So the campaign worked. Spider-Man 3 has made something like $900 kajillion in less than a week, despite its not-so-great reviews. (Look at Spidey and Gwen over there. Even THEY’RE amazed by that headline. “$900 kajillion? AWESOME!”) It’s a Big Summer Event Movie, and thus everyone went and saw it, whether they wanted to or not. (Even me. Shit, I’d already seen it and I didn’t even like it that much, but somehow I found myself watching it again yesterday afternoon.)

It’s (too) easy to get cynical about this shit, but Manohla Dargis has a pretty amazingly great piece in yesterday’s Times about “Hollywood and the art of the blockbuster” that’s well worth a read. I’ve been trying for years to explain why I love blockbuster summer movies so goddamn much—this really is like my favorite time of the year, largely due to all the movies I’m stoked for in the the upcoming months—and Dargis nailed what I’ve been stammering and stumbling about for so long. Yes, blockbusters are awesome. I just wish that certain ones (like, say, ah, Spider-Man 3) were better, is all. (That said, I’m excited to a pretty unhealthy degree about Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers.)

(And, as if you needed to ask: Of course there’ll be at least three more Spider-Mans, with or without Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, or Ol’ Snaggletooth.)