Watch “The Amazing Spider-Man” Trailer, Now With New Hidden Web Site Link

by Glenn Hauman on February 7th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Posted In: News

It’s quite possible you’ve already seen the new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man, but if not, take a look… and in fact, look very closely:

YouTube Preview Image

You may have noticed Ol’ Webhead leave his mark, and not just on the walls… the phrase “the Mark of the Spider-Man” is mentioned by Captain Stacy and is hidden within the webbing towards the end of the trailer. The site markofthespider-man.com takes you to a site with six screens filled with static, but I’ll bet my last Spider-tracer that if you keep an eye on that new site over the next week, we’ll see all sorts of new stuff revealed on those screens.

The Amazing Spider-Man comes out July 3rd, and stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Denis Leary, Rhys Ifans, Sally Field, and Martin Sheen.

(Hat tip: movieviral.com)

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REVIEWS: “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan”

by Robert Greenberger on February 7th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Posted In: News, Reviews

20th Century Home Entertainment continues to explore their library, releasing Blu-ray editions of popular and important films. Recently, two of Woody Allen’s best films were released and are worth a second look.

Allen as a comedian was a witty, smart writer and performer, coming from a literate line of humor that was in rapid decline by the 1960s. In some ways, he was the bridge between that era and today when men like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert carry the mantle. His early films were very funny and as a director, he was learning the ropes, figuring out what worked while entertaining the masses.

That culminated in Annie Hall, his 1977 serious comedy featuring his then-paramour Diane Keaton. The movie was a quantum leap in sophistication, partially from the smart script co-written with Marshall Brickman, but a most self-assured hand behind the camera. Allen shows a maturity as a filmmaker that proved to audiences and critics alike he was more than just a funny and funny-looking guy. The movie went on to earn four Academy Awards including Best Picture (besting Star Wars), Best Actress, Best Directing and Best Screenplay. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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MICHAEL DAVIS: David

by Michael Davis on February 7th, 2012 at 8:00 am
Posted In: Columns

When I was a kid around 12 years old I met another kid around the same age while at the library. This was a big deal because I was black and he was white and I had no white friends, so at the time this was an historic meeting for me at the time.

We were both at the same table at the library both working on a book report. We regarded each other only with sly looks while trying to avoid eye contact with each other. I lived in a housing project and I just knew that David lived in the real nice houses that were not to far from the projects in distance but light years away in lifestyle. For about an hour we played that cat and mouse “look, don’t look” game.

We played that game until David put away his notebook and replaced them with a stack of comics that could choke a horse. I’d never seen that many comics outside of my home. Never had I seen anyone carry that many comics around.

Then I noticed something incredible. All the comics were brand new. I’ve carried comics around with me on many an occasion: grandma’s house, dentist’s office, car trip (which I only did once because I can’t read in a car; it gives me the worst headache, even now) or to a friend’s house to trade.

Whenever I’ve carried comics around, they were never a stack of new comics – never. At 12 I don’t think I’ve ever brought more than three comics at one time. Not that I didn’t want too; I just could not afford it. Now, here in front of me were at least 30 brand new comics that this snot nose white kid was showing off.

I did not want to stare but I could not help it. I was mesmerized by the wealth of comics this kid had in his possession.

I hated that kid.

I hated that I had one comic on me that had no cover.

I hated that I wanted to ask to read some of his.

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Simpsons Toys Banned In Iran

by Glenn Hauman on February 6th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
Posted In: News
The Simpsons sports a vast array of secondary ...

Isn’t it nice to know that after nearly five hundred episodes, The Simpsons still have the power to shock and offend censors?

The Simpsons have now joined Barbie as targets of an Iranian crackdown, putting one of the iconic blonde doll’s biggest critics on the same blacklist as her. Citing some kind of vague moral opposition to The Simpsons, Mohammad Hossein Farjoo (who Reuters awesomely describes as the head of an agency that “oversees what Iranian children can play with”) said authorities would crack down on sales of toys based on the series and its characters.

That means Lisa Simpson, who famously campaigned for a less sexist Malibu Stacey (the show’s thinly veiled version of Barbie), now joins Barbie as a threat to Iranian morals.

via Iran Bans Simpsons Toys – Global – The Atlantic Wire.

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REVIEW: “In Time”

by Robert Greenberger on February 6th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
Posted In: News, Reviews

Andrew Niccol is an English teacher’s dream, presenting visually compelling dystopia in movies that feature pretty people in dire straits. While his 1997 debut, Gattaca, got us all interested in him as a visionary, he has offered up precious few films since and the most recent one, In Time, was more hard-scratching than captivating.

The Justin Timberlake action movie came and went fairly quickly in the fall and was released this past week by 20th Century Home Entertainment. In a near-future, man has figured out how to alter our genetics so on our 25th birthday, our body is locked in place and our body clock begins to countdown. If I understand it right, they have a year to live without additional time being obtained which has led to a society of the immortal haves versus the time-starved have-nots. District 1 is at the bottom of the social ladder, a slum-like environment in an unnamed portion of the United States and there, factory worker Timberlake fights back, becoming the rebel a society had been waiting for. Along the way, he falls for heiress Amanda Seyfried, who has her eyes opened to the inequity largely controlled by her billionaire father (Vincent Kartheiser). Timberlake is hunted down by a Time Keeper (Cillian Murphy) for breaking the fuzzy law.

Everything is fuzzy about the movie. The world’s economy has shifted from cash and oil to time and it can be bought, sold, traded, and stored. How that works and how the genetics work are never clearly explained. Nor is the society and why is has been divided into a dozen distinct districts (Suzanne Collins does a better job of this in her Hunger Games trilogy). The power stems from the prime district called appropriately enough New Greenwich. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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