Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

 

Let me explain how good a movie Spider-Man: No Way Home is: as soon as it was done, I wanted to watch it again. As I sit here typing this, I am wondering how soon I can see it again. It is, to put it simply, quite possibly the best Spider-Man film ever. 

Strangely enough, it shouldn't be. It shouldn't even work. As a rule, comic book movies with multiple villains almost never work. And even when they do more or less work (The Dark Knight), they still don't work quite as well as the ones that concentrate on a single villain.

Sidebar: For those who take exception to what I just said in relation to The Dark Knight, while it is a very good Batman movie, there are about four or five points in the movie where you think it's over and it's not. And Two Face does seem kinda shoehorned in. The movie would have worked much better with just The Joker as the villain and Two Face getting his own movie.

The Spider-Man series is especially notorious for movies with multiple villains not working. Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 both make the same mistakes even: Peter spending an awful lot of the movie crying and having 3 villains each, with at least one of the villains being completely unnecessary. In the case of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I'll even argue that two of the villains are completely unnecessary. That entry did not need either The Green Goblin or The Rhino.

So yes, a movie with no less than 5 villains in it should really not work. It should be a dissatisfying mess and a candidate for worst movie of all time. However, this is an MCU movie and one thing that Marvel has taught us over the last 13 years is that they know how to tell a story. As a result, not only is this movie completely satisfying, it's a candidate for being one of the very best comic book movies ever. We're talking Avengers: Endgame or Superman: The Movie levels of greatness. We're talking about two and half hours of pure movie magic. 

The film picks up where Spider-Man: Far From Home left off. Mysterio has revealed to the world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, an act that turns the hapless teenager's life upside down. Half the world hates him, the paparazzi won't go away, and he and his friends Ned and MJ can't get into college. So Peter goes to Dr. Strange and asks for a spell that will make the world forget he's Spider-Man. The spell goes sideways, which opens a portal to the multiverse and lets in the primary villains from the first five Spider-Man movies: The Green Goblin (the real one IMO), Doctor Octopus, Sandman, The Lizard and Electro. Spidey has to contain them, but when he finds out they're all going to die upon returning to their worlds, he decides to try to help them instead. That's the type of hero Spider-Man is.

If you've stayed away from spoilers as I always try to, you're in for quite a ride. Even if you know or think you know some of what's going to happen, I promise you there's things in this movie you'll never see coming. It's a complete delight, alternately funny and heartbreaking.

The cast is fantastic. I've liked Tom Holland's Spidey since his first appearance in Captain America: Civil War. He really is the comic book Spidey come to life. Marissa Tomei remains the best Aunt May ever. Zendaya and Jacob Batalon give their usual strong performances as MJ and Ned. Ditto Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange. As far as the villains go, it's a delight to see Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin and Alfred Molina's Doc Ock again. Those two prove again that they are among the best screen villains in history. Not only that, but Jamie Foxx, Rhys Ifans, and Thomas Haden Church get another shot to get their villains right.

Sidebar: The biggest problem with Spider-Man 3 is Venom, who is completely superfluous. Haden Church did a fine job as Sandman and the film should have just been about him. Similarly, Foxx was cheated out of making Electro into a really great villain with the introduction of The (fake) Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man 2. In fact, it can be argued that Haden Church, Foxx, and Ifans were all done a disservice by the scripts. For that matter, so was Andrew Garfield, who was a perfectly good Spider-Man stuck with lackluster scripts. I'd argue that he's the Pierce Brosnan or Peter Capaldi (for you Doctor Who fans) of the Spider-Man films.

I've been a Spider-Man film since I was a little kid. Hell, I wanted to be Spider-Man when I was a little kid (I almost kinda still do). This is the Spider-Man movie I've waited for since I was about six years old. A complete geek-out fest of a film and one I personally can't wait to revisit.

An Open Letter to EON Productions

 To Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson:

Can we have a little talk about the future of OO7? I know I'm a cranky old man who technically isn't the target audience for movies anymore, but I've been a Bond fan for most of my life. I've seriously watched the movies for almost 45 years and I'm only 50. I'm not the only old Bond fan out there. You'd probably be surprised at the number of us old heads there are who still go to these movies. I have one friend older than me who only goes to the movies when it's a new Bond film. So, yeah, there's quite a number of us out there.

