Category: Film & TV

Into the Spider-Verse is another in a long line of animation films that proves more attention needs to be paid to this medium. Don’t let the fact that this movie is animated or superhero-centric deceive you.

I found the animation style to be bold, different, and a bit weird. At one point, I wasn’t sure whether my sugar was high, or the screen was actually blurry. Thankfully, Kelly confirmed it was not my diabetes. Eventually you get used to it, but the first few scenes are a bit distracting.

The movie makes the bold decision to feel very much like a comic book in certain sequences, and it pays off to create a visual style nothing like I’ve seen before. The representation of “Spidey Sense” with bright colors replacing the background are straight out of the panels of a comic. Also, captions are used onscreen to reinforce Miles’ inner monologue, which is yet another tribute to the character’s beginnings.

Spider-Man needs to be funny, but the careful balance between heart and silliness hasn’t been successfully toed by many a writer. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. This film is riddled with wonderful references, funny jokes, yet important moments with a powerful message.

The voice cast did a lot to make those lines land. In particular, Jake Johnson’s voice performance was nothing less than spectacular. While he’s most known for his character Nick on New Girl, most of the characters I’ve seen him play are one-dimensional. Refreshingly, I felt he did a great job of playing Peter Parker, a character that calls for complex portrayal. Peter is funny, silly, doesn’t know when to shut up, but deeply loves his Aunt May and MJ, and at his core cares about the lives of the people that surround him.

Stan Lee’s cameo stole the show for me, and brought tears to my eyes. His appearances have been a delight for decades now, and I even loved his part in DC’s Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. But he’s normally used for a funny one-liner. Into the Spider-Verse instead decided to make his cameo of vital importance to Miles’ journey, which was especially a gut punch after his recent passing.

At the end of the day, it’s simple: I loved this film. It’s a great story, with interesting characters and a strong theme. I hope more movies follow its lead.

There’s a lot about Aquaman that wouldn’t have ever been possible in the past. Creating a world of underwater people (and making it believable) is a filmmaking feat, but ultimately Aquaman left me underwhelmed.

The dialogue in much of this film feels unnatural and stiff. A movie like this requires a lot of exposition to explain the Atlantean mythos, and unfortunately it’s painfully obvious in many scenes. Instead of establishing the Atlantean people, their politics, and beliefs as serious stakes, the poorly written dialogue makes much of it feel straight out of a badly written children’s book. Sadly, Aquaman is full of fantastic actors who did their best with what they were given.

The score is all over the place. Some moments have a beautiful sweeping orchestra, and others have jarring electronic music. More confusingly, some scenes are scored with songs that don’t mesh with the tone of the film. Even a Pitbull song makes an appearance, which made me wonder if we were in 2010 all over again.

The story is also bogged down by a big CGI monster fight, which involves thousands of creatures that you’ve been given zero reasons to care about. Unfortunately, this is a trap that many superhero films fall into, having huge action set pieces without any thought of how they contribute to the narrative. In fairness, the work done to make these creatures come to life is amazing, but a waste.

It’s not all bad though. The costumes are pretty great, and seeing Aquaman in his traditional outfit is a satisfying moment. Black Manta’s suit (as ridiculous as it might seem to some) is straight out of the comics.

This film also nailed the mechanics of being underwater. I don’t know how they did it. The way the hair flows, the sound of voices, and the body movements make you believe this is all happening in the ocean, instead of in front of some green screen on a sound stage. That is unimaginably hard, and I’d assume one of the biggest reasons we’ve never seen a live-action adaptation of Aquaman until now.

The Black Manta storyline is a highlight. Arthur’s decision regarding the character is clearly wrong, and the realization of his mistake set up this classic rivalry perfectly.

In the end however, Aquaman is a disappointing film that doesn’t do justice to the rich source material. Regrettably, it’ll leave most people thinking the character is just as lame as popular media has made him out to be.

I think it’s difficult to portray young life well in film, but Eighth Grade takes on the challenge. It’s an authentic portrayal of teenage life in so many ways: the anxiety, awkwardness, and uncertainty you feel about yourself are all there, but so are the moments where you learn things about yourself and decide to accept and love them.

A few daydream scenes are backed by great songs, then cut fast and abruptly to bring both the character and audience back to reality. Some scenes are perfectly uncomfortable and just the right bit of long, and it’s those type of bold choices in editing that help tell this beautiful story so well.

Eighth Grade reminds you how mean kids can be, but also how adults don’t really get less mean per se, we just get better about being polite about it. And of course, none of this would be possible without Elsie Fisher’s performance which brings Kayla to life in a genuine way.

I mean, even the fact that Kayla has acne in the movie speaks to how important it was for Bo Burnham to tell this story authentically—not in a perfect, airbrushed, everyone gets along Hollywood way. Eighth graders (and all of us, really) can watch this and see themselves and hopefully learn that it’s ok to be awkward, it’s ok if you haven’t found “your people” yet, and if things didn’t turn out the way you wanted, tomorrow is a whole new day to try again.