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

Iron Fist Is Surprisingly Soft

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Every time I watch an action movie I walk out with delusions of grandeur. I’ve been a kung fu master without a shred a discipline, a fearsome swordsman without a blade and a lethal sharpshooter without a day of training. Rocky turned every mirror into a fierce boxing opponent and the top of every staircase into the end of an epic training montage. Gladiator turned every oblong cylinder I could find into a sword and every room into a colosseum. Saving Private Ryan turned literally every object into a gun — and I mean that!

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

Netflix’s Luke Cage is Good… At First

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Luke Cage is a good show… for a bit. The first seven of thirteen episodes are a delight. Marvel’s new entry into its online-exclusive Defenders series (comprised of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and the upcoming Iron Fist) will get its fans all the more hyped up for when the four eventually convene. Creator Cheo Hodari Coker and lead actor Mike Colter do brilliant jobs in what is another solid entry to the already-great Netflix universe. Luke Cage provides an enthralling look into a gritty Harlem still reeling from the extraterrestrial incident of Joss Whedon’s Avengers (2012).

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

Proud to Be a Woman: Agent Carter

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In an age where “difficult men” populate many television shows and female characters are often disregarded, the second season of Agent Carter makes feminism its priority. The Marvel show (which premiered Jan. 19 on ABC) follows Peggy Carter (Haley Atwell) as she fights misogyny and evil in post-World War II America. Peggy, who appeared in Captain America: The First Avenger as an Allied spy and as Captain America’s almost-girlfriend, now works for the fictional Strategic Scientific Reserve, a covert organization that was formed during the war to fight Nazis. Despite gaining respect in the male-dominated SSR in season one by singlehandedly neutralizing a Soviet spy, Peggy must deal with continued discrimination and degrading barbs from her colleagues, who continue to view her as their physical and mental inferior.

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.