Yes. Right? And it's like, that's what they're telegraphing. And I'm like, this is what the MCU comedy is now. They all act like this. I think that's right. I think you're saying their default state. The default comedy is

they're all assholes they're all kind of snarky and sarcastic well it's the Robert Downey Jr. effect right no oh actually that's really interesting

part of the magic of getting someone like you to enjoy a movie like that is that they can look at the camera and be like look I know this is all

come on Iron Man yeah whatever like you know Avengers I guess I'm an Avenger like whatever it just felt interesting to be like,

the movie's telling me that he's acting like an asshole, but when I see this play anywhere else now, it's like, well, this is the good guy hero that we all love. It's funny. It's even, like, in the MCU, it's not even, like, different kinds of assholes. It's the same.

It's the same. Like, this is my big complaint. I really like, I like that first Doctor Strange movie quite a bit. But what I do not like is how Stephen Strange is just Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark. It's the single biggest problem with that movie.

Yeah. And I will say, I think Rami kind of corrects. Right. We were talking about this after Strange 2. Like, I do feel like he's settled quite well into the role for that. And I do think Rami's a part of that.

Because, like, I thought he was better. Way less of the for that and I do think Raimi's a part of that. It's way less of the I need to be Robert Downey Jr. I thought he was better in Infinity War and then worse again in No Way Home. They can't decide how much they want him to be snarky quipster and it felt like Raimi settled him into you are a aloof weirdo. You can be funny and you can be

arrogant, but you're not snarky. Stephen Strange is arrogant and unpleasant You can be funny and you can be arrogant, but you're not like snarky. Right. Like Stephen Strange is arrogant and unpleasant. Right. But he's not. Yeah. He's not like.

He's not a good. No. But I think. Yeah. No one would willingly spend time with Stephen Strange. Yeah, why would you hang out with this guy? I have complaints about the movie, but I think like, yes. I think he's actually really good.

Multiverse of Madness gets that right. And it is funny that when this movie is playing in theaters, Ben, people are like, what the fuck am I watching? The evil version of this character asks for more cookies? And you're watching the status quo of all characters. Poor Ursula just wants

to hang out with Peter. She just likes him. I love Ursula too, I know. I mean, it's nice that she comes back, but right, she really doesn't get enough to do. At least she has a little moment. Can I talk editor's cut for a few moments here? Of course. You can in a second, but wait, I want to first give you, talking about the dancing, since we're on it, Esther Zuckerman,

friend of the show. The great Esther Zuckerman. Recently published, have you read this yet? The oral history of the dance sequences in Spider-Man 3. Where she talks to Marguerite Derricks, who choreographed the dance. But of course, her main job was choreographing the big jazz scene, right? Like, that's the major

dance number. Did she choreograph the Broadway number as well? I guess she just walked downstairs. Right, but her main, exactly. She's brought on board to do choreography, but obviously the centerpiece is the whole jazz sequence with their, you know, where they're clubbed. Which, once again, just a thing you cannot imagine if the director of your

third superhero movie comes in and he's like, by the way, we really need to bring choreographer in for this. I have a huge dance number planned. But hey, man, you've done two hits? Yeah. The original idea, she says, was that Toby was going to be like a b-boy spinning on his

head and doing break dancing great choice would have watched it like evil toby which is incredible to consider yes and then she said that mcguire was really resistant and then she started giving him she went to his house to train him started giving him like fred astaire moves

yeah and he loved them and lit up and was like i want to do this this is fun. So it feels like, because like you're saying, like people are watching this and like, what is this dorky shit? Like, you know, no one behaves this way anymore. But it's like Maguire actually liked that kind of movement.

Can I say it makes sense for the characters because he was raised by old people. It does. Right. Like he is a kid who would have been watching a bunch of Fred Astaire movies and just had that in the back of his head. There are so many valid complaints of this movie, but it was always the thing that pissed me off the most was it felt like so much of the public's response at the time of its release. And you could feel it in the theater, as you said, David.

Yeah. Was the sense of like, what the fuck is Tobey Maguire doing? Does he think this looks cool? Right. the fuck is toby mcguire doing does he think this looks cool right and that it felt like no one was giving toby mcguire credit for being funny that they assumed he was failing to be cool um which it's like right he's he's a guy who's stuck perpetually in this weird 60s version of america raised by old people with very simple values like of course he doesn't know how to fucking be sexy. There's a tiny moment

when he goes into the club with Gwen Stacy, right? Which is just like such an unappealing asshole thing to do. His whole attitude of it. Her going like, isn't that your ex-girlfriend?

Don't you not want to be here? He's like, no, no, it's fine. I got this figured out. But there's the moment where he goes over to like the hostess. And he slips her some money and she gives him this look

of sort of like yes yeah right it's like even in just that one shot Raimi lets it be undercut for a second where it's like

this isn't working on anyone right it's not like people like oh my god so cool Gwen Stacy's going out with him because

she liked him in class right she doesn't like this she doesn't no one likes this who would like this it's not successful I'm sure there are people who like it and I salute you any listener who saw Tobey Maguire looking like that No one likes this. Who would like this? It's not successful.

I'm sure there are people who like it, and I salute you. Any listener who saw Tobey Maguire looking like that in the movie and was like, this is a sexual awakening for me, I doff my cap to you. I'm sure someone's out there like that. I appreciate that. In Esther's piece,

I guess the makeup artist says that people say that it was like a My Chemical Romance look, but My Chemical Romance wasn't actually on the scene yet. Right. And I was trying to think of who the Tobey Maguire looked like in that emo Tony, emo Tobey. He looks like Julian Casablanca from The Strokes. Very good call.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That's sort of right. You know, especially the languid hair. The bags under the eyes. The hair dangling on the eye. She also says like there's not eyeshadow.

Like people think he's wearing eyeliner or whatever. He's not. I just made his eyes look really sunken. Like I tried to make him. Anyway.

Talk about the editor's coach. I've never watched. Is it on the disc? It is. I think it's disc four. It's on the bonus. I have one of those books.

We all have the 4K box at the book. I don't have the book. I have like they released a 4K box of 4K just like it's on the bonus i have one of those we all have the 4k box at the book yeah no i don't have the book i have like they released a 4k box of 4k just like it's the three disc with no special features oh okay i think it was very upset about it hey um but i i have all the digital copies anyway and all the special features are in the digital ones so bob marosky who's one of ramey's regular collaborators through to doctor strange i i don't remember which ones he didn't work on, but has worked on a number of the Raimi movies.

This movie comes out, Raimi's sort of very quickly like, it got away from me, I'm apologetic. When he's talking about wanting to make four, he's like, I know I fucked it up, I have to prove myself. There were always things that were like in the trailers that weren't in the movie,

things that actors would talk about having shot, stills that came out and they'd be like, you know, as often as the case, like the fucking images that exist of like the quote unquote Schumacher cut of Batman Forever, fans want to believe there is a cut of a movie that fundamentally solves it and fixes everything they just like about it. Right, and then there are things like that

Daredevil cut, which is one of those classic things where I'm like, yes, this is better. It makes it 5% better. But like everything I don't like about this movie, like the actors are still in it or whatever. It's like some of this is unfixable. So I think, especially people who thought that this movie was too goofy, assumed

there was some cut that could salvage it. Like 10 years later, 2017, I guess it's when Homecoming's coming out? Sure, that that sounds right they re-release these movies on 4k for the first time and there had been this rumor of like is sony doing an extended cut of spider-man 3 there's the 2.1 cut which is not good which actually makes the movie worse which is

horrible yes i do not watch it ever no so what's what's different about the 2.1 cut? It's so bad. It includes that stupid scene with Jameson wearing the suit. Yes. And like, yeah, it throws in deleted scenes. It fucks up the timing. It stretches out the house sparks in the elevator thing for an additional two minutes. Like, it just, it adds in a couple weird things, but also ruins the perfect diamond cut timing of a couple things from the original movie. It absolutely is just emblematic of the pox

of every movie needs to have an unrated, out of control cut. And there was no unrated cut, so they were like, it's just longer now. And the J. Joan Jameson scene is a scene that Sam, like, Raimi himself admitted, we thought was funny on paper and then when I watched it, I was like, this isn't funny. But anyway, the Spider- anyway, the editor's cut of

Spider-Man 3. There's no director's cut, there's no extended cut. And I think Raimi was just like, I'm so haunted by this fucking thing, I don't want to touch it. At some point, there are these rumors of like, Murawski might be working on a cut. There might be someone trying to restore some sort of vision of the thing.

