End of the Week Explosion #2

Every week we talk to our friend Seacord - the angriest super-fan in the world - about all the news from the past week. This time out Seacord and I were still feeling good from all the money we won betting on horse racing and the fact that we didn't have to see Spider-Man 3 again. Speaking of which...

Ian: So the Spider-Man movie was obviously the big story in comics and the rest of the entertainment universe this week. Its official box-office number for three days was $1.7 Quintillion dollars. The reviews on our site got quite a bit of traffic as well. Now that we've had some time to cool off - do you think we were too hard on Spider-Man 3?

Seacord: Too hard? No way. If anything, it shows that if you put enough money into a franchise people will eat it up. They will want so badly to like it that they'll come away with any excuse to say it was a good movie. At best it was campy, but when you are trying to get the audience into the movie with serious dramatic pauses and they are laughing at them that's a huge sign that the director did not get what he was aiming at. It seriously was a mess start to finish. If anything, I'm going to say we weren't hard enough. Let it shatter all the records it wants. People loved Temple of Doom, but in the scheme of that trilogy it was awful. It had some good one-liners but it wasn't an Indiana Jones movie like Ark and whatever the third one was called (The Hunt for Sean Connery's Career or something like that). They'll make another one with or without Tobey Maguire and it'll turn out like the Batman franchise.

Ian: Let's keep with the movie theme...I read some plot spoilers for Fantastic Four 2 and I gotta say - some of it looks pretty sketchy. At least Michael Chiklis is getting paid. Which reminds me - is The Shield the best show that's ever been on television?

Seacord: If by sketchy you mean the only upside is that we may get to see Jessica Alba half-naked again - then yes "sketchy" is the word I'd use. I don't understand why Michael Chiklis can be on what is the greatest show on television --and maybe one of the best to ever air-- and yet accept a role where he is basically a walking ass-clown.

Ian: And what are they going to call the fourth FF movie? Fantastic Four Four? That sounds stupid.

Seacord: If they make four FF movies I'm not worried about the name because ultimately the only thing we can hope for is that they age well and it's not like the Star Trek cast and we get stuck with Johnny Storm in a XXXL spandex uniform, a poorly aged sun-damaged Jessica Alba and a Reed Richards whose gray streaks are replaced by a bald spot. The whole movie would be Dr. Doom donning his Nip/Tuck powers to try to reassemble the aging cast.

Ian: In other movie news, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was making some noise this week about possibly being cast as Captain Marvel (Shazam) in the movie. He seems like more of a Black Adam to me, but that's just the Scorpion King in a different outfit right? Thoughts?

Seacord: I've heard that too. I'm beginning to think if you put a script in front of the Rock, the word "no" loses all meaning. I've yet to see something with him in it where I was like, "WOW, he made the movie." Who are they going to get to play Billy Batson? I mean Captain Marvel makes Superman look like an axe-murderer, so I just don't see the Rock pulling off the ultra boy scout. And as far as costumes go, I can't think of a worse one to translate to the screen. It's pushing it in the comics and, well, all around I just think it's a bad idea. How are they going to make it so (if Black Adam is the villain) that he doesn't come off looking like a Vulcan reject? Too many questions.

Ian: Wow, that's two Star Trek references from you this week. Speaking of The Rock, you used to wrestle...what was your signature move?

Seacord: Yup, I used to wrestle but never had a signature move. Too bad, right? If I had to pick one, for sure it'd be the Stone Cold Stunner. Greatest finishing move ever. I'm probably a little biased because I love the character, but to me he was the best thing to happen to wrestling since, well, ever. The perfect anti-hero. So yeah, that would have been the move I chose.