Spider-Man 2 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

We've been pretty hard around here on a certain movie with adamantium claws. Yes, whenever I'm reminded of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which comes out on DVD and Blu-ray today, I wish I had been shot with amnesia bullets. Still, I appreciated Hugh Jackman's determined efforts to stay out of the damn costume. Whenever Wolverine has donned a uniform in the previous X-Men flicks, he looks like he can't wait to rip it off. In his natural state, as the wandering, memory-challenged Logan, he repels latex like Congress repels taxpayers.

Most actors quickly declare that the biggest challenge in superhero movies is the costume: how to avoid looking sheepish or silly while wearing a form-fitting, custom-made suit that may reveal more than most of us are willing to bare at the beach? With advanced, super-realistic, computerized special effects and ripped body / stunt doubles available as needed, though, I think the bigger challenge lies in bringing the secret identities of superheroes to life: all those moments when supposedly normal people are leading supposedly "normal" lives.

Who, then are the most convincing superheroes without costumes? What actors and actresses have made you believe that their very human characters on screen could transform into larger-than-life heroes and/or heroines with a quick dash into a phone booth? Mind you, I'm not just talking Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen ...

1. Famke Janssen as Jean Gray in X-Men
She cuts a fine figure, doesn't she? Famke Janssen is undoubtedly sexier than Wolverine when they both suit up, yet she really shines whenever she's using her brain -- which is all the time. She doesn't need the costume to be one of the smartest, most empathetic, and most lethal people, in the universe.

I'm not certain when, exactly, my long-time fascination with trains was born, but it probably started the first time I walked through Union Station in Los Angeles, a cathedral dedicated to mass transit that opened in 1939. Opportunities to ride the rails were few and far between, so I treasured any chance to experience a train trip vicariously through the movies. Eventually I moved to New York and, still later, visited Europe, banking thousands of hours on all manner of subways and trains. Still, I've never had a personal train trip as thrilling as those I've enjoyed at the movies. With Tony Scott's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 racing into theaters tomorrow, let's honor a few of the films that have provided terrific train thrills of the cinematic variety.

1. Runaway Train
The other movies on this list feature excellent scenes set on or around trains or subways (see also "Honorable Mention" and "Sensational Subway Scenes" after the jump) but Andrei Konchalovsky's thriller, based on a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, spends the majority of its running time on a train speeding through the bitterly cold, snowy winter landscapes of Alaska. Jon Voight and Eric Robert are two hardened convicts who've broken out of prison and, by chance, happen upon the just-departing train. When the engineer suffers a heart attack, the cons are at the controls of an out-of-control beast they cannot hope to master.

2. Spider-Man 2
I'll dance around needless spoilers by saying there is a coda to the runaway train scene that caught me unaware, filled with grace and humanity. That elevates a very good, thrilling, fast-paced suspense sequence involving helpless passengers and the heroic, masked Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) as he fights Doc Ock (Alfred Molina).

It's not that we didn't like the old Cinematical, it's just we thought it was time for the sequel.

We've worked hard here for the past three and a half years bringing you tons of inventive, passionate writing from a bunch of folks who probably watch more movies than they should. We've made many friends, slew many dragons and rescued more princesses than any prince in all the land of New Jersey. It's been rough. We're tired. But we love it. Thus, I'm honored to introduce all of you to the brand new Cinematical! We've made a lot of changes around here, and I suggest you take some time to look over everything.

See the brand new totally awesome Watchmen trailer to the right? Kidding! But over to the right we do have a bunch of headlines, where you'll be able to see what we feel are the hottest and most interesting stories of the day. Above those headlines we have quick links to some of our more lively categories. Over to the right, we also have our new gallery feature where we'll highlight some of the cooler galleries we're currently hosting. (Basically, these are images you want to check out.) Additionally, we have a brand new video box which we'll use to house, well, new trailers, clips, or home videos of Weinberg watching Aliens all giddy and whatnot.