And then a month before that 4K box set comes out, it just goes up on Amazon. It's like rentable on Amazon. Right, you can just, right. And it's not longer. If anything, it's maybe a couple minutes shorter. Right, yeah, okay.

Or a minute shorter. But it swaps out a ton of stuff, essentially. Alternate takes, a bunch of different things. But it goes up with a little fanfare, then it's a bonus on that disc, and it's sort of like never got a ton of attention. And because it was an editor's cut, people were like, how this and he's been very much like look i just think there's a better version of the movie than what we had to rush to put out i tried to salvage it this represents my opinion and not me trying to restore sam's idea and he edited dr strange so

it's not like sam and he had fallen out absolutely but a lot of alternate takes it adds a couple things it cuts a lot of the worst scenes out of the movie. Right. Which I will go over. The other thing is, it like has a pretty different score. I think Christopher Young's score was like redone a lot. And then Sony came in with notes and added, it said, we want this emotion instead of this emotion.

There was a score that helps settle the tone of the movie a lot more and makes it feel more cohesive, as do the sort of alternate takes in certain cases. Two huge things that are cut. It cuts the entire Butler scene. Good. It's a tough scene.

The worst scene in the movie. It doesn't help. This maybe is very superficial, but it doesn't help that the Butler has like this flat Midwestern accent. Do you know who the Butler is? It's Bill Paxton's's dad yeah oh that's funny i didn't know that but uh if the butler every time every time he shows up on screen and

he's about to open his mouth i'm like oh he's gonna have like like a received pronunciation but then he's like uh harry yeah harry for people who don't remember there's a scene where the butler at the end of three movies essentially essentially decides to be like, FYI. I've been here the whole time. I knew the whole thing. I never said anything. Right. Your dad died on his own glider or whatever.

Spider-Man didn't kill him. So in Spider-Man 2, Otto Octavius, he just runs through all the scenes that Harry wasn't there for. They cut that scene out entirely. The way that moment plays is Peter comes through, makes the plea to Harry, sees how scarred he is. Harry sort of has his like clenched emotions. Peter leaves. He looks down at the picture frame of the three of them together with cracked glass over it. And he looks at it and cries and then looks up.

And it is just a much subtler, much better. Just the thing that brings him back is because Peter has been arguing for his innocence this entire time. Either he's going to believe Peter or not. The butler saying this is just way too much to throw on him. The thing that works is

because Peter's plea is do it for MJ. I don't care if you hate me. MJ is in danger. He looks back down at the photo and he remembers like, God, how far have things gotten away from us? What insane like fucking lives we now live. We I this is what matters.

And it makes I think Harry's death also. I find something kind of touching about that final sort of moment of the three of them as the sun is rising, sort of all holding each other. Just being like it feels like a less cynical version of the starship troopers thing yeah where all three of them end up together at the end and they're like how crazy right like five years ago we were kids right now we have all these adult problems and one of us is dead you know but i like that it just regrounds into that thing there's the the second aunt may scene they cut out entirely as well the one about like the guilt yes right he is like the whole point of this was my fucking daughter and i can't even see her anymore i'm a monster now

everyone knows me in the press as this criminal whatever and uh it's it's theresa russell and the daughter uh who had a run where she was steve jobs's daughter sandman's daughter and and the bride's daughter in kill bill volume two oh really wait, Sandman's daughter, and the bride's daughter in Kill Bill Vol. 2. Oh, really? Wait, Steve Jobs' daughter? She's the oldest Jobs' daughter in Steve Jobs. Oh, I see. So years later. I was just saying, because that movie's later, right? No, I know. She's the oldest. She's the final daughter in that movie.

The final daughter. The final daughter. Yeah. Perla Haley Jardim. Yeah. They're sitting on a bench, and Teresa Russell's like, you need to understand, your dad's like a fuck up. He fundamentally fucks everything up. You cannot rely on him. Even if he's trying his best, he's going to hurt you.

You don't want him in your life. And she like gets up and sort of like hobbles over and sees the sand castle and can tell that it's him and like touches it. And sort of has the moment of like, I understand that he's trying and the mom doesn't see it. She looks back to her mom. She looks over, the sandcastle's gone.

And it's like a nice little thing. There are just some little character moments like that they reinstate. There are the clunkiest sort of overwritten scenes they all take out. There are alternate takes and score cues

that just tonally like flatten it out. They also take out a lot of Eddie Brock. Right. They sort of strip it down to the bare minimum. But I do think it flows better. It's not a fundamentally different movie. I think it's just a little bit more consistent. It is a cut done by someone who doesn't have studio executives breathing down their neck and has a little more time to think over it.

The only mistake I think it makes is it changes the fucking cue at the end of the movie so it isn't the Elfman theme and it's some other piece of instrumentation that's not as iconic and resonant. Can we talk about the best scene in this entire movie? Yes. What's the best scene in this entire movie? Birth of the Sandman. It is pretty good.

Do you think that's the best scene in the entire movie? Birth of the Sandman. It is pretty good. Do you think that's the best scene in the entire movie? Is it Birth of the Sandman? Yeah. The him trying to reconstitute himself. I mean, I love that scene. Or I really like that scene.

I don't know if I love it. I love that scene. But it's great. It's a very Griffin scene in that it's like this sort of miraculous technological scene as well. I mean, I think...

But it's also a very universal monster. That's right. The hand. Yeah. Go ahead. I think actually my favorite scene scene as well i mean i i think it's also very universal monster that's right the hand yeah what what what go ahead i just i think i think actually my favorite scene in my favorite scene sequence in the movie is the is the james brown right now i think that is i think i think that sort of is sort of like the it's the boldest thing in the movie but the sandman thing is sort of similarly bold yeah but why why do you love that apart from the sort of is it is it the kind of

like universal monster tragic thing part of I guess how Tom St. George acts it is as when he's first dissolving the sand his face is sort of like he's like horrified he's like I'm dying it's like I'm dying yeah it's a kind of crestfallen yeah I think it's a

complete story the scene in and of itself right the fact that like it speaks to the sort of ramey at his best his sort of incredibly clean expressiveness that the scene is driven by a character who is struggling to even be able to uh create recognizable human uh expressions that you're like projecting these emotions onto a pretty formless mound of shit yeah uh and that going from like the individual grain to then seeing the entire sort of silo of the sand that like struggle to get his fingers to maintain integrity that like the entire internal

journey of it without any narration or whatever i I think that's also the best track in the score, which watching the editor's cut, I do think the score is pretty good. The Raimi, I always dinged it for not being Raimi, but I think the Sandman theme is good. I think that theme in particular is good. You mean Elfman, not Raimi. I'm sorry. That's what I mean. But there's this Anthony Lane's review of this movie when it came out. The opening paragraph

was all about that scene. Right. And just kind of how incredible it is. And the opening sentence of his review is there's one great

scene in Spider-Man three and you can pretty much leave the theater once it's over. But for those three or four minutes you wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

It's very compelling. I agree with you. And I think about that line a lot too when there's like a movie that agree with you. And I think about that line a lot too. When there's like a movie that doesn't work, that can have one scene that is so locked in and such a clean expression of what the person was trying to do that he's literally like, there's nowhere else in the world you'd rather be than watching these two minutes of Spider-Man three.

