July, 5, 2004 archives

i’m sad to say it was only recently that it came to my attention that laemmle’s grande 4-plex is located in downtown los angeles, just a block up from the ymca. so i took advantage of the day off and saw spider-man 2. it’s not a fancy theater (just four screens with about 150 seats each, assuming they’re all the same size), but it got the job done.

the movie itself was really good. they’ve done a great job of keeping to the spirit of the spider-man comics, and avoiding all of the pitfalls that the batman film franchise managed to mire itself in. the third film is due in 2007, but after that the contracts are up for all of the principal players, so it’s wide open for spider-man 4 to be sucktastic.

i can’t decide whether the conversations in the various spider-man related forums are more sad or funny. being involved with a comic-book-derived movie is like a little special purgatory that directors and writers find themselves within.

between marathons of airline and family plots, and episodes of the casino, the airport, nypd 24/7, and the rest of the onslaught of reality television programs, it’s clear that anyone wasting time leading their own life is a chump. i’m happy to say that i don’t have that problem.

mark burnett, call me when you’re ready for the video store....

laist launched. the goal, they say, is to cover the non-hollywood bits of los angeles, leaving hollywood to the others. the site has actually been available for a couple of weeks, but you had to sneak through the back door.

i may be wrong, but i believe they changed their logo in the run-up to launch. i remember thinking when i first saw the logo that it was cool that i could see two of the items from my windows (plus the palm tree, probably). but i think they swapped out a silhouette of library tower for the capitol building, and added the (trademarked) hollywood sign. so now, from the logo, all i can see is city hall. but i do get to see disney hall pretty much every weekday morning when i’m at the y.