11 Things About Spider-Man 432
An Anonymous Coward writes: "This has got to be the most inane, greedy thing I have heard of yet! The owners of the billboards on Times Square are suing Sony and those involved with the production of Spider-Man 'for digitally superimposing advertisements for other companies over their billboard space in the film.' Their argument: '[the ads] do not depict the area accurately.' Oh, and a guy in spider costume swinging from the buildings does? Give me a break!" That's one thing; read below for the other 10, if you can handle some movie spoilage. Update: 04/14 21:04 GMT by T : Oh, and a 12th thing: as reader marcsiry points out, that's "Spider-Man," not "Spiderman."
CheeseburgerBlue writes with his space-saving, 10-thought mini-review.
- "Worst opening titles sequence ever. Probably recycled out of un-used material from 'The Last Starfighter.' Truly IntelliVision-level graphics here.
- Peter hacks himself an awesome wannabe costume at first. This is good, because nobody is so well-rounded as to be ass-kickingly fierce, unswerving moral, academically gifted *and* a knock-down seamtress to boot. (It's unheard of, aside from that mama's boy show-off Clark Kent.)
- There is actually some credible character development. (Smacks own agape jaw in disbelief.) So much for the frickin' Batman franchise.
- We are treated to several exciting shots of M.J.'s heaving bosom through clinging wet fabric, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
- J. Jonas Jamieson: beautiful! This character absolutely could not have been done better. It's like a really angry Perry White mixed with Lou Grant, drunk.
- Nice casting. Not only is Peter's pal Harry the spitting image of his screen father (Dafoe), but he also makes a passable Anakin Skywalker. (I can't wait to see what kind of a Darth sombitch Harry turns into in the sequels.)
- Many agree that the animated Spidey flying around looks like crap in the TV spots. Luckily, in context, it works. I found that what the C.G. webslinger lacks in verisimilitude is made up for in choreography -- the sequences of Spidey swinging through Manhattan and thrilling and fun.
- I've always counted on Spiderman to deliver some quality wise-cracks, in stark contrast to Superman's squarejawed mumbling about truth and justice. I also expect Peter Parker to have a dark side that is less cheese-gothic than Batman's silhouetted form baying at the moon. This movie delivers -- Spidey's character is perfectly true to form.
- Great pacing. It's more than half-way through the movie before Peter really becomes Spiderman. His gradual transition to superherohood is convincing, and helps sell Peter as a real guy along the way.
- Despite the fact the Green Goblin essentially kicks his own ass in this movie, he does duke it out pretty cool with Spidey a few times first. (The best part is when the angry New Yorkers pelt him with trash for messin' with their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.)"
It's not unreasonable ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Waste of breath (Score:3, Insightful)
Virtual Times Square (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuisance Lawsuits... (Score:4, Insightful)
also, i can't wait to see Kirsten Dunst in the wet t-shirt either...
Re:It's not unreasonable ? (Score:5, Insightful)
<disclaimer>IANAL</disclaimer>
It's totally unreasonable. While they might have paid someone more for the ability to put adverts in Times Square because they thought they'd free ride in movies &c., they sure as hell didn't contract with the Spidey movie to reproduce the ads.
The spidey movie made no contracts or promises to display the ads, so why should they? The billboard owners want something for nothing.
From the article: '"Sherwood has not authorized defendants or anyone to distort the appearance" of the area' [...]
Since when does a person taking a picture of something not allowed to futz with the image? Especially in the movies, where the whole point of taking the picture is to make the audience believe that something which isn't real actually happened.
This kind of litigiousness makes me fume.
Time dependency? (Score:5, Insightful)
What ads would they have to place there?
A photograph or film has a longer lifetime than an advertisment
Re:It's not unreasonable ? (Score:2, Insightful)
the sad thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)
you just can't win...
Re:It's not unreasonable ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, and I paid some joker $50 for the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't understand why the mayor doesn't recognize my property rights.
Re:Pulled WTC Trailer (Score:1, Insightful)
And of course, in light of the fact that there is no more WTC. Sort of dates the movie.
Tobey Maguire + skin-tight outfit = yum (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the female of the species are definitely getting the better deal here
Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
SONY should be allowed to disagree with content portrayed on their property. Its their property and the message presented on it reflects upon them. Think of parallels.
My made-up example?
