Friday, July 09, 2004
Spider-Man Director
Spider-Man 2 is excellent. What I hadn't known -- until now - is that the Spider-Man movies have been directed by Sam Raimi, who directed 1998's film A Simple Plan. Very different from Spider-Man, but a wonderful film in its own right. Two brothers and a friend find a crashed plane full of cash, and then their lives spiral out of control as they fight with each other. It presents a long but seemingly inevitable descent into murder and attempted thievery. The film features Billy Bob Thornton in his second-best role next to Sling Blade. It also has some dark humor, as when Thornton's dim-witted character criticizes some crows in the woods for having a "weird job." (You can actually listen to Thornton's line in the last sound file listed here.) Highly recommended.
I'd also recommend the book version of "A Simple Plan," by Scott Smith. Because the book can take longer to delve into the characters' motivations, it's somewhat more understandable how it all goes to hell. It seems more like a series of smaller decisions, like a slippery slope, rather than one or two really big bad decisions. (I didn't want to include any spoilers, but if you've seen the movie you can probably get a sense of what I'm talking about.)
ReplyDeleteBeing as Sam Raimi is the director, I thought it was also kinda cool how Bruce Campbell, the star of Evil Dead, had a cameo in both movies.
ReplyDelete