Part one (of two) Spider-Man movie marathons commenced this weekend — a great idea I executed with Lin and Cara in Boston. We are well-practiced at the virtual movie watching from our annual Lord of the Rings marathon, lining up play with a simple “3, 2, 1, go” text countdown.
Saturday:
All Tobey Maguire with Spider-Man’s 1-3. These are definitely a full-on nostalgia fest complete with Nickelback credit song and CGI that does not hold up. They are also the most somber of Spider-Man iterations and really lean into the down-on-his-luck Peter Parker that I do love. Spider-Man 2 — the one with Doc Ock as the villain, the tear-jerking hero speech from Aunt May, and the iconic train scene where a subway car full of New Yorkers protect an unmasked Peter — is still one of the greats. I love that movie and it’s easily the best of the trilogy.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Spider-Man 3 which I have purposefully avoided rewatching for the last decade and agreed to it on the condition of a drinking game. It’s still a mess of a movie (and wow, women are just not real characters and not treated great in this whole trilogy) but a little more palatable with the wine. And there was lots of wine. You’d need it too to get through that dance sequence.
Sunday:
Today we watched the two Andrew Garfield movies: The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2. I was obsessed with these movies when they came out. When everyone else is complaining about how many different Spider-Mans they are making, I am part of the crowd they are making them for. I like Andrew Garfield’s version of Spider-Man a lot — though in retrospect his whole “nerd” schtick is really more “hipster” which was kind of cool in 2012. But I love Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey and their on-screen chemistry is great. The second movie is basically me just stress crying for the last half-hour. There’s a reason I don’t rewatch it very often. The text chain just devolved into crying faced emojis and I had to put my phone down to nurse my own very loud sob during the clocktower scene. It’s a lot to take.
The real star of the show is next weekend when we dive into the current MCU with Tom Holland’s spidey — my favorite and objectively everyone’s favorite. It’s really the fucking best.
All in all not a bad way to spend Easter weekend. (read: an excellent way, good choices all around.)
With Love,
Natalie