What about a Julia Roberts, tear jerking movie that pits her as a courageous pro-choice activist against an evil cabal of extreme right-wing, slack jawed, anti-choice, church going, white men. As a part of the movie, Roberts attends a church of open minded, pro-choice parishioners...most likely Lutherans. Since the civil rights crusading producer wants to really stick it to the closed minded, white men and their abused, subservient wives in our society and make a real deep, societal impact on the minds of uniformed Americans, he CGIs the church sign of a real, mean, anti-choice, anti-gay, born-again Christian church in Mississippi, to be this warm, fuzzy, cuddly, pro-choice, Julia Roberts kind of church with a feminine Reverend. So all establishment shots of the Julia Roberts kind of church in the movie feature this real anti-choice church but with the Hollywood magic sign. The church was filmed on the road legally. It is a landmark in the town as most churches are. Most of the viewers of the film would never know what was on the sign before seeing the movie as they do not live near the sign, but the audience local to the landmark would. The sign is nothing more than the advertising of religious faith -- a somewhat commercial activity, as money is exchanged between parishioner and church and visa-versa from time to time.
Think the church would have a right to complain by having their sign's content in the blockbuster Julia Roberts film being altered to reflect a message with which they disagree? I would think so. And you are more likely to know about the advertising in Times Square than would you this church in Mississippi. Hate to stick up for a multinational corporation but they do have a right to have messages on their property correctly reflect their desires. It is not up to you and I to decide for SONY what their message is.
Offtopic: Anyone hear that Standard Oil of New York conspiracy before?
Disclaimer: I live in NYC and I don't like Julia Roberts tear jerking movies but I am forced to watch them. I will back any legislation on Digital Rights Management that contains a rider that will make Oxygen, Lifetime, and Women's Entertainment (We) illegal to broadcast within the United States.
Re:Oh for god's sake... (Score:2, Insightful)
seamtress? (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't that be 'taylor' or something? I mean, 'seamstress' isn't really a term you'd use for a guy.
Re:Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spider-man is something called "art". They aren't selling you the property of times square. They are selling you pictures of it, with a fictional story and some sounds overlaid.
The U.S. legal system has an idea built in called "freedom of expression". This implies that if you are creating a piece of art, you have a right to do anything in it that you like that corresponds to promoting your artistic vision, and that no man or government has the right to restrict that because freedom of speech and expression is a basic, universal, human right.
OK?
There is the question of slander-- i.e., if you took a public figure of some sort, which would include a church of some sort, and represented them publicly in a light they disapprove of, then they could go after you for slander. You could say that this is an exception to the "there should be no legal limits on art" rule. However, this only applies when you step outside the realm of artistic expression and into journalism-- i.e., when you are actively stating that the portrayal of things that you are offering in your product is *true*, as opposed to simply offering an artistic portrayal of the universe. The new york times has an obligation to not print things like "Newt Gingrinch is an Alien" when they have no proof of such. The makers of the movie "Men in black" are under no such obligation. I think it's pretty safe to say no one could be misled to believe that the movie "Spider-man" is meant to be an accurate portrayal of New York City.
There's also the question of copyright and image reuse-- i.e., do you have the legal right to use someone/something's image if you can consider the image you are reusing an artistic product that someone else "owns". I would say that that doesn't apply here becuase the image of Times Square is just a part of our culture, and has become something that the owners of the physical property Times Square no longer have control over.
Would you imply that someone doing an impressionist, blurry painting of times square has a legal obligation to preseve the clarity of the advertisements there?
You'd probably argue that that example is different, because in that case, the altering of the nature of the buildings and advertisements is required by the nature of the artistic decisions made by the painter; whereas in the case of Spider-man, the advertisements were altered out of sheer greed.
That argument would be invalid for one simple reason: no matter what the law says currently, neither the government nor the courts have the right to determine what is a valid artistic decision and what is greed. That is simply not their business; the supreme court has said again and again that the government has no right to discriminate a legal difference between "good art" and "bad art"; there is only the question "is it art", and if so, you have to treat it legally in a manner consistent with the way you treat all other art..
Re:It was a Samsung Ad that was pulled (Score:1, Insightful)
Now the question of whether the removal is warranted or ethical I will leave to the philosopher and lawyers; I'm just an engineer.
Spineless cop-out. Ethic are for everyone.
