Welcome, dear readers, to our regular letter column; a series of missives from and to the internet, delivered by a series of tubes. We welcome your comments and questions. About anything! We’ll answer it, and at least one of us will take you seriously. Maybe.

Ask us anything! You can ask us about comics, or baseball, or cooking, or TV Brandon isn’t able to watch, movies Brandon hasn’t seen but James has… basically, anything that James can talk about and Brandon can’t, plus comics. Listen, when Brandon wants to get questions that he can answer in depth, he can write these things and not leave them to someone else.

Man, what a jerk. I say we get rid of him. What’s that? Bring back Liz? Or Scott? You don’t say.

You’re welcome, internet.

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Jay (@jayrunham) asks: Now that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is coming out, should I finally watch The Amazing Spider-Man? I’d really like to continue not supporting Sony’s money-making Spider-Man machine. Because I’d rather see it flop and go back to Marvel. Because the first three Raimi films were horrible.

James: You absolutely should see it, if only to satisfy your obvious curiosity. I mean, if you’re waiting for Disney/Marvel Studios to get the license back, well, brother, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. And normally, I’m all for principled stands on things like this, but if you’re just depriving yourself of something you might enjoy, then it’s hard for me to counsel that continued action.

And the thing is, if you didn’t like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, The Amazing Spider-Man is all the more likely a film you might enjoy. Director Marc Webb’s movie is completely different in tone and visuals, and Andrew Garfield is a much better bit for the character of Peter Parker; he actually looks like he can play a teen, for one thing, and he’s much better at pulling off Spider-Man’s trademark mid-fight joking. If you thought the Raimi movies were too kitschy or didn’t have the appropriate tone, there’s a good chance Webb’s is one you’ll really like.

Brandon: Look, I’m not a huge fan of Sony having control over Spider-Man and his amazing friends, because there is no way Disney and Sony are going to play nice long enough to make any kind of crossover happen (because they want all the money, and not 50% of all the money), but man, just go and see this movie. The Spider-Man and X-Men deals were bad deals, made by Marvel out of necessity and desperation, and there isn’t a money cruncher alive who is going to see a flop and think “well, maybe that’s it for Spider-Man, a character who has endured for well over 50 years now, without failing, despite the 90s. Sony would sooner film a $1,000 movie with a guy in a ski-mask and release it in po-dung nowhere just to satisfy the requirements of “theatrical release” and make more Spider-Man movies some other time, if this movie flopped. True story.

Anyway, see Amazing Spider-Man. It’s my favourite Spider-Man movie, and I’m super excited for the second movie.

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Jay continues: How long until a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot?

James: It depends; when will Jaden Smith be old enough to play Will? Because if Will Smith isn’t executive producing a reboot to further his son’s career, I don’t see it happening at all.

Brandon: With Fat Carlton as Uncle Phil, and Uncle Phil as Jazz. Please.

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Marc (@DasNordlicht) asks: How do you feel about WWE deciding on having one Undisputed WWE Champion?

James: I’m of mixed feelings, like I am about most things WWE does, if we’re being honest. They’ve unified the belts before, back when Raw and SmackDown were branded as “warring entities,” and I think there’s definitely a compelling case to do so. After all, it can be weird when there’s a WWE Champion and then also a World Heavyweight Champion, because both of those sound like they’re intended to be the Most Important Thing(tm). And really, barring that part where the two belts were unified and then de-unified later, the Heavyweight belt is intended to represent the old WCW one before WWE destroyed them and so it is a sortof equal (-ish) title, and that doesn’t really make sense anymore. With Raw and SmackDown going from being the warring brands to the Important Brand and then the Hey, At Least It’s Not Main Event Brand, it seems weird to have two titles that should mean “the best.” Plus, I like the idea of unifying the the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship belts and then raise the Intercontinental Championship belt to its appropriate esteem again. Especially now that a young, dynamic and charismatic guy, Big E Langston, is holding the Intercontinental belt, the time seems right to make that important again.

That said, I hate the idea of “Undisputed WWE Champion” being the official name of the unified belt, because ugh, that name is just awful, as is basically every single thing the WWE Universe votes for during Monday Night Raw. It sounds like a “Oh my gosh aren’t we so tough and gritty and cool remember how Brock Lesnar used to be in the UFC even if he’s not on the card right now” thing, and desperation never looks good.

Brandon: I think they do need to cut down the amount of belts they have down to the main Championship title, the Intercontinental title, and the Tag Title on the men’s side so that they can focus on building those up to mean something again. That needs to happen. They can look over at NXT to see how it’s done.

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Scott Williams (@scottowilliams) asks: Which comic book movie are you currently most excited for? Which NON-comic book movie?

