A few reviews

[mnkykungfu]

I see what you're getting at [b]Canon Editor, [/b]even though I don't fully agree.  There is definitely a commercial aspect to these films that is front and center, but there's no getting rid of that.  It's just inherit in the subject matter.  Also, if you're going to make a big movie with the kind of huge stories and crazy special effects that faithfully adapts these comics, it's going to require boatloads of money.  Which means, they're going to have to get a lot of return on their investment.  That's just the nature of the beast.  If I have to trade some commercialization to see these stories, I'll take that over something like Batman-The Movie (1966), The Punisher (1989), Captain America (1990), The Shadow (1994), etc.  They used to look for properties they thought they could make without a lot of special effects, but there's so much art to getting the dialogue right, the costuming, the production design, framing the shots, etc.  It is so so easy to fail to translate these stories to the screen.  There's so much that goes into getting it right, people take it for granted I think.  There may be some who will just never seriously appreciate these kind of films, like people who just can't get into animated movies.  Each to their own.

I saw a film!
Gerald's Game (2017)

I was skeptical of this film, thought it was probably just a salacious cash-in by Netflix (one of the first Netflix originals that I noticed) but I actually quite enjoyed it.  Well...maybe "enjoyed" isn't the right word.  But it was good.  A pretty psychologically complex and morally dense film, it ties into how people experience love and develop their sense of self, and isn't afraid to dig into touchy subjects like women having "daddy issues" or people ignoring the bad behavior of those they love (thus being complicit in it.)  I saw this jokingly described as "50 Shades of Grey meets 127 Hours", and that's kind of true, but I'd add in "meets Sleepers".  The only weak point for me is that the film starts adding in some obligatory Stephen King supernatural horror which gets resolved in a kind of hackneyed ending.  I've read that it really worked for some people though, so maybe it's just personal taste.  I could've seen that whole storyline edited out, and the film would stand strong as simply a drama and character piece.  Carla Gugino is just that good.