Fountain of Awesome

Parental unit here: Trying to get this blog fixed. Looks like it was a problem with the K2 theme. Why? Who knows. Onward.

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“Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.”

So, I finally got to watch Spider-Man 3. I think I enjoyed it more than a lot of people did.

SPOILER: I’ll spoil the movie for you.

NO REALLY, SPOILERS: Don’t read this if you’d get angry at me for spoiling it for you.

SPOOOOOOOOILERS: But hey, if you didn’t know the basic plot before you saw the movie, what’re you doing watching a Spider-Man movie? It’s the Venom story.

Anyway.

Out of the three Spider-Man movies, this one was probably the worst, but I liked it more than the first one because I never liked getting bogged down in the origin story. That’s just me, though.

Now, there were some pretty atrocious parts to the movie. The dance scene in the jazz club? Who thought that was clever? Suspension of disbelief totally went out the window. The fact that Sandman apparently killed Uncle Ben? No! That’s totally not canon. C’mon, guys. There also wasn’t enough Venom, but I can see why they waited to introduce him. I hated hated hated, though, that Brock’s voice didn’t change in the suit [it's supposed to] and he NEVER SAID “WE.” He’s got a symbiote on him. Venom always always always says “we” when talking about himself. Marvel Vs. Capcom? You pick Venom as your character, he comes onscreen and goes “We are Venom.” But that’s nitpicky.

Not comic-geek-nitpicky is the massive number of random cameos. Stan Lee shows up again, of course. He’s some random dude on the street who says to Peter Parker “Looks like one person really can make a difference. ‘Nuff said.”

1) Blatant excuse for Stan Lee to show up and all the comic geeks go “oh, look, it’s Stan Lee!”
2) “‘Nuff Said.” I understand the need to put it in, since it was Stan’s[/Marvel's] catchphrase thing for a while there, but… that’s such a lame way to use it.

Also, there were these two small children who see the New Goblin show up and like shoot Sandman, and they both say like “Awesome” and “wicked cool” or something. They were OBVIOUSLY cameos. They didn’t even deliver their cameo lines like they were excited. Bleh.

Also, editing in the non-action parts was pretty awful sometimes. The shot where Spider-Man is shaking the sand out of his boot randomly cuts to him spitting sand out of his mouth for like an 18th of a second before it changes scenes. Too many cuts, not enough interesting transitions. The shots themselves were pretty good, it just got thrown together wrong.

That said, the action scenes were pretty cool. It’s what you’d expect from a Spider-Man movie. Not quite as epic as the train sequence in 2, but still. Sam Raimi loves his trains though. He puts in more of them. Sandman gets like half his face ground off by one.

Speaking of Sandman, I did appreciate the extra character depth he got here instead of just being a random escaped convict like he’s supposed to be. It wasn’t overdone, in my opinion.

Venom looked suitably menacing, but not oozy enough [except when he was just a symbiote, but even that was more web/sticky than oozy. It's better as oozy blobby stuff.]. I liked the teeth.

So what was done well? The theme was pulled off pretty well ["You always have a choice"]. Not as well as say in Hellboy or Pan’s Labyrinth, but those are both Guillermo del Toro movies, so you can’t touch that.

Best put together non-action scene in the whole movie: The dinner at the French restaurant.
That was EASILY the most pain I have ever felt watching a movie. I was seriously cringing during the whole thing. It was like watching a beached trainwreck made out of awkward. I mean, wow. Totally effective. That said, I really really really don’t want to watch that scene again. I think I’d probably kill myself.

I thought the Peter/MJ romance was handled pretty well, despite Pete’s um… spectacular failures.

But I think the real reason I enjoyed it so much [besides the fact that I loev Spider-Man and Venom] is because I identify with Spidey so much. It’s not quite like “omg we da same persun lololol,” but you know what I mean. If you know me, you can probably see what I’m talking about.

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Sorry for the semi-abrupt ending, I just figured I should get some part of this up.

