- Got Dan his college admissions office job.
- Guest host for two episodes: Killers, and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.
Lou Reviews Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark for YOU![]
- Marvel Comics Database entry for Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
- Episode 72: Killers @36:40
Lou: A little backstory: My cousin was coming in from Ecuador, and she wanted to do something special for her husband, 'cause they were going to be out here over the holidays. So she told me, like: "Do you want me to get tickets? I can get us four tickets to Spider-Man while they're here." So it was me, Christopher, and my cousin Dan also bought tickets, and my seven-year-old son, and his five-year-old son. So we were there with family...
Dan: Your seven-year-old son has a five-year-old son? Lou: Yeah, his five-year-old son... Romano. Stuart: Sure. And you wanted to show them what it looks like when a human dies onstage. Lou: No, Chris's seven-year-old son. And, uh, so we went and saw it. And it was the worst experience of my entire life. It was unbelievably terrible — theater experience, I'll say that. I've had people die in my life and that was worse personally, on a personal level — but on a theater, on a theater level, this was... it was absurd.
Now, you like comic books.
Stuart: Sure. Lou: How would you feel if you found out that Uncle Ben was run over by a car instead of shot by a murderer? Stuart: Already, that's a little weird. Dan: Yeah, I heard that and I was immediately like: Well, there goes Spider-Man's motivation for everything. Lou: Yeah, someone says: "Someone stop that car!" And he's like counting money, and the car hits Uncle Ben, which — who is offscreen, offstage. And then he's dead, and he doesn't say... anything. Stuart: "With great power comes great responsibility," dude. Lou: That is said in a song. Stuart: Awesome. Lou: That is not actually said to Spider-Man at any point in the movie. But here's where it gets weird: is the beginning of the movie, the story is told — there's exposition by four teenagers who are telling the story of what would be the best Spider-Man story ever, and they... for some reason. And then Spider-Man... oh wait, so...
Stuart: 'Cause that never happens. Lou: So then the girl says, the girl in the group goes: "There was another person who had — oops! — There was another person who had spider powers, not just Spider-Man. It was a girl in ancient Greece, and her name was Arachne." And then they tell the story, the Greek myth, of Arachne who has, loses a battle with Athena or Hera or whatever. And um, and commits suic— or, she wins but she boasts, and so the god curses her and whatever... Dan: This is a great Greek mythology class. Lou: Anyway, so she hangs herself... Stuart: Yeah, she's like weaving shit, right? Lou: No, but it's important, because she hangs herself and then she's cursed to be with spiders and she weaves people's fates. Anyway that's important, because... later. So anyway, the Green Goblin is created. The Green Goblin is not a man who gets turned into a super smart and strong person who's crazy, but actually genetically mutated into a lizard man with wings, who flies around...
Stuart: Like a goblin. Lou: Yep, yep, yep... or: like a lizard. And he throws genetically-mutated pumpkin bombs. All this happens offstage, and you never see any of that in real life. You do... The flying stuff is cool, because it's pretty impressive that they can land a dude in the aisles of the theater, and he's doing... but like half the time he was like "Here I go!" And then he'd be like, supposed to grab one of the ropes that is holding him to be like his spider web (he's never actually shooting spider webs) and, but he would miss it and be kind of like "Whoa-oa-oa!!" And then...
Stuart: "Not like the last guy!" Lou: So the music is terrible, the songs are retarded. Um, the Mary Jane thing is like hardly explained. His problems at, Peter Parker's problems are hardly explained. Um, there's no orchestra. It's all canned music except for two dudes playing guitars on the side of the stage. Stuart: Awesome. Lou: That you can see. They're like standing stage level with a rack of guitars. And um, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin have a battle. And in the end, Spidey — He tries to recruit Spider-Man to help him, because they're both freaks. And Spider-Man rejects him and then they have a battle, and Spider-Man kills the Green Goblin. Green Goblin falls to his death and dies, 'cause he's a bug man.
Dan: Right. Lou: And he's dead. And then Spider-Man's like, "The people who get close to me get hurt, so I'm gonna quit being Spider-Man." And he throws away the costume. End of scene one. Now, I forgot to mention that Arachne gives Spider-Man the costume...
Stuart: Just like in the comics. Lou: ...from the Ethereal, from the Astral Plane. Stuart: Sure, she gives the doorman a high-five, opens the gate. Lou: Spider-Man being Spider-Man, turned down. The people come, the people go: "Is that it? Is it over? Should we go? Are people leaving? Is that it? You'd think they would tell us if that was it." Stuart: That's part of the script, right? Lou: They have the, it was like the people in the audience were part of the play. Stuart: Audience plants. Lou: People were taking pictures. There's lots of like, "No pictures! No pictures!" Like, ushers screaming at everybody. Stuart: They were hoping to get lucky and catch some snuff. Lou: So yeah, there's someone dying. So the curtain goes up for the second scene. Spider-Man is gone, no one knows where he is. Arachne is mad. So the teenagers are like trying to figure out how to tell the story without Spider-Man, 'cause they're back telling the story. And Arachne shows up and she's like: "I'm taking over this story!" And they're like, "What? You can't do that!" And she says: "I just did! Get out of here!"