So you've done your Daniel Craig miniseries of Bond movies. All in all, Craig was plenty good as Bond. A couple of the movies were really terrific, too. Casino Royale was the best, and oddly the one that most felt like old school Bond. Probably because it was actually based on an Ian Fleming book. Anyhow, Craig is done. You brought an end to the story. I wasn't initially happy with the ending, but I'll get over it. I'll give it another chance and end up buying the Blu Ray when it comes out. I buy all the Bonds, even the ones I initially don't like, and give them a second chance. But now that the Craig run is over, you're going to reboot the series again. So let's talk about this for a moment.

First off, don't do like Spider-Man or Batman and have another origin story. Bond doesn't need an origin story. Casino Royale didn't need to be an origin story. Just because it was the first book doesn't mean it was an origin. Bond in the book was already fully formed. Bond in the Dr. No movie is also fully formed. He can just be James Bond without an origin. Actually, no origin makes him more mysterious and interesting. So let him just Be James Bond. He drinks vodka matinis shaken not stirred, he drives fast cars, he has a license to kill, the whole nine yards.

Second, can we please please please drop the "this time it's personal" angle? The character existed for 27 years before doing a personal story. The problem is, every film has been personal since then. Simply have a villain out to take over or destroy the world like OG Blofeld, Goldfinger, Largo, etc. He has a large henchman like Oddjob or Jaws who gives Bond a hard time. Bond is literally the only person in the world who can stop the villain. He meets some women with hilariously inappropriate names like Pussy Galore or Holly Goodhead along the way. Maybe even give him some crazy gadgets. Certainly give him some crazy stunts.

I'm talking about the Goldfinger formula. The formula that Cubby Broccoli followed for years. I know, I know. Some crazy SJW is going to scream that you can't do Goldfinger anymore. Yes, you can. Know why? Because people still love Goldfinger. People will still go see Goldfinger and enjoy it. Revival showings of that movie and Thunderball are always popular. Yes, you're going to have an SJW or two howling on the internet, but they won't keep the real fans away.

You almost had the Goldfinger formula right in Spectre. It had all the elements up until "James, I am your brother". Take that goofy twist out and you've got a classic Bond. And guess what? Spectre is actually a pretty damn good entry in the series. I liked Christoph Waltz. I loved Bautista. I just hated the unnecessary twist.

By the way, you might consider dumping Purvis and Wade: Richard Maibum they aren't. I know that you try to be loyal, but all these guys do is borrow material from the earlier films without doing it justice. It's one thing to follow a formula, it's another thing to just keep recreating scenes like a cosplayer. And get a director who is more respectful of the legacy of the series than Cary Fukunaga. I mean, seriously, you've had American directors like Spielberg, Scorcesse and Taranatino ask you to do a Bond film--guys who genuinely love the series--but you let the first American director be a guy who disses Sean Connery's Bond as a rapist? Do better, guys.

Bond is a legacy. He's gone longer than any other movie character except for Godzilla. And his movies have been a heck of a lot better than Godzilla. Live up to that legacy. You Can do this: I've seen it. Goldeneye is wonderful. Casino Royale is wonderful. Spectre is almost wonderful.

By the way, can we pick up the pace of release again? Cubby got them out basically every other year. Roger Moore did 7 films in 12 years. Craig did 5 in 15. Four to six years between movies is a LONG time. Even if you can't do every two years like Cubby did, at least go for every three. 

One more thing: whatever else you do, don't reboot the series again when the next guy leaves in two-five movies. One thing Cubby did was make it all one guy. All one guy in a floating timeline works. It worked for 40 years. It can work again.

What Happened to OO7? A Look Back at the Craig Era.

Before we get started, I will warn you that there's major spoilers about No Time to Die in this posting. So if you haven't seen it, you might want to come back to this after seeing it. I'll also warn that this is the rant of someone who might just be a cranky old white dude.

I've been a fan of the James Bond series since I was seven. My first film was The Spy Who Loved Me. I had the View Master reels for Moonraker. I owned and read and re-read the comic book for For Your Eyes Only so much, it basically disintegrated. My family wouldn't take me to the movies in the theater but I watched them on TV. When we got our first VCR in 1984, I started renting all the films. Heck, I would do double features on a Saturday night as a teen. My first one in the theaters was A View to a Kill, which I loved. The only one after that I missed in the movies was License to Kill. I've seen all of them on opening day since Goldeneye. And that includes No Time to Die, which I saw last night in 3D. I've waited all these years for a 3D Bond film. I couldn't be more excited for a movie. And yet, after seeing it, I'm kinda pissed off right about now.

