Dir. Jon Watts. Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Willem Dafoe Spoilers, but also I might be the last person in America to see this. In Spider-Man 2, there are two climactic action scenes which must be considered alongside the best sequences of this subgenre. First, the one where Spider-Man stops a speeding train, saving the many… Read More Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds The right song over a montage in a film can be magic. Think “Layla” in Goodfellas. “Eye of the Tiger” in Rocky III. “Joy” in Boogie Nights, which plays as we walk into Eddie Adams’ bedroom, which is a swirling monument to all things hip, groovy, and masculine in… Read More Boogie Nights (1997)
Dir. Lone Scherfig. Starring Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina Movies about young adults very frequently – that is, always – feel a need to tell the audience that their characters change. One’s teenage years [he sighed while cleaning his eyeglasses] are the beginning of a life’s summer, after a springlike childhood and before the autumn… Read More An Education (2009)
Seeing Things Secondhand 