Okay. But, but what do we think of Mary Jane's arc in this movie? I like it. Why do you like it? I really like Dunst's performance. I like her performance throughout this one. And mind you, the thing I just rewatched was the cut that maybe has better takes of her performance.

Yeah, sure. I mean, that's okay. I don't know. I don't know. I just, I felt like, in my mind's eye, this movie fell prey to the plotline that is always dicey of like the girlfriend's upset she's not getting enough attention yes it's a bad plotline

it's a bad plotline and then she doesn't get anything to do I think she plays it incredibly well yes, she's a good actress but the character is horribly underserved and then like she's jealous of Gwen Stacy who's a non-character and it all just feels like she's behaving stupidly and I feel like she's jealous of Gwen Stacy who's a non-character

and it all just feels like she's behaving stupidly and I feel like it's like it's not a good way to treat her character well this is not well treated in the first movie you know it's like Mary Jane's sort of inconsistent because often she has to be the thing to rescue or the thing between her and

him and Harry or whatever right like you know it's a lot of that but I think this one is so much about her I like her scene with Harry when they're cooking I was gonna say I. It's a lot of that. But I think this one is so much about her trying to figure out... I like her scene with Harry when they're cooking. I was going to say. I think that's a great scene. That's where there's some juice. I also think Franco's good in this movie.

He, I really... He's a real feast or famine actor for me. I said that to you. And I more often than not dislike him. I really like him in one and two. I like his sort of weird harry in general his weird take on harry which is kind of like a aloof rich kid who doesn't know how to fit in thing right who's handsome but also an alien right yeah yeah and then this one i feel like he's good when he's

doing that but i feel like he's kind of like bored when he's in like evil goblin mode like quote unquote you know like when he yes which is how i feel about him in oz and how i feel about him in like almost in plan of the apes. Well, that's almost any blockbuster he was in where I was just kind of like, are you bored? Like all of a sudden that weird thing with Franco, I mean,

those in dead behind the eyes and Oz, they are performances that actually like make me angry where I'm like, let someone else do this. Someone might enjoy doing this. Someone would enjoy doing this. People felt about him at the Oscars. They will at least enjoy making this money you ungrateful fuck who's gonna like make this film and then talk about why like well i knew it was bad but i thought it was an interesting statement to be in a film

like this while i'm also teaching a class on being in movies that suck or whatever and i'm like fuck you right i think he's less comfortable with the new golin-y stuff. I do like everything after he gets scarred when he sort of once again becomes more tragic universal monster hero. I enjoy his... Do you guys like his messed up face? Well, the amnesia. I think all the amnesia stuff is fun.

The amnesia is really good. Well, and this is... That is so comic book. Even the doctor's like, I don't know what to tell you. He's the normal guy, except he just doesn't remember like the last six or seven issues. My friend. My best friend. Peter, I don't know what to tell you. He's the normal guy, except he just doesn't remember the last six or seven issues.

My friend. My best friend. Peter, I love you. We just graduated high school, right? That was my dad. That thing where the nurse is like, those are good friends. He's like, not good friends. Best friend. His messed up face looks good. I like his messed up face.

It kind of is messed up. You're like, shit. Franco leans into the sort of james deaniness of it then which he's so good at right and and i i think once again it's like the stuff with mary and harry mary jane and harry is fun to me because it gets back to this thing of just like fuck we were so miserable and angsty when we were teenagers and that feeling where you're like in your mid to late 20s and you're like i didn't realize how good i had it yeah we're hot right i like it when he says do you like peppers and she's like i love peppers i'm like no one's ever said that no one

that feeling of mary jane like give me a bell pepper baby holding all this weird information knowing that he's got amnesia and this isn't real, but being like, wouldn't it be nice to just pretend that it was just this again? This Peter thing's like not fucking working. I don't know. I think she's good. And I do just, she's great. Yeah, I think my trouble- I have no beef with her performance.

I think her performance is very good. And I think she's just like very good at playing, you know, moments where you could play big, she plays small. Yeah. And I think that's sort of like kind of her power. Like she knows how to just like really modulate the emotions while still delivering the impact of a big performance.

And so I sort of did not pay, sort of like, yeah, she's in this movie more than the other ones. She's very like either damsel in distress. Which she often is. Yeah. Or a drag or or a drag or a drag yeah yeah i think there's probably a way to do the peter's not paying attention enough to me uh story and just have it be a little more nuanced a little less sort of like i need

attention a little more sort of like you're not tending this relationship here's how you do it you take a villain out because the reason anytime she's like i sort of like you're not tending this relationship. Here's how you do it. You take a villain out. Because the reason anytime she's like, I just feel like you're not paying attention to me. I'm like, Mary Jane, too much is going like I, the viewer, I'm like,

what do you mean? Have you read this script? Right. You take a villain out and sort of like, it's the dilemma. Give it a little room to breathe. Right. And I think this is,

I think this is kind of what they were going for, right? That like Peter becomes so self-absorbed about being Spider-Man that he just ceases to tend these relationships. What keeps Spider-Man Spider-Man is that he's humbled constantly by the universe. Okay.

Can I just say, faint praise is a word, because I think I've identified what I do marginally like about this, and it's purely an execution of most of the credit goes to Mary Jane. To Dunst in her performance. I think what I like is that she never has the you're not paying attention

to me blow up scene. Yeah. Which is the scene that always like nails on a chalkboard feels like all you know how to do is turn the woman into a harpy

sort of emotionally unsatisfied whatever. I like that the more he starts feeling himself getting absorbed with all this stuff she just pulls back. And that is just this thing of like he doesn't realize that she has been fired from the play until an hour and 30 minutes this is my question in this she just goes like if you're

not going to pay attention I don't want to burden you I guess I'll just be sad no but we have to talk about this all right do you guys think she's bad in the play? Like how bad is she in the play? Because we see her perform and it's a nice little number. I think it's nice. So how can she be so bad that they fired her from a Broadway show? She's a union actor. Yeah. That is hard to do. They are replacing her

name on the damn marquee. Yeah. Like one performance in. How bad was she? Did she like fall over in act two? I can't get over it that they fire her. It's crazy. Explain it to me now. Go. Look, I think the only way it works is if you

have to imagine that she's like this weird it girl and they're like now she's going to do a musical and Kirsten Dunst has a nice singing voice but a very particular kind of like Zooey Deschanel ask singing voice. It's a little one. Yes.

Right. Right. Yeah. Right. And that they're sitting there and they're like, we put this young star in this show and she's not giving us fireworks. And the reviews were bad.

You don't fire someone for bad reviews. I wouldn't. This industry is brutal. Okay. I think you like the Mary Jane because of what I like about the Mary Jane. The last scene is so nice. It's very lovely.

And I actually had forgotten that it ended like that. It's such a crazy way for a movie like this to end. Especially when you're like, this is the end of his trilogy, whether or not that was his intention at the time. You still have to think he had to create an ending that he knew if I never get to make another one, this is where it is.

And that they let it end on the two of them sadly dancing together and not even knowing how to talk through their problems anymore. More, like, I don't know.

