Part Seventeen of Marvel Madness--watching all 21 MCU films before Avengers: End Game

Whether by creative choice or by the fact that this movie is shared by two production companies, Spider-Man: Homecoming does a marvelous job at distinguishing its story from the larger net and tangles of the MCU. Even in the sequence towards the beginning when Peter films himself during the events of Civil War, the effortlessly striking transition from smartphone video to film professes this movie as one…

Part Sixteen of Marvel Madness--watching all 21 MCU films before Avengers: End Game

With an opening sequence that includes a continuous shot of Baby Groot dancing to Mr. Blue Sky as the rest of the Guardians battle an ugly space monster that shoots powerful rainbow blasts, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 immediately improves over the original, striking the perfect tone throughout of poking fun at these flawed characters and their absurd situations yet also having a myriad of heartfelt…

“Nobody cares about the end of the world”

Jordan Peele is not a one trick pony. In a film of haunting performances, spellbinding visuals, and metaphors 11 layers deep, Us paints a damning portrait of America, cynically invoking uniting ideas like the Hands Across America campaign as the root of what’s driving us apart. In Us, a family holiday becomes something much worse as doppelgangers begin to terrorize the house. These actors pull double duty as the terrified family and…

Heartfelt and charming, Bumblebee single-handedly wipes away a decade of atrocious live-action Transformers movies with a genuine coming of age adventure and a flashy action showcase for a more than satisfying story. Proving that the Transformers stories can be compelling given the right director, a charismatic lead, and formulaic tapping of 80s setting and soundtrack zeitgeist, this tale of an out of place teen discovering a transforming robot and friend harkens back to Spielbergian classics and other films that were…