Nothing to do with the 3D, by the way, which was serviceable and about what I'd expect from the modern 3D era. Nice depth, a couple of mild pop-outs.

The movie itself is what angers me. As I sit here and look back on the Craig era, I can't help but feel insulted.

Maybe it's because director Cary Joji Fukanaga denigrated the prior films in an infamous interview with the Hollywood Reporter, calling Connery's Bond a rapist. It seems to me that it's in poor taste to promote your movie by tearing down other films.

Maybe it's because in retrospect, the entire Craig era seems like a slap in the face to fans of the series.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm a cranky old white dude.

Maybe it's the fact that they fucking kill James Bond.

Look, I'll cop to the whole cranky old man thing. I AM, in fact, a cranky old man and I know it. But killing James Bond is just stupid. Denigrating the older films to make yourself look woke is stupid. Insulting the fans repeatedly is stupid. And the Craig films have, much like the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, done just that.

Think about the Sequel Trilogy. Forget the whole wokeness argument that gets brought up. I don't mind Rey, Finn, and Poe. I don't mind diversity. I actually kind of like those three characters. But the entire Sequel Trilogy seemed to be set up to kill off the characters I and other Original Trilogy fans grew up on. And so they did, one film at a time. It didn't occur to me watching them in the theaters what the filmmakers were doing, but when I watched all 11 Star Wars films in story order last year, I realized that yeah, the Sequel Trilogy was about killing off beloved characters and in a sense, giving OT fans the middle finger. Needless to say, I am in no rush to rewatch the Sequel Trilogy.

The Craig era kind of seems to have been set up the same way. It's not obvious in his first film, Casino Royale. In fact, that film seems closest to old school Bond out of the five. Yes, there's no gadgets in it. Yes, the idea that this is a reboot but Judi Dench is still M is kind of goofy. Yes, Bond at one point growls about not caring if his Martini is shaken not stirred. But the film in general comes off like one of the older Bond films, specifically the more grounded ones like On Her Majesty's Secret Service or For Your Eyes Only. Possibly because it's a reasonably faithful adaption of the novel. I didn't care for the change in game from Baccarat to Texas Hold 'Em, but I also recognized that it was simply a case of Bond following and adapting to the trends of popularity as he frequently did.

But yes, Casino Royale was a pretty faithful adaption, up to and including the death of Vesper. I remember sitting in the theater in 2006 and being impressed that they did the second half of the novel. The 1954 TV version with Barry Nelson did a reasonable adaptation of the first half, so seeing them cover the whole book in the Craig version impressed me. Unfortunately, killing Vesper then seemed to set the tone for the rest of Craig's run.

Quantum of Solace followed and it's a bottom five Bond, right down there with the likes of Never Say Never Again (I know, I know--it's not an official Bond film) and Die Another Day. A large part of this is the way the thing is shot. It's shot like a Christopher Nolan Batman movie with rapid cuts that make it impossible to know who is doing what to whom. That works for Nolan's Batman. It does not work for Bond. Add in an awful villain plot--stealing the water supply--and the killing of Giancarlo Giannini's Mathis and you have a film that quickly goes south. To add insult to injury, you could tell who all the new Bond fans were by how they kept talking about how innovative and original the movie was while I sat there counting all the scenes stolen from earlier films.

Next up was Skyfall. A lot of people love Skyfall. I like it quite a bit myself. But two things do bother me. First up is Bond having mommy issues involving M. That seemed a little much. Second is the film's direct slap in the face: the new Q making snide comments about exploding pens. There might be people who think the gadgets in the older Bond films are silly, but those gadgets are part of the fun of the older films thank you very much. And by the way, Goldeneye is a better Bond film. Fight me.

Skyfall ended with the promise that old school Bond was finally coming. The last scene where Craig walks in to the new M's office set the next film up to finally take us back to the glory days. Spectre started really delivering on that promise, too. At least it did up until the dumb twist of Blofeld saying "James, I am your brother". No, no, no, no. Ten hundred billion times no. Talk about unnecessary! I wanted to bang my head into a wall when that happened. Seriously, cut that twist out and Spectre fits nicely with the Connery and Moore films. But we had to continue the trend of "this time it's personal" that the Bond series has beaten into the ground since License to Kill.

