POLL RESULTS: What’s the Best Spidey Movie?

In the contest for “Best Spider-Man Movie”, KT readers have dubbed the newest the best.  Spider-Man: Homecoming is the sixth Spider-Man movie since Tobey Maguire first started slinging webs in 2002.  He and Sam Raimi made three films before the franchise was rebooted with Andrew Garfield and Marc Webb in 2012.  Then, following the disastrous The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014, Sony decided to lease Spider-Man back to Marvel so Spider-Man could make his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a small role in 2015’s Captain America: Civil War.  Holland rolled that perfect performance as the wall crawler into a spectacular feature debut that is closing in on $700 million globally.  It was only ever a contest between Homecoming and Spider-Man 2 (which, to my mind, are the only good Spider-Man films).  Homecoming was dominating the poll for most of the month, but held off a late charge from Raimi’s best film to win 46% to 38%.  Spider-Man and even The Amazing Spider-Man got some votes, but not a single bit of love for Spider-Man 3 or The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (so good going, guys, I don’t have to lecture you lol).  Look for a new poll soon, thank you so much for voting, and start thinking about September when we have our 5th Annual Best Show on TV Poll!  Will The Flash defend, or will we have a fifth different show in five years?

The 10 Funniest Movie Moments of All-Time

I know I’ve sung their praises before, but CineFix has outdone themselves with their list of the 10 Funniest Movie Moments.  Like most CineFix lists, it breaks each item down by a certain category (the set-up, the delivery, the performance, the situation, etc.) and it makes for a really cool way to look at some of the funniest moments in screen history.  I don’t review a lot of comedies (or even watch them), because humor is so completely subjective that it’s impossible to analytically break down what made me laugh.  Besides, the more you pick apart humor the more you kill it.  It works or it doesn’t.  It’s binary.  Also, comedies are not at a high ebb.  Last year, my two favorite comedies were Central Intelligence and Office Christmas Party and neither of those are classics; just the ones that made me laugh most.  Here you have 23 minutes of solid gold.  So sit back, get ready to revisit some of filmdom’s funniest moments and enjoy.  This is a hard-to-argue with list.  You guys really outdid yourselves!  God bless, CineFix!

Tom Hardy’s 10 Best Movies

Tom Hardy has, for an actor only 15 or so years into his career, put together a top 10 list of projects that would be the lifetime envy of most.  Rarely the leading man, Hardy seems most comfortable in a high-class ensemble where he can build indelible characters that steal movies.  Even before he became part of the “Nolan Troupe”, joining the director for Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Dunkirk, Hardy was firmly established as a consummate character actor.  Even in films like Mad Max: Fury Road, in which he’s the title character, he was content to let Charlize Theron’s Furiosa steal the movie while he provided the constant and the result was the Academy actually nominated a cool movie for Best Picture.  Hardy is one of many actors that had their first high-profile role in Band of Brothers (one of the five best things ever to air on TV) along with James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and others.  Hardy doesn’t stick just to films, having returned to TV for the massively underrated Peaky Blinders and beginning his own starring vehicle in FX’s Taboo.  He’s a chameleon (compare skinny Band of Brothers Hardy with Bane), but at the core of all of his characters is a fierce anger that sometimes burns hot or cold, but it’s always an asset to whatever project he’s undertaking.

The Vault Trailer #1 (2017) “Crime Does NOT Pay”

The Vault starts as a fairly typical bank robbery film until the bank manager (James Franco) insists that the real money is kept in the sub-basement vault, and opening that sends things pear-shaped for the robbers in short fashion.  It’s an interesting twist on what separately are very tired tropes, but could be interesting if combined.  Non sequitur: James Franco is in at least 10 movies a year.  Does no one else realize this?  Is he trying to win a contest?  The Vault opens (heh, pun) on September 1, 2017.

In Theaters This Week (7/28/2017): Atomic Blonde, The Emoji Movie, An Inconvenient Sequel

Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week.  July 28th begins a two-month period of uncertainty at the box office before the fall heavyweights check in, so we have three very different options: hyper-action, eco documentary, or animated film about poop emojis (I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to….or had sunk that low).