…Started up a Brand New Day! (CREDIT: Marvel/Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo, Florence Pugh, Liza Colón-Zayas, Marvin Jones III, Zabryna Guevara
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Running Time: 145 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Occasionally Gnarly Action Violence, and a Little Bit of Language
Release Date: July 31, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: It’s been a lonely life for the Tom Holland version of Peter Parker ever since his last big screen adventure. He’s still Spider-Man, and New Yorkers still love their arachnid guardian, but a spell has been cast that has made everyone forget the entire existence of the human being behind the mask. He’s inching towards re-introducing himself to his former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), but he’s got to be careful, since there are always new threats lurking around the corner. This time around, the primary threat is a mysterious newcomer (Sadie Sink) with the ability to jump her consciousness into other people who’s trying to expose a secret at the suspiciously friendly Department of Damage Control. Meanwhile, Peter seems to be going through a sort of second adolescence, as he develops new powers and then consults a relatively Hulk-free Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to help him get a grip on these emerging abilities.
What Made an Impression?: The Day After When?: To rewatch or not to rewatch? That’s always one of the big questions at the heart of the latest MCU release. With Brand New Day, I wondered if I ought to revisit 2021’s No Way Home to remind myself how we got to the point where nobody remembered Peter Parker anymore. But ultimately, I decided I would prefer not to and instead see how this chapter stands on its own (which is typically my prerogative in general). And I believe I made the right decision. While things started off feeling a little vague, I appreciated that this movie didn’t feel the need to recap itself to death and instead give off at least a hint of mystery. Criss-Cross:Brand New Day reaches towards the platonic ideal of a true low-key comic book crossover sensibility. We’ve seen Peter team up with all the major Avengers already, but what about the other rando Marvel heroes and villains we’ve yet to see him interact with before? Several of them are in this movie! But not all of them, as that would be too overwhelming. Sometimes superhero flicks have multiple antagonists combined with a whole host of friendly cameos, and it ends up feeling like three or four (or a thousand) different movies smashed together. But in this case, it feels natural enough that all these folks would be interacting with each other in this series of scenarios. They Had an Effect on Me: My biggest bummer with BND is that the visual effects are too slick in the way that our digitized and sanitized CGI era so often is. There’s just not much tactility as Spidey swings around the Big Apple. Nevertheless, there is a decent amount of emotional heft to the big set pieces. It helps when there are some close-up shots interspersed within those sequences, as Tom Holland’s eternally youthful visage immediately conveys plenty of vulnerability. Brand New Enough Indeed: Ultimately, I’m pleased to report that I was satisfied by Brand New Day because it didn’t feel like just more of the same once again in the way that so many Marvel movies have. While it didn’t quite blow me away like the most transcendent examples of this genre, I never quite knew where we headed. The reveals are clever, the ideas are sincere, and the enthusiasm is still real.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is Recommended If You Like: A mix of the old and the new
Priscilla being all Priscilla-like (CREDIT: Philippe Le Sourd/A24)
Priscilla
Starring: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen, Dagmara Domińczyk, Lynne Griffin, Dan Beirne
Director: Sofia Coppola
Running Time: 113 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: October 27, 2023 (Theaters)
May December
Starring: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton
Director: Todd Haynes
Running Time: 117 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: November 17, 2023 (Theaters)/December 1, 2023 (Netflix)
The Marvels
Starring: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh
Hey, Rocket Raccoon, what did you do? (CREDIT: Marvel Entertainment/Screenshot)
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Sean Gunn, Linda Cardellini, Nathan Fillion, Sylvester Stallone, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, Nico Santos, Miriam Shor
Director: James Gunn
Running Time: 150 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: May 5, 2023
I nodded off a fair amount during Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 (post-half marathon recovery), which felt appropriate, because I think my subconscious recognized that I would have been too overwhelmed otherwise. There were A LOT of creatures being mistreated – my emotions can only handle so much!
With that in mind, I feel compelled to be more nakedly emotional than usual:
-Two and a half hours? Egads!
-Rocket, I feel so close to you now!
-Cosmo is such a good dog!
Oh my God, Ant-Man admit it! (CREDIT: Marvel Entertainment/Screenshot)
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Kathryn Newton, Jonathan Majors, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, David Dastmalchian, Katy O’Brian, William Jackson Harper, Bill Murray, Corey Stoll
Director: Peyton Reed
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: February 17, 2023 (Theaters)
I liked the beginning of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, because it was bright and sunny, both literally and metaphorically. I also liked the end, because it was once again bright and sunny. But I didn’t like the parts in the Quantum Realm as much, because they were quite dark. I saw it two days after my birthday, and it definitely wasn’t the best birthday movie, so it’s good that I didn’t see it on the exact anniversary of my expulsion from a uterus.
