The Marvel Team-Up you NEVER expected: RiffTrax: Spider-Man 3

Mike Nelson, formerly of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, continues to provide smart-alec commentary to films at RiffTrax, where you can buy MST3K-style mp3 commentary tracks to play along with your own DVD's at home.

On some of the tracks he's accompanied by either some of his former MST3K alumni, or special celebrity guests. But I never expected this:

The biggest Spiderman movie of 2007 is now the biggest Spiderman-based Rifftrax of 2008! All your favorite characters return (Hoffman, Mr. Ditkovich, Ursula) and new favorites join in the fun (Crane Operator, Emergency Room Doctor, Kid in Central Park)!

And joining Mike is writer/ newspaperman/ radio guy/ blogger extraordinaire/ podcaster/ best-selling author and uber-fan of the Spiderman series James Lileks! Just what will his reaction be when he sees what they've done to his beautiful series? Will he freak out and begin hitting Mike with a folding chair? Yes, he did, but we edited that out of this ArachnaRiffic Rifftrax and left only the funny!

(emphasis mine)

Let the Riffing (and the Bleating) begin!

You can buy the RiffTrax here.

You can (and should) read James daily at his blog, The Bleat.

Look! Down in the lobby! Is it an escalator? Is it a lift? No, its…

The cleverest placement of movie advertising in quite a while.

(found via Shawn King's blog at Your Mac Life)

300: Respect and Buzz; who knew they could go together?

Over at ComicMix, Mike Gold finds respect for comics in a movie review:

(Roeper) commented at length about the evolution of the graphic novel-based movie without once referring to costumes and capes (oddly, 300 had both – but you get my drift) and Frank Miller’s influence on comics, film, and our culture in general. He spoke of Miller’s work the way arts critics speak of Martin Scorsese, John Lennon and Philip Roth. Not a single word was condescending. Not one.

Also at ComicMix, Elayne Riggs notes the phenomenon of commentary about 300:

It's not very often that a movie comes along with something for just about everyone -- it even serves as a great discussion topic for those who've seen it and don't particularly care for it!

More 300 Rorschach tests.

A mini roundup of 300 reviews over at Instapundit by guest blogger, Tom Maguire.

Armed Liberal acknowledges the historical source and sees no modern references, while noting the Rorschach test nature of the criticism. He also notes the historical ignorance of many reviews…

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times was the only one who 'got' the historical context of Thermopylae (even though he didn't like the movie). Sheesh. You'd think that people who write about culture for a living would know something about it, wouldn't you?

Dana Stevens at Slate criticizes the movie for not being anti-war.

But to cast 300 as a purely apolitical romp of an action film smacks of either disingenuousness or complete obliviousness. One of the few war movies I've seen in the past two decades that doesn't include at least some nod in the direction of antiwar sentiment, 300 is a mythic ode to righteous bellicosity.

Wretchard, at the Belmont Club, mocks the Slate.com review of 300.

I have no idea whether 300 is a good movie, but Steven's review is an entertaining example of how all events, including those which happened nearly 500 years BC, must be judged according to prisms of contemporary political correctness. Miller had to remember, for example, “that we're in the middle of an actual war”. Did he not realize his duty to denounce it? But what if Miller had made a movie about the fight against Hitler? Would it have been necessary to remind the audience that Hitler was a nonsmoking, animal-loving, vegetarian artist?

But it isn't all such detailed meta analysis. Sometimes it's just a fart joke.

Movie version of Frank Miller’s 300 parsed for political meaning.

Ragnell at Written World: I've heard he says he writes strong women too...:

The idea that is so strange that I know it will probably make the entire internet sit up, blink, and ask when I went so insane.

I won't watch The 300 (sic) because the trailer makes it look like Anti-American propaganda.

Okay, hear me out here. Yes, I know what Frank Miller has said about his patriotism and that, in all likelihood, this movie was meant as war propaganda in the USA's favor, but every time I see the trailer I get this little creeping feeling in my stomach that its not going to show that way.

What makes me think this?

Read the whole post to find out, and the discussion in the comments thread that follows.

In those comments, I add my 2¢:

When I see the trailers for 300, I don't see a pro or anti stance as to current politics. I see a movie thats incredibly faithfull to the look feel and spirit of the comic.

I see more of a hyperbolized version of Greek history. The only American parallel I can find is the Alamo.

The movie version of V for Vendetta was twisted around to be a commentary on conservatism, with an eye toward present day politics, as opposed to the book's more timeless theme of anarchism vs. authoritarianism. To criticize that film for being too swayed by present politics is fair. So there is precident for these fears of politically motivated storytelling.

It looks like 300 is not going to commit the same sins. This may be less motivated by a fear of politics, than it is by the success of the prior film adaptation, Sin City, which was extremely faithful to the source material. That films success set the formula to be slavishly dedicated to reproducing an exact retelling of the comic.

I think that any political analysis of 300 would tell you more about the person analyzing the film than about the film itself.

Sometimes a comic book movie is just a comic book movie.