Burning Questions

During the first Lodge gathering that I will attend next week during the upcoming Christmas season, please remind me to tell you a cautionary tale involving a member of the LAPD that the missus and I experienced last night on our drive to Santa Monica. I feel like it was a deleted scene in Crash. And to make things worse, I hated that movie.

But I have some questions that I need to ask each one of you. First, in the Big League today I have Drew Brees starting at QB for Team "That Just Happened!". With enough points to earn an admittedly mediocre victory over Aaron Vanderlinden - I have a few questions for ya'll: Would you sit Brees tonight in his MNF matchup versus the Hotlanta Falcons? Or do you start Brees and let the chips fall where they may? Does the Vick decision help or hurt ATL's cause tonight?

The second dilemma I am contemplating is which movie matinees do I see this week? [I wrapped up my classes this past Friday, leaving this week open to catch up on missed movie watching] I am planning on seeing a minimum of 4 films this week and am leaning towards (in order of preference) the Coen Brother's new flick No Country For Old Men, Guy Richie's just released Revolver, Into The Wild and Ridley Scott's gangster epic American Gangster. Which of these (or any other movies currently out in the main or cheap theaters) does the Lodge recommend?

What was in the briefcase?

Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez are obviously Lodge favorites. But in this "Artist on Artist" interview on MySpace, the filmmakers discuss how they met and Quentin reveals what was in Marsellus Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Of course, it would have been better to have an "Artist on Artist" vignette of Rosario Dawson & Rose McGowan... but this will have to do.

"Artist on Artist"

Top 5 Podcasts

Since Jimbo has only a few days left in India and not much is going on until Saturday's FA Cup Final at the new Wembley Stadium, to pass the time, I've included below my updated Top 5 Podcasts list to give Jimbo something to listen to the remainder of his trip and plane ride back to the States. Please note that Ask A Ninja should be mentioned for being occasionally funny & The Onion Radio News must be mentioned for being consistently funny. Both barely missed the cut and are well worth a listen and/or watch. I subscribe to each podcast on the list below on iTunes.

Top 5 Podcasts

5. ESPN Soccernet Extra
Jimbo and Train might know of better football podcasts out there, but this one is easily accessible and well done overall. It's available each Thursday for download & covers all football around the globe, not just the Premiership. It's produced by ESPN, but the hosts are English and true fans, each not afraid to call out clubs, players and broadcasters alike.

4. KCRW's Film Reviews
The podcast is a little short. But it's amazing how little words you need when you are a good writer. And Joe Morgenstern is a great writer. I guess you must be to earn a Pulitzer Prize. Morgenstern drops a word like denouement as easily as Train eloquently mentions yabboos. Quality stuff.

3. Strong Bad Emails & More!
From the classic HomestarRunner site, comes a video podcast of Strong Bad Emails & other video clips. Trogdor the Burninator came from this creative collection, so you know it's good. Genius all around.

2. Filmspotting
Most of these podcasts are about movies... but these guys give a Lodge-style podcast, complete with fights over each others reviews, Top 5 Lists and Massacre Theaters where they butcher select scenes that you can email in answers to for free DVDs. Each show ranges from about 45 minutes to an hour.

1. The Treatment
Do want an interviewer to finally ask the questions you want to ask? Well, The Treatment is your show then. KCRW's Elvis Mitchell gives the best interview on the planet. And his subjects range from directors to writers to designers to musicians. It is easily my favorite podcast out there.

Spiderman 3 Review

Before we get into this, I apologize to anyone that hasn't seen Spider-Man 3 yet. But it's been out 2 weeks, and after hitting the cinema last night (when the wife suggests going to a comic-book movie, a massive rarity, you have to take advantage of the situation, even if you postpone writing a paper due the next day), this film deserves a review. Unfortunately, it's for all the wrong reasons.

First off, I have to premise the fact that Spider-Man is one of my favorite comic-book characters. I used to collect the comic as a teenager, and know the villains & story lines very well. In addition, I loved the first two films of the Spidey Series. But Spider-Man 3 is overall a terrible movie.

The film is written so poorly, I couldn't even really enjoy it. I'm not going to get into details of what scenes are so bad (and not in the so-bad-its-good camp either), for those that haven't seen it yet. But the script was extremely slow, the dialogue was campy and poor, and the action was missing. It's so bad that I think X-Men 3 was a better third installment. And that's saying something. Walking out of the theater, I lamented to Jenny that you could have edited down the good scenes in the 140 minute running time down to a 30 minute serial, with 20 minutes of those scenes being in the last 20 minutes of the film. Jenny agreed, but added that she'd, "only give it a 0.5 out of 5 stars." Ouch.

For those who are not familiar, Spider-Man switched to the black suit in the standard continuity after Secret Wars. This was short lived, leading to one of the most successful Marvel villains of all time, Venom. I assume this introduction of the black suit sets up Spider-Man 4 to be centered around Venom as the primary villain.


On some podcasts I've listened to, critics of the film believe that 2 villains is one too many. I disagree. The villains are the best thing about this film. Topher Grace is an outstanding Venom. And Thomas Haden Church plays a solid Sandman. Also, the always classic Bruce Campbell is amazing in a brief Maître d’ cameo.


The bottom line is that the cheesy and campy script plays to the average American so much it's sad. And it must have worked too, because on the opening weekend of Spider-Man 3, they made 2 new world records. These include biggest opening day and opening weekend. Going dark is always better for comic-book films (see Batman Begins), as the best comic books have a sinister bent and wary outlook on the world.

I truly wish I had enjoyed the movie, but my cynical nature prevailed in the end... an ending sequence that should have come at the 80 minute mark instead of the 120 minute mark. It will be interesting to see what our resident comic-book geeks, Casey and Devo, have to say about the film. But as an ex-comic-book geek, I'm disappointed. I'll be going to Spider-Man 4, but I'll now be gun-shy when entering the theater. I think I'm going to go watch a true work of genius to get this bad taste out of my mouth.