Geeking Ain't Easy: The Superior Spider-Flu
I hope you all had a good time ringing in 2019, because...I did not.
My New Year's Eve plans consisted of a botched attempt to see Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. This oversight was remedied the following evening at a late-night screening. Usually when a highly-anticipated movie makes the rounds on social media I mute any trending tags to avoid spoilers, but none of the screenshots and glowing tweets prepared me for the real thing. I'll do my best not to spoil the movie, but it was equal parts hilarious and touching. I laughed (and cried) hysterically and fought to keep my jaw from hitting the floor during every scene. I'm not joking when I say that I haven't seen an animated feature quite like it. One of my first takeaways was Sony learned it's many lessons from prior films and gave us a truly genuine and heartfelt version of everybody's favorite wall-crawler. Instead of attempts to make another overly gritty and cynical superhero story, the filmmakers focused on crafting a rousing love letter to New York, comic book culture and the creators both past and present.
It's a concept that I explored with writer Jennie Wood on a previous episode of my podcast Adrian Has Issues: In order to properly tell a story a good practice to get into is stepping out of the way of your own characters. Into The Spider-Verse was a clear example of this because each character felt like a living breathing entity and not just a sounding board for gags and quips. I’m going to stop right here and not get ahead of myself before I spoil the entire movie. Go see the movie. Legally. Pay for it. It’s worth it. Also, congratulations on that Golden Globe win. While we’re on the subject of inspiring melanin-infused superhero movies with sick soundtracks, I was hoping that Black Panther would’ve received more love on award night, but there’s no denying the impact they’ve made.
WE OUT HERE!!!
[Proceeds to play “Elevate” for 3 hours straight]
Artwork by Yuhki Demers
Unfortunately, I was caught up in the euphoria of having seen arguably the best Spider-Man related project yet and hadn’t realized that my immune system was weaker than the script for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. (Okay, that was a low blow, but I take risks in life.) It goes without saying that I’ve been seriously ill with the flu since the New Year Started and only after a whole week has passed me by do I feel at least a semblance of the uber-nerd you all know and love. It’s also worth noting that it’s been difficult to resume work on the podcast. Don’t worry, I’ve got some great new content coming from yours truly, which we’ll get into in a later blog post. There’s also new material coming from the lovely and talented-as-all-hell Eileen Melendez aka “The LatiNerd,” plus a super-secret project currently in the works with a good friend and recurring guest (Shhh!) so stay tuned.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take my flu meds and continue this fever dream about directing a fourth Mighty Ducks movie starring Donnie Yen. Don’t ask. Until next time!
