Spectacular Spider-Man: "Reinforcement"

Premiered October 20, 2009.

"Guys, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice!  Can't we put our differences aside for just one night?"
-Spider-Man


It's Christmas time in New York City, but Spider-Man (Josh Keaton) has little time to enjoy the season.

"Ho, Ho, Ho, I'm Spidey Claus."

A shadowy villain known only as the Master Planner has freed some of Spidey's enemies from police custody and re-formed the Sinister Six.

Master Planner briefs the Sinister Six via video monitor.

This team of bad guys consists of Mysterio (Xander Berkeley), Sandman (John DiMaggio), Rhino (Clancy Brown), Vulture (Robert Englund), Electro (Crispin Freeman) and Kraven the Hunter (Eric Vesbit). They're assisted by an evil computer genius known as the Tinkerer (Thom Adcox-Hernandez).   Doctor Octopus (Peter MacNicol) has declined to rejoin the team and remains in a mental hospital.  The Master Planner tells the Six he wants to "inaugurate the age of the supercriminal."  The first step towards that "age" is the elimination of Spider-Man.

Spider-Man's alter ego Peter Parker is having difficulties as well.  Peter is out skating with some other kids at Rockefeller Center ice rink.

He and his friend Gwen Stacy (Lacey Chabert) recently shared a kiss but they haven't spoken since it happened.  She thinks Peter would prefer to date Liz Allen (Alanna Ubach) and doesn't want to be anyone's second choice.

Peter asks their mutual friend Mary Jane (Vanessa Marshall) for advice on how to make things right with Gwen.

Using Kraven's sense of smell, the Sinister Six track Spider-Man to the ice rink.  Electro calls out the webhead.

Peter changes into Spider-Man to confront Electro and Vulture joins the fray.  The villains endanger Gwen, Mary Jane and the other kids, so Spidey lures them away from the ice.  Electro accidentally takes out Vulture, but he knocks down the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in the process!

Vulture takes a bolt of electricity!

Spider-Man subdues Electro, but he's attacked by Rhino and Sandman.  They battle at New York Harbor, which is frozen over.

Shortly after that, Mysterio and Kraven chase Spider-Man into a department store that's decorated for Christmas.

A battle ensues and Spidey tries to keep all the shoppers safe.

Can Spider-Man overcome the odds beat the Sinister Six?  Will Spider-Man finish off the bad guys in time to celebrate Christmas with his Aunt May (Deborah Strang)?  Will Peter be able to smooth things over with Gwen?

J.A. Morris says:

This is a great Christmas episode of a somewhat-overlooked series.  I grew up reading Spider-Man comic books and in my opinion, Spectacular Spider-Man captured the spirit of Spidey better than any other film or TV adaptation of the wallcrawler's adventures.

I've always felt that Spider-Man is more of a New Yorker than any other Marvel hero. This episode takes advantage of the New York setting and gives us a great fight scene at Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve.

Spider-Man stories in any media have always focused equally on Spidey's adventures and Peter's private life.  This is no exception, giving us a good subplot featuring the teen love triangle of Parker, Gwen and Liz.

Gwen & Mary Jane react to the toppling of the Christmas Tree

There are also some nice allusions to other Christmas programming.

The soundtrack contains a nice jazz piano version of "Deck The Halls", which is meant to remind us of Vince Guaraldi's music from A Charlie Brown Christmas.  When Spider-Man is battling Mysterio and Kraven, he exclaims "Oh Fudge!," a humorous reference to A Christmas Story.

The Parkers' block decorated for Christmas.

The best part is the department store battle.  It's accompanied by music from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" and it's a perfect scene.

Spidey even rescues a mall Santa from the Sinister Six.

Spider-Man asks "Santa" to put the Sinister Six on his naughty list!

One thing I appreciated about "Reinforcement" is that it shows superheroes' primary job is keeping people safe.  On two occasions, Spider-Man flees from his opponents so that civilians have a chance to escape.

But it's not all fights and superpowers.  There's a very touching moment at the end of the episode, when Peter and his Aunt May celebrate Christmas morning together.  I won't spoil it, but let's just say it involves Peter's late Uncle Ben.

All the voice actors are great, Josh Keaton nails both Peter and Spider-Man.  Speaking of the voice actors, fans of Nightmare On Elm Street will appreciate that Vulture is voiced by Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund!

Englund gives the Vulture a very memorable evil laugh!

This episode has been released on the The Spectacular Spider-Man: The Complete Series blu-ray set. It's also available on a standalone DVD titled The Spectacular Spider-Man: Volume Five.

