Sayaka has deeply immersed herself in reading related to her potential topic for PhD research: civil-military relations. She will be applying to PhD programs in the fall. I can tell it is getting serious—she has a great posting about Spiderman 2 and its connection to her topic. I also watched the movie in Korea (the first movie I have ever seen at a movie theater at 9:45 in the morning) and thought it was fantastic. Probably the best comic book movie I have seen to date. Frank Rich has a great editorial that I read in the International Herald Tribune which talks about Moore’s new film and Spiderman 2. He lauds Spiderman for being a movie that, “promotes a credo of justice without vindictiveness.” The article also touches on some of the things Sayaka mentioned. For Rich, Peter Parker is the hero that America could have been.
“With great power comes great responsibility” is the central tenet of his faith, passed down not from God but from his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson). He takes it seriously. Spider-Man wants to vanquish evil, but he doesn’t want to be reckless about it. Like the reluctant sheriff of an old western, he fights back only when a bad guy strikes first, leaving him with no alternative. He wouldn’t mind throwing off his Spider-Man identity entirely to go back to being just Peter Parker, lonely Columbia undergrad. But of course he can’t. This is 2004, and there is always evil bearing down on his New York.
I guess I was the only one that didn’t think Spiderman 2 was all that great. I mean, it was good, wonderful entertainment and I liked all the messages it was sending but I really couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I guess I have to be a comic book fan :)
Dad and I saw King Arthur last weekend. Interesting take on the legend.