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Spider-Man 3 seems like a shoo-in to join Spider-Man 1 and 2 in the top ten highest-grossing films of all time, but reviews have been mixed. Right now it's running about 60% positive at Metacritic and 61% positive at Rotten Tomatoes. So is it any good? I thought so, but this isn't a movie review. As an internationally-recognized expert in Spidey Studies, I thought it would be important to point out where Spider-Man 3 gets it right, and where it get things wrong. I'll start with the bad news first, with the good news to follow in the next day or two. Please note: this is not a series of gripes over deviations from the "cannon" of the original Amazing Spider-Man comic books or anything like that. Spider-Man, like many of his his comic book and other literary brethren, has been written by many different people over the years in many different media. Instead, I hope to point out where Sam Raimi deviated from the crux of the characters or missed opportunities that presented themselves.

1. Spider-Man is never that popular.

As the film opens Spider-man has been embraced by New York as one of their own. After a dramatic rescue of the police chief's daughter, he gets even more kudos. The problem is that Spider-man never gets that much praise. Oh, he might occasionally save a falling construction worker and get cheered by a crowd, but he's invariably doubted and dogged by naysayers. And not just the muckrakers at the Daily Bugle. He certainly doesn't get the key to the city and a marching band. This is one of the reasons he's such a great character. I understand that the plot required some overconfidence on Pete's part so he would miss how troubled Mary Jane had become, but it shouldn't take much to make Pete feel appreciated, given all the negative press he's used to. Near the start of the movie Peter Parker notices his alter-ego on a jumbotron TV screen and is soon joined by a gaggle of cheering children. When the clip ends, the kids run off, not nearly interested enough to wait for it to start over. This is a perfect example of how Spider-Man's popularity has been treated in the comics for virtually his entire career - kids and the occasional falling construction worker might love him, but the powers-that-be (and the many people just opposed to vigilantism) are generally sour on Spider-Man no matter what he does.

2. Eddie Brock is too shallow a character to be interesting

Venom has seen some pretty dodgy writing over the years (i.e. "I want to eat your brains"), but as a general rule, villains are much more interesting when they have a little character development behind them. Lots of little hints about motivation were dropped, but we spent so little time with Edward Brock, Jr. that it was hard to see anything more than "I'm shallow paparazzi guy, hate me." Brock did not have to be a sympathetic antagonist, like the Sandman, but with a little more development we could have gotten a better idea of how he could hate Peter so much and see himself as the victim.

3. Unexplained psuedo-scientific super powers good, ridiculous coincidences bad.

Action movies almost always require a little suspension of belief, and comic book movies draw from that well often. That's fine. I'm more than willing to buy into a genetically-engineered spider bite causing super-strength, a completely unexplained physics experiment turning a man into living sand, and a malevolent alien goo bonding to a human host. But when the alien goo just happens to arrive on earth via a meteorite that just happens to land in New York City just 10 feet from the one-and-only Spider-Man, I call foul. There are plenty of perfectly reasonable ways for Pete to come into contact with the symbiote - maybe it was discovered and brought to the science lab at his college, or maybe it moved from person to person before finding Spider-Man and becoming attracted by his potential for violence. Whatever. The point is that the introduction of the symbiote seemed like a last-minute addition, "oops we forgot to mention where the thing came from, just have it land in his pocket." How does this violate the spirit of Spider-Man? One of the interesting things about Spidey is despite having several titles devoted to him, he is almost never shown as the center of the world. Super Man might have supporting characters like Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane, but ultimately everything happens in his life and he always saves the world/universe. Spider-Man's supporting characters have always been more independently interesting than that, and very often he's just a bit player in stories (and world-devouring menaces) much bigger than himself. Pointless coincidences undermine that.

4. Harry Osborn needs to grow a pair

The rather abrupt flipping from enemy to amnesia-addled best friend to enemy and back to friend of Harry Osborn actually fits the treatment of his character in the comics fairly well. Green Goblins are constantly forgetting who they are and whether or not they hate Peter Parker due to bumps on the head, effects of the goblin serum, or even just continuity hiccups. When Peter asks Harry for his help saving MJ, though, the film goes down the wrong route. Instead of facing his conflicted feelings for MJ, Peter, and his father, struggling to face his father's influence, and deciding to act, his butler just tells him "your dad killed himself so forget all the emo crap and go fight the bad guys."