I actually hope the times square people win (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course there may be things that look like adds in the movie, but as long as they are not payed for it is ok.
To put it more clearly i think movies should represent either reality or the unobstructed vision of the makers, and not advertising agreements.
So i guess in the times square case it is ok to keep the original adds because they represent reality.
You can say my rule is arbitrary: "whats the diff between an nbc add and a usa today add?" Well there is a difference, because when some one pays for an add they usually put conditions on how it will be shown in the movie and those conditions, usually having to do with adds being clearly shown close to the main heroine's tits or something silly like that, make movies suck.
Re:I actually hope the times square people win (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't want to see advertisements in movies, then don't see the sorts of movies that have ads scattered through them like this.
There are a number of directors and creative teams who make movies where commercial decisions do not totally dominate the content of the film...
e.g. in Pulp Fiction Tarantino invented 'Red Apple' cigarettes, not wanting to give screen time to any pre-existing brand.
Re:I am a professional news photographer... (Score:1, Insightful)
If you have that many people telling you that often that they're going to beat the shit out of you, then you may need to reconsider the 'professionalism' of your behaviour.
Personally, you sound like a scum-sucking scandal-shooter to me. That ain't news--it's just scandal.
Re:I am a professional news photographer... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a news videographer (and granted, that is a different designation than commercial photographers) but there is no need to sign a release form for me to shoot a building.
This is precisely why it is different -- news vs. commerical. I could shoot all the pictures I want of private property (as long as I didn't trespass or otherwise break the law to do it), but as soon as I want to sell one of those pictures for anything besides news (e.g., to sell a product or as fine art to hang on a wall), a release is needed.
And as noted in my post, I agree that taking this to court is absurd.
A Note from another AC (Score:1, Insightful)
In an engineering class I have personally heard them criticized by one guy they interviewed in a story on TWA flight 800 (& I saw the story afterwards.) In spite of everything he told them before, during, and after the interview, they carefully arranged their footage and commentary to paint him as a sort of whistleblower, and the FAA as being unresponsive to concerns about safety.
They made no attempt to understand the actual engineering concerns. Instead they tried continually to get him to say that he warned the FAA (about the possibility of Center Fuel Tank explosions) and that they did nothing... when in real life, he raised the issue, the FAA investigated with his help, and they both agreed that no changes were appropriate.
I was surprised to learn that the questions in the interview are generally filmed after the answers. That was what really drove home to me what kind of presentation this really is.
It is very disturbing to watch these reports, and having some clue about how they were made. They simulate a sort of public trial held in the media, in which the actors often have little to no opportunity for their own, unfiltered response, but in this trial everything is manipulative to serve the predetermined "moral of the story" -- the outcome is been prejudged. And if
the journalists can't arrange a strong enough support for the the viewpoint they intended to portray, they simply don't air the story.
Also it is not surprising when residents of a small town are angry and suspicious when big city reporters come in, because it is so very rare that national news will ever bother to report on something good happening, especially a small, local type of event. Of course, local news is often much better about this.
Now, about you: I don't know anything about you, but I honestly can't see how you can "catch a pedophile" with your filming. If you do know about an actual crime being committed, surely it is your duty to report it to the law immediately. It is officers of the law who are best equipped to stop a crime in progress, and it is the judicial system which is best equipped to punish offenders. The media likes to think it is a populist institution, but it is the government which is given effectual powers to deal with these things, by the people. Of course if the government is neglecting its job it is very good for the media to report on this, but this has nothing to do with a photographer going to someone's house to "catch a pedophile."
It is more likely that a camera crew will go to film the residence of an accused pedophile or sex offender, not for the purpose of "catching" anyone, but simply to give a reporter someplace to stand while she does her best to turn yet another trial into a media circus.
Anyway, I am sure you mean well, and maybe you are not guilty of the various excesses seen so often in TV journalism. But remember: when Superman was created in the 1930s, and Spider-Man in the 1960s, it was natural to put make their alter-egos work in journalism. Whereas now, in the US journalists are disliked even more than politicians and lawyers. You guys have quite a challenge in restoring the public's faith in you.
Re:I'll dignify this to you although I shouldn't.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure there are tons of authentic and genuine people in centralized media, but there is no denying that you are part of the big hairy beast for good or bad. Which is why indiemedia is so exciting.