Below, renowned theater critic, professional crazy-person and rare-metals spokesperson Glenn Beck offers his review of “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.” His verdict: A RAVE! The finest show he’s ever seen! What’s more, Glenn has cracked the code of why the film is being so poorly recieved: The Liberal Media hates Spider-Man’s “conservative message!” (summary of evidence for said message: The bad guys are scientists, and Spidey is hated by the press.) No, really…

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In other news, Frank Miller was today distraught after having been informed he is no longer the world’s most obnoxious re-interpreter of comic-book superheroes.

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The Brattle Theater here in Boston, one of the most renowned independent movie theaters in the region and the initial launchpad for what would become the legendary Janus Films, was savagely vandalized last week.

The Brattle Film Foundation, which operates it, is a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated to preserving neglected films and giving exposure to new cutting-edge works, so they are always in need of support to continue their work to begin with and costly damages like this only make it worse. If such things are of any interest to you, and you would like to help out this very worthy cause in some way, the information on how to do so can be found HERE.

I also want to extend personal thanks to Devin Faraci, who had this story up on his Badass Digest site earlier today.

Hugo Weaving as pre-monsterface Red Skull, holding what would seem to be The Cosmic Cube. For those sans-context for that: What you’re looking at is a Nazi holding up a Magic Wishing Rock. Yes, really.

It still trips me out that the various “Avengers” lead-ups are actually dipping this far into the stranger side of their universe right out of the gate – typically, stuff like this is the first thing a movie adaptation decides to drop. Awesome.

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Because nothing came out this week.

“Intermission” is depressing this week.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to try being less unkind to the ill-advised “Spider-Man” reboot – for example, I resolve not to revive the “Spiderlight” nickname until there’s solid proof that it’s still going that route. With that in mind, here are some snaps from JustJared of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in (civilian) costume as the new Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy…

…and I have no real issue with what I’m seeing. I don’t care that he’s not wearing glasses or other outward “Puny Parker” signifiers – modern update, fashion shifts, etc. I find nothing especially elevating or depressing about this image – it’s a nonentity, and says nothing out of context other than that Garfield is simply not passing for a highschooler here and, let’s face it, neither did Tobey Maguire.

In fact, I only bring it up because according to The Internet I’m supposed to be INFURIATED at his fingerless gloves as a sign that they’ve made him into a “hipster” – at this point the most meaningless “insult” in the popular culture.

So… yeah. HEADLINE: MovieBob has no issue with Spider-Man’s choice in gloves, I guess…

via io9

Something you should know about me: I am totally lacking any ability to be objective at the prospect of things that should only exist in fiction happening in otherwise-miserable reality. If someone cloned a T-Rex tommorow and it went on a violent rampage somewhere tomorrow, providing it didn’t hurt anyone/anything I directly care about I would probably be watching every scrap of footage of the event with the world’s biggest smile plastered across my face on a near-constant loop for at least a MONTH before it ever occured to me that this was actually a tragic, terrible event. Y’know those military-grade armed-robot videos that scare the piss out of everyone? I get giddy over that shit, because it means I’m one step closer to a Terminator. Or Johnny Five, either one works.

With that in mind…

I am aware that this is incredibly dangerous, and that this guy (and the many, many others like him) is probably mentally ill and that eventually one of them is going to do get seriously injured/killed (or seriously injure/kill someone else) and it’s not going to be “fun” anymore…

…I just find it hard to care when I’m watching this as an actual news-report on CNN. Awesome. The “lair” in the back of the comic-book store completes it.

Egh. In all honesty, I have no words for how annoyed I am at this.

So… Heat Vision says that they’ve chosen a director for the new “Godzilla” remake… and it’s Gareth Edwards, late of “Monsters.” Makes perfect sense, right? Clearly, the only possible qualified candidate to helm the rebirth of the greatest of all movie monsters is the director of a laughably-pretentious sub-Syfy waste of time featuring two of the most awful lead characters in the history of the genre.

My burning need for a GOOD new Godzilla movie has my brain overclocking trying to find some sliver of worth in this… and it ain’t working. “Monsters” (which was the subject of “Escape’s” Halloween Show) wasn’t technically impressive in any way that a hundred other semi-pro-with-an-FX-background projects aren’t also, the actual directing is tremendously-uninspired and Edwards’ own script was punishingly terrible… so, of course, he’s helping to retool the script for “Godzilla” as well as directing it. FUCK.

If I didn’t have a night of work to do, I would literally be pouring a stiff-as-hell drink and zoning out with “Donkey Kong Country” to wash this out of my brain. Thanks a bunch, Legendary Pictures…

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Today is JRR Tolkien’s birthday.

At this point, what else can anyone really say? The sheer magnitude of modern popular culture that would simply not exist without his influence is awe-inspiring.