5. Spider-Man 3 should have been two movies

Like Batman before him, Spider-Man has caught a case of multiple-villain disease. The cause is pretty easy to understand - characters that have been in print for over 40 years build up a backlog of rouges and story arcs, while most movie franchises end at three or four films. It can be tempting to try to cram more in, but it's a mistake. The end result is that we don't have enough time to adequately explore Harry / Green Goblin, the Flint Marko / Sandman, or Eddie Brock / Venom. The fight sequences in Spider-Man three are all amazing, thrilling, a joy to watch, but with so many fights to get in they don't necessarily lead up to a climax. Here's how it should have worked: Spider-Man 3 - The first one starts on a high note, with Spider-Man getting a bit of positive press for the first time and MJ starring on Broadway. With Harry's memory gone, Pete even has his best friend back. But MJ is fired, Pete finds out that Marko is the real killer, and try as he might Spider-Man can't defeat the Sandman. To add insult to injury he loses a staff job to Brock. Despite his misgivings, Pete uses the strange black substance to augment his powers and take on Sandman. With the black costume, Spider-Man is able to seemingly kill Marko, a hollow victory since he has compromised his principles along the way. The movie ends with MJ breaking up with him and Harry regaining his memory and putting his plans back in motion. Spider-Man 4 - To start the second movie, Pete lashes out as his troubles by exposing Brock and humiliating (and striking) MJ. Shocked at himself, Pete tears off the suit, leading to creation of Venom. Pete returns to red and blue costume, apologizes to MJ. In the mean time, Brock goes through something similar to Pete in Spider-Man 1, discovering his powers, but he doesn't have the basic human decency and attitude about power and responsibility that Pete does. He goes after Spider-Man, and Pete can't seem to beat Venom. Venom lets him go, making it clear he's toying with Spidey and can attck again at any time. Harry continues to drive a wedge between Pete and MJ and makes sure Venom is mistaken by police for Spidey. Finally, Brock kidnaps MJ. Pete starts to figure out how to fight Venom and is just getting an edge over him when the Sandman appears. Harry has a crisis - he does care for MJ, is he just his father's puppet? He comes to realize that he should be his own person and flies in to help. Then everyone cries. The end. The advantage of breaking it into two parts is pretty clear - you can devote an arc to a single main villain in each movie, with large arcs for Pete, MJ, and Harry. In addition there's the change to end the first part on a low note, like Star Wars did in Empire Strikes Back or Lord of the Rings in The Two Towers. So enough complains. Coming soon: five things they got right in Spider-Man 3.

Imagine you are a high-school principal charged with keeping your students away from illegal drugs, at least during school hours. Trained dogs might be accurate, but they are too expensive. It takes too long to go through every single locker. What can you do? Buy a $900 dollar dowsing rod designed to find drugs! Pot heads, your days are numbered. This nugget of practical information comes from the video below (about a third of the way through). It turns out the dowsing rod will find drugs - if you keep opening lockers until you find them. ... The talk is by Skeptic Society founder Michael Shermer. Perhaps skeptics are just a source of resistance to new ideas, obsessed with ridding their lives from false positives. But I'll take $1 worth of skepticism over a $900 dowsing rod any day.

So, as you may or may not know, here at unsought we are really kind of environerds, some more than others. Either way, while stumbling on the internet I came across a page about an environmentally friendly roller coaster. Needless to say, my love for the environment, for the zany, for all things Japanese and for roller coasters overtook me and I read the entire article. Since it was in Japanese, the English translation is a little lacking but you get the general idea if you go to read the site. If not, you can just read my interpretation of it, and I will even put up some of the pictures of this "green amusement ride". Not to dissuade you from ever wanting to actually ride this roller coaster, the general gist of the article is "fear". To be honest, they use the word "fear" 18 times in the article. Though they felt the fear, they do recommend the ride after all is said and done. Basically the premise of this roller coaster is that you are pedaling instead of having it run off of gasoline or electricity. As you may or may not know, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to power a single roller coaster all day, thus wearing down our natural resources worse than leaving all the lights on in the house as your mother often yelled at you for doing. So, here you are doing the environment a favor, and you are doing a favor for your health as well. Think of it as killing two birds with one stone, but don't actually kill any birds, thank you. I realize that that may seem like a lot of work and not really worth it when you want to ride an amusement ride, but how cool is this? I mean, look at those seat belts. Those are not going to hold you in if you were to fall out. I am serious. The thrills are a mile a minute, or at least as fast as you and your partner can pedal. And the roller coaster even has a little basket, just like that bike your cousin handed you down when you were a kid, the one with the basket and bell and the little tassels on the handlebars. As the Japanese would say, it's very nastukashi or sentimental. This ride is apparently located in a Japanese amusement park on the island of Seto, but I am not sure of the name. From what I can gather, though, it might called Eagle Feather Mountain Highland. The coaster is much more of a monorail type than an actual roller coaster but the fear comes from the possibilities of falling out of the car to your death; some of the turns on the course are more than forty feet from the ground. The actual enviro-coaster is the one with the arrows pointing to it, there is another energy powered roller coaster in this park as well. Look how high up some of the track is from the ground. I can see how these people feared for their lives, but that's part of the thrill of riding a roller coaster. The Japanese writing on the picture says chiyupikosataa, the second part of that if you sound it out is coaster. From what I gathered from the site, the mascot of this amusement park is a mouse called Chiyupi, so this probably a coaster named after it. I don't really think this will catch on with American audiences, but I know that if I go back to Japan, hopefully in October, that I will make it a point to try and find this park just to ride this ride. If I do, I will definitely write another article on this coaster with a first hand account of if it was really worth all the effort and fear. Until then, please enjoy the fantastic amusements that are located in your general vicinity.

