Journal

A Meat Feast

We had a great day on Saturday, organising a barbeque and inviting our friends Graeme & Lisa and Colin & Penny around for it. Andy and Rachel were meant to come, too, but unfortunately got delayed until Sunday.

I’d gotten up early on what was an overcast morning to go out and collect a package, before heading off to the retail park to pick up some odds and ends. While I was there I bought myself a Swingball set and a skipping rope from Argos. I’d wanted a Swingball set for ages and decided that that day was as good a time as any to spend £8.99 on a bare-bones version – the kind without a base, where you stick it in the ground. (The skipping rope is a little less conventional – it isn’t even rope, for a start.)

Armed with my new outdoor entertainment aparatus, it was on with the day at hand. Next stop was Asda to get barbeque supplies. Fliss had made me a list of stuff to pick up, so I quickly navigated the aisles in clinical fashion, add-libbing when I saw stuff that might go down well – like Lager. (From my extensive experience I know that always goes down well.)

By the time I’d finished in Asda the sky had cleared completely and the sun was beating down. Fantastic, I thought, all the ingredients for a fine day were in falling into place and being placed in the boot.

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The Amazingly-Poor Spider-Man 3

I had the good fortune to see Spider-Man 3 for free the other day. I say “good fortune” because it didn’t cost me anything other than three hours of my life.

Awful just doesn’t begin to describe it. Somehow Sam Raimi has managed in three years and one movie what it took George Lucas around 20 years to do – destroy a franchise with a sequel so excruciatingly poor that it actually weakens the movies that went before it.

I loved Spider-Man 1 & 2, even if 2 was a little on the cheesy side in places… that and dumbed down at times, too. But 3… where to begin… with Spider-Man 3, Raimi has somehow managed to create characters more two dimensional than their comic book counterparts. He also feels the need to remind the audience, in flashback form, of events that happened only fifteen or twenty minutes before.

Because he thinks we’re stupid, obviously.

It’s actually just the movie that’s stupid. From the cringe-making “comedy” moments that portray Peter Parker as nothing more than an idiot, to the implausible finale that would have us believe a creature that arrived on Earth in a blazing meteor shower is seemingly vapourised by a small grenade that, curiously, does not have the explosive power necessary to even ruffle the hair of the unmasked hero, despite the fact he’s standing eight feet away.

It’s best I don’t dwell on it… or I’ll start to convulse at the thought of the slow-motion shot of Spider-Man gliding past the Stars & Stripes… or wretch at the memory of scene where Harry and MJ dance to The Twist whilst cooking lunch… or fret that they might be convinced to make a fourth movie, just to ensure that my childhood hero is well and truly tarnished forever.

With great power comes great responsibility. Somebody should have told Sam Raimi that.

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