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“I like being bad… it makes me happy.”

Hooray, I’m up to 400 hits.

To celebrate:

Nothing.

Just a pointless post.

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And a quote, of course.

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“Well I been thinkin’ ’bout the future/too young to pretend/it’s such a waste to always look behind you/y’should be lookin’ straight ahead.”

Time for another creative writing thing! I feel so trendy for putting this stuff up instead of my normal [real?] posts, but hey. This one was originally gonna be submitted to the Post’s “Life is short: Autobiography as Haiku” thing, and if it got in I would’ve made $100, but it turned out that they canceled the feature before the class could submit anything. Whoops. Anyway, we had 100 words or less to say something autobiographical [no real haiku involved], and yeah.

I think most of the people who read my blog have read this already, too. Oh well.

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It’s nighttime, and the best secret I’ve ever kept calls me from her work. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the dregs of summer and strumming my guitar absentmindedly. “Work is slow, so I took five. Play me something?” My parents are already asleep, but I can’t resist nudging up my amp. I rock out for her as quietly as I can. When I finish the song, I hold the phone to my ear and we sit a few comfortable seconds in silence. “Thanks, that was great.” “Anytime.” We say goodnight, and both go back to our less-secret lives.

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“…and this hairshirt is woven from your brown hair”

So, earlier today, I was watching this thing on the Wilhelm scream [As I sit here, my dad is playing the sound clip repeatedly. I think he's trying to record it so he can blog it or something.] and it came up in a zombie movie/episode of a show/thing. One zombie does the Wilhelm when he gets shot and falls over. Some logical errors here, which I wouldn’t point out except that I’ve been on a zombie run lately.

1. Zombies don’t scream.
a. They don’t use their lungs, so they can’t do anything besides do the trademark zombie moan. If anything, a dying zombie would go “uuuuuuuuuhhhhh,” just like a living(dead?) zombie.
b. Yes, this means that zombies don’t actually say “braaaaaaaaains.” It’s a letdown, I know. But we can still pretend.

2. Zombies don’t die when they get shot in the leg/chest.
a. “Remove the head or destroy the brain.” Shaun of the Dead. C’mon, people, it’s a basic zombie fact. Totally not disputable.
b. Even if you took out their lower half, a zombie would still crawl towards you.
c. Shotguns are the quintessential zombie weapon, but this lady was at a medium distance. It works up close. Anyone ever played Halo? You ever try shooting someone more than 18″ away with a shotgun? It doesn’t work so well.

So I’m talking to my mom about this. I mention the zombie-head-destroying-thing and how everyone knows it. In an effort to prove my case, I poke my head into my little sister’s room.

“Hey Jenny. How do you kill a zombie?”

She looks up from the little TV.

She thinks, pauses the DVD, and thinks a little more.

“…Onions?”

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“AAAAHOOOW!”

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[That's the Wilhelm, in case you couldn't tell.]

I’m not gonna lie, it’s hard to write a research paper discussing ambiguity in the Scarlet Letter when I’m sitting there and in my head I hear “chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool and shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school” in my head.

And then, as I type this, I get to the end of the quote and I think “parenthetically cite it!”

This is blasphemy. This is madness.

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“When a couple of guys who were up to no good started makin’ trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared; she said ‘you’re movin’ in with your auntie and your uncle in Bel-Air” (Smith 2).

Alright, which way is she spinning?

Clockwise? Counter-clockwise?

Both?

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“So hold me close boy, ’cause I’m your tiny dancer”

From Miami Vice:

“That’s not what happens. What will happen is I will put a round at twenty-seven hundred feet per second into the medulla at the base of your brain. And you will be dead from the neck down before your body knows it. Your finger won’t even twitch. So tell me, sport, do you believe that?”

Creative Writing pt. 2: 250-750 words. I came in closer to that second limit.

