Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi)

I knew I was going to enjoy this movie when, minutes into it, a man shouts, "Hey, he took that dude's pizzas!" I thought the first "Spider-Man" movie was fun and visually interesting, but kind of forgettable. This one is really, really good. I've pretty much stopped watching any big Hollywood movies, though not for any aesthetic reasons. I don't watch them anymore because they're loud, stupid, badly edited, and, worst of all, boring. The average Hollywood blockbuster has become dull. Hollywood movies aren't entertaining anymore. They aren't fun, they aren't playful, they're just slapped-together approximations of entertainment and fun, drained of energy and excitement by focus groups, test screenings, huge star salaries, and dated attempts to guess what people want to see. This movie is full of fun, entertainment, and play. "Spider-Man 2" reminds me of eighties movies (the last decade Hollywood movies were fun) like "Back to the Future" and "Gremlins" that were inventive, expertly paced, interested in their characters, and pleasurable, movies that seemed like the filmmakers were having a good time, too. Sam Raimi puts a guy like George Lucas to shame. Lucas, not content to rest on his laurels, is instead shitting on us with them and then selling us toys. He's spent too many years on his northern California ranch, playing with his light saber and counting his wads of cash, while Sam Raimi's been making exciting, entertaining, and fun, actual fun, films in the Hollywood mainstream for the same audience Lucas has forgotten about. Plus, I like how the movie is about a superhero who doesn't want to be a superhero fighting a villain who doesn't want to be a villain.