Great Moments in Kissing: "Spider-Man"

For Valentine's we asked Team Experience to share favourite screen kisses. Here's Salim Garami...

What’s good?

When I think of THE most cinematic of movie kisses, what pops into my mind isn’t necessarily my favorite (which would be Alfred Hitchcock’s explosive fireworks button on To Catch a Thief) or what I think of as the best (which would be Hitchcock’s taboo-busting “Another one! And another one!” in Notorious). I think of the kiss that was most formative. The kiss that showed me how image and movement could communicate ardor to somebody as young as 6. The kiss that came in possibly the most formative movie in all of my childhood: Sam Raimi’s 2002 superhero landmark Spider-Man. A film that has long informed the majority of what I love to see in movies and established itself deep in my heart (although it is quite possible that Into the Spider-Verse has now embedded itself deeper), it should be no surprise that it informed what I love in romantic scenes, especially the moments in movies that are accused of oversentimentality and cheesiness...

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Reviewed

Every Saturday this month, Tim will be taking a look at one of the films submitted for the Best Animated Feature Oscar.

Fans of Marvel's iconic hero Spider-Man have had a packed 2018, between Tom Holland's third big-screen turn as the character in Avengers: Infinity War and Tom Hardy's role as the antihero Eddie Brock in the conspicuously Spider-Man-less Venom. But the best has very much been saved for last, in the form of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a new animated feature that's easily the best Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2 (2004) back in the distant early days of the modern superhero movie boom.

The film is the first big-screen adventure of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), who first appeared in comic books in 2011 as a new Spider-Man following the temporary death of Peter Parker. He's a Brooklyn teenager, awkwardly fitting into life at an elite boarding school, living in perpetual chagrin at the overbearing authority of his cop dad (Brian Tyree Henry), and expressing himself through graffiti art (one of the things his dad is specifically overbearing about). And if that was all he ever was or did, Into the Spider-Verse would still put up a good argument for itself as a more than worthy movie...

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Film Bitch Awards: Heroes, Villains, Divas, Thirst Traps...

by Nathaniel R

We're racing to the finish line for the 2017 film season. One more day until we can safely put that film year behind us and enter 2018 where y'all already are no doubt. Now we turn our eyes to the bold strokes categories. The men and women who inspired through heroics, were fun to hate, who preened fabulously, or (ahem) aroused us. So click on over to the Film Bitch Awards for:

• Hero of the Year
• Diva of the Year
• Villain of the Year
• Sexpot of the Year
• Movie Poster of the Year

Films honored include Thor Ragnarok, The Shape of Water, Spider-Man Homecoming, Colossal, The Ornithologist, Wonder Woman, mother!, Phantom Thread, andmore. Hope you enjoy and report back with your own thoughts on these "extra" honors!

The Glamorous Life of a Movie Star

by Jason Adams

That there is a shot of the actor Tom Hardy on the set of Venom, the forthcoming Spider-man spin-off starring him as Eddie Brock, the dude who gets taken over by a gooey tar-like alien symbiote (we already saw this happen to Topher Grace in the third Sam Raimi movie) and proceeds to go a lil' wacky. Tom Hardy does good wacky! There have been a few brief videos popping up on social media this week (see here) that involve Hardy flopping around on the pavement in twenty degree weather - what a weird life actors have!

Venom is being directed by Zombieland and Gangster Squad's Ruben Fleischer and he's managed to gather up quite the killer cast for his comic-book film - besides Hardy there's Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, Woody Harrelson, and Michelle Williams! Imagine these actors in a movie actually about something! There was a funny chat with Williams that popped up yesterday about the movie (which she can of course say nothing about yet because you know how these things roll) that just oozed with... enthusiasm? Sure, enthusiasm:

"I’ve done one other movie where I was asked to track a tennis ball with my eyes and pretend it was a giant creature thing. Not my favorite thing in the world to do, but it is a skill set and I’m trying to learn it."

Bring Spider-Man Home

Don't remember the context of this photo of Jamie Dornan with a Spider-Man figurine but I look at it once in a while and giggle. We shouldn't speak for him but let's guess that Jamie Dornan is excited that Spider-Man Homecoming hits DVD and BluRay today. Should we take a second look at it? Would you read if we did? (It's always difficult to know whether you TFE readers like talking about movies when they're in theaters, or wait until they're streaming or on DVD or all three...?)

New on DVD this week:

• Girls Trip (Nathaniel's Review and Podcast)
• Lady MacBeth (Yes, we will finally screen this. So sorry for the long delay at saying anything!)
• Landline (Nick's Podcast Dismissal)
• Spider-Man Homecoming (Chris's Review and Podcast)
• Step (On the Doc NYC Oscar Hopeful List)

• Older Films Released or Reissued This Week: Captain Fury (1939), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), One Million BC (1940), She Had to Say Yes (1933), Stage Mother (1933) Washington Masquerade (1932)