Lionel Mandrake
Member
It's May 2002, and the movie everyone's lining up to see is Spider-Man. This is going to be amazing. There's going to be superheroics and special effect-driven action scenes not seen since Zod threw Superman's ass through that Marlboro truck.
This shit was a big deal. I bought a Wizard magazine for the chance to view tiny shots of Spider-Man fighting Macho Man Randy Savage. My friend had an Entertainment Tonight preview recorded on VHS. We bullshitted each other with things we'd supposedly heard. "The whole movie is done by computers. It just looks REALLY realistic." Why not?
The big day comes and we had to stand in line outside the theater, listening to the loud mediocrity of Scorpion King until 7:00 rolled by and they opened the velvet rope. We piled in and were soon treated to what our pre-pubescant minds were dying for-- Spider-Man in full live-action glory. We finally had a big superhero who could actually do superhero stuff on screen.
Of course, the villain is Green Goblin, Spidey's best and most iconic villain. And Willem Dafoe's hamming it up and screaming and flying by for half a second of screentime in costume, hyping us all up for the moment when he fully reveals himself and has his showdown with Spider-Man.
The penultimate scene, Norman is in a boardroom meeting where he's screwed out of a contract.
It's so amazingly jarring. It almost feels like "We'll get back to Spider-Man in just a moment. But first, here's tonight's musical guest." They take a good 10 seconds of film to focus on Macy Gray. They cut away before that, but her music still carries over the scene like an ordinary musical overlay, which it could have been. We could have gotten along just fine without seeing Macy Gray performing on a float, and we certainly didn't need a goddamn intro for her.
"Old people don't know who Macy Gray is, we have to explain who she is, or audiences will be confused."
They're already confused as to why they're staring at a pop star, with a band that appears to be composed of vagrants, right before Spider-Man is about to fight the bad guy from Speed 2 on a hoverboard. I'm assuming this was an executive decision. Sam Raimi was in a room somewhere, brainstorming with producers when one of them says, "What we need is a music scene, with a big name. Something that get people to think about buying our soundtrack." And Sam Raimi just nodded and smiled as Macy Gray was wheeled out on a handtruck from behind a velour curtain.
They even cut back to her later. The music stops and Peter's spidey sense starts going haywire. Oh my God this is it. Spider-Man is about to throw down with Gobby. Just when the audience manages to forget the stupid inclusion of a timely musician, they cut back to her, to get her reaction. It's this:
The panicked crowd, the confused hero were not enough. We had to know: "What does Macy Gray think about a flying man in a Halloween costume?"
Thankfully, we managed to forget the strange, perplexing inclusion of Macy Gray, and were able to enjoy the rest of the movie. But that damage is done. You are going to show Spider-Man to your kids some day. You're going to say, "This is the superhero movie I watched when I was your age." And the kid's going to say, "Who the fuck is Macy Gray?" And you'll say, "She was a singer at the time." And they'll say, "Why is she in this movie?" And you'll say "I don't know." And then you'll both sit in silence, as the foundation of your family crumbles beneath you.
This shit's been done before. Batman is loaded with Prince, although he doesn't make a personal appearance. The Joker does say his name, but it's nowhere near as out-of-fucking-nowhere as Macy Gray. At least Prince was largely promoted as being a part of the movie. From what I recall, Spider-Man was all about Nickelback. I guess Nickelback had too much integrity to break up the scene, so the producers frantically looked down the soundtrack list, calling up artists until they found Macy Gray singing about nutmeg.
I get why this... "thing" exists. I'm sure back in the day when you paid to see a movie, it was a delightful treat to get a free musical act right in the middle of the story. Fuck it, throw in a talent show or a circus or something. But in a modern, story-driven (Or Dafoe-driven) movie, it just seems.... stupid. It seemed to happen a lot in 90s/00s comedies. Rat Race had Smashmouth. Idle Hands had Offspring. Ace Ventura had Cannibal Corpse. All pretty harmless because they "fit" with those movies. The movies are stupid, so they have a stupid band appearance. But in a superhero or action movie?