And now we have No Time to Die. A movie Bond fans have waited patiently for six years for. The last time there was a six year gap was between License to Kill and Goldeneye and we had a switch in Bonds then. Six years waiting for Daniel Craig's last film and the first Bond in 3D.

It starts promisingly. The opening action scene is pretty good and the machine guns in the headlights is a nice nod to the earlier films. There's a wonderful sequence in Cuba with a hilarious performance by Ana De Armas as a CIA agent with three weeks training who ends up totally kicking ass. It's the type of scene you want in a Bond movie and I loved it. I wish she had stuck around for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, right after she's done, they kill off Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). Why? Just why? I liked Wright's take on Leiter. And hell, outside of David Hedison, he's the only guy to play the character more than once. Killing him off does nothing but ensure that if the character ever does return to the series, it's a different actor again. The film continues to go south from there.

What the movie wants to do is remake OHMSS. What Rami Malek's Safin is up to is not terribly different from Telly Savalas's Blofeld in the earlier movie--a plan to poison the world. And there's plenty of cues to the earlier film since music from it is used repeatedly in this one. Unfortunately, this movie isn't OHMSS. Safin is not Blofeld, not even Savalas's take on the character, which wasn't up to Donald Pleasance's take. Malek might have made for a decent Freddie Mercury, but he's definitely one of the weaker Bond villains, especially after Christoph Waltz's fantastic Blofeld (stupid twist notwithstanding). I like Lea Seydoux's Madeline Swann enough, but she's no Diana Rigg. And one thing can be said for George Lazenby's Bond is that there's at least a sense of humor. Craig is still too dour in the film. In fact, outside of Casino Royale, Craig hasn't really been all that funny as Bond at all.

But the film commits the ultimate sin. Whereas OHMSS killed Bond girl Tracy, this film actually kills James Bond. Like the earlier question about Leiter, the question here is Why? Because Craig is leaving the series? Five other actors left the series before him without being killed off. Bond isn't a doomed noir character, destined to die. He's James Bond, who runs around and saves the world. He's a fantasy character, kind of a superhero. I often wonder if the people who made these last four Bond movies actually bothered to watch any Bond movies.

Here's the problem with what this movie has done: it forces another reboot of the series. We already had one reboot with Casino Royale. So now we have to have another. Does this mean a new M, Q, and Moneypenny? I kind of  liked the current line up, but it would make little sense for them to be in the next film considering the ending of this one. Certainly we're going to need a new Leiter.

And please, none of that stupid fan theory that Bond is a codename. The first 20 films made it very clear he's the same guy. Is it going to be like Spider-Man or Batman where there's a reboot every time the actor changes? The genius of Bond is that didn't happen. It was the same guy for 20 films and 5 actors. The older films make it a point to let it be known that it IS the same guy. Do we really need a full reboot every time there's a new Bond actor now when we didn't?

I admit that when I first saw it, I didn't care much for OHMSS. In my defense, I was 14, I was used to Moore and Connery and didn't know what to make of Lazenby, and I didn't care for the killing of Tracy. But I grew to appreciate it as I got older. Maybe I'll grow to appreciate No Time to Die. In some respects, its better than QOS, but that's a low bar. There's very few Bond movies that aren't better than QOS.  I may look more favorably on it if they get back to the business of James Bond saves the world and not reboot every few years. I Want to like this film. I want to like all the Craig films. But right now I feel like writers, producers, and especially the directors have given me and fans like me who grew up loving Connery and Moore the middle finger.

I don't like that. I don't like it one bit.

Silent Madness (1984)

 

Silent Madness was one of those movies that just had a bad sense of timing all around. It came out too late in the 80s slasher craze to make an impression. By the time it was released in 1984, there had already been 3 sequels to Friday the 13th, two to Halloween, and innumerable knock-offs with such titles as My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, Terror Train, Happy Birthday to Me, and so on. It also came out the year after 3D's big year so nobody was showing 3D movies at that time. It also came out right at the same time as Nightmare on Elm Street, which just totally bumped it out of theatres. As such, very few people saw it as it was originally intended. It didn't help the movie any that it doesn't really do anything that any other film in the genre does. In a bizarre way, it's a mash up between Halloween and the first Friday the 13th. 