And this is why I'm always going to go to bat for this movie. Because, like... The ending for me, I'm just like, I will forever want to defend it

because he ended it this way and it cost $250 million. And it's like... See, I knew this was a favorite. I agree. It's a movie about fucking people. It's not a movie about costumes. Keeps coming back to the people. Purple genocide

guys. It's not about a hole in the sky. It's a movie about two kind of broken people. At the end of the day, even when you have this crazy, this was like the most expensive movie ever made at the time. I remember the thing where it leaked out that it cost $250 million,

and the response was, that must be a typo. It is impossible for a movie to cost, where does that money go? And the fact is, even when you get to this crazy unset piece where you have seven characters all fighting and scaffolding, it comes down to four different apologies need to happen yes right the resolution of every plot

line is like you just need to tell that person you're sorry about this they need to know that you're aware that you hurt them and then you're gonna defeat them with church bells or whatever it's fine or you know banging sticks together solely apologies god the venom death and then it ends with like a quiet a quiet sad dance and the ending is so good and yet at the same time i do kind of remember being at the multiplex opening weekend and ending like that and everyone being like okay i guess we'll go like you know like you know like it's certainly the audience was not leaving being like yeah spider-man well but it's it's a ramey throwing. I mean, you know, another issue with this film is that one exceeded expectations, right?

And then two exceeds, like, all sequel expectations, where they're like, holy shit, how did he just perfect this fucking thing? So then I think you have three years of everyone being like, well, Sam Raimi is a genius. Yeah. He is the one person who has figured out exactly how to make these movies. He cannot err again. I mean, it's similar to what happened with The Dark Knight Rises. Yes, exactly. Which is a movie I think is totally fine. I liked it when I saw it in theaters

and I will happily revisit it again. I like this more than that, but it's similarly a movie I want to fight for for specific reasons of what it tries to do. There's things that work. There's things that don't work. And before we started recording, we talked a little bit about Superman Returns. Yes.

Which is another movie that it's not a sequel or anything, but it's like much better than it gets credit for. Yeah. And it also, one of the weird things about it is that it is kind of a sequel. Yeah, it is kind of a sequel. Right. To a movie that's like four generations.

Yeah. Yes. That's like the whole thing for me is that he still is he's keyed into the basic story he wants to tell here and even when it gets muddled the humanity of these central characters yeah does basically stay intact and remain the key attraction let me give you a quote from bill pope who shot this movie. Shot the last one too. Yeah. Bill Pope. The legendary Bill Pope.

And he talks about a lot of cinematographers who do this. You make a visual flow chart, right? For like the moods, how the atmosphere will be scene by scene,

right? Maybe colors, things like that. And he was like, Spider-Man, we couldn't do it because the emotions and there's so many characters

who changed so much that like there was no way to map it out in a way that looked logical. That's fascinating. And also the characters have entirely different color palettes.

Yes, exactly. You're like, Venom is black, Sandman is like green and yellow, and then New Goblin is like green and black. Yeah, kind of steely green. Right.

Yeah, right. And it's basically, he's like, there are four characters. They're going either from light to dark or dark to light or light to dark to light or whatever.

Right. But they're all doing it at different times. They're all doing it on different tracks. You have night sequences. You have dawn. You have dusk. You have morning. The score.

And also the script would keep changing. You know, like the way he describes it basically does seem to be like new pages are coming in every day where it's like, no, no, no. Actually, the Green Goblin thing is going to happen over here now or whatever. So I do. This is that's all the problem. I agree with you what you're saying, the three main kids. There's something there. Yeah.

But everything around it is so noisy in this movie. Yeah, I just think, look, I'm not going to tell you to do it today because I certainly... I'll watch the editors. I just think it's an interesting spin to give at some point because I think, aside from everything else, it reorganizes some scenes in a better order as well. It just makes it feel a little less manic. Does it have Venom dive into the bomb to get back into the suit

and turn into a skeleton? Yes. I do like that. I like that too. I love that. But why I like that is because it does feel like Sam Raimi being like,

don't ever fucking ask me about Venom again. Yeah. Because initially it seems like, oh, Spider-Man's gonna blow up the suit, but Eddie Brock will survive and we can have a little post-credits thing where it's like, oh, ever fucking ask me about Venom again. Yeah. Because initially it seems like, oh, Spider-Man's going to blow up the suit, but Eddie Brock will survive and we can have a little post-credits thing where it's like, oh, there's a blob left. And then Sam Raimi's like, no.

Eddie Brock dives in. The whole thing explodes. Right. No more Venom. Right. You made me do this and I'm not doing it anymore. He refuses to apologize. He refuses to take responsibility. That's another thing that's reinstated back into the movie. There's like a montage of like black suit Spider-Man killing it, which was a bunch of stuff that was in the trailer that they made.

That's really expensive. Like you need that. Yeah, I know. It's like weirdly missing and it's in the editor's cut and it helps the movie. Um, I,

well, one thing I want to tell you about in the research, well, the sand, right. They shot a lot of real sand. I guess I didn't know that. Yeah. The thing I remember reading, I don't know if about in the research, well, the sand, right? They shot a lot of real sand. I guess I didn't know that. Yeah, the thing I remember reading,

I don't know if JJ pulled this up, was that they, like, this was such a, like, tech breakthrough was to try to do the particle physics of Sandman, which are a lot easier, I think, to do these days, but that they, like, studied so many different types of grains

to figure out what the best one would be. 16 types of grains, and they would mix them. And the basic like backbone of this ended up being like ground up corn husks. Ground up corn cobs. I think that was for understanding how it affects the body. Cause they were like, we can't bury someone in. Right.

But we need to bury someone in something. Right. So they did that. But the CGI is also sort of emulating what those look like. Yes. And then the symbiote, obviously, you know, who cares? I feel like the challenge is how it moves. I like how it moves.

I do, too. I like this sort of spindly, webby. It has also the vaguely Deadite-esque, like, jerky-jerky movement, which I like. And, yeah, the other thing right in the research that we haven't mentioned is Danny Elfman. You mentioned, obviously, Danny Elfman you mentioned obviously Danny Elfman didn't do it yeah but he didn't do this movie because he found Spider-Man

too miserable yeah it's like my connection with Sam got severed as far as I'm concerned he went to sleep someone put a pod next to him and when he awoke he wasn't the same person I'd known for a decade now look Danny Elfman will mother fuck someone I feel like we've encountered this dramatically he's kind of a dramatic dude. I think he's mad that he got into the temp score so much and kept being like, get it to sound more like this temp score. And Danny Elfman was like,

you're driving me crazy. This is what happened. If you watch Spider-Man 2, there's very little new music in it. He essentially makes like a Doc Ock theme that they reuse several times across the film. But I think what happened

because that movie was on such a tight timeline, it comes out so quickly that they're like editing as they go and they edit it, they cut it to Elfman's score

for the first movie. Right. So they reuse tracks from the first movie and they played it for him and they went like, we just want you to do music in these five spots.

And he's like, I want to do a full score. Let me, if you want something like this in this sequence, I'll do a new version of it. And Raimi was like, okay. And then when they were re-recording, he was like, just do the exact same thing again. So Raimi wouldn't let him do new music and essentially married him into old tracks.

Like the sequence where Peter's testing his powers out again, too. We'll talk about that. But that's the crux of the thing there. They reconnect on Oz. They're right. They figured it out. So, whatever. They're fine.

But he hates them. But I do think the young score always felt a little we have Elfman at home to me. Yes. And the editor's cut, I do think, when you hear his full version of it, it's better. I'm seeing here.

