May 5, 2007
See Ya Spidey
Spider-Man Week is coming to an end. What happened out there while we weren't looking? In one of the more interesting spider events this week, Tobey Maguire got a big creature placed on his arm at AMNH by entymologist and curator Norm Platnick:
Through Sunday you can check out that very same spider at AMNH, as part of their Spiders Alive! exhibit.
Did you see any signs of Spider-Man this week? Here he is in Midtown, on the Today Show with Bloomberg, and last summer there were signs everywhere! Earlier this week we posted a map of all the Spidey action that's taken place. But all this hype hasn't seemed to work on the critics, the NY Times reviews the third installment, saying:
"Aesthetically and conceptually wrung out, fizzled rather than fizzy, this latest installment in the spider-bites-boy adventure story shoots high, swings low and every so often hits the sweet spot, but mostly just plods and plods along, as if its heart were pumping tired radioactive blood."
Have you seen the movie yet, is it better than the first two? And if you need more Marvel in your weekend, today is Free Comic Book Day!
Spider photo taken by Rod Mickens for the American Museum of Natural History.
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>>>Tobey Maguire got a big creature placed on his arm at AMNH by entymologist and curator Norm Platnick
Hate to jump on the ol' Gothamist spelling train, but the correct spelling is entomologist. An etymologist studies word histories, while an entomologist studies bugs.
Now, I'm not sure if you can call somebody who studies spiders an entomologist, since spiders are not insects...
www.forgotten-ny.com
the critics are right. the movie is a bit of a disappointment. the first half is good, the second half kind of goes off the rails. a lot of unmet potential with the symbiote/venom storyline. that said, i'm not much of an arachnologist.
While, technically speaking, entomology is the study of insects; and spiders are arachnids and not insects; the term is often broadened to include spiders (and other forms of zoological life like worms for example).
As it happens, Norm Platnick (above) in in the Dept of Entomology at AMNH even though he is an Arachnologist.