Into, Across and Beyond the Spider-Verse

[Ben]

I still have a bunch of my freebie movie posters: most were "only" A3, but still nice. Lots of the Disney 90s and 2Ks reissue prints, and mostly other animated films. I think the last one we got was the third Night At The Museum, although I haven’t really been to the *actual* cinema a lot since then, so they may still do them on and off. I’ve nowhere to put it, but I have the massive Kong banner (Jackson variety) that I’d love to hang…somewhere!

[James]

Review for Across the Spider-Verse is up!

https://animatedviews.com/2023/spider-m ... der-verse/

[Ben]

I'll take that all in later, but love that formatting…very cute!

[James]

Dacey just posted this on the front page: "Phil Lord Responds to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Audio Mix Complaints"

Definitely had this issue at my theatre. The long-ish scene before the title was so quiet, and I was worried about not being able to hear any of the movie. Thankfully, the rest of the film is much much better audio-wise.

[Ben]

This is the issue with dynamic mixes not being reproduced at reference level. I know the good old days of THX may seem a little quaint now, but this is what that system was really good at.

That said, films do build their tracks from very quiet at the beginning to very loud at the end. That’s what a dynamic track does, as opposed to a compressed one, but theatre owners will also be mindful of playing the start of a film too loudly and then seeing their speakers blow when it gets to the louder sections. I know that Private Ryan was known to shred a high-end cinema speaker or two back in the early days of DTS tracks!

Really the film should have had its first reel dialled up a little more, rather than rely or ask cinemas risk running it too "hot" and damaging their gear on an explosion or massive bass thump. So many films have quiet openings, though: I routinely run a film slightly high for the first half and dial it down around halfway and then, sometimes, a little more for the third act when things get naturally louder.

[EricJ]

Review for Across the Spider-Verse is up!

https://animatedviews.com/2023/spider-m ... der-verse/

Bumping this one after six months, now that it's on Netflix: (Just think, we used to have to pay to rent last summer's movies we missed in theaters!)

I agree, there's too much filler--Maybe it's my old Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Infinity Wars and Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 traumas, but if I see a two-part sequel followup to a hit movie, I go in expecting one of them will be overstuffed with much-ado-about-nothing, or else they'd have everything wrapped up in two hours.

Apart from my usual complaint about Lord & Miller's "Oo, squirrels!" tendency to be attention-distracted out of the story by their own sudden bursts of off-topic meta-cleverness (I'm going to order "Chai tea" at my next Starbucks, thank you), there's also the problem that the story doesn't even get down to business until the cliffhanger.

We have Miles' family stuff to be serious, we have Spot and Peter-with-kid to be Millennial comedy-relief, but being more neon and cutting-edge than the first movie does not actually equal MORE of a movie.

Not to mention, we spend most of this first movie chasing down Miles to stop him from making a mistake, which puts it in Richard Donner Superman II territory: If the people telling the hero he can't whine about wanting to do what he wants make sense, we're not rooting for the hero.

Still, they pulled it out of the fire at the last minute, although it would have been nice to have a little more Classic Marvel like the first movie's Kingpin and Ms. Ock.

[Randall]

Well, fair enough criticisms, but I thought it was brilliant (watched it about a month ago). I loved every minute of it. Yes, it's definitely a part 1 of 2, but I didn't find it any more lacking than, say, Empire Strikes Back. And the animation and visuals were wonderful.

Can't wait to see the next part. It's gonna rock.

[Ben]

(Just think, we used to have to pay to rent last summer's movies we missed in theaters!)

Oh, so you don’t pay for Netflix either?

Still need to see this, but I’ve heard good things and if even Eric feels it nails it at the end — if in a cliffhanger way — and as someone who *loved* but was maybe not *quite* as bowled over as everyone else seemed to be by the first one, it feels like this will be everything it needs to be for me. I want to watch the first again before diving in, which is part of the holdup, but am eager to see it.

[gaastra]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/b ... 3a0d4&ei=8

[Randall]

Curious that they label this an "exciting update." If voice recording is still months away, then it could be quite a long time until the film is ready. Sounds like the script isn't even locked yet.

[James]

https://www.cbr.com/nicolas-cage-first- ... set-photo/

Nicolas Cage is heading to the small screen as the star of Spider-Noir, the upcoming series from Amazon MGM based on Spider-Man Noir. Set images released online have now provided a sneak peek at Cage in his role as the series starts filming...

[Ben]

WTF!!?!?!??? I think I just entered The Twilight Zone…

[ShyViolet]

Is he now going to have another son named Peter Parker?