Also... parade... nutmeg...
Alright, I've run out of steam. Ravings over.
This shit was a big deal. I bought a Wizard magazine for the chance to view tiny shots of Spider-Man fighting Macho Man Randy Savage. My friend had an Entertainment Tonight preview recorded on VHS. We bullshitted each other with things we'd supposedly heard. "The whole movie is done by computers. It just looks REALLY realistic." Why not?
The big day comes and we had to stand in line outside the theater, listening to the loud mediocrity of Scorpion King until 7:00 rolled by and they opened the velvet rope. We piled in and were soon treated to what our pre-pubescant minds were dying for-- Spider-Man in full live-action glory. We finally had a big superhero who could actually do superhero stuff on screen.
Of course, the villain is Green Goblin, Spidey's best and most iconic villain. And Willem Dafoe's hamming it up and screaming and flying by for half a second of screentime in costume, hyping us all up for the moment when he fully reveals himself and has his showdown with Spider-Man.
The penultimate scene, Norman is in a boardroom meeting where he's screwed out of a contract.
It's so amazingly jarring. It almost feels like "We'll get back to Spider-Man in just a moment. But first, here's tonight's musical guest." They take a good 10 seconds of film to focus on Macy Gray. They cut away before that, but her music still carries over the scene like an ordinary musical overlay, which it could have been. We could have gotten along just fine without seeing Macy Gray performing on a float, and we certainly didn't need a goddamn intro for her.
"Old people don't know who Macy Gray is, we have to explain who she is, or audiences will be confused."
They're already confused as to why they're staring at a pop star, with a band that appears to be composed of vagrants, right before Spider-Man is about to fight the bad guy from Speed 2 on a hoverboard. I'm assuming this was an executive decision. Sam Raimi was in a room somewhere, brainstorming with producers when one of them says, "What we need is a music scene, with a big name. Something that get people to think about buying our soundtrack." And Sam Raimi just nodded and smiled as Macy Gray was wheeled out on a handtruck from behind a velour curtain.
They even cut back to her later. The music stops and Peter's spidey sense starts going haywire. Oh my God this is it. Spider-Man is about to throw down with Gobby. Just when the audience manages to forget the stupid inclusion of a timely musician, they cut back to her, to get her reaction. It's this:
The panicked crowd, the confused hero were not enough. We had to know: "What does Macy Gray think about a flying man in a Halloween costume?"
Thankfully, we managed to forget the strange, perplexing inclusion of Macy Gray, and were able to enjoy the rest of the movie. But that damage is done. You are going to show Spider-Man to your kids some day. You're going to say, "This is the superhero movie I watched when I was your age." And the kid's going to say, "Who the fuck is Macy Gray?" And you'll say, "She was a singer at the time." And they'll say, "Why is she in this movie?" And you'll say "I don't know." And then you'll both sit in silence, as the foundation of your family crumbles beneath you.
This shit's been done before. Batman is loaded with Prince, although he doesn't make a personal appearance. The Joker does say his name, but it's nowhere near as out-of-fucking-nowhere as Macy Gray. At least Prince was largely promoted as being a part of the movie. From what I recall, Spider-Man was all about Nickelback. I guess Nickelback had too much integrity to break up the scene, so the producers frantically looked down the soundtrack list, calling up artists until they found Macy Gray singing about nutmeg.
I get why this... "thing" exists. I'm sure back in the day when you paid to see a movie, it was a delightful treat to get a free musical act right in the middle of the story. Fuck it, throw in a talent show or a circus or something. But in a modern, story-driven (Or Dafoe-driven) movie, it just seems.... stupid. It seemed to happen a lot in 90s/00s comedies. Rat Race had Smashmouth. Idle Hands had Offspring. Ace Ventura had Cannibal Corpse. All pretty harmless because they "fit" with those movies. The movies are stupid, so they have a stupid band appearance. But in a superhero or action movie?
Also... parade... nutmeg...
Alright, I've run out of steam. Ravings over.
I was 26 in 2002 LOL
