Reeling

The local film scene

Here's a website worth bookmarking if you live in South Florida. I'm not sure who runs it (the "about us" link brings up a big screen of nothing), but there's a lot of good information available, such as this comprehensive calendar listing of film screenings and events in the area. Good stuff.

Viewing log

Saturday May 5

Marie Antoinette (2006): Wish I had managed to catch up with this one last fall, so I could have included it on my year-end list of the best of 2006. Kirsten Dunst has now officially taken over the title of My Favorite Contemporary Actress Under 40 (previous title holder: Toni Collette).

Whoa

$59 million. That's how much Spider-Man 3 earned Friday in the U.S., setting a new record for the all-time biggest gross on a single day. The previous record-holder was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which earned $55.8 million on its opening day last July.

The people's verdict

Sounds like a lot of the people who attended the midnight screenings of Spider-Man 3 yesterday liked what they saw. I do find it odd, though, how some moviegoers use the word "graphics" to refer to visual special effects. What hath the xBox wrought?

Here is the summer movie preview that ran in today's paper. If I could pick one film that I would get to see right now, I'd go with this one, just because I am extremely curious as to what they came up with for the big-screen version.

Tickets are still available for the screening of Coda: 30 Years Later and the Francis Ford Coppola Q&A engagement at the Colony Theater next Sunday. If you're a student, the tickets are practically free (just $5). If you're a film buff, the opportunity to meet and chat with Coppola is priceless.

Viewing log

Thursday, May 3

28 Weeks Later (2007): Builds and expands on 28 Days Later the way Dawn of the Dead expanded on Night of the Living Dead. Sober, intelligent, intense and gory as hell.

Ka-ching

It should surprise no one that Spider-Man 3 has started setting box-office records, hauling in a whopping $29 million on its opening day in 16 overseas markets.

A little more surprising, at least to me, is the large number of pans the film is getting from reviewers. Spider-Man 3 is, in many ways, the most comic-bookish in spirit of all three movies in the series, which may be part of the reason for the somewhat cool reception it has gotten thus far.

Critics who can't deal with the fact that a big part of the plot hinges on a character suffering from amnesia after getting bumped in the head obviously never read too many comics, where a convenient bout of amnesia was as common as the flu.

And those who complain that the movie spends way too much time on the relationship issues between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson simply don't get what makes the character - and these movies - so good.

At least the reviews are pretty much unanimous on one thing: Bruce Campbell's bit part in the movie = Best. Cameo. Ever.

Here's my review of Spider-Man 3, which is running in tomorrow's paper, along with my massive, highly informative summer movie preview.