"Reinforcement" is recommended Christmas viewing, especially for anyone who's ever been a fan of Spider-Man.  The serialized nature of this series means that you may not quite understand what's going on, so it doesn't get my highest rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

.5



3 and a half candy canes.

RigbyMel says:

This is a fun episode of a series that didn't get enough attention when it was originally on the air.    

Christmas chaos!

Personally, one of the things I always liked about Spidey (in both the comics and on screen) was his banter and sarcasm which is well deployed in this episode.  And he's not all talk, of course,  Spidey manages to use his wits many times in the course of his encounter with the Sinister Six.  (The use of a perfume bottle to befuddle Kraven the Hunter was particularly inspired, I thought!)

"Yikes!  Lock your chimneys, folks!"

I also like that this episode gets into how confusing and distracting it can be to a teenager.    (Adding superpowers and super villains into the mix just adds to the melee of distraction!!)    Peter and Gwen's awkwardness around each other is completely believable.

They also tie the distraction element into Spidey's battle with the Sinister Six, which gives this episode a little bit more thematic heft than the average kid's cartoon show.

I also enjoyed the use of New York City locations like Rockefeller Center in this special, but do think that said locations seem oddly depopulated for the holidays in NYC.   (This is probably a factor of animation budget issues though, and I'd rather see the main cast of the series rather than a host of background characters.)

Kraven gets a little tied up in a sleigh. 

As J.A. Morris says above, there are several great references to other classic Christmas programming and the department store fight sequence is a highlight.   There's also an amusing Warriors reference when Electro taunts Spider-Man - not Christmas-y but definitely amusing!

"Spider-Man come out to plaaaay!"

The episode does drop new viewers into the middle of an ongoing story arc featuring Peter and Gwen,  but I don't think this detracts much from the overall effect of the episode in and of itself.

Peter and Aunt May share a Christmas moment.

"Reinforcement" is recommended for Spider-Man fans and animation fans alike.

RigbyMel's rating:

3 candy canes

Announcing: Christmas With The Superheroes

Superheroes have been a staple of popular culture for generations.  Ever since Superman first appeared in 1938, these larger-than-life characters have been featured in comic books, movies, television, newspaper strips, etc.  Right now, superheroes seem to be "having a moment."  It's hard to visit a multiplex that isn't showing a superhero movie.  You can find these heroes on prime time network dramas and animated series aimed at kids.

These heroes spend most of their time saving the world from megalomaniacal supercriminals.

But what about the holiday season?  Do superheroes celebrate Christmas?

Does the Tick love Santa?

Does Clark Kent shop for Christmas presents?

Does Kitty Pryde celebrate Hanukkah?

Do members of the Justice League build snowmen? 

As it turns out, yes they do! 

We're big fans of superheroes, and we're (obviously) fond of holiday programming.  While searching for content to review for this blog, we've learned there are plenty of holiday specials, episodes and movies that feature superheroes!  So this Christmas season, we'll be focusing on superhero-themed reviews.  Some of the episodes/specials/movies are things we've seen years ago, others will be new to us.

In the past, we've reviewed the Christmas episode of Batman:The Brave And The Bold...

 ...and Iron Man 3, which takes place during the holiday season.

Those reviews inspired us to seek out other superpowered Yule offerings.  So please join us for an action-packed, heroic holiday celebration throughout the month!

J.A. Morris & RigbyMel

Love The Coopers

Premiered November 13, 2015.

It's Christmas time in Pittsburgh.

Charlotte (Diane Keaton) and Sam Cooper (John Goodman) have been married for 40 years but they have grown apart and have decided to separate. They agree not to tell their family about this until after Christmas.

Their son Hank (Ed Helms) has recently lost his job as a portrait photographer and is having problems paying for Christmas gifts for his kids.  Hank is also coping with life as a single father and has a rocky relationship with his ex-wife Angie (Alex Borstein).

Charlotte's sister Emma (Marisa Tomei) has always lived in the shadow of her big sister and resents this.  Emma wants to get her family a nice, expensive Christmas present in order to impress them. Since she is short on cash, Emma steals a broach from a department store by putting it in her mouth and gets busted for shoplifting.  It looks like she may well be spending Christmas in jail.  Emma tries to convince police Officer Williams (Anthony Mackie) to let her go free.