The movie starts at Cresthaven Mental Hospital, somewhere in Manhattan. Cresthaven is overcrowded and understaffed, so a couple of incompetent doctors decide to release people back into society that they figure aren't a danger. Due to an absurd clerical error, one Howard Johns, a dangerous psychotic, is released instead of a simpleton named John Howard. Fearless Dr. Joan Gilmore (Belinda Montgomery) tumbles to this and tries to warn the upper management. They brush her off and claim that Johns is actually dead. Meanwhile, Johns somehow manages to get back to his old stomping grounds, Barrington School For Girls. See, Johns was the janitor there 20 years ago when he snapped and killed a bunch of sorority girls with a nail gun. How exactly Johns gets back to the college is never explained especially when we're told the school is over three hours away from the hospital. No matter. He's back and killing a new batch of sorority girls, some of whom don't even get names. Gilmore takes a weekend off and goes back to the school to track Johns down. The hospital decides to cover up and sends two demented orderlies after both Gilmore and Johns. 

Did you follow all of that? No. Doesn't matter. With a film like this you just tend to go along for the ride and enjoy the kills. Even when they're done with a hilarious cartoon ax.

The most creative thing the movie seems to have done is had then 34 year old Montgomery playing the film's Final Girl and not one of the teenagers. Montgomery does what she can with this, but while she seems to be trying to give a performance, Viveca Lindfors as the House Mom and Sidney Lassick as the Sheriff decide to say "to heck with it" and go wildly over the top. As do the insane orderlies. In fact, Montgomery seems to be the only one in the film not overacting!

At the end of the day this is your standard issue stalk and slash. The victims barely have names let alone personalities and the killer is the usual mute madman. Gore hounds will be a little disappointed that a lot of the admittedly inventive kills cut away before getting too gory and there's very little nudity for this type of thing. Is it better than it's kissing cousin Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3D? Maybe. The characters act a little less stupid. Well, most of them. The orderlies aren't particularly bright and neither is Lassick's sheriff. Some of the actors are a little better than in the 1982 slasher but that's a pretty low bar to be honest. Bizarrely, there's not one night scene anywhere in the movie. The only other slasher film that I can think of anything like that is the miserable 1997 3D cheapie Camp Blood, a movie so bad it makes this one look like Citizen Kane.

All things considered, I kinda like this movie. No, it's not very good. As I've pointed out before, none of the 80s 3D movies are any good, but this one is one of the slightly better ones. It's not something I'd watch every month or even every year, but I can see myself returning to it from time to time if only to get a laugh. 

Silent Madness came and went in October of 1984, overshadowed by Nightmare on Elm Street. It had a VHS release and a poor bootleg 3D version that wasn't even in the full widescreen. It's long been neglected and mostly forgotten except for by die hard slasher fans and 3D fans. Vinegar Syndrome and the 3D Film Archive decided somewhere along the way that Silent Madness was worth saving and now there's a beautiful 3D Blu Ray of it available. The Blu Ray includes 3 versions of the film: a 3D Blu Ray version requiring the proper TV and Blu Ray player, a 2D version (of course) and an anaglyphic (red/cyan) version that is probably the best anaglyphic video presentation I've ever seen. There's also a mess of extras on it including a fairly interesting documentary on the making of the movie and the original sizzle reel done for the movie.

If you're a 3D completist, you obviously need this disc. The 3D Film Archive worked their usual magic on it and as such it looks a lot better than most of the other 80s 3D films that have gotten a 3D Blu Ray release--Friday the 13th Part 3 included. The inclusion of the anaglyph version allows a wider audience to watch the movie in 3D. As I said, it's a much better anaglyph version than anything I've seen over the last 40 years of watching these things. Supposedly the 3D Film Archive will be doing this more and more on future releases.

I met Belinda Montgomery a few years ago at a Chiller Theatre convention and admitted to her that I liked her in a movie that I knew was a stupid movie. When she asked which one, I mentioned this one. She rolled her eyes and said "That is a stupid movie!"

Yes, Ms. Montgomery, it really is. But I kinda get a kick out of it.