I'm sorry. I just got an invitation. Griffin Newman, July 28th, is marrying the Spider-Man 3 editor's cut in the Central Park Boathouse? What is this?

It's just... Wait, my RSVP. Yes, I will attend. Paperless post. It's not as dramatic as a fucking swing shift or something. What kind of fish are we talking about? Sorry. Just a big will attend. Paperless post. It's not as dramatic as chicken or fish. Fucking swing shift or something. What kind of fish are we talking about? Big old plate of sardines.

Stacked up on top of each other and toast. That's very in right now. Yeah, huge. They're good for omega-3 oils, you know. Jamel, is there anything in your sort of like grand theory of this movie that you have not yet presented? Like your sort of grand defense of this movie? Yeah, I don't think, I think we've sort of hit on all of it. I think my grand defense of this movie is you have not yet presented. Like, you're sort of grand defense of this movie. Yeah, I don't think, I think we've

sort of hit on all of it. I think my grand defense of this movie is that I will acknowledge the problems. Like, they are there and it's silly to pretend like they're not. Right, it's not like you're like it's the best of the three. Right, right. You acknowledge that two is the best and one and three are good with problems. My view is that the

abysmal reputation this movie has is entirely unjustified. When you watch this movie, even if you watch it some years removed from the other ones, what you see is still kind of unique in this genre. A film about three people in extraordinary circumstances and how they deal with those extraordinary circumstances, how they affect their relationship. And I think that stuff is very compelling.

I think that it remains a through line through this movie. I think that even if the, even as the point you've made Griffin a number of times, even if they're never fully able to really kind of connect all these villains together in this movie, that there are elements of each storyline that really do work and really do tie into what Raimi is trying to do with these three movies.

And I think it's entertaining. I mean, like, I think it's broadly entertaining. I think if you just sort of, like, let yourself kind of experience the movie and not go into it with what I think a lot of people have, which is like a chip on their shoulder about not getting the thing that they wanted

and just sort of take it on its own terms. You'll come away being like, this is an entertaining movie with problems. And honestly, I think it's like better than most of the stuff in the genre that's coming out now. Yeah, it's like, it's home cooking as opposed to processed food. Right. I also just feel like, I feel like whenever you, people who just made a hit movie do an interview about working on the sequel and trying to develop the script or whatever, they always pay lip service to this thing where like, well, it comes back to, can we

find a good journey for the character? How do you test the character, right? Really, at the end of the day, it's not about the MacGuffin or the villain. It's about really testing the character. And I think this is a movie where if it has a fundamental failing, it's that they come up with like three differentin or the villain. It's about really testing the character. And I think this is a movie where, if it has a fundamental failing, it's that they come up with, like, three different tests for the character. But this movie is not a plot-driven

film. It is truly, as are all three Spider-Man movies, extensions of what is the challenge that Peter Parker, a development man, goes through in order to gain a greater understanding of himself and his relationships to the people closest to him. And you have sort of three alternate movies in this. Right.

It's like him healing his relationship with Harry. Right. Probably the best of the three arcs. Yeah. Him coming to understand the Sandman, there's stuff there. The Uncle Ben thing feels a little crowbar-y. You understand from Sony's perspective,

at the Harry arc, they're like, that's the thing that's on the table that needs to be resolved. Of course. And Raimi is like, Sandman is the thing that would get me the most excited right and then the venom thing is like I don't really know what Peter learns there don't have venom suits avoid those right like I don't really know what he learns no it's like I could have been a huge asshole not letting the the selfishness take over I mean yeah right but i mean like when venom dies i don't know if peter's like oh no well no i think i think what he it's the eddie was so addicted to that

fucking feeling right that he's like i know that feeling it's bad i'd rather die right and and even just peter like at the beginning of the movie when everyone's like celebrating spider-man before he puts the the symbiote suit on it's still the fact where it's like, I was buying into the hype so much. I wasn't paying attention to my girlfriend getting fired. I didn't even realize how the Venom, the Venom suit is a amped up version of what he experienced at the beginning of the movie.

Yes. And it's a failing of the movie that it doesn't really make that great that well. Right. It doesn't, it doesn't. But, but again,

I think that it's all there the pieces are all it's all there and it's so frustrating i think if this had come out if this exact movie yeah come out in 2019 people would lose their fucking minds finally a superhero movie that cares about the people in this movie absolutely and and like sure it would right yeah yeah look they've maybe gotten a little more elegant at putting these things in with confidence when there's shit like

Sandman tripping into the, you know, the silo or the symbiote just happening to land there. This movie feels kind of embarrassed and shrugging them off and they're like,

what are we going to do? We got to get through this, right? Well, and also, it just has no time, like you said. Exactly. I think something like No Way Home is as sweaty in the connections and the coincidences it makes.

Insanely, yes. But it does it with a certain confidence now that all these movies are like, you understand, we just have to get through this. Like, the fact that the thing, Peter needs to reset the universe because he fucked up with the college admissions advisor. And the thing that makes him realize this, go to Doctor Strange, is that Halloween decorations are still up and dracula kind of looks like like shit like that you're just like this but do you know what that movie has that this does that none of these movies is that peter can be come on dr strange i gotta do this thing and dr strange looks at him and he's like yeah and you're like right because they like fought an alien together right that's what those movies have yeah is that ben and comatch can give him a look and you're like, well, I know about the long history of these characters. Right.

And it papers over nonsense. Right. Which is Doctor Strange being like, yeah, it's a brief little spell. Who cares? It papers over the fact that the emotional beats in that movie are entirely derived from stuff like 15 or 20 years earlier. 100%. Right. It's a pure cynical nostalgia play.

And I mean, I get why people like it. It's the sweatiest movie alive. I talked about this, but I took my six-year-old cousin to see it. Anytime he asked me a plot question, my answer confused him more than what he was originally confused by. And he just had to be like,

I don't, just fuck, I can tell you what it is. You're not going to be happy. I love my stories though. It's like a soap opera who cares you know there's just storylines and characters coming back to life and i think in 2007 people watch this movie and they're like this is too busy there's too much going on what the fuck and i think now audiences watch something like no way home and when there's like some sweaty rush plot development they're like well of course because they have to set up seven other characters. I understand they need to do that. I mean,

there's this sort of cynical acceptance of like, I'm fine with seeing the gears of the story machinery. Yeah. If it gets me to the end point, if you ever have me on for like a DC movie or whatever, I will go into a whole rant about this exact thing, but how viewers have turned themselves into like mini studio executives and how it is.

It's like, I feel like it, I spend too much time on Tik TOK and there are so many Tik TOK videos viewers have turned themselves into like mini studio executives and how it is it's like i feel like it i spend too much time on tiktok and there are so many tiktok videos of people basically doing well you know people say this movie gets bad but what you don't understand is it's setting up x y and z and that's why it's actually good and the executives are geniuses and it's like i don't know what the fuck is wrong with you people this movie isn't setting up anything uh anything as much as it doesn't seem like a definitive end to the rainy mcguire spider-mans the only thing it's setting up is just like and kurt connor's is still just there in the background but like as opposed to two which ends with mary jane picking peter harry finding

right all this sort of shit it It's not setting up anything. And I do just... It's kind of a Sandman movie, I'd say. Yeah, he's out there. He blows away. Where does the wind take him? That's all I'm saying. One other final complaint that I have is like,

I don't... There's stuff like the Sandman creation that's Bravura but the action is sort of not like as next level as it feels in 2 I think this is very much a case of them reaching beyond their means like even with the biggest

budget in the fucking world it's weird that the visual effects weirdly look worse in some ways like some of the swinging and stuff do you know what I think it is if I can try to explain this very quickly? Yeah. So, so often when I watch the corridor crew videos. It's just what he means is he's going to take a while

explaining something when he says that. I'm not. I'm not. Okay, go ahead. There'll be things where they'll show a scene and very often now they'll have like the actual VFX person who worked on the movies. They'll be like, our guest today is a guy from Weta. Yeah, they can get the guys. Right.

