Fresh Fiction For Friday - 3 (Free?)

Wearily she wiped the sweat from her brow as she continued to exert herself on the stepper fitness device. She knew the time she had remaining was limited as she only exercised during the brief periods when Psmith was not with her. While he had often encouraged her to exercise whenever she wanted and would not have observed her doing so if she had asked him, she felt uncomfortable sweating with him so nearby. It didn’t feel right. Psmith was so cool that she couldn’t picture him sweating. She had tried to do so and could not. Somehow, she felt that he would find a way to talk himself out of it.

The machine beeped loudly to inform her that the cycle of exercise was complete. Eagerly she climbed down and began her post workout stretching. Her everything hurt but in such a good way. She did her best to focus on the stretching and nothing else; to think past the good pain for the form of the stretching. Nothing could stop her now.

Nothing could stop her apart from herself. What was that noise? It disrupted her focus. It was a rustling, crinkling sound not unlike… tissue paper. It was tissue paper! As she leapt to her feet, her muscles eagerly informed her of the stupidity of this movement. All the same, she made herself go to the sound of the tissue paper: the island in the kitchen. This is where Psmith was calmly rooting around in a package. Her package! “What are you doing going through that?” she cried.

Psmith whirled around in surprise at the suddenness of the volume from her. After the moment faded, his expression was left with a mild confusion. “I go through every package that enters this suite. I go through our food. You should be well aware of this as it is one of your orders. It is part of your rehabilitation.”

She spoke quickly. “I take it back. Cancel the order, for this package anyway.”

“By your order you cannot cancel that order.” His eyes narrowed. “What is so special about this package that you do not want me to investigate it as the others, hmm?” Carefully, he raised the item from the box in order to look under it.

Angrily she snatched the blue dress from his hand, for the moment not caring if she damaged it. Surprise returned to his expression, providing her with the opportunity to claim the box as well. She crammed the dress back in the container as she stomped off towards her room. Stomping hurt her legs and made her even more upset.

As this new shock wore off, Psmith returned to a state of confused crankiness. “I do not understand what is the problem. I have faithfully investigated every package that has passed this way, some with garments of a secretive nature, without complaint or concern. Why should this item cause such a reaction?”

In the doorway of her room she paused. With tears in her eyes she exclaimed “It was meant to be a surprise!” She punctuated her displeasure by slamming the door behind her.

Psmith stood there and pondered this. He considered it backwards and forwards. Just for fun, once her considered it sideways to see if it would help. It did not. The result of all this pondering was a deep sigh. “I cannot wait until she gets older and starts to make some sense.” He wandered into the kitchen proper. “At least the package was clean.”

No One goes to a Godzilla movie for the human love interest storyline

While dealing with the reasons why we didn't enjoy 'Spider-Man 3' as much as we should have, one of my primary discussion points is that it didn't feel like there was enough Spider-Man spread throughout the movie. I do understand that there was a Spider-Man fight of some significant length near the end of the movie and I understand the concept of building to your payoff but this was more of a pacing problem in my opinion, something caused by adding the Venom storyline to a movie that didn't originally feature the character.

You must meet expectations. People expect to see Spider-Man in a Spider-Man movie. Marvel publishes three primary Spider-Man comics a month, twelve months a year. In the space of 36 comics a year, you can afford to have a couple that focus more on Peter Parker or show events through the eyes of a different character. In fact, if simply for the sake of variety, you need to change things up in order for those books to stay fresh every month. When there's one movie every three years, it's a different combination of events.

No one goes to a Godzilla movie for the human love interest storyline. No one goes to McDonald's for a gourmet meal. No one watches American Idol for the death-metal songs. No one watches 'A Night at the Opera' for the singing, it's all about the Marx Brothers.

Despite it being a neat moment from a number of different perspectives, no one goes to a Spider-Man movie to watch Peter Parker dance. It's not that you can't go beyond the expectations but you must at least meet them. McDonald's could serve gourmet food but if the quality of the fries suffered because of it, would people be happy? No. If the monster wrestling in a Godzilla movie is awesome and the human love interest story was good, well, that would probably be the best Godzilla movie ever.

If you want to do something new in the entertainment world, to mix things up in a long running series so that you're not just repeating yourself, at least bring the basic stuff you promise in the title. When you have a movie called 'Werewolves on Wheels' there should be more than a few seconds of a Werewolf on a motorcycle.

Or is it just me?