The season starts off with both Peter Parker and Spider-man on the hunt for the missing Mary Jane, who has been sucked into a cult. In a cunning (and realistic move), this cult leader thrives on lonely folks who have lost someone and uses that pain to keep them under control.

Here begins "Sins of the Fathers" arc, the first of 14 episodes all about dear old dad and how he messed up and/or helped his kids during their formative years.

From what I remember, the show placed a lot of emphasis on the characters and the relationships, not all of them romantic. Here was a kids' show that was willing to stretch the definition of a kids' show and tell some more adult stories without pandering to their young audience.

And now I get the chance to defend my claim as we dive into the second season, "Neogenic Nightmare."

Spider-man has recovered nicely from his season one adventures, but all is not well in Spidey land. On a typical patrol, he loses his spider powers. After a trip to visit his old scientist pal Doctor Connors, Spidey discovers that he's still mutating, and that when the mutations stop, he won't be human any longer.

That would be bad enough, but Spidey also has to deal with Kingpin massing a small army of super-villains, all intent on killing our hero; the return of the Hobgoblin (when will people learn to just pay that guy???); the arrival of the Punisher and Blade, two supposed heroes intent on murdering Spider-man; and probably most importantly, Mary Jane dumps Peter after he blows her off one to many times.

I was such an "X-Men" nut that when they were going to appear on "Spider-man," I gleefully made the time to check out that other Marvel kids show. Lucky for me, I kept watching that show about a wall-crawling wisecracker.

After a while, I had to admit that while my heart will always be with the "X-Men," "Spider-man" was the better show. And now that they are both on Instant Watch, it's time to look back at both these kiddie shows that left a lasting impression on this young geek.

We all have them, those things we loved as children that no matter how old we get, or how much smarter are brains grow, we stubbornly refuse to believe is bad.

For me, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is just one of those things. I first saw the film when I was 11; my mom borrowed it from a coworker, and in an unprecedented move, she let me and my sister stay up way past our bedtimes so we could watch it.

But since I've recovered from both those real life invasions, let's get back to the business of critiquing with this RomCom double feature.

If reviews are to be believed, lately romantic comedies have been quite the suckfests. Unlikeable but beautiful people try and fail to convince us that they are worthy of a 'happily-ever-after' moment. Or we get a story about a deep friendship between two dudes that's clearly only written for men.

It's a bit bleak out there for men AND women, so let's take a look backward at two modern romcoms that both succeed (to a point) but don't necessarily leave us with bad feelings.

In a word, wow.

But let's back up for a minute.

(Obviously, some spoilers ahead)

I first saw "Unconditional Love" in 2004; I'd never heard of it, but after discovering just how awesome Peter Sarsgaard is, I decided that I needed to watch every movie of his I could find, and with absolutely no prior knowledge, I found myself watching this quirky, uneven but cute little film about the most self-less kind of love.

And then I had to go and ruin things even more by rewatching it.

A note to first time BSG watchers; these aren't the reviews for you. I plan to write about the show with the ending in mind. If you haven't seen the show, you will be spoiled on stuff that happens at the end. You've been warned.

A note to first time BSG watchers; these aren't the reviews for you. I plan to write about the show with the ending in mind. If you haven't seen the show, you will be spoiled on stuff that happens at the end. You've been warned.

Now, I went in expecting "The Black Cauldron" to be pretty bad (thanks in part to this Slate article), but in the back of my mind, I was hoping that my lowered expectations would overwrite the movie's flaws and let me enjoy it.

Sadly, it was not to be. What makes the movie's fumbles even harder is that I've read "The Chronicles of Prydain" by Lloyd Alexander (the movie's title comes from the second book in the series), and it's a fantastic and moving coming of age tale about an assistant pig keeper Taran (voiced by Grant Bardsley) and his journey to manhood (and heroism).

However, the film, directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich, has none of those qualities. It's an overly cutesy tale about bringing down a scary but one-note villain in order to save the world and get the girl. It's the template for every fantasy story ever written (as a fantasy consumer, that's not a complaint, just an observation) but the writers and directors didn't do anything special with the story.

The characters are goody-goody bland, the animal sidekicks (on both sides) are annoying, and the wrap-up is too easy and ultimately costs our heroes nothing (something that is completely foreign to the author Alexander).

It's not often that I wish for a bad movie to be longer, but condensing five extraordinary novels

in to one 80 minute movie is a travesty, plain and simple. Maybe I could have handled this movie better if I hadn't loved the books as I did, but what's done is done. Now it's time for someone to rescue this series from it's fate and make it into the grand spectacle it deserves to be.

"The Black Cauldron" (1985)

Written by too many to list here

Directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich

Starring: Grant Bardsley (Taran)

Susan Sheridan (Eilonwy)

A note to first time BSG watchers; these aren't the reviews for you. I plan to write about the show with the ending in mind. If you haven't seen the show, you will be spoiled on stuff that happens at the end. You've been warned.

But ah well, that's part of the fun, but we're going to shake things up a bit this time. For this year's prognostications, I'm going with two categories, what I believe will happen and what I would like to happen.

Let's get to it (and good luck to you all playing the home game). See you in February.

A note to first time BSG watchers; these aren't the reviews for you. I plan to write about the show with the ending in mind. If you haven't seen the show, you will be spoiled on stuff that happens at the end. You've been warned.

Some of it comes down to timing; had I seen this at a much younger age, I could totally see myself getting swept up in this story of a dwarf named Willow (Warwick Davis) who must protect a baby from the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) who wishes to kill her.

He meets some other travelers along the way to help him, such as two Brownies, Franjean(Rick Overton) and Rool (Kevin Pollak), a ne'er do well swordsman Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) and Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes) a good witch who has been transformed into a muskrat.

It's a solid setup, a tale as old as time, but a lot of the kiddie elements, like any scenes with the Brownies or when the love potion goes wrong for Madmartigan, just fall flat to these adult eyes. And while I'll give the filmmakers props for bucking the trend of the day and making the chosen one a girl, "Willow" still amounts to a story about a bunch of dudes (even the other women can't act on their own until the men come along).

"Willow" tried its best to impress me, but sadly, I'm a little too old for a tale this simplistic.

"Willow" (1988)

Written by Bob Dolman

Directed by Ron Howard

Starring: Warwick Davis (Willow)

Val Kilmer (Madmartigan)