So they go, so how do you do this sequence where the guy deteriorates into sand? How do you make Thomas Hayden Church deteriorate into sand? And their answer is almost always the whole shot is CGI. And they're like, really? And they're like, you get to a point where if you have one live action element and everything else around him is CGI. Right. The live action looks worse. And it actually is better to just

use the thing you shot as reference and just scrap it and recreate the entire thing as CGI. Or at the very least what they do is they build a 3D model of Thomas Hayden Church and they take the still image that they filmed of him and they wrap it around. Right.

Right? And this is a movie where the compositing is still, like, two-dimensional, where there are, like, 3D environments with 3D effects, and you have Thomas Hayden Church in, like, a three-day subway station with a 3D train car and...

It's 3D, I'm sorry. CGI, subway station, train car, sand. And the only thing that's real is Thomas Hayden Church, and what they're doing is truly the color form of just like and just cut him in here and it does make things

feel more disconnected like I think the pure Spidey CGI Venom shit looks good and I think anytime there's a human face in a shot

it feels more disjointed alright I think I agree with you I mean yeah there's just something off about some of the they're great

they're overreaching. And, right, the Doc Ock fights are so perfect. Anyway. This film came out May 4th. It made... 2007. Made $336 million. It made $900 million worldwide.

It was the highest-grossing film of 2007. And it was the highest-grossing Spider-Man film until no way... No, no, sorry. Far From Home, maybe? Like, you know... Worldwide. Yeah. Finally, it was the highest grossing Spider-Man film until No Way, no, no, sorry, Far From Home, maybe? Like, you know. Worldwide. Yeah. Finally, it was beaten by Far From Home.

Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah. No Way Home is still the first one to beat it domestically. Right. And like, so like, it's not like it wasn't successful. No. But it is that kind of classic thing of like, everyone involved also kind of knew like,

we did definitely lose some public trust on this. The opening weekend was 160? The opening weekend, of course, is going to be told to you by me now. Right. And the answer is 151. 151. Okay.

But it breaks the record. I guess so. Because Dark Knight breaks that record a year later with 153 or something. If I can just leapfrog for a second here, this was the month where they were like, is this going to cannibalize the industry? You have three huge trilogy enders all coming out like three consecutive weeks.

Right. Where it was Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3, all came out in May. And they were like, these are three of the biggest franchises. Each one of them has broken opening weekend records. And they're all going to come out

within spitting distance of each other. And then Transformers comes out that same summer as well. Obviously, Pirates of the Caribbean and Shrek go like, eh, we should do a fourth. And like, overstay their welcome. Spider-Man, they hit the reset button.

Transformers is the, like, wins the summer in the court of public opinion. In a weird sort of a way. Of the blockbusters. Another movie that sort of wins the summer is a film called Knocked Up. Comes out a month later. Yes. In which seeing Spider-Man 3 is kind of a plot point.

Everyone wants to see Spider-Man 3. It is invoked constantly. Yes, it's really funny. Yes. It's actually, I think Judd Apatow just understands that, like, Leslie Mann saying, I want to see Spider-Man 3 just sort of sounds funny. Like, these grown-ups want to see a movie

called Spider-Man 3. When they, like, interview Franco on the red carpet for Spider-Man 3 or whatever. It is funny, but it also was this weird thing of, like, he understood the weird power of having that movie come out in the summer

and having characters argue about a movie that is playing one screen over. Not some fictional blockbuster, but being like, I know the movie everyone's going to be talking about, Spider-Man 3, and I know when we're coming out. Movie did not get great reviews, although it's that kind of like Phantom Menace-y

thing where it's like... Star Trek and Darkness. Mildly positive. Yeah. It's just a lot of people being like, hmm, not quite as good not quite as like you know you know sort of more like of a 60 on rotten tomatoes number two in america i remember simply because i don't know if it's been beaten now it had the record for the widest disparity between number one and number two at the box office it made made five million dollars. It was week four of Disturbia. It was week four of Disturbia. Disturbia.

Disturbia. DJ Caruso's Disturbia is number two at the box office. Disturbia, surprisingly successful and then everyone knew Spider-Man 3 was coming

so no one released anything of note in the three weeks leading up to Spider-Man and Disturbia just kept on pulling down very small number ones. And did well.

Everyone was happy with Disturbia. Summer of Shia. It's true. Number three at the box office. Lucky You? No. That is opening number six. Tough. No, but you're right that

this is a box office filled with movies that are basically like, what can we dump? Right. Sacrificial. Exactly. Before Spider-Man. Not only that, in the next two weeks, you're going to have two... They were like, we're going to have $300 million plus openings in a row. Yes.

This is a crime thriller starring an Oscar winner and an Oscar nominee. Okay. An old vet and a young buck. It is forgotten. It's a forgotten... Sort of like the recruit-esque thing. Yeah.

But it's like a legal thriller. It's a legal thriller. It is Forgotten. Oh, it is the movie Fracture. Incredible that he got that. I would have never guessed that. I killed my wife. Right.

Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. The tagline for that movie was, I killed my wife. And it's not the one where Ryan Gosling is playing Robert Durst. No. That is all good things. With Kirsten Dunst. Kirsten Dunst herself. Yeah.

Yes. But yes, Fracture. Fracture is Anthony Hopkins shows up, Ryan Reynolds, hotshot lawyer, and he goes, I killed my wife. I want you to defend me. And he's like,

why is he telling me he killed his wife? Right. What's going on? I assume there's some twist. I think he has to prove that he's innocent even though the guy's telling him that he's guilty or some shit like that I don't know who fucking gives a shit number four at the box office is a supernatural

teen thriller made by someone who was hot in the comic book movie industry is it David Goyer's The Invisible is it Chronicle it's not Chronicle it is David Goyer's The Invisible when is Chronicle it Chronicle? It's not Chronicle. It is David Goyer's The Invisible. When is Chronicle? It's 2009.

Yeah. Maybe a little later. No, it's 2012. That's how old we are. Wow. No, exactly. It's a more forgotten film than Chronicle.

It's The Invisible. I don't know anything, which is a David Goyer movie. It's a Justin Chatelain picture. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Is he invisible? What's it about?

It's like a ghost or some shit. I don't fucking know. Who gives a shit? Okay, fine. Great. We don't know. I think about? Ghost or some shit. I don't fucking know who gives a shit. Okay, fine. Great. We don't know. I think he's a dead kid and he comes back and he can see people and he solves his own death or some shit like that.

David Gorter would write these huge blockbusters and then he would like direct these movies, right? Like this. And he did the weird Dibbuk movie with Gary Oldman as a rabbi. Oh, of course. Yeah. The Unborn? Unborn, yeah.

And he would do interviews with A. Nick Kuhl because they wanted to talk to him to get like Batman scoops. And they'd be like,

so what about this movie? And he'd be like, I don't know, it's like this fucking shit the studios want for kids. I try to make it really scary, but I can't

because... Like he'd be like, I'm tying an arm behind my back. These kids eat this shit up. Number five of the box office is a science fiction film. It's based on a short story

by Philip K. Dick. A Scanner Darkly? It's not a Scanner Darkly. 2007. It's not a good film. Yeah. Unlike a Scanner Darkly. Yeah.