The Virginia Tech murders got plenty of coverage in the press and on the Internet, but none of the writers here at Unsought Input weighed in on the subject. Really, there wasn't anything left to say that hadn't already been said a hundred times on a hundred channels already.

But now there is something interesting going on that isn't getting enough coverage. Did you know that there are two more casualties to add to the list of 32 people killed by Seung-Hui Cho? In addition to murdering and wounding all those people, Cho somehow managed to kill common sense and reason in thousands of commentators and high school principals across the country.

For example, school officials at Clements High School in Texas kicked out a student because they thought he posed a threat. No, he didn't threaten anyone, or buy guns, or stalk girls, or anything like that. He made a level in the game Counter-Strike based on a map of his high school. And posted it on his MySpace page.

For those of you who are out of the video game loop, Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter where you fight a bunch of terrorists, or alternatively fight a bunch of anti-terrorist troops. As you can imagine, it involves a lot of shotting and blowing stuff up. It's most fun when you compete and cooperate with other players.

Now why would a student replicate his high school in such a game unless he was using it as a simulation to train for an attack on his school? In the weeks since the VA Tech massacre, thousands of people would think that's a very good question. That's because they are scared out of their wits.

Why would he do such a thing? Listen, in high school I bought a game named Sim City 2000 (no I will not let you download it for free). One of the first things I did, after getting the hang of how to build a city, was build my home town. My home town was a dismal failure because I lived in a suburb with no industry and there were some scale issues, but that's beside the point.

Later in my high school career, I was president of the computer club. Yes, I know that also makes me king of the nerd patrol, whatever, I have to represent. One of our projects was to build a map of the school in the game Doom (or maybe Duke Nukem, the memory is getting hazy). It was a lot of fun, trying to get the textures right, figuring out where to put the power-ups so that the game would be fun to play.

It never occurred to us that we were doing anything wrong, or that we could use this map for plotting elaborate scenarios. It never occurred to me that building my little home town in Sim City and then unleashing tornadoes on it was wrong. That's because the whole idea is ludicrous.

Why do people play video games? Because, like any game, they are interactive. Some games take interaction to the next level, allowing you to do more than just explore virtual places - you can build your own. This appeals to the same kids who loved Legos when they were younger, and while they may not be the star quarterback or head cheerleader, they are hardly murderous misanthropes.

But what about the link between video games and violence? It turns out the link isn't quite that simple. Apparently only unstable people are really effected by violent video game content, but not any more than they are by violent movies, or even increases in room temperature.

What about the link between Cho and Counter-Strike? Uh, did he ever even play Counter-Strike? Or any video games for that matter? Does anyone actually know, or are they just making it up to get on TV?
After a tragedy like this, people want closure. They want to be able to do something to make sure it doesn't happen again, or find something to place all the blame on. Unfortunately, Cho was a self-important nutjob who refused the help that was offered to him at every turn. There's not really much we can do about that, so bring out the scapegoats and lose the rationality.

Tom Merriman and the “I-Team�, apparently Cleveland’s lame version of the A-Team, did a report on a local poet for Fox 8 News. Unsurprisingly the segment did not go well. They interviewed, well ambushed then later interviewed, Brian Yax, a local poet who goes by the name “Uncle Bad Touch�. Yax wrote poetry on raping and murdering women as well as children which were posted on his Myspace profile, which have been removed since the airing of the interview. Apparently the point of the interview was to make Yax look bad for writing this poetry and apologize for doing so. Quiet frankly the whole thing was ridiculous. So what if he writes offensive poetry? He’s 22 years old; of course he’s going to do offensive things. In case you didn’t notice the hair and the clothes, he wants attention, which is exactly what this dumb story gave him. I’m sure all of his friends told him how cool he was for getting on the news. At the end of the segment they talked about free speech and the stupid anchors asked what can be done about offensive speech like this. Obviously they are too stupid to realize that free speech was designed to protect offensive speech. Too many people say, “Well I’m all for free speech, but…�  There is no "but," people, either you are for free speech or you aren’t. The minute you start censoring things because you don’t like or agree with them then free speech goes out the window. I didn’t see anybody complain that the news is offensive. Quite frankly I was offended when Tom Merriman brought out the woman whose daughter was raped and murdered to “surprise� Yax and make him feel guilty. Way to use some one else’s pain and suffering to boost your ratings Tom. Tom criticized Yax for saying that he didn’t care that her daughter was murdered. Tom Merriman doesn’t really care either, but he sure pretended to be concerned during the interview. I’m sure a few hours later he totally forgot about her and her daughter and went onto the next person to exploit for ratings. Yax is a douche and his poetry is offensive and poorly written, but because of the First Amendment he has the right to express himself in anyway he wants as long as he doesn’t harm anyone else. The news puts images of murder, rape and violence on every night for entertainment and no one calls them out on it, so it is hypocritical for them to pick on one individual. Freedom of speech is an integral part of our country and if you don’t like it then you can exercise your freedom of speech and shut up.