James: Non-comic book-wise, I’m excited for The Wind Rises, Hiyao Miyazaki’s final feature length animated film before he retired, and by “retired” I mean “decided to make fully-painted, full-colour samurai manga instead holy goddamn hell my wallet is out.” It’s the maker of some of the best animated films ever, indulging his love of planes and flying in a personal story about wartime Japan. It’s the movie I’m most excited for, period.

Comic book-wise, I’m really excited for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The story that they’re adapting is a great one and Chris Evans really is a spectacular Steve Rogers. I rewatched the first Cap movie recently for the first time since Brandon and I saw it in the theatres, and I was blown away by how genuine Evans is in the role, how well he sells Steve’s defining characteristic: his moral fortitude. The first Winter Soldier trailer definitely makes it seem like they’re going to get surprisingly political in tone, with the movie being about Cap’s idealism in opposition to the tenor of fear and paranoia if today’s espionage and warfare. Steve Rogers, to me, always works best when played as a man out of time not because he’s from the 1940s, but because he’s actually kind of out of place there, too; he’s from the future, or at least the idealized promise of one that his patriotism represents. A better tomorrow. He can be beaten down, he can face tough decisions and he can have a crisis of faith, but what makes Captain America, like any superhero, so evergreen is that in the end, they do the right thing.

Brandon: Comic book movie, I would probably have to go with Amazing Spider-Man 2, fully admitting to the fact that I’m choosing this because it’s the most recent trailer I’ve watched, and I really enjoyed it. As for non-comic book movie, I’m going with the second Hunger Games movie, because I haven’t seen it, and I really don’t know what cool things are coming out soon.

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Scott asks: When WWE Films inevitably has CM Punk and/or Daniel Bryan star in a movie, what should the plot be?

James: Nash Bridges: The Movie. I am 100% not joking.

Brandon: The Land Before Time. Who says we don’t take these things seriously?

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Scott asks: Why were The Monkees so great?

James: They had some great songs that have stood the test of time because of their craft and pleasantness. Next time, ask about Big Star like I explicitly told you to.

Brandon: Or you could just write that article you want to write. That’s what I usually do, when I have a topic. And The Monkees were great for a number of reasons, the least of which being their Scooby Doo type show.

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Cody Schmidt (@CodyFSchmidt) asks: You guys excited for Inside Llewyn Davis?

James: Heck yeah! The Coens are masters of craft and who produce movies of a wide variety of tones and genres, and who make movies that defy easy summarization, which encourages the audience to think about them over time. I like that their movies gradually reveal themselves, and a self-admittedly movie without a defined plot about an exciting period in American music should be really interesting.

Brandon: Sure! I will probably see it like I see all their movies: eventually.

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Cody continues: Rank your top three Coen Bros. films and why?

James: Cards on the table: I haven’t seen all the Coen movies, or even all of the ones that I desperately want to, so this is definitely an incomplete list:

1. O Brother, Where Art Thou? - Besides the fact that it’s got Clooney giving the performance of his career, besides the fact that it has one of the greatest movie soundtracks in existence, I like it because it works not only as the adaptation of The Odyssey that it is, but also as it’s own funny, moving story about a father getting home to his family during the Dust Bowl. It’s haunting, hilarious and life-affirming. And lord, that music.

2. Fargo - The first outright silly Coen movie I saw, that I also realized later was dark and twisted and which I saw waaaaaay too early. This probably explains a lot about me, actually. It embodies one of the things I love about the Coens most: they don’t just tell movies about New York, California or New England; they’re interested in all of America, and the types of stories that can only occur in a small midwestern city. It shows how good stories, even really spatially defined ones, can still be universal.

3. True Grit - There are easily a half dozen other movies I could and probably should toss here instead, but I liked how True Grit was so absolutely different from its previous adaptation that I found it endlessly surprising.

Or shit, throw The Hudsucker Proxy or The Man Who Wasn’t There in.

Brandon: I love O Brother, Where Art Thou the most, if only because I got my Papa (grandfather on my mother’s side) to watch it once, and he thought it was not terrible (high praise, from him). I also love The Big Lebowski, and Fargo for the same reason: noir stories featuring characters and situations that are decidedly non-noir. They’re delightful.

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Cody concludes: Would you rather play Super Mario 3D World, or Super Coen 3D World?

James: Super Mario 3D World, because it’s slightly less existentially draining.

Brandon: Yes.

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That’s it for the one hundred and twentieth instalment of Um, Actually. Check in every Monday and Thursday for a new batch of questions. If you have anything you’d like answered, hit up our contact page! If you submit anything via Twitter – to @blogaboutcomics, @Leask or @soupytoasterson – remember to include the hashtag #UMACTUALLY so that we don’t lose it. Remember: you can ask us anything. Seriously, anything.