Spider-Man 3: Twenty things I learned – and re-learned

  1. Components needed for theater motion-picture survival: caffeine, nicotine and protein.
  2. Three fourths of a smoke, 20 oz of asphalt-flavored gas station java, a tinkle and a bacon/egg/cheese bagel are still enough to outlast an IMAX screening on 3 hours of sleep.
  3. IMAX, without 3D, still leaves you feeling like you’re a smashed insect holding on for mercy on the camera lens.
  4. Bryce Dallas Howard, a natural redhead, is a MUCH hotter blonde than Kirsten Dunst, a natural blonde.
  5. Dunst is a smidge hotter as a redhead than Howard, but is still not hotter overall.
  6. Kirsten Dunst still can’t act very well; simultaneously, Mary Jane Watson’s stage performance gets bad reviews.
  7. The Sandman stole his sweater from dance-poppers Franz Ferdinand.
  8. Venom costumed Peter Parker stole his Goth makeover from Carlos D of indie rockers Interpol (or Hitler).
  9. If your best friend hates you, beat him into a coma so he doesn’t remember why he hates you.
  10. If he lives, beat him once again within an inch of his life AND scar his face severely.
  11. Peter Parker will not get banned from an establishment where he previously smacked his ex-girlfriend around and roughed up bouncers.
  12. Peter Parker is in it for the A.
  13. CGI = excellent virtual steroids to turn string-bean Topher Grace into Venom.
  14. Topher Grace is Eric Foreman is Foreman is Foreman is Foreman, that is, until he unleashes some anger as a well-acted Venom; afterward, he is still Foreman, but pissed off, like if Donna slept with Kelso.
  15. So, Topher Grace = Venom, but Topher Grace does not equal convincing comic-book style Eddie Brock. Topher Grace’s Eddie Brock = tool.
  16. While morbid dread is understandable, don’t let the signs for New Jersey scare you when on 202 N. You did not miss the Mall Blvd. exit. … It is the last stop before Jersey-bound I-76. King of Prussia IMAX is oh so near.
  17. If you see a crane destroying most of two floors of a building, raining trash down onto bystanders, DO NOTHING about the crane, debris or bystanders ONLY save the powder-blue-eyed buxom platinum blonde with the straight bangs.
  18. Peter Parker is a penetrable, unfavorable, putrid human orifice.
  19. Watch Spider-Man before coming to Spider-Man 3.
  20. Danny Elfman’s score drags along the same lines as – coincidentally or not – Tim Burton’s Batman style music.
  21. Gwen Stacy’s characterization is so flat, she should have been renamed “plot device.”
  22. When purchasing tickets to an inevitably sold-out show that is an hour and a half away, Fandango rules.