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Casual Exorcists

Parked in his derelict car, Sam eyeballed the only barely more dilapidated house at his left. Slightly crooked and held together with rotting planks, it looked out of place sitting between two suburban houses. He sighed and turned to his companion riding shotgun.

“How long did they say it’s been here?”

“Two weeks. Symptoms of possession include late-night screams, moans, creaks, and other typical signs of teenagers in heat.”

“So why did they need us?”

“The house itself wasn’t here before, and kids’ll do crazy things for a little action, but they can’t build a house overnight.”

“Hey, that reminds me of this one time I was at a party at D-”

“Hey, this definitely isn’t a good time to brag about your ‘exploits.’ We don’t get paid by the hour.”

Sam sighed again and unbuckled his seatbelt.
“You’re right, let’s go do this. I have a midterm to study for. Pop the trunk, Max.”

Max flipped a lever at his feet and stepped out into the midday sun. He blinked, and started unloading their equipment. Sam leaned against the car, idly spinning a letter opener between his fingers. After filling his hot pink backpack, Max slammed the trunk and motioned for Sam to follow him. Sam snickered.

“…Listen. We’ve been over this, Sam. Restless spirits don’t like bright colors. Have you ever heard of a neon green house being haunted?”

“No, but it makes you look a little uh… swish.”

“It’s that or get my soul sucked out through my eyeballs,” he shrugged.

The duo walked up to the front door of the house. Sam cracked his knuckles and kicked the door off its hinges. The house bellowed.

“Haunted,” they nodded in unison as they stepped into the crumbling foyer.

Sam poked his head into the adjoining rooms and went down his checklist of textbook symptoms: bleeding walls, pictures with moving eyes, floating furniture, flickering lights, ectoplasm, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“You’d think being dead would give you time to be more creative, but it doesn’t look like it. This house is boring. Let’s split up and get it over with, man, I don’t wanna be here too long,” Sam sighed as he walked up the burning stairs, “I’m gonna go use the bathroom.”

Dodging floorboards that sprouted twitching, coal black teeth, Sam ambled up the stairs and twirled his letter opener. He closed the bathroom door behind himself and cracked the lid on the toilet against the back wall. A growling arm made of spiders slithered together on the surface of the rank water and snatched for his wrist.

“Found one,” he shouted, and deftly severed the hand with his silver office utensil. Tortured screams echoed from inside the toilet bowl and flooded the house. “How many more?”

Max was drawing a chalk circle on the living room floor. “I’d say two or three; I’m about to get the last one down here. See if you can find the big one by the time I get up there, we both have better things to do than muck around here all day.” As he ended his sentence, a little girl was disgorged from the ceiling with a pulpy smack. She stared blankly at Max.

“Mommy and daddy are gone. Will you play with me?” Pieces of her arms dripped off as she glided towards Max.

Max finished his circle and stepped out of it.

The girl’s voice warped into a deep growl. “Play with me. I’ll make you.”

Max crossed his arms and shifted his weight onto his right leg.

The girl sprouted skeletal wings and floated into the chalk circle. “I HUNGER FOR SOULS.”

“Seal.”

A blinding column of light engulfed the creature. She squawked in protest and disintegrated. Max chuckled.

“I’m done, Sam. Need any help up there?”

“Nope. Last one was under a bed. I tell ya, no originality.”

“Not around here at least,” he mentioned as he saw the house begin to fade, “but we’re done now, so let’s book.”

“I got more spooks this time, so burgers are on you.”

“Yeah, I know. C’mon, we’ve got midterms to study for.”

Sliding down the warped railing, Sam strode outside to join Max. The two stopped at the antiquated car and watched as the building quietly dissolved.

“Ghosts: owned.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Sam put his hands in his pockets.

“Oh, crap.”

“Hmm?”

“I dropped my study guide. I’m so screwed.”

“Sam: owned.”

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“Even your emotions had an echo in so much space.”

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[By the way, this piece isn't quite finished yet, so I'll edit this post once I'm done with the fine-tuning.]