Arts & Culture

Spidey Swings Home

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After a semi-successful trilogy by Sam Raimi and two over-the-top films from Marc Webb, it seemed like everyone’s neighborhood wall crawler was going to put up the cowl for good, while studios battled over whether Spider-Man should be portrayed as an emo teenager or an emotionally challenged Tobey Maguire. Yet, who would have thought that thirty minutes of Tom Holland donning spandex in Captain America: Civil War was a sign of better things to come? Holland’s performance earned him stripes for his own solo movie in the form of Spider-Man: Homecoming, the title of which references the eponymous high school dance and is symbolic of Spider-Man joining the larger Marvel family owned by Disney. As with anyone who has to interact with new relatives, Homecoming can feel awkward and terse as it attempts to navigate and connect with past films, but once it finds its own footing, the movie flips into high gear. In the end, the latest Spidey excels as a greater extension of the Marvel Universe, and also as a solid stand-alone feature buoyed by a stellar supporting cast, infectious humor and a fresh, contemporary high school setting.

Arts & Culture

Doctor Strange: A Psychedelic Cure to Superhero Fatigue

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You’ve felt it, I’ve felt it, we’ve all felt it:

Superhero Fatigue. With the constant slew of superhero blockbusters flooding cinema screens, it’s hard to keep this genre fresh. These films all share a remarkably similar structure, as well as common tropes like love interests, wise sages and all-powerful enemies. However, beyond the similarities within the genre itself, we now have the convention of cinematic universes. The pioneering Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has inspired a trend of shared universes including the lackluster DC Comics films, an attempted Monster Movie Universe, and now I hear they’re making a spinoff of The Big Lebowski centering on Jesus (the bowler, not the messianic figure).

Arts & Culture

Deadpool Electrifies the Marvel Universe

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Deadpool has electrified Marvel fans since the film’s announcement. The wisecracking “Merc with a Mouth” — whose real name is Wade Wilson — unprecedentedly secured a movie all to himself, despite his relatively narrow fan base and lackluster appearance in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The film actually uses these original failures to its advantage. In Deadpool, the fourth wall is broken numerous times in an attempt  to poke fun at Origin’s missteps and to give the antihero Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) a history with audiences, eliminating the need for any previous knowledge of his character. In fact, Deadpool might be Marvel’s most skillfully told origin story yet.

Arts & Culture

Breaking the Mold: Netflix’s Jessica Jones

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Jessica Jones treats its viewers to an engaging, suspenseful, neo-noir-inspired crime drama. The title character just happens to be able to lift cars and punch through walls. The emphasis Jessica Jones places on its plot and character development over its characters’ “gifts” makes the show widely accessible to even traditionally non-superhero fans and refreshing among the seemingly endless stream of superheroes. Throughout the 13 episodes released on Netflix, we are introduced to Jessica Jones, a smart, sarcastic private investigator. When a mother and father arrive at Jessica’s door in search of their missing daughter, Jessica discovers that the man who once held her in captivity, Kilgrave, is still alive and luring her back to him through the kidnapping of the current couple’s daughter, Hope.