Our coolest new feature has to go to the carousel up there at the top. It rotates automatically, or you can click those orange arrow buttons to advance and back up. Definitely check those out every day as the site's most important features (reviews, interviews, poster premieres, festival coverage, etc) will live inside those boxes. Of course, you have our reviews, interviews and popular categories to the right as well. Oh, and did I mention the new box office window? How cool, right? I swear, it's like the Spider-Man 2 of re-designs!

Anyway, stick around for awhile -- take the tour, make yourself at home. Whaddya think?

You should know by now that Bruce Campbell is one heck of a guy. Even if you disregard all of his other work, he is the one dude to name and defeat Spider-Man. It takes a special guy to stand up to superheroes and win with ease and snarky grace. But that's Campbell's undeniable strength. His words are his special power, and whether he's strapping a chainsaw to his bloody stump, blocking a theater door, or bringing down undead zombies while suffering penis boils, he gets the job done without any super strength, agility, or wild, physical powers. I'm leaving Ash off the list for now, as he might get his own love sometime in the future, so for now -- just grab your popcorn, sit back, watch some films, and try to answer the question: Who stands supreme? Spidey and the tough usher, or a sassy, aged Elvis?

First, you need the obligatory commercials that start movies these days, but it doesn't have to be something time-wasting and annoying. Before sitting down to these films, take a clue from Campbell, and delight in some Old Spice.

While I wasn't aware they were doing this, Fox aired a bunch of clips from Spider-Man 3 last night during their showing of Spider-Man 2. Of course, those clips have since popped up on YouTube -- and, conveniently, they've all been smashed together into one long preview of sorts. What do you get? Well, there's certainly a lot of Venom black Spider-Man suit thingy, a bunch of shots from both the real and the leaked Spider-Man 3 trailers, as well as some more from James Franco (aka Harry Osborn) as the Green Goblin, part deux.

If that's not enough to satisfy your thirst for more Spidey, two new teaser posters have also been released. Both show that familiar image of Spidey up against a glass building, his reflection being that of Venom. The other poster (as seen to the right of your screen) reverses that. The good thing about Spidey 3 is that it's arriving in theaters on May 4, which is way better than, say, having to wait until the middle of July for this sucker. Imagine you fanboys faced with a decision to either see Transformers (which debuts on July 4) or Spider-Man 3? Thankfully, you won't even have to go there ... though something tells me Spidey would win that one by a mile.

A good parody is hard to spin beyond the here and now. Take "Weird Al" Yankovic, for example. The pop-music jokester has put out 11 regular albums since 1983, when the accordian-playing nice guy's spoof of The Knack's "My Sharona" (titled "My Bologna" and recorded in the men's room of his college radio station) started his career as a musician, comedic icon and food fetishist when it blew up on The Dr. Demento Show. However, every hilarious and unforgettable cut like "Eat It", "Like A Surgeon" and "Smells Like Nirvana" that hit was matched by fade-away tracks like the New Kids jape "The White Stuff" (an ode to Oreos), the Rocky III goof "Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye Or The Kaiser)" or the misjudgment "Taco Grande" (a riff on Latin rough-boy Gerardo's only hit, "Rico Suave"). The secret to a successful parody is complex, involving a careful balance of picking a song that is big enough, worthy of a good-natured dressing down and most important, funny. The same is true with movies, and the latest in the popular Scary Movie series is a great example of what can go right and wrong with such an attempt.
 

A quick note on the Spider-Man casting front; eighty year old actor Cliff Robertson recently told the Palm Beach Post's Page Two that he'll be back to reprise his role as Uncle Ben for the third film. Robertson is a veteran of the franchise, having appeared in both of the prior two films (in the second, only as a dream/vision/memory deal). Robertson's precise words were "I just got a call that they were going to bring my character back to life again."

While Sammy certainly seems to be making some interesting decisions regarding the newest Spider-Man film, I doubt that among those decisions is the call to bring Uncle Ben "back to life." I imagine that this was just some poorly chosen phraseology on the part of Robertson, as Uncle Ben is one of the very, very, VERY few characters in the Marvel universe that has actually managed to stay well and truly dead. Robertson will no doubt be working the vision/dream gig again for this flick.