The Coopers' daughter Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) has also flown in for Christmas, but doesn't want to face her parents alone.  She is currently in a relationship with a married man who is spending the holidays with his "real" family.  Eleanor decides to avoid parental disapproval by hanging out and drinking at the airport bar.  While avoiding her parents, she meets Joe (Jake Lacy), a soldier who is shipping out to combat.  Joe and Eleanor are polar opposites politically and socially, but they find each other intriguing.  His flight is delayed by snow and it looks like he'll be spending Christmas at the airport.  On the spur of the moment,  Eleanor tells Joe he can spend Christmas with her family, if he will pretend to be her boyfriend.  Joe thinks this is a bad idea, but still goes along with the plan.

Meanwhile, Charlotte's father Bucky (Alan Arkin), a retired teacher, eats breakfast every day at a local diner.  This gives him a chance to spend time with a young waitress named Ruby (Amanda Seyfried).  He recommends classic movies to Ruby and they chat and discuss films together.

Ruby shocks Bucky when she announces she will be moving to Hot Coffee, Mississippi after Christmas.  Bucky thinks it's a terrible idea.

Will this multi-generational holiday get-together end in disaster?    Or will the Christmas Spirit get the better of the Cooper clan?

J.A. Morris says:

Love The Coopers features lots of characters and a whole bunch of plots and subplots.  It adds up to a mixed bag.

I've been a big fan of Diane Keaton, John Goodman and Alan Arkin for a long time.  They've done lots of great work over the years and sometimes elevated lesser films.

Their presence is the best thing in the movie.  Goodman and Keaton are believable as a couple that's been together for 40 years but (apparently) fallen out of love.  Steve Martin serves as narrator, which adds some gravitas to the film.

The Coopers' St. Bernard Rags is an entertaining "animal actor" and a welcome presence.

Rags begs for food from Aunt Fishy (June Squibb)

With so many characters, it's not surprising that some are underdeveloped.  Ruby seems to exist for little more reason than to give Bucky someone to admire.    The scenes that feature Emma with Officer Williams feel like they were phoned in from another movie.

The soundtrack of Love The Coopers is pretty good and makes the movie more enjoyable.  It contains lots of new and old recordings of Christmas songs, my favorite of the bunch being Otis Redding's "Merry Christmas Baby."  Sting's recording of "Soul Cake" is a nice surprise.  It also features three songs performed by Bob Dylan that have nothing to do with Christmas, but they're still great songs.

If you're a fan of Christmas movies and/or a fan of the actors featured, Love The Coopers is worth seeing.  But the lack of character development for half the cast makes it something that  .

J.A. Morris' rating:







.5

2 and a half candy canes.

RigbyMel says:

This movie has a great cast, but unfortunately the material they are given to work with is just a bit too cliched to make it a great movie.  Not an un-watchable movie, but not a great one.

The many, many characters all feel believable, but each beat of the plot is something we've all seen dozens of times before.  Eleanor and Joe are polar opposites - he's a conservative Christian and she says the only god she believes in is the voice of Nina Simone.  They conspire to deceive her family and (SPOILER - but not a surprise) start to fall for each other in the process.  

Emma has an impromptu psychological session with Officer Williams as he's driving her to jail.  We learn that both of them have issues (surprise, surprise) and that they both are lonely during the holidays.  We get scenes with awkward teens, bickering exes, running gags involving a small child being rude, singing around a Christmas tree (more than once!).   It's like a checklist of holiday tropes, but because of the caliber of the actors involved the movie actually works better than perhaps it should.  The performances make you care about the characters.

Something that I enjoyed about the movie was the way that we see people's Christmas "ghosts", memories of the past that are briefly seen (or imagined) by the various characters throughout the film.  Christmas is most decidedly a holiday about nostalgia and memory and I thought the way the film handled these "Ghosts of Christmas Past" was cool.

To be fair,  a lot of Christmas movies rely on tropes.  Everyone can relate to family drama around the holidays.

Interestingly,  the "You can't regift a family" tagline on the poster (see above) leads one to think this is going to be more of a broadly comedic movie than it, in fact, is.  There is comedy, but it's gentle rather than broad and focused on interactions between the many characters.

If you love holiday films, Love The Coopers is worth seeing at least once, but I don't know that it absolutely needs to be seen on a big screen.    Maybe wait to catch it on cable or streaming next Christmas?

RigbyMel's rating:

2 candy canes

The Night Before

Premiered November 20, 2015.
Note:This movie is the raunchiest film we've reviewed here so far.  If you have kids, don't take them with you to see this movie.  If you're a kid, you don't want to watch this in the presence of your parents.  Trust us, 
-J.A. Morris & RigbyMel

“Gentleman, 14 years ago I lost my parents and you guys have been with me every single Christmas since then, but tonight, we have decided to end this tradition.”
-Ethan

During the Christmas season of 2001, Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) lost his parents in a car accident.  Since then his best friends Chris (Anthony Mackie) and Isaac (Seth Rogen) have spent a debauched Christmas Eve with Ethan so that he won't feel alone during the holidays.  For several years, they have heard about a mythic "holy grail" of Christmas parties called the Nutcracker Ball but have never been able to score an invitation.

