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poor peter parker Since I moved into my place at the very end of October last year I didn't pay that much attention to the tree in my front yard. Now that spring is here I can tell that it's a red leaf maple which is the same kind of tree that I had in the backyard where I used to live and loved. Soon I'll have some privacy when I sit out on my deck, but this time I can't reach over the railing and touch the branches. ... Sunday really was a good day for me where I could truly relax for the first time in days. Today started off just as nice with a phone call to my buddy Nicole. I just wanted to see how her night at work went and wish her a pleasant weekend. ... Going against my better judgment, I went and saw a matinee of the new Spider Man movie and part of me wishes that I hadn't. Quite honestly I felt every minute of the two hour film and that was not a good thing. Yes, I must confess that I am probably too close to the subject matter to be objective, but once again I wonder if anyone who made the movie ever read the comic books. Okay, I know that they need to make composite characters and have to compress forty years worth of continuity into two hours, but the film deviated so many times from the comic books that I stopped counting. If I could forget the fact that Gwen Stacy was his Peter's first girlfriend and not Mary Jane. If I could forget the fact that Peter and Mary Jane did not grow up next door to one another and didn't meet until they were in high school. Actually they may have met after high school, but I'm not positive. If I could forget the fact that Mary Jane was introduced in the book via her Aunt Anna who was friends with Aunt May and not her parents. In fact I don't think that her parents are ever mentioned in the books. To be honest the abusive father idea was way too after school special for me. If I could forget the fact that the webbing came out of mechanical web shooters that he invented and not his wrists. Thankfully it didn't come out of his ass or some other less family friendly body part. If I could forget the fact that the Green Goblin wore a rubber mask and not some helmet intended as a military weapon. If I could forget the fact that Harry and Mary Jane never dated. I suppose that Hollywood wanted to go with the love triangle cliche, but that never happened. At best Mary Jane thought about Peter when he was with Gwen. If I could forgive Danny Elfman for a horrible music score. I swear that he used some of the same stuff from the Batman soundtrack that he created. If I could have another actor besides the shrink from Law and Order play J. Jonah Jameson and not over act to the point where I cringed in my seat. I mean they put a talk show self help spin on Mary Jane and her past so why leave J. Jonah so two dimensional? If those points and others had been corrected, then it would have been a much better movie. Putting aside those negative thoughts, there were a few parts of the movie that I liked. Toby was a good casting choice for Peter and Kirsten was tolerable as Mary Jane although I still would have picked someone else. Visually speaking the webbing looked good on the screen and the tattered costume in the fight scene was very true to the book. More often than not Peter does get beat to a pulp and has his costume shredded. Harry and his father Norman were just as odd in the books as on film. Plus I am sure that the average viewer could tell that Harry was or will soon become the second Green Goblin. I believe that both of them are dead now. The wrestling segment was funny, because it was so true. I am sure that those were real wrestling fans in the audience just to see Randy Savage. Oh, I was also happy to see that they gave a small amount of credit to Steve Ditko, the man who actually drew the comic book. Stan Lee may have provided the horrible dialogue, but he never did the art. I am still wondering what kind of audience they were hoping to get with the film. Oh, I am sure that the diehard followers of the book were there, but the story was so thin that it barely held my attention. We still get the idea of the high school loser who gets a break and then learns not to let it go to his head, but I always thought that there was more to the story. I guess that I was wrong. ... After Spider Man I decided to visit with my parents for the rest of the day and borrow a backpack for Europe while I was there. Things have been busy at their place and I was told to take a final look before their new neighbor completed work on a massive fence. When my parents first moved there over a decade ago I had mixed feelings about it. Now I know that they made a good decision to flee the city and it saddens me to see someone trying to recreate the confines of the city by building a six foot high fence around their property. Suddenly their horizon has been taken away from them and they get to stare at someone's fence instead of open fields. As I said this isn't a small fence. This fence will surround acres of land and I have to question the reasoning behind it.
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