While the credits were unspooling, a youngster of about six told his dad, “I hate this movie,” as he walked past me. I try not to hate, but I kept holding my head at a weird angle while watching, and that wasn’t good for my neck. Both literally and metaphorically.
Grade: Infinity Plus 3 out of Infinity Times 2 Kangs
Starring: Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Winston Duke, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Kasumba, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Divine Love Konadu-Son
Director: Ryan Coogler
Running Time: 161 Minutes
Rating: PG-13]
Release Date:] November 11, 2022 (Theaters)
Upon seeing the first Black Panther back in 2018, my expectations were sky-high, and there was pretty much no way to meet them. For Wakanda Forever, however, I arrived with significantly subdued enthusiasm. I doubted that it could fully process the grief of Chadwick Boseman’s passing or that it could be another Landmark Cultural Event. So I ended up seeing it more than a month after its release with a much more chillaxed approach. And you know that? That may just have made all the difference. Also, the conflict with Namor was plenty satisfying and I totally didn’t see it coming.
CREDIT: Marvel Entertainment/Screenshot; IFC Films
Thor: Love and Thunder
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Taika Waititi, Tessa Thompson, Jaimie Alexander, Russell Crowe
Director: Taika Waititi
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: July 8, 2022
Flux Gourmet
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Gwendoline Christie, Ariane Labed, Fatima Mohamed, Makis Papaditriou, Leo Bill, Richard Bremer
Director: Peter Strickland
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: June 24, 2022 (Theaters and On Demand)
Wow, here I am, a few days older and a few days wiser from having taken in a couple of the latest cinematic offerings. As Thor: Love and Thunder began, I felt invigorated by the current state of the MCU in which we’re not just building up to the latest chapter. Or, we are, but it’s not thuddingly obvious what direction we’re headed in. That felt freeing! But then after a while, I was worried that I had lost the plot – what was the deal with the kids again? At least we had a lot of fun with Russell Crowe’s Zeus. I wondered why he was doing an Italian accent, and then I realized it must be Greek, so that was a journey.
As for Flux Gourmet, the uncertainty was even more ever-present. Partly that was because I’ve never seen any other movie quite like this, but more pertinently it was because I kept nodding off. I guess I need to institute precautions when drinking vodka lemonades during a mid-afternoon show. Anyway, this flick ultimately struck me as most relevant in dramatizing what it’s like to be diagnosed with celiac disease. And any part not expressly about that was probably still metaphorically about it.
Grades: Thor: Love and Thunder: More Love, Decent Thunder Flux Gourmet: Straightforward Flatulence, Everything Else in Flux
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Xochitl Gomez, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Stuhlbarg
Director: Sam Raimi
Running Time: 126 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: May 6, 2022 (Theaters)
So exactly how much multiverse and how much madness is there in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? Honestly, there are other movies out there that are more multiversal, or madder, or both more multiversal and madder! But that’s okay, because this movie features a scene in which two Doctor Stranges fight each other with musical notes. And also Bruce Campbell punches himself a bunch of times. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Starring: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Bryan Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie
Director: Chloé Zhao
Running Time: 157 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 5, 2021 (Theaters)
Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time” plays during Eternals‘ end credits, which is pretty cool, as that’s a fun song to rock out or sing along to. But then it cuts off before the guitar solo! And that made me feel pretty cut off. That’s the micro of how I feel about Eternals in the macro. The premise is intriguing, and multiple characters have an engaging hook, but then it just never lets loose. That’s two-and-a-half hours of waiting for something unforgettable. At least this isn’t the same-old, same-old I’ve gotten so used to from the MCU. Alas, a dozen or so central characters that have been around for millennia can be pretty imposing.
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, O-T Fagbenle, Olga Kurylenko, Ray Winstone, William Hurt
Director: Cate Shortland
Running Time: 134 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: July 9, 2021 (Theaters and Disney+ Premier Access)
“Plug it in, plug it in.” That’s the classic slogan of the famed Glade air freshener line of products. I currently find myself revisiting it in light of having recently watched the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Black Widow, as my primary reaction to that movie was, “Well, that character has now been plugged into the MCU.”
Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova? She’s been plugged in. David Harbour as the Red Guardian? He’s certainly been plugged in. And Rachel Weisz as Melina Vestokof? Yet another character that’s been plugged in! Yes indeed, they plugged ’em all in.
Bob Malone (aka Dad, aka Brother Bob) returns, while Jenn from The Community ReWatch Podcast makes her That’s Auntertainment debut, because like Aunt Beth and Jeff, they’ve all been seeing the world through WandaVision goggles lately.
They also have some thoughts about the 93rd Oscar nominations!
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