How heavy the sci-fi? I've never seen it, but my guess is somewhat heavy. It stars one of your favorite actors. It stars one of my favorite actors? As the lead? Oh, he's the lead. In 2007?

Yeah. Philip K. Dick. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. What's the movie next? Next. Lee Tomahor is next Next Nicolas Cage

Julianne Moore Jessica Biel Correct Peter Falk Columbo's in this movie Peter Falk is like He works at like the garage Peter Falk in that movie

He's not called Irv apparently He's like Bryan Cranston in Drive He's like Kid you gotta stop seeing what's next So it's the He's a magician Whoranston in Drive. He's like, kid, you gotta stop seeing what's next. So he's a magician who can see into the future and this gets him mixed up with terrorists and maybe the FBI?

Yeah. Next. Can I ruin the twist of next? Yeah, go ahead. If you don't want to hear the twist of next... Press your skip ahead button. Yeah, so the whole movie is he can see a little bit into the future and so he can decide

what the best thing to do is. Right. So the whole movie is he can see a little bit into the future and so he can decide what the best thing to do is. Right. So like there's a 10 minute sequence where he's at a diner with Jessica Biel and he sees her and he's like, I want to talk to this pretty girl. And you have to watch him run through 10 different scenarios of how to make small talk with her. It truly goes on for like 10 minutes. Whole movie proceeds.

He gets hijacked by the government. They're like, we want to use your brain as a weapon, whatever. The end of the movie, you realize none of the movie happened, and he was just seeing a possible scenario, and he's like, yeah, I'm not going to do that movie, and he gets in a car and drives away. That sounds stupid. Like, everything after the first 15 minutes doesn't happen. And you're just, it's so, it is astonishingly rude.

It sounds more deflating than anything else. It is like such an insult to the audience. People are like ripping their chairs out. Number six is Lucky You. Yeah, this movie looks bad. I'm not going to make it. That would be funny if it's Nicolas Cage at a pitch meeting. Lucky You is the Curtis Hansen gambling movie with Eric Bana, right?

Which also sat on the shelf for like two years. Right. Drew Barrymore and Robert DeVol. Right. Is that Curtis Hansen's last note? He's chasing Mavericks. He have to. Right. Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall. Right. Which is, is that Curtis Hanson's last? No, just chasing Mavericks. He have to.

Right. Yeah. And then he did the HBO things. Which is really good. Too big to fail. Right. Yeah. Number seven is Meet the Robinsons,

a film I feel like you defend. A movie I think is low-key charming. Right. Late Disney, or early Disney CGI. You'll watch it with the boss baby in three years. You'll be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

That's fine. Doing anything you can to avoid Cocomelon. And you're going to watch Meet the Robinsons four times. Do you watch Cocomelon? We don't really watch anything at home with him. But he watches at school. What does he watch? I don't know.

He watches Cocomelon. I know he's watched Cocomelon. I know he's watched Paw Patrol. I know he's watched Frozen. Don't get Ben worked up. We're trying to end the episode. We can't even get started on that. We can't get Ben crying.

Blades of Glory is in the top 10. A big comedy hit. Hot Fuzz is in the top 10. Dagger Rites. Yeah. Breakout-ish. I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know. I guess Shaun of the Dead is just a breakout. We used to agree with his worst film and now there's a movie we actually dislike. There's an actual bad one now. Or very flawed, I guess.

Sure. And then Are We Done Yet? Is that the sequel to Are We There Yet? Yeah. It was a big box office game stumper recently. Yeah.

Right. So Are We There Yet? It's the road trip movie with his girlfriend's kids. Are We Done Yet? He's what, fixing up the house? It's a remake of

Mr. Blandling's Builds His Dream House. Correct. The Cary Grant film. Yes. But yes, he's trying to fix a house. It's like a Money Pit style thing. Classic. Yeah. Offensively, this film was not nominated for Best Visual Effects. Or maybe not offensively. I just feel like the Sandman stuff should get it in there. The heights are

high, but it speaks to, I just think, what a bad taste. People were out on this thing. Right. Golden Compass wins that year. Yeah. And Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers both are the other nominees. And I guess those might have a better case. Like, World's End has incredible visual effects. Incredible.

Oh, yeah. And Transformers was kind of doing a thing no one had seen before. But Dead Man's Chest had won. Dead Man's Chest won the year before. Right. And, of course, that's the one that introduces David Jones and all that. That's really impressive. Michael Bay's whole talking point

in interviews that summer was like, I had to make this movie with half the budget of Spider-Man. He was like, I had to be scrappy with $125 million in every character and this is a robot. And on that level, Transformers looks insane. But the other thing with Transformers

is you were just like, how the fuck? Now it's like, yeah, sure, I know how that's gonna work. Then you're like, they're toys. What, they're gonna be like talking and shit?

When they announced Transformers, I said, that is impossible. It's not doable. Right. How can you have that many large characters in one movie? That's a movie that,

like, I would just love to go to someone 400 years from now and be like, look at this. Let's watch this together. Like even maybe a sequel, like one of the ones where it's like a bunch of robots are actually having

like major conversations with each other. But that is, as you said, these movies are bananas. Oh, insane. That is the movie of this summer that Hollywood start taking ideas from. And then the next summer is Iron Man and Dark Knight.

And yeah, everything's changed. So Spider-Man four, uh, of course was the plan Spider-Man 5 and 6 were also announced yeah happened David Koepp was brought in James Vanderbilt was brought in Raimi hated the

script yeah the studio didn't like Raimi's ideas about Vulture or whatever and it all falls apart but I think it was just the classic Raimi thing where he'sulture or whatever and it all falls apart but I think it was just the classic Raimi thing where he's like,

I am not going to deliver another fucking movie to you until I am satisfied with this script. Like, I'm not doing what we just did again

where I, like, just have to hit a date. I refuse to apologize for a Spider-Man movie again. Right. Exactly. So either we're doing

this right or I'm not doing it and it got to the point where they said it's too much money, they're too stubborn and part of the Sony deal has always been,

there has to be a new Spider-Man movie every whatever years. And their deal was always like, in exchange for that, Marvel has 25% of the licensing and the merchandising and whatever. When they make the deal, renew it for the Andrew Garfield movies,

the deal becomes, Marvel keeps 100% of merchandise. And so Marvel's like, then we're fine. We don't fucking Garfield movies, the deal becomes Marvel keeps 100% of merchandise. And so Marvel's like, then we're fine. We don't fucking need the movies, whatever. It's when those movies start bombing and the merch sales go down that Feige has to come in and be like,

you're tanking the character. Yeah, you're going to ruin this. The toys are no longer worth anything. Right. But the other thing I remember is that when James Vanderbilt gets hired, and he's getting hired the same year as Zodiac. Good movie. Great movie.

That they're working on four. Raimi's more hands-on than that. Vanderbilt is like pitching five and six. He's pitching a five and six that they could shoot back-to-back, because that's the new hotness again after Pirates of the Caribbean. But part of the thing was like, he's writing a five and six

that if they didn't want to use Raimi and Maguire could easily be rewritten as a reboot. Right. And so what he's writing as Spider-Man 5 I think pretty quickly

becomes amazing. Because he wrote that movie. Yeah. That movie's bad. It's not good. Horrendous. It's not horrendous but it's bad.

