OoF Lite: McConnaughay Reviews

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The Bib-iest of Nickels
I usually keep this thread for reviews, but I had an experience that I believe needs to be archived in this thread, and I just, well, it's my thread, so ...

I had kind-of an exciting weekend, on Friday, I went and watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I was tired whenever I got home at around midnight, and then, on Saturday, I woke up at seven in the morning and had an hour car-ride, followed by an hour train-ride, and a lot of walking. Eventually, I arrived at my destination, Comic Con! I enjoyed myself a lot. William Shatner, Burt Ward, and Adam West were there, along with two of the main-cast from The Walking Dead that I didn't recognize. Adam West and Burt Ward were entertaining, but they didn't really answer a lot of questions, whereas William Shatner was hilariously entertaining and answered the questions in-extreme depth.

I have never gotten past the first season of The Walking Dead, I hear it gets better, but I haven't taken the time out to give it a chance. However, I looked up who the actors were, Jon Bernthal, who plays the role of Shane Walsh, and Milo Ventimiglia. I learned that Milo isn't from Walking Dead, but from Heroes and a couple other things. They were both hilarious, Jon Bernthal kind-of gave a douche-bag vibe at times, but he won me over. "I remember whenever I was doing ride along things with the police for a movie. I got really into it, and I did something really stupid. There was this guy and he took this girl's purse and I was all like, holy ****, I'm a cop, and I went over to try and stop it." - Not an Exact Quote.

Milo talked about a movie called Pathology, and I think I am going to have to give it a watch.

While these were all entertaining, as were the half-naked Harley Quins, the best part was easily when Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi took the stage. Bruce Campbell is just, he's just a lot of fun all the time, and he did this "versus the audience" act where he brought people from the stage and asked them questions. One of the times, he was talking to somebody who made instruments, he said, "Can you make me one?" and the guy said sure, and Campbell asked for his phone so he could put in his contact information. He took the phone and riffled through the messages, "You know that somebody's home?"

The man revealed that it was his wife, Bruce Campbell smiled and said that he'd call her for him. The audience silenced and Bruce Campbell called her. "I am here with your husband, and I have some bad news for you. YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO SEE HIM AGAIN."

Click. And he held the phone for a while to let it simmer for good measure.

Oh, the Green Power Ranger was there, he was one of the judges for the costume contest.

I bought issues one through ten of the Hellraiser comic-book, as well as the Season 3 of Jericho graphic-novel. (Big fan of the show. Also a big fan of Clive Barker, so, those two were nice.)



The Bib-iest of Nickels

Holy Colostomy Bag, Batman! How is it possible that nobody seems to have anything nice to say about The Amazing Spider-Man 2? Rabies and frivolous germs, all of my McConvicts know that I love writing with the utmost of passion, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have an absolute love for movies. Movies in-general, I love 'em, love 'em, .. Love 'em, and the superhero genre is a big part of that. I remember seeing the first two Spider-Man movies in theaters, as well as the first Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, then, more recently, Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2. These are my thoughts over The Amazing Spider-Man 2...

There was a mixed review about the first installment in the Spider-Man reboot.

Personally, while I didn't think it measured up to the first Spider-Man movies, I thought it was a solid film with a charming cast that had a lot of chemistry. In other-words, I enjoyed it and everybody else is a giant booger-ball for not. I approached the sequel with enthusiasm. "This looks like a video-game," an onlooking trailer watcher proclaimed. Meanwhile, I was gleefully jumping up and down with excitement. There's no raining on my parade, not when it comes to the quick-talking wall-crawler. I heard reviews saying that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the cinematic equivalent of what Joel Schumacher did with the Batman & Robin movie.

After leaving the theater, I'll admit that I was left with a lot of impressions about the film, but nowhere at all did I think it was a terrible movie. It's certainly a flawed film, but I don't believe it's a terrible one. For those in-need of a recap, the film carries on from where The Amazing Spider-Man left off, Peter and Gwen's relationship is facing the aftershock of Captain Stacy's death. This leads to the introduction of Electro, and one or two others that fans indefinitely anticipated after the thousands and thousands of trailers that we saw prior to the movie.

I think one of the biggest fears that I had going into this movie was that it was going to feel cluttered and campy. And it did.

The Amazing Spider-Man felt a lot darker and more serious than the other Spider-Man movies, both visually and from a storyline perspective. This movie is practically the complete opposite of that.

The movie is without a doubt the silliest installment in the Spider-Man franchise. However, I enjoyed and laughed at a lot of the comedy. "This isn't taking the subject-matter serious enough!"

Have you read the comic-books? When Spider-Man isn't assuming everything is his fault, he is making bad joke after another. The villains are also hammy as hell, but there's something about it. They're self-aware at their cheesiness, and it feels like a joke that both the viewer and the movie are in on. I think that Jamie Foxx turned out being hilariously entertaining, and I had goosebumps when he starts hearing goosebumps. While I enjoy Foxx's work in other movies like Django Unchained and Jarhead, I was really worried that he wasn't going to be comfortable in this role.

Thankfully, I think he did a very good job.

In-fact, everybody had a commendable part in this film, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone doing as tremendous as ever, and Dane DeHaan also did really well. They had a fantastic cast in this film, and the cast was allowed to breath and show their talents.

Unfortunately, the structuring of the film itself leaves a lot to be desired. While everybody does well, the film is disproportionately constructed in such a way that damn-near kills all of the effort. They spend all of this time building toward one idea before building toward a new idea entirely, and by the end of the movie, those ideas hardly mesh together seamlessly. In-fact, a lot of the time, it feels like an incoherent mess. I remember telling one of my friends that the first movie felt like it didn't have very many memorable moments. This movie rectified that problem, because leaving the theater, there are at least three or four moments that I am going to remember and be talking about for years to come.

The problem is that, the minute after going from one thing, they went to the next, and it just felt long-winded, as if the movie never took the time to breath. If you know anything about the comic-books, you'll also realize how predictable the "big" moment is. However, if you watch the film, it's really, really easy to see where they were going within the first ten minutes. To their credit, they handled the "big" moment a lot better than I thought that they were going to. All of my friends and I were expecting it, but we were still thinking, "Holy ****!"

In conclusion, I can't really say that this movie is better than the first from a storyline perspective. Honestly, it isn't as consistent of a narrative, and in-fact, inconsistency is probably the biggest flaw about this film. It is filled with an amazing cast of actors and actresses, but the story with spun together in such a bizarre and long-winded way that it's difficult to digest all of the stuff that is happening on the screen. Even still, I do think that I prefer this film, slightly to the first. Andrew and Emma were as comfortable as ever in their roles, and the villains were a large improvement over the Lizard. The movie was cluttered, but very entertaining and visually astounding.

Thanks for joining me on this edition of Double-O F Lite, and I will see you next time with whatever else that I review.

... If you enjoyed this, check out my other reviews on my website, link in the signature!