todd mccarthy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I generally try to avoid reading reviews before I see a film, but since I won't be reviewing Spider-Man 3 and I know Todd McCarthy doesn't deal in spoilers, I clicked in to see what the Variety film critic had to say about the most recent chapter in Sam Raimi's arachno-tastic action series -- and the guy had some pretty rough things to say about the movie. His main complaint seems to be that the flick is too broad, too comic-booky, and perhaps beholden to a rather underwhelming screenplay. Praise for Topher Grace and Thomas Haden Church, but an unsatisfactory grade for screenwriter Alvin Sargent -- and when discussing the scenes between Peter Parker and the female leads, the critic uses the words "dull" and "unimaginative." Yikes.

"After the significant improvement of the second installment over the first, new entry reps a roughly equivalent dip in quality and enjoyment, with Spidey now giving off the faint odor of running on fumes," says Mr. McCarthy. He also feels the SM3 plot "would have proven more satisfactory for a late '60s cartoon-hero TV show than for a new-century blockbuster." He praises the action scenes and the special effects, but feels the whole crew is just sort of going through the motions at this point. Just one guy's opinion, of course, but McC seems to make some pretty valid points in his review. I just don't know if I'll agree with those points until after I see the flick for myself.

Expect Mr. McCarthy's rather negative review to get a lot of angry comments over on the Spider-Man 3 Rotten Tomatoes page. (He already has 23!) AP film critic Christy Lemire got a whole bunch of nasty comments (172!) after having the audacity to express an early (and negative) opinion of that crazy 300 flick, which just goes to show you how "important" critics are when it comes to the inevitable blockbusters. Then again, McCarthy didn't like Pirates 2, which I loved, and therefore Spider-Man 3 could still rock.

Some time last Friday, I spent about an hour working in raw HTML on an Excel-ish guide to the films sold at Sundance up to that point. When Firefox crashed just as I was about to hit save, I consoled myself over the loss: "Not like there was much to report."

With the exception of two high-dollar, high-profile deals (days after Fox Searchlight spent a lamentable $10 million on Little Miss Sunshine, Warner Independent invested $6 million on Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep), the market in Park City was almost non-existant. Sure, a few films sold – Lionsgate surprised no one by picking up genre flick Right at Your Door; The Night Listener's topicality probably helped coax the new Miramax into a non-committal $3 million buy – but a lot didn't, and for once, the critical establishment and the money men seemed to be on the same side: though Sundance 2006 offered quite a few films worth seeing, it was hard to find much to get excited about. That strange silence flooding the Yarrow lobby every afternoon? That was the sound of a conspicuous lack-of buzz.