I think it's horrendous. Two is worse. Two is worse. But that's also like case in point why I will always fight for this movie yeah because i'm like is this what you want well now we have tom holland dn you just don't you just think those movies are kind of like whatever i i think they're kind of whatever i

mean my single biggest complaint with the mcu spider-man uh movies which i guess they're largely fixed is that sort of like i don't know spider-man as like you know a venture capitalist as buddy right as tony hawk's apprentice right i mean tony that would whip that would be great tony hawk is like let me teach you how to land a 1080 or whatever but him as tony stark's apprentice it's just sort of like it's sort of it kind of doesn't it misses what I think makes the character unique, which is that he isn't every man. Like as soon as you have a Peter Parker, who's like smart enough and cool enough to be friends with like a tech billionaire. It's sort of like,

what's, what's he, what's he doing in New York? Like, what's he doing in Queens? Why is he still Peter Parker? Where is, where is that?

And so sort of like, now no way home kind of ends with, right. And now he can be Spider-Man. And now he's finally got a shitty apartment. He's single. Three movies in.

But even I think that sort of misses, one of my favorite gags with Spider-Man 2 is at the engagement party for Mary Jane Watson and J. Jonas Jameson's son.

And he's, Peter's the photographer and he just wants to get a snack. And every time he goes to get a snack, he gets taken away. And I think it's son, and Peter's the photographer, and he just wants to get a snack. Every time he goes to get a snack, he gets taken away. And I think it's sort of a little thing to kind of emphasize the point

that the whole deal about being Peter Parker is yes, you're Spider-Man, but you get nothing else. You get... Every time breaks against you, basically. Every time you reach for something, it gets pulled away. Right.

And your life is learning how to accept that yeah yeah and i think what i like about this movie is he spends two movies being like why me why can't it be easy why can't i have what i want right like literally say that line in those movies and then this one they're like if you want what you want peter here you go and it makes him an asshole right and he has to learn like no it's actually good to be humbled um but yes the mcu movies just don't get that at all it took three movies to get there it is the thing i find most emotionally affecting at the end of no way home is the scene at the donut shop which is not a perfect scene but the fact that he makes a very peter parker decision of like i'm gonna leave yeah I'm not going to rope her into this again as a spoiler for people in what has to be

the most spoiled movie in the universe at this point. But yes, this movie is still very much in touch with that. And it's still fundamentally just about a couple of kids from Queens. Yeah. Basically. Well, yeah. Harry's not from Queens, is he? I guess he's from Manhattan.

He's from Manhattan. That kid's from Manhattan. He's from Manhattan. He lives in like Dakota or whatever. I don't know where they live. Yeah, basically. Well, yeah. Harry's not from Queens, is he? I guess he's from Manhattan. He's from Manhattan. That kid's from Manhattan. He's from Manhattan. He lives in like Dakota or whatever. I don't know where they live. We gotta be done. Jamel. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Jamel. This is my first episode of your show when I have not been talking about something

very serious. Serious or heavy. Because you did Rosewood. You did Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump, I guessump Forrest Gump I guess Is the closest to silliness But of course Touched on every part of America I was going to say

It's a lot of the The sins of 20th century America Yeah But so next year Is Five Timers Alright Alright so yeah Your next appearance

Has to be Has to be worthy Of the Five Timers Club Or doesn't Could be Ernest Scared Stupid For like I don't know Whatever Like yeah That's an Ernest right? Yeah Ernest has to be worthy of the five-timers club. Or doesn't. Could be Ernest scared stupid for like, I don't know, whatever. That's an Ernest, right? Yeah, Ernest scared stupid.

That's the best one. Yeah, that's the best one. Absolutely. Ben, do you agree? That's tough. I have a soft slate for camp. That one's pretty good, too. Do you remember the year that was the theme at the Met Gala?

Ernest goes to camp? Nobody understood the assignment. They didn't understand the assignment. They didn't understand. Why isn't Deja seen a gown? I don't get this. She's not goes to camp. Nobody understood the assignment. They didn't understand the assignment. They didn't understand. Why isn't Deja seen a gown? I don't get this. She's not going to camp. This yesterday's was the Gilded Age, which was sort of like,

I guess people thought the Gilded Age was a good thing. Right. I don't know what that was. If I were invited, I would have gone as a sharecropper. Yeah. Well, I would have gone. I would have gone wearing a Gilded Age box set DVD with Carrie Coon's face on it. I don't know.

I was going to say, I'm checking my notes here. The theme next year for the Mac Ella is Barry? Tokyo Vice? What? Nobody even likes that show. Jamal? Unclear and Present Danger. I have a movie podcast myself. It's with my friend John Gans. It's called Unclear and Present Danger That's right I have a movie podcast myself It's with my friend John Gans

It's called Unclear and Present Danger We talk about the political and military Theories of the 1990s And what they say about the politics of that decade And we more or less watch the movie We watch like, you know, TBS Sunday night Movies Unclear and Present Danger

It's right there in the title, one of those movies And we talk about them. Our last episode, our most recent one, was on Oliver Stone's JFK, a Buckwild movie. Oh, very chill movie. What are you talking about? A popcorn flick. A movie I love, but is probably responsible

for poisoning the brains of a quarter of America. This is so irresponsible. I'm very entertained right now. Yes. The best way I can describe watching JFK, if you've never seen it, is it is like getting incredibly high

and then like totally vibing. And then once you come down from it, you're just like, oh, I have ingested something dangerous to my health. Right. It's like a Four Loko with cocaine in it. Someone needs to be like watching Oliver Stone. 100%.

Like monitoring constantly to make sure he doesn't make a fucking QAnon movie. Oh God. I mean, JFK is a QAnon movie. But I'm saying literally, but you're right. That JFK is the sort of start of that where it's like, you don't know.

It's all connected. Right. Right. Like QAnon videos are pulling a lot from the JFK. Here's Donald Suther Sullivan monologuing for 17 minutes about the deep state. I mean, that's the best part of the movie. It is incredible. It is incredible. So that's the podcast.

I hope you listen to it. Do you have a Patreon? Am I crazy? I have a Patreon. You were considering a Patreon. I cannot talk about it for reasons related to my day job. Absolutely. And my day job is I'm a New York Times columnist, and my column usually shows up every Tuesday and every Friday.

Always a great read. Always happy to get your newsletters as well. I saw a blank you referred to you recently as the most correct man in America. After hearing you talk about Spider-Man 3, I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much, Griffin. Too powerful, though. What if you go all emo and you start doing dances down the street?

I'm so correct! You're drunk with power. All right. Yes. Yes. That was Spider-Man 3. Mm-hmm. Tune in next week for...

Oh, no, no. The next week's good. Next week's a good one. I thought next week was Oz, but no. Of course, there's a good one in between. I almost made the same mistake.

Tune in next week for... Tune in next week for Drag Me to Hell with Jamie Loftus and Caitlin Durante of the Bechdel cast returning to the show together for the first time. Yeah. Except on their podcast where they're always together.

Sure. First time on this show. And our Patreon, of course. Patreon.com slash blank check where we're doing the Batman, the not all Batman. Ben's going to sleep, which we've been talking about a lot in this episode as a comparison point because we recorded it yesterday.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, AJ McKeon and Alex Barron for our editing, JJ Birch for our research. This was the longest dossier he ever wrote. There's just so much on this movie. He's out of his mind.

He's on one. Thank you to lay montgomery in the great american novel for our theme song joe bowen and pat reynolds for our artwork go to blankcheckpod.com for links to a lot of real nerdy shit and as always the dancing is good dancing's good. There's a scene where Sandman turns into a sandcastle, right? That scene's good. For his daughter or whatever. Yeah, so it's after Spider-Man turns him into mud, and when he reconstitutes, he's like...

Sandman's so silly. No, he's not, David. I'm sorry, he's very serious. Yeah, he turns into wet sand. He's a mud man, and then he dries out and turns to sand. It's fucking cool as hell.