Their lives are changing.  Isaac is about to become a father.  Chris' football career has finally taken off and he is a star in sports and (especially) social media.  The three friends decide this will be the final Christmas Eve they will spend together like this.

While working as an "elf" at a corporate Christmas party, Ethan comes gets hold of tickets to the Nutcracker Ball!

Meanwhile, Isaac's wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) has collected every drug in the book and given it to Isaac for the festivities as an early Christmas present.

Isaac gazes into the box that holds his cornucopia of drugs!

A stretch humvee limo is booked, they stop off to pick up some weed from their long time drug dealer, Mr. Green (Michael Shannon), and the evening begins.

Ethan, Isaac and Chris perform "Christmas In Hollis" at a karaoke bar.

However, their evening gets off to a rough start.  At a karaoke bar, Chris meets a fan who calls herself Rebecca (Ilana Glazer) and they quickly get romantic.  While Chris is ... distracted, Rebecca swipes the marijuana he'd gotten to impress one of his football teammates known as "The Messiah" (Aaron Hill).

Chris meets Rebecca.

Isaac tries the cocaine from his wife's "gift box" and gets quickly intoxicated.  He proceeds to record a video on his phone wherein he expresses how deeply freaked out he is about his impending fatherhood.  He's pretty sure he's not ready to be a parent.   Matters become more complicated when Isaac accidentally swaps phones with Sarah (Mindy Kaling), a mutual friend, and worries that his wife might see his incriminating freakout video.

Ethan runs into his ex-girlfriend Diana (Lizzy Caplan), who broke up with him because of his commitment issues.  His continued refusal to meet her parents was the last straw.  Ethan realizes that misses her and wants to get back together, but their encounter in the karaoke bar does not go well.

The three spend the rest of the night searching for Isaac's phone, Chris' weed, and the location of the Nutcracker Ball.

Will their Christmas Eve quests be successful?  Or will disaster strike?

J.A. Morris says:

The Night Before is a good comedy with solid performances by all the principles.   Gordon-Levitt, Mackie and Rogen are convincing as old friends who would do anything for each other.  Most of the other actors are also well-cast.

Michael Shannon is excellent as drug dealer Mr. Green.  Shannon goes back and forth between menacing and caring, sometimes acting as sort of a "big brother" figure to the three friends, and scaring the daylights out of them during other parts of the film.

I'll admit I'm not a fan of Miley Cyrus' music, but she's funny in a cameo where she plays herself.

There are lots of funny scenes, but I'm reluctant to go into detail that would spoil them.  Let's just say highlights include a drugged up visit to Midnight Mass, a ride in a horse-drawn sleigh that goes awry, and a brawl with two guys in Santa suits.

The Night Before contains a bunch of references to other Christmas specials and movies.  Rebecca says her behavior is inspired by the Grinch and other holiday villains.  When Chris tries to pursue her, Rebecca humiliates him in a manner inspired by Home Alone.

This movie also features a good soundtrack of holiday tunes.  Darlene Love's recording of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is one of my favorite Christmas songs.  It's used nicely here to accompany a fast drive through New York City on Christmas morning.

The Night Before is the first "adult" comedy we've reviewed.  It's another sign that there is "something for everyone" when it comes to Christmas programming.  It's very funny and is recommended

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 candy canes.

RigbyMel says:

I am very picky about raunchy comedies, there needs to be a bit more going on than just the raunch.   When I saw the trailer for The Night Before,  I wasn't quite sure where the heart of this film was.

Fortunately,  this is a raunchy Christmas comedy with a heart of gold.    It deals with broad themes like growing up, friendship, family (both blood related and not), and loss with good humor, while also demonstrating that holiday movies don't have to be saccharine in their delivery to be good.   Moreover, it was nice to see a New York in which there were people of various races and faiths on film.  Art could stand to do a bit more imitating life where diversity in Christmas movies in concerned.  Plus, the characters aren't just stereotypes, you feel for them and understand where they're all coming from.

It is also very, very funny, which helps.   I laughed and winced and enjoyed the whole movie.    It's not deep or anything, but it is a lot of fun.

RigbyMel's rating:

3 candy canes