And then her and her, like, furies — which are eight-legged women in, like, thigh-high stockings with garters on all eight legs — kind of come out and do this like sexy dance.
Stuart: Like The Human Centipede. Lou: And she says... Dan: Like some sort of Human Centipede over here! Lou: So then Arachne takes over the world and weaves an illusion to bring Spider-Man out, so that he can be Spider-Man again, and then he can set her free from the Astral Plane. Dan: Okay. Lou: So then — it makes no sense whatsoever — J. Jonah Jameson's character is like a supreme asshole who makes no sense, and she makes — Dan: That's sort of like the comics. Lou: Yeah but she makes him, she appears to him in the two-legged form, to try to coerce him to make like a editorial about Spider-Man. And he doesn't want to, so then all her eight-legged monster people come in and force him to do it. And then... Stuart: Through dancing? Or like physically holding him down? Dan: Yeah, through song... they weave like a ribbon around him, and he's like "Just run the story!" to the black guy who's his help, the assistant editor of the... Dan: Oh, yeah... Lou: Frank something...? Anyway. Stuart: Elliott would know. Dan: Yeah, Elliott would know. Lou: Sorry, guys.[1] So then he, so then, there's, she revives all the bad guys, and he has to fight them. And he doesn't actually fight anybody. There's like a giant screen, and he's like punching at the TV, giant TV.
Stuart: That's awesome. I feel like that sometimes when I watch these Flop House movies, Dan. I want to punch that screen. Get it? Lou: It was so bad! Dan: inaudible Lou: So then... I'll just cut to the end. The, Arachne goes to... Eventually Spider-Man tries to save Mary Jane and she's falling off the bridge, which is where that guy fell off in the previews in the famous video. Dan: Right. Stuart: Sure. Lou: Now he doesn't actually — Dan: Continuing to conflate Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy. Lou: Now that, now they don't even bother to have him pretend to die. He runs in slow motion to the edge and he goes like this, and the screen goes black. The stage goes black because he doesn't jump anymore. Because of safety concerns. But anyway, he jumps and then he ends up in the Astral Plane.
Dan: Sure. Lou: Now he's in the Astral Plane in this giant net, and then kind of, he kind of climbs all over it like a spider. Mary Jane is in a cocoon behind them for some reason. And he's like, you need to save Mary Jane and become Spider-Man. And Peter Parker says, "Okay, I'll be Spider-Man." And then Arachne's like: "Oh, Peter Parker. I thought, I thought we were done with you." And then, so he's like, she's gonna let Mary Jane go, for no reason. And then Peter Parker kisses Arachne, and she's like: "You set me freeeeeeee!" And then she disappears, and then you see her reappear as ancient Greece Arachne on her noose going up to Heaven.
Dan: What? Stuart: No, that sounds fuckin' awesome. Dan: Anticlimax. Lou: It was like, "Wait, what?" And then it, and then the veil of illusion is lifted. Peter Parker... Peter Parker is, has... Spider-Man has already killed Kraven the Hunter...
Stuart: Sure. Lou: The Green Goblin, Electro... Stuart: I thought Kraven the Hunter killed himself, with a gun. Lou: He did, but in this one Spider-Man has apparently vanquished these people to the point that they need to be revived by Arachne. Spider-Man is a murderer in this world.
Dan: You know... Stuart: Yeah, that's... well it's like, Spider... I'm guessing the entire audience formed like a big line, and marched all the way up to Midtown Comics to buy handfuls of Spectacular Spider-Mans. Lou: It was a lot of hurling of feces, it was like the ape house at the zoo... No, it was like... The show was over and literally the curtain came down, and people started streaming out. Stuart: Were people like laughing or shouting or anything? Lou: No. I was laughing pretty hard, 'cause half the time I... I was going like: "What the fuck is happening? Why is Arachne here?" And uh, yeah, so people were leaving, and then the curtain came up and there was... the, you know, out-of-town rubes were clapping. Dan: You know, in comics people are always going to the Astral Plane. Stuart: Yeah. Dan: But I've never been. Lou: This was not called Dr. Strange: The Play. Stuart: Yeah yeah yeah, like Dr. Strange and Magik and shit are always going there. Dan: I've never gone. Is it nice? Stuart: I don't know. Lou: Look: it's so great that Arachne really wanted out of there. Dan: It sounds more like a Phantom Zone to me. Lou: Wait, that's D.C.
